Review of “Senses of Focusing, Volume 1”
edited by Nikolaos Kypriotakis and Judy Moore and published in 2021 by Eurasia Publications, Athens, Greece (565 pages).
Weighing in at over 1.2 kgs, this is one brick of a book! The contents are weighty too. There are 26 articles by Focusing writers from across the globe, exploring a very wide range of Focusing topics. The editors have very helpfully, loosely categorised these into seven sections. Equally helpful and most interesting are the snippets of Gendlin’s own spoken words that act as introductions to each of the seven sections. These have been extracted from the videos that Nada Lou made from Gendlin’s talks at various events between 1998 and 2007. [The videos from which these were transcribed and extracted are all available on Youtube see: https://nadalou.com/gendlins-spoken-volume-1/ ]
This is not a book to be read like a novel. It is more like a buffet where you can sample the contents through an abstract and then zero in on the one that most resonates with you at the time. This was my approach and it has taken me well over a year to read (and in some cases reread, then read again) all of the articles in this first volume. Many of the authors are therapists, some are philosophers and others neither. Three of them have given workshops or/and course in Ireland (Ann Weiser Cornell, Joan Klagsbrun & René Veugelers). Among the many topics written about are the practice of Focusing in different forms and cultures, the felt sense, the direct referent, the body in Focusing and some applications of Focusing in different settings and situations. As such this book is a treasure chest overflowing with gems and jewels. Every single article has something interesting, challenging, insightful, fascinating or/and impactful to impart, ponder and savour.
No, I don’t have a favourite! However, I will take just a few of the articles and say a bit about them. The introductory article by Judy Moore, “What is Focusing and where did it come from?” provides some fascinating background information on the origins of Focusing from the perspective of Gendlin himself and others who wrote about their experiences in the University of Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s, including Carl Rogers. Judy concentrates on the period from when Gendlin joined Roger’s group in 1952 until the late seventies by which stage Gendlin had formulated the ‘six movements of Focusing’. One thing I found particularly interesting was how Focusing came to be unshackled from its psychotherapeutic moorings. It would appear that during a major project begun in 1957, Gendlin and his colleagues started training non-professional volunteers, ‘ordinary’ people to help patients Focus “on the felt edge of experiencing”. This insight then informed the operation of the Changes groups of the 1970s in Chicago and other cities and indeed has gone on to make Focusing accessible to the many thousands who have brought it into their lives.
There are some intriguing article titles e.g. Focusing with Elephants in which Alan Tidmarsh points to the ‘elephant in the room’; the big issues that dominate the news headlines (Racism, Brexit, climate change, fake news etc) and those that never make it into the limelight, both of which are never really resolved and yet influence and impact on our personal and social realities in myriad ways. He says that “owning up to elephants is the challenge of our time”. He takes something Gendlin said in a 1966 article as particularly inspiring, “…even though we may have given up in our own lives we must turn back from having turned back…” In this regard he proposes three “superior” practices: Pausing, Noticing and Owning up. While we may all be familiar with the first two of these, he is asking us to take a wider, more wholistic perspective, “giving the elephant in the room the space it needs to be more connectable”. The third practice, owning up, is a call to authenticity – “the discovery of a personal truth that can then be carried forward”.
Another title that I was drawn to was Focusing is not a ‘thing’ in which Sarah Luczaj appeals for Focusing not to be ‘commodified’, formally packaged in programmes and organisations – she asserts that “Focusing can’t, through professionalism or in any other way, really become a thing, assume a fixed identity. It can, however, be treated and used by individuals as if it were”. As an aspect of this she highlights some people’s preoccupation with whether or not what they are experiencing is a ‘felt sense’. She, like others in their articles (Gendlin included), point to Focusing as a natural process in which most people engage to some degree or another. She acknowledges the tension between recognising Focusing as a natural process and the practice of training people how to use it. Taking her inspiration from Buddhist and Daoist practices which facilitate awareness of ‘the natural state’ she suggests that focusing can contribute to this through the first movement of Focusing, clearing a space, more specifically, a practice that “keeps us in the state of clearing a space” and which provides the welcoming conditions for a felt sense to arise.
And this is only the first volume! To even list the other articles’ titles would take up too much space, however, one can find out more about this wonderful, informative book and the contributors by going to a website developed around both books at https://sensesoffocusing.com/ There are also video presentations by, and interviews with, some of the contributors.
