Joan Lavendar PsyD - Comprehensive Personalized Psychotherapy Services
About Experiential Focusing
"If I were living on a therapeutic desert island and could only bring one method with me, I would choose Experiential Focusing."
Kyra had been grappling with a serious problem that occupied her thoughts, sapped her energy and withered her social life. She read books about it, discussed it at length with friends and made rules to limit the time she spent suffering from it. But the problem wouldn't budge.
Sitting in a psychotherapy session, with the safety of her therapist, Kyra carefully consulted her "insides" – the way she actually "held" the problem inside her. As she became more able to do this- using her intrinsic bodily knowing of the problem – the issue itself began to unfold. It "shifted shape" on its own, as if the problem itself wanted to change.
On the verge of this transformation, Kyra's feelings moved beyond their usual stuck place. Her thinking cleared and she knew, in a deeper way then ever before, what she needed to do. She was filled with a promising kind of energy. With her therapist as guide, Kyra had just taken the first step toward living in a new way.
These moments are part of a remarkable healing capacity available to all of us. Experiential Focusing is the name given to it by Eugene Gendlin Ph.D., a philosopher and psychotherapist who is having a profound influence on our ways of understanding human creative process. Psychotherapists who have experienced their own lives changed by these principles can help their patients to restore a sense of wholeness, vitality and direction to their lives. This type of integrated healing occurs only when you engage your bodily knowing in a way that produces carefully wrought words that, in turn, move you toward moments (like Kyra's) of transformation. When you tap into this stream, you begin to realize that, problems and all, your life wants to move itself forward.
Experiential Focusing is an optimistic miraculous human capacity that you can learn as a "skill". And, as you are learning, you will probably see that you knew it already. It is always there, waiting for you to consult it, free of charge, for life. Some of its concepts are:
- Bodily-knowing, or bodily felt sensing. This is different from expressing your emotions.
- Felt-give. This refers to the actual moment the issue opens up for you and you feel you are living in the new moment.
- Active Listening – listening to your own implicit meanings. No analyzing needed, no judging, ever.
Experiential Focusing is an evidence-based human process that many psychotherapists have come to regard as the essence of the change process. Focusing is highly effective within a psychotherapy relationship, where patient and therapist use the combined power of their partnership to "shape shift" stuck patterns of being and relating. Focusing enhances creative processes. The applications are endless. www.forp.ws
Joan Lavender, Psy. D is a psychologist with over 30 years helping people to create satisfying balanced lives.
What kind of symptoms/diagnoses can you get help for?
- Adjustment Reactions
- Anorexia Nervosa
- Anxiety Disorders
- Bipolar Mood Disorder
- Body Image
- Bulimia Nervosa
- Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Depression and Mood Disorders
- Dissociative Disorders
- Personality Issues: Overly Sensitive, Intense, Moody, Avoidant, Self-Defeating, Obsessive-compulsive, Perfectionistic
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Social Phobia
- Somatization
- Women's Issues
What kind of life situations can you get help for?
- Abuse and neglect
- Adult siblings
- College transition
- Competition, jealousy and envy
- Cross-cultural situations
- Creativity, talent and accomplishment
- Family
- Friendship issues
- Grief and loss
- Intimacy
- Loneliness and Aging
- Work
For
- Individuals (older adolescents and adults)
- Couples
- Families
- Groups
