The Living Process. Practices in Experience and Existence

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