Focusing is a therapeutic method that belongs to the world of physical psychotherapy.
It includes a deep technique for connecting with ourselves, for listening inside and directing attention to the body and to our inner experience. The process enables changing the internal dialogue and creating new and healthy relationships with internal parts within us, even when they hold fears, pains and traumatic places.

 

Focusing was created and developed by Prof. Eugene Gendlin, an American Jew who conducted research at the University of Chicago in the 1960s, which examined what makes psychotherapy effective. He discovered that patients who agree to be in touch with their inner world of experience and are in touch with their body sensations during the therapeutic session, experience significant breakthroughs, derive value from the process and progress. In contrast, patients who do not know how to do this, can continue to come to treatment for years without significant progress. Jedlin wondered if those patients could be taught the connection with what their bodies experienced and remembered, he developed a six-step method. The process of his patients who studied it completely changed and became effective. He called this method focusing.

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Our body stores and saves every meaningful feeling, emotion and experience. We are not always aware of it, usually not. If we were aware of every piece of information that the body remembers, we would be constantly flooded, both with information and with a sensory experience that we had no way to regulate. In the end, if we were aware of everything that lives in us we would not be able to function effectively. Therefore, we are usually not in touch with most of the places that are activated within us, but when something hurts us or scares us, or when we recognize a pattern of behavior that we would like to change, or when we react disproportionately to events or situations, we can turn to the body, observe the somatic experience ours and understand better what lies in the unconscious and above all what we really need. 

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Listening is directed to the inner experience of our body. Sensations, images and emotions that we can identify, will be able to tell 

We have something, which is beyond words, and beyond what could be understood with the help of logic alone, about the subject and about ourselves. Because unlike our cognitive part, which adopted defense, projection, transfer and suppression mechanisms, our body does not know how to bluff, twist or confuse. Through the sensations of the body, a direct connection is made with the unconscious, and at the same time our automatic reactions get a chance to make a change.

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Focusing teaches us the experience of what it is like to be in our stable center, to know how to recognize when we are not in full agreement with what is happening, to recognize exactly where our boundaries are and when they are crossed.

The process allows us to take 100% responsibility for our experience, develop the inner parent or caregiver and grow ourselves as an autonomous entity with independent sovereignty. The resulting experience is one of deep connection and connection with ourselves, acceptance, self-love and deep awareness. Focusing allows us to fully express the power, creativity and drive of our desires in the world.