Hi, thank you for this. Focusing is the best! I just feel a need to point out something quite crucial: Gendlin and his fellow researchers did NOT find that it was important that the THERAPIST listen to the client. That was exactly what was so disturbing and shocking to them at first, because that was the assumption which was shattered by the research. That assumption was the whole basis of Carl Rogers' work. The research revealed that IT DIDN'T MATTER what the therapist did, but that successful CLIENTS already came into therapy with a certain skill. It was devastating, but Rogers told Gendlin "The truth is always friendly." So Gendlin studied what the CLIENTS who were successful were doing. It was the CLIENT'S skill that Gendlin named Focusing (originally he called it Experiential Focusing) and he began to teach that to people (not to therapists particularly, since they aren't actually needed) in the 70's. That was what was revolutionary. Focusing doesn't require a therapist at all, although every therapist needs it.
This is such a great description of how to drop in with focusing. I like the process of sitting with the sensation and then asking the body if it agrees.
Hi I have been into focusing for a while. At the beginning you start with gendlins research which discovered that certain " clients" seemed to be more in touch etcetc not the " master clinician"!!! Sorry just making a point