The Living Process. Practices in Experience and Existence

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.

The Living Process is a series of Focusing conversations with Focusing people. In this episode, I talk with Dr Ken Bradford. Ken combines Buddhist psychology & meditation, existentially-robust therapy, and the nondual awareness of Dzogchen.  He began a dedicated practice of insight meditation in 1975, and Dzogchen. After earning a Ph.D. in Psychology at Saybrook University, Ken trained in Focusing with Eugene Gendlin followed by a decade-long apprenticeship in Existential Psychotherapy with James Bugental including co-teaching with him for several years. During this period, Ken developed a contemplative-existential approach to therapy intertwining Buddhist and experience-near psychology, enhanced through training in Nondual Therapy. Ken recently closed his psychotherapy practice and retired as an Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University and California Institute of Integral Studies, devoting himself to Dharma teaching, personal retreat, writing, and the contemplative life. His teaching is now primarily occurring at Mountain Stream Meditation, in Nevada City, CA, as a member of the Mountain Stream Teachers Council. For more information about Ken's current work, see: www.authenticpresence.net In this episode, Ken and Greg have a far-reaching discussion beginning with his correspondence with Gene Gendlin for about 5 years in the early 80s. In these letters, Ken and Gene wrote about their mutual interest in what they called ‘the openness’ having met at a Buddhist retreat where Gene was teaching Focusing. Ken emphasises the meditative quality that focusing offers to the therapist and how Focusing addresses problems and Buddhism addresses the 'whole thing' but that this can cause a spiritual bypass that focusing catches. We discussed how each person has their own capacity to be present. And we practice a bit of what we are talking about during the conversation…. Ken mentions his training with James Bugenthal and how this could be considered an early form of FOT. Ken also discerns the difference between 'Understanding the experience and experiencing the understanding'. We touch on authenticity, Winnicott, and the importance for therapists to have their own experiential practice. About 10 minutes in you can see my dog, Elliott, re-making his bed. Usually, Elliott is an attentive listener but on this occasion, he was distracted...

Dr. Siebrecht is a professor of clinical psychology at Leuven University in Belgium, where he teaches counselling and psychotherapy from a humanistic and experiential-existential perspective. He is the director of various programmes and active in research into existential and meaning-centred issues. Siebrecht is also Co-director of the Meaning and Existence Research Centre at the university. He s well known in the Focusing community and was in fact the first person to receive the Gendlin Research Grant from The International Focusing Institute. We start our conversation by discussing our experiences of the recent Gendlin online symposium where Siebrecht was presenting on the experiential-existential approach that he and I share. We spoke about making space for darker subjects within the Focusing world and how Gendlin did not emphasise these aspects of existence. We explored how Focusing might gain something from the existential emphasis and how existentialism can gain from being experientialised. We touched on issues of optimism and pessimism. Siebrecht briefly introduces the work of Taft and Rank and describes his journey into Focusing and how it resonated with who he is personally. He spoke about his work with prisoners and about interaction first as a therapeutic understanding. Siebrecht outlined their research projects into the therapist’s experience during therapy and how therapists can shy away from working with shared existential concerns. We discussed therapist vulnerability and existential empathy and touched on trust and spirituality and how Gendlin avoided addressing that explicitly.

The Living Process is a new series of conversations about Eugene Gendlin's Focusing method, with longtime Focusing Teacher and Psychotherapist, Dr Greg Madison as host. These conversations will feature people from the Focusing world and also those beyond our international community who might have something to say about the practice of Focusing, Focusing-Oriented Therapy, and Gendlins' philosophy. New episodes will hopefully appear every 2-3 weeks so if you subscribe and click notifications you'll know when a new conversation is up. These episodes are now also available as audio-only podcasts so that they are more convenient to listen to. You can subscribe in Youtube: @FocusingOrientedTherapies or @gregmadisontherapy . For more information about Focusing Therapy see www.focusingtherapy.org