Product Description

A breakthrough method of 'unlocking the wisdom within your body' to solve specific problems and achieve dramatic personal growth and changeThis original, innovative program of self-therapy enables you to tap into your deepest level of wisdom, the 'gut-level' knowledge that already exists within your body. By accessing this subliminal body-mind awareness (or 'felt sense') that lies beyond thoughts and feelings, you can get to the root of the conflicts within you, gain a fuller comprehension of your unresolved problems, and solve them.What is focusing? It is a technique of self-therapy that teaches you to identify and change the way your personal problems concretely exist in your body. 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. Both a practical guide and a powerful philosophy of personal growth, this effective, proven procedure has wide-ranging applications, including healing, education, business, creative pursuits, and problem solving.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43506 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-22
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

Ingram
More than meditation or visualization, this is a breakthrough self-therapy method of achieving dramatic personal growth and change, enabling the listener to deal with specific problems by developing concrete skills.

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

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

"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.