Product Description

The classic guide to a powerful
technique for personal transformation

Based on groundbreaking research conducted at the University of Chicago, the focusing technique has gained widespread popularity and scholarly acclaim. It consists of six easy-to-master steps that identify and change the way thoughts and emotions are held within the body. Focusing can be done virtually anywhere, at any time, and an entire “session” can take no longer than ten minutes, but its effects can be felt immediately–in the relief of bodily tension and psychological stress, as well as in dramatic shifts in understanding and insight.

In this highly accessible guide, Dr. Eugene Gendlin, the award-winning psychologist who developed the focusing technique, explains the basic principles behind focusing and offers simple step-by-step instructions on how to utilize this powerful tool for tapping into greater self-awareness and inner wisdom. As you learn to develop your natural ability to “focus,” you’ll find yourself more in sync with both mind and body, filled with greater self-assurance, and better equipped to make the positive changes necessary to improve and enhance every aspect of your life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54863 in Books
• Published on: 1982-08-01
• Released on: 1982-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
"An original, innovative, exciting book."—Carl Rogers, Ph.D.

"A superb manual for self-managed therapy. . .a tool beyond price."—Brain-Mind Bulletin

Ingram
Based on research at the University of Chicago, focusing is a new technique of self therapy that teaches one to identify and change the way personal proble ms exisist in the body. The process consist of steps that can bring a profound release of tension.

From the Publisher
"An original, innovative, exciting book."--Carl Rogers, Ph.D.

What is focusing? Based on research at the University of Chicago, focusing is a new technique of self therapy that teaches you to identify and change the way your personal problems concretely exist in your body. Focusing consists of steps of felt change. Unlike methods that stress "getting in touch with your feelings," there is a built-in test: each focusing step, when done correctly, is marked by a physical relief, a profound release of tension. Focusing guides you to the deepest level of awareness within your body. It is on this level, unfamiliar to most people, that unresolved problems actually exist, and only on this level can they change.

"A superb manual for self-managed therapy. . .a tool beyond price."--Brain-Mind Bulletin

Customer Reviews

Practical. Works better than I expected.
I'm giving it five stars for the system; it really works for things I have applied it to. As a book, it is also well written and has a certain fun sense of discovery, especially when reading about how Dr. Gendlin was trying to discover what 'it' was that people who were successful in therapy 'got.'

I am not part of 'the-religion-which-must-not-be-named' but I must agree that too often psychology (granted a broad blast here) simply makes people more self-centered, self-deluded, and generally worse.

If you have some things that feel perhaps too painful frightening to even think about approaching, Focusing gives you a way to defuse the bombs from a distance, so to speak.

My humble summary of what Focusing is: It is a system to repair specific communication errors between the limbic system and the rational part of the brain. AFTER finding how you have been mislabeling a certain pain, you may THEN find that the origin is very clear. Dredging up potential origins first (as most systems do) to find why you have a current discomfort, is like doing an appendectomy through your ear - once and a while it will work and once and a while the patient will even survive. Forget that and try Focusing.

Easy to read and understand
As a layperson, I was skeptical as to whether I would be able to understand this book. I was expecting lots of clinical explanations. To my surprise, it was just the opposite. Written so that anyone can understand it, "Focusing" gives the guidance to holistically find the source of fears, anxiety, and negativity. It guides the reader to a place where he/she can sit and listen to the body speak of the source of a problem's manifestation. I recommend this to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of why we sometimes feel the way we do.

indispensable for increasing awareness of self and others
This book was first published in 1978, and I wish I had discovered it back then, as it would have spared me years of spinning my wheels. The author is a psychologist, as well as a philosopher specializing in phenomenology. His thinking definitely serves as a solid underpinning to this book. However, the book is completely practical. It teaches you how to get in touch with your body/mind--the part of you that feels and knows without using logic, morality, guilt, or blame. Once you get in touch with whatever your body/mind is experiencing in the present, you focus on that "felt sense." Keeping your conscious awareness tuned to that feeling causes a movement in the energy, and ultimately a shift occurs,which you can physically feel as a release of a blockage or a point of tension. This technique works very well for those problems and issues that you thought you had worked through, but keep returning over and over again. The best part is, you can do this work without a therapist. After a while, you will find that your body (or rather, body/mind) becomes your best teacher on all matters of the heart and soul.