Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy A Manual of the Experiential Method

by Gendlin, Eugene T.

• ISBN13: 9781572303768
• ISBN10: 157230376X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-08-10
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: The Experiential Method addresses specific ways in which a therapist can engender the therapeutic process, especially with clients with whom nothing effective is happening. Working with transcripts of actual sessions, the author examines each client statement to show where therapeutic movement has taken place and then each therapist response to show how it did or did not help bring about a kind of direct bodily experiencing called "focusing." What the author shows can be used in any orientation of therapy. Individual chapters address bodily energy, action, habits, behavior, traumatic memories, imagery, catharsis, emotions, cognitive assumptions, values, super-ego messages, dreams, role-play, interpretation, and client-therapist interaction. The author shows how the therapist's responses can turn difficulties into moments of relational therapy. Most importantly, he shows how whatever arises inwardly in the client is respected and pursued.

Author Biography

Eugene T. Gendlin, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He is the founder and was, for many years, the editor of Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. For his development of experiential psychology, he was chosen by the Psychotherapy Division of the American Psychological Association for their first "Distinguished Professional Psychologist" award. He is the author of many books and articles. The Focusing Institutes in Chicago, Illinois, and Spring Valley, New York, offer training in focusing and focusing-oriented psychotherapy.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Focusing and Listening

Dead Ends

Eight Characteristics of an Experiential Process Step

What the Client Does to Enable an Experiential Step to Come

What a Therapist Can Do to Engender an Experiential Step

The Crucial Bodily Attention

Focusing

Excerpts from Teaching Focusing

Problems of Teaching Focusing during Therapy

Excerpts from One Client's Psychotherapy

Integrating Other Therapeutic Methods

A Unified View of the Field through Focusing and the Experiential Method

Working with the Body: A New and Freeing Energy

Role Play

Experiential Dream Interpretation

Imagery

Emotional Catharsis, Reliving

Action Steps

Cognitive Therapy

A Process View of the Superego

The Life-Forward Direction

Values

It Fills Itself In

The Client Therapist Relationship

Should We Call It "Therapy"?

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