The Living Process. Practices in Experience and Existence

Guest Professor Mia Leijssen: The Subtle Energy of Embodied Awareness, E11S02 of The Living Process with Dr Greg Madison Our Guest this time is Mia Leijssen, Ph.D. - Professor (Emeritus) Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Prof. Leijssen learned Focusing early in her training many years ago at Leuven University. She is well known in the worlds of Focusing and Client-centred Psychotherapy as well as existential wellbeing and has published widely. Some of her best-known work is on Focusing microprocesses, spirituality, and professional ethics. She is a longtime Focusing Therapist, Teacher, and Coordinator for the International Focusing Institute. Mia is the academic director of the massive Open Online Course: Existential Well-being Counseling: A Person-centered Experiential Approach. You can discover more about this course and contact Mia at these addresses:  https://www.edx.org/course/existential-well-being-counseling-person-kuleuvenx-ewbcx www.existentieelwelzijn.be https://existentialwellbeing.com  In this episode, we talk about Mia’s initial introduction to Focusing early in her training at Leuven U and how meeting Gendlin and participating in a demo with him was a turning point for her. Throughout our conversation, Mia emphasises the subtle energetic connection between the focuser and listener and the powerful impact this can have on the quality of the interaction. We explore the essence of living forward and its knowing of how we should develop, the art and discipline of therapy, and the issue of directivity in client-centred therapy. We also touched on the question of ‘parts’ and not getting too concrete about parts and how living forward is asking for new organising, beyond structure. At the very end, we acknowledge the mystery of life itself in a way that respects its mystery. #existentialism #gendlin #psychology #counselling #existentialtherapy #personaldevelopment #focusing #selfcare

Experiential Wholebody Therapy with Glenn Fleisch, PhD. The Living Process S02E10 with Greg Madison, PhD. Dr. Glenn Fleisch has been a psychotherapist in private practice in California for over 35 years. Glenn trained with some of the leading figures in American existential and Buddhist psychology, including David Michael Levin, Rollo May, and John Wellwood. He also trained with some of the most experienced teachers in the Focusing world including Ann Weiser Cornell, Kevin McEvenue, Janet Klein and Gendlin himself. Glenn studied and teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies and remains active as an adjunct professor and supervisor in psychotherapy as well as a Wholebody Focusing trainer. In this episode, Glenn and I review how he encountered Focusing in his early 20s as part of his therapy training and then went on to learn Focusing in order to explore his own personal growth. He completed his training with Ann Weiser Cornell in Berkeley before studying and working with Kevin McEvenue for many years. He also learned Interactive Focusing with Janet Klein. Glenn talks about how his own practice and understanding of Focusing began to diverge from Gendlin’s original descriptions. He goes into some detail in exploring his version of wholebody Focusing and how he offers it in a creative and expressive style with his clients. Glenn also shares many examples from his client work to show his attention to all bodily phenomena, his creative work with trauma, and his development of animistic psychology. I was glad to hear that we can look forward to a book outlining Glenn’s work soon. Glenn offers online WBF seminars/classes for personal growth and professional development and trains other therapists to learn this method of therapy. For more information on his professional practice and courses, see: https://glennfleisch.com The Living Process can be accessed on Youtube as a video series or as audio podcasts at: Greg Madison’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/@gregmadisontherapy/playlists The Focusing Oriented Therapy channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx3FqA70kQWuHCHmEiZnkn1VcrRIPbcvk Or search on any podcast channel if you prefer audio-only. If you have trouble finding it, all the links are here: https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/ The Living Process is hosted by Greg Madison, PhD. An existential psychologist and Focusing Coordinator living and working in the UK. www.gregmadison.net

The Living Process Series 02, E09. Guest René Veugelers In this episode of The Living Process, René Veugelers met me from his home in The Netherlands. René specialises in teaching Focusing with Children to anyone working with young people in any setting. He emphasises the non-verbal world as a route into deeper experiences. René started out as an Art Therapist, a Psychiatric nurse, and a group social worker before training with Marta Stapert and others in Focusing. He immediately saw the potential to make his work 'focusing-oriented' and he began teaching parents, therapists, teachers, and others, how to be with children in a Focusing way. René also teaches adults how to (re)connect to their own inner child experiences, and how to integrate creativity and flexibility into their life and work - this training is called 'Being Seriously Playful'. His experiences as an art therapist embrace an expanded richness of creative elements and support a natural unfolding of the creative process. René works internationally and is well-known in the Focusing world. He offers The Children's Focusing Training along with Harriët Teeuw and their Team. Information on their training and resources at: ⁠https://www.childrenfocusing.org⁠  In this episode René and I speak about his main way of working with children and especially how the child's 'No!' is not a dead end to working more deeply, but is actually the best way to connect and relate more deeply. As René talks about his work it becomes clear that it is deeply relational and not in any way formulaic. I found the conversation inspiring and exciting. You'll notice that Elliott, my dog, once again makes an appearance and it shows a glimmer of René's style that he immediately incorporates Elliott into our relating and ending of the video. The Living Process page, with links to all videos and podcast platforms, is at this link:⁠https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/⁠ ⁠#counselling⁠ ⁠#existentialism⁠ ⁠#focusing⁠ ⁠#psychology⁠ ⁠#existentialtherapy⁠ ⁠#childtherapy⁠  ⁠#reneveugelers⁠ ⁠#gregmadison⁠⁠#thelivingprocess⁠ ⁠#therapy⁠ ⁠#somaticexperiencing⁠ ⁠#somatic⁠ ⁠#embodied⁠ ⁠#gendlin⁠  ⁠#personalgrowth⁠ ⁠#personaldevelopment⁠⁠#selfimprovement⁠ ⁠#selfcare⁠ ⁠#innerchild⁠ ⁠#innerchildtherapy⁠ ⁠#adolescents⁠ ⁠#counseling⁠

Wholebody Conversations. The Living Process Series 02, E08 with guest Kevin McEvenue In this episode of The Living Process, Kevin McEvenue speaks to me from central Toronto where he lives. I first really got to know Kevin many years ago when he and I were on the faculty of the Focusing Institute Summer School in Garrison NY - we taught together there for a few years and it was great fun, joking around and sampling the local beers. We hit it off and have been Focusing partners ever since. Kevin started originally in financial services but that never suited who he was as a person, so many years ago he took the brave decision to change his life and he moved to Europe to train in Alexander Technique before finding Focusing once he moved back to Canada. Kevin’s unique combination of what he learned from Alexander and what he learned from Eugene Gendlin became known as Wholebody Focusing (WBF) for which he is now internationally known. At the age of 85 (we spoke just a few days before his birthday) Kevin continues to maintain a small practice and to contribute to the world of Focusing, and especially his community of WBF. The latest development of that practice is what Kevin calls Heartfelt Conversation. In this episode, we speak about the emergence of Wholebody Focusing and how Kevin came into the world of Focusing, and his first meetings with Eugene Gendlin. We go on to talk more about the practice of WBF and its slightly different interpretations of ‘body’ and ‘felt sense’. This discussion leads us to a description of Heartfelt Conversation and some exploration of what it is that animates and moves the body when we have a felt shift. Heartfelt Conversation, like a few other recent developments, seems to highlight an increasingly relational aspect of Focusing practices. This episode is a warm and deep conversation that I think you will enjoy. More information on Kevin and his work can be found here: https://wholebodyfocusing.blog Kevin’s publications and Wholebody Focusing manual, plus his book, Dancing the Path of the Everyday Mystic can be found here: https://wholebodyfocusing.com/publications The Living Process page, with links to all videos and podcast platforms is at this link: https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/ #counselling #existentialism #focusing #psychology #existentialtherapy #wholebodyhealth #wholebodyfocusing #kevinmcevenue #gregmadison #thelivingprocess #therapy #somaticexperiencing #somatic #embodied #gendlin #alexandertechnique #personalgrowth #personaldevelopment #selfimprovement #selfcare

Forgetting the Year the World Stopped. A Special New Year 2024 Episode of The Living Process. With Professor Ernesto Spinelli and Dr Greg Madison This is a 90-minute episode edited from two conversations between these existential psychologists that occurred in April 2020, a few weeks into the Covid lockdown, and April 2021, as the lockdown was easing in the UK. To celebrate the beginning of 2024 it seemed fitting to try to honour our Covid experience by trying to remember what actually happened during the pandemic, the day-to-day lived experience, the effect it had on us, and the hopes we may have had that a new, more compassionate world, would emerge from this shocking event. Recently Ernesto and I revisited these conversations and we shared the impression that society has mostly tried to forget the whole experience of the Covid pandemic, the deaths, the lockdowns, and our hopes and fears during that time. So we decided to re-issue an edited version of the two conversations, to retrieve some questions that arose during that unprecedented time and to assess how we have done as a species - Did we grasp the opportunity for change? Have we emerged more compassionate, more aware of ourselves existentially? Have we just scurried back to 'normal' in our search for certainty? The video explores some of the deeper significance of daily life events, and some existential themes emerging from the pandemic and the 'lockdown' of most of the world's population, Both men try to make sense of their feelings and experiences, noting that they have changed considerably and wondering about the longer-term psychological and existential impact of this strange period in human history. Although not strictly a conversation about Focusing and the philosophy of Eugene Gendlin, I think Focusing people will find resonance with the style of interaction and much of what is discussed. Professor Ernesto Spinelli is one of the leading figures in the world movement of existential psychotherapy. Originally from Canada, he has lived his professional life in the UK and received numerous awards for his work in existential therapy, existential-phenomenological psychology, coaching, and mediation. He has authored numerous articles, chapters, and books and is a frequent speaker at international conferences on psychotherapy and psychology. Greg Madison hosts The Living Process series of podcasts and is also an existential psychologist living in the UK. Greg is known, both in the Focusing and the existential worlds, as one of the developers of experiential-existential practice, an attempt to work phenomenologically by crossing existential therapy with the practice of Focusing and Eugene Gendlin's philosophy. We look forward to seeing your comments and especially whether you'd like the series to occasionally expand beyond the world of Focusing as I have done here? Also, there is the potential to edit another 30-40-minute video where Ernesto and I talk specifically about the impact of COVID-19 on therapy and our ideas about the future of therapeutic practice. The next episode in the series will feature Kevin McEvenue and be a return to the Focusing conversations usually featured on The Living Process.

Leslie Ellis, PhD, RCC, is a registered clinical counsellor, teacher and author who lives and works along the west coast of Canada, in beautiful British Columbia. Leslie has in-depth, specialized training in focusing-oriented therapy, and dreamwork as a treatment of trauma. She is a specialist in somatic approaches to therapy, and has studied somatic experiencing, the Hakomi method, and psoma yoga. She has developed a method of embodied, experiential dream work which combines focusing with Jungian active imagination techniques. Dr. Leslie Ellis is the author of A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy (Routledge, 2019) and offers many training opportunities in embodied, experiential dreamwork based on her book.  She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, with a specialization in somatic approaches. Her dissertation on using focusing-oriented therapy to treat PTSD for refugees with recurrent nightmares won the Ernest Hartmann award from the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Dr. Ellis has published numerous book chapters and journal articles on dreamwork in psychotherapy. She has also presented her work to a worldwide audience. She is vice president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, a Certifying Coordinator and past president of The International Focusing Institute. In this episode, Leslie and Greg talk about her journey into Focusing after her initial training in Jungian analysis and her training in Trauma-informed FOT with Shirley Turcotte. We speak a bit about trauma and working bodily with trauma events and also working with the dreams that can accompany unprocessed trauma. We spent most of our conversation talking about specific ways of working with dreams experientially, including getting help in the dream, retelling the dream from the inside of the dream, and sensing how the dream could carry itself forward. We also muse a bit about the profound and intriguing nature of dreams and how they extend beyond our way of understanding them. For more on Leslie's work see: A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy: Implementing Simple and Effective Dreamwork – 2020 by Leslie Ellis (Author). Routledge. New York. https://drleslieellis.com

Welcome to Episode 06 of The Living Process. Greg's guess is Yehudit First, a qualified Body Psychotherapist and Group Facilitator as well as a Focusing Oriented Therapist and a Focusing Coordinator from Israel. Yehudit is experienced as a therapist for individuals and couples, as well as a popular teacher and trainer of Focusing and FOT. She is well-known for her development of the Focusing space into explicit interpersonal interaction in the form of Social Oriented Focusing (SOF). In a gentle Focusing environment, SOF allows delicate issues of human relationships to be explored while really meeting each other. Yehudit teaches SOF online to international Focusers, and uses it to facilitate individual, group and couple therapy processes in her clinic and via Zoom. For more information on her trainings see: https://www.focusing-first.com/sof In this session Yehudit and Greg speak about her way of developing from a body therapist to integrating Focusing and felt sensing into her practice with individuals and also with couples. In the couple work Yehudit includes aspects of social oriented focusing (SOF) in order to help couples speak from their present moment experiencing and then respond to what the other person has shared about their bodily presence. She then describes the SOF process in some detail, with dyads working together in specific ways, and also with larger group work. It is a fascinating process of expanding our usual Focusing awareness into a broader awareness of how to be authentic with oneself and each other while feeling grounded and safe. The Social Oriented Focusing model is an exciting and needed development within Focusing and happily Yehudit tells us that a book is in process.

Dr Donata Schoeller is a philosopher who teaches internationally at various universities and is the academic director of the program "Training in Embodied Critical Thinking. In addition to her work on Gendlin’s philosophy, Donata has also worked in depth on Meister Eckhart. She has published extensively on Gendlin’s philosophy and was involved in translating Gendlin’s text A Process Model into German. She teaches Thinking at the Edge and is a Focusing trainer offering courses in Switzerland. This is a shorter episode of The Living Process where Donata and I outline some of our mutual interests and especially some of her philosophical insights into Gendlin's work. She describes her experience of working with Gendlin on the translation of A Process Model and a little bit about the recent Gendlin Symposium which we both attended. Donata and I have laid out a series of topics that we think would be valuable to delve into more deeply and so we plan to offer a series of follow-up videos on these topics. Our hope is that offering a series of shorter videos rather than trying to pack too much into one episode, will help us to offer conversations that can act as outreach to people who are new to Focusing, Focusing Therapy, and Gendlin's philosophy. Keep an eye out for these upcoming offerings... For more on Donata's work see: https://www.donataschoeller.com

In episode 4 of The Living Process Greg talks with Claude Missiaen, a Clinical Psychologist from Belgium, in private practice, teaching Focusing to therapists (Focussen Vlaanderen) and on faculty at Leuven University. Claude is also on the International Leadership Council of The International Focusing Institute and is well-known across the Focusing community. Claude has been in the Focusing community as a Teacher and Coordinator for many years, having first been introduced to Focusing by Mia Leijssen, a former Professor at Leuven University and well-known Focusing pioneer. In this episode, we talk about many aspects of Claude's work, including the development of his work on Existential Demons as well as his innovative format for clinical supervision. He also describes some of his contributions to the Post-graduate training in client-centered/Experiential Psychotherapy at Leuven. You will notice that I first introduced Claude with the correct pronunciation of his first name but then in the conversation reverted to the English pronunciation (silent 'e' at the end), so my apologies for that oversight! You can find out more about Claude's work via his teaching website: https://focusingvlaanderen.be

The Living Process episode 03 with Lynn Preston. Lynn Preston, MA, MS, LP, is a focusing-oriented relational psychoanalyst, teacher and supervisor. She is a graduate of the PPSC Advanced Self Psychology program, a faculty member of the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy (ICP) and the founding Director of the Experiential Psychotherapy Project (EPP). Lynn has written and presented internationally on the integration of focusing and relational psychoanalysis. She also has an abiding interest in experiential teaching and integrative processes. Lynn has also founded a Community Empowerment movement in NYC as well as an international Help for Helpers group. In this conversation, we talk about Lynn’s entry into the world of Focusing and how she initially met Gene Gendlin. We touch on the question of theory and what theory is and how it can be used in FOT - Lynn and I have a long-standing play fight about theory. We talk of working with the relationship, self-disclosure, forms of psychoanalysis, and ways of expanding Focusing and FOT beyond just the consulting room.