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I am beset by uncertainties, but what I want to say is simple, for I am a simple man. I want to ask: Is there anything new under the sun? I want to say: I don’t believe in methods. Can any method, even the best, even ours, be more than poor, thin, schematic and […]
Dear Friends,
I feel very squeamish about the word reflect. To me it seems that the point is not to be a mirror, but to be (in the other sense) reflective: to take in what is given, to be touched by it and to reflect inwardly - like Mary, who “kept all these things in her […]
Dear Friends
When I am teaching Focusing to anybody now, I have four things in my mind:
1 Respect
By respect, I mean that I want to follow, not to lead.
2 Tenderness
By tenderness, I mean that I want to remember that everybody is vulnerable, even when we are hiding it.
3 Phrasing
By phrasing, I mean that I want to […]
Hello everybody !
I finally understood something which has caused me endless anguish.
Gene Gendlin did not AT ALL come up with Focusing. That has always been clear. There is for example a beautiful (and famous) description of Focusing in William James.
So what did Gene do?
It seems to me that what he grasped so clearly, which James […]
A friend asked for advice. Well, who am I to advise? Still, I can always listen, and say what comes to me.
It was about somebody with a deep and genuine desire to learn Focusing. He had read Gene Gendlin’s book, “Focusing”, felt a need for some pointers, and came for one or two guided Focusing […]
My friend Nada wonders whether, when we Focusers use the phrase “emotional intelligence”, we use it as part of the common language; or whether we are suggesting that Gene Gendlin and Dan Goleman are somehow in the same boat.
To my mind, this question is spot on. Daniel made a big mistake, one which Gene has […]
I’m just back from a Greek and Latin summer school at the University of Wales, and ought to be doing something else (sleeping, perhaps), but shall not resist writing a few thoughts here about Herakleitos, by way of homecoming.
“Everything flows; nothing remains. Everything moves; nothing is still. Everything passes away; nothing lasts.” - These are […]
This will be about remembering and tracking my own story of reading philosophy.
I may risk a few tentative suggestions, born out of what I did and what then happened; and because I’ve had chances to watch how quite a number of people have gone about starting to read the philosophy of Gene Gendlin. Mostly, though, […]
Some time ago, a friend asked, “Do you believe that ethics is the engine that drives Focusing with a partner?”
I would love that to be so, and (partly) I think it is so. I reckon it should be so, but that the wells of creative knowing are frequently poisoned by the prevailing ideology in which […]
Hello there, everybody!
Whenever I hear that “the Focusing process is moving out into the world”, I feel uneasy, a little querulous, even a little bit threatened.
I have a need for clarity and simplicity. I need to try to say things rather plainly. When I read this phrase, I find myself asking a couple of questions. […]