Description
Focusing was developed by Eugene Gendlin, who worked with Carl Rogers (as did Marshall Rosenberg, developer of Nonviolent Communication), which shares many features with Focusing.
Someone can do Focusing alone, but many people find it is much more helpful when a trained Companion is present. Training teaches both roles.
Some notes from John Abbe about a Focusing training he attended experience:
The ideas and the practice were all strangely familiar to me, but with valuable new emphases: One of the things that is sticking with me most is the suggestion to identify within oneself to the Presence, the one who is noticing, sensing the feelings/needs/images/whatever.
I'm also appreciating the acknowledgement/attention to what they're referring to as the felt sense. Something like intuition, or more descriptively, emotional sensation?
I'm also intrigued by the allowance for an "it", a "something" that can remain vague, though i worry about a bit about me letting myself avoid getting specific that way.
The idea of "just being present" is also there in Nonviolent Communication (a process i'm far more familiar with), but gets more emphasis in Focusing, at least at this workshop i participated in, which went like this:
Two days long - four or five opportunities to focus, ramping up from complete silence on the companion's part to reflecting emotions (as "you sense that part of you is ...") and images etc. (felt sense stuff)
Otherwise, mostly Ann (the trainer) talking, sometimes in response to participants. Amazingly engaging, given how familiar nearly everything said and done was.
I wondered if there was any reason for the focuser not to make (as in Nonviolent Communication) need guesses of their inner parts, e.g. "I'm wondering if it is wanting companionship?" This is not done between people in T Group to keep from having the person being questioned get the idea that they're being told what's going on inside of them, but when it's with oneself this seems like less of a problem.
The role of the companion is clearly defined as being in support f the focuser doing their own work an emhasis i much appreciated; with NVC, when i'm receiving empathy, especially if someone's being particularly verbal with it, i can sometimes slip into thoughts like, "okay, say something else, it's your responsibility to keep things moving," and i prefer to stay aware of my responsibility for myself.
