Focusing Oriented Therapy
FOCUSING ORIENTED THERAPY
Back to ACC Summer School 2012 Info
John Threadgold, Focusing Teacher and Focusing Oriented Psychotherapist, holds an MA in Focusing and Experiential Psychotherapy from the University of East Anglia, and a Diploma in Humanistic Counselling from University of Surrey Roehampton. He is a Member of ACC, BACP, the Focusing Institute and the British Focusing Teachers Association (BFTA) . He is recognised by the Focusing Institute as a Focusing Oriented Therapist and a Focusing teacher.
John has experience in counselling people with alcohol and drug addiction issues, and has adapted techniques from Mindfulness Based Cognitive and Therapy, and Focusing, for clients experiencing addiction issues. He also runs a private counselling practice called New Focus Therapy. He offers Focusing Oriented counselling and psychotherapy, Focusing oriented Life Coaching, and individual guided focusing sessions, and also runs workshops on Focusing for both the public and therapists. You can find out more by visiting his web site www.newfocustherapy.co.uk.
John has been counselling for 10 years, and over that time has counselled people who have experienced a variety of distressing issues, including depression, anger management trauma, bereavement, addictions, anxiety and panic attacks, sexual abuse issues. He is a Christian Quaker, and regular attends at the Wimbledon Branch of the Quakers.
Back in the 1950s two of Carl Rogers’ colleagues, Kirtner and Cartwright, carried out research into why some clients succeeded with Person Centred Counselling, when other clients did not. They defined success as when clients felt better about and made constructive changes to their lives over the course of the therapy. They discovered that successful and unsuccessful clients could be spotted within the first two sessions, and that successful clients had a special way of talking about and processing their issues that they somehow knew, before entering into therapy. Dr Gendlin and his colleagues carried out extensive additional research into this area, and included therapies other than the person centred approach. He coined the phrase ‘focusing’, to describe the special way of talking and processing issues that successful clients already knew about, and set about devising ways of teaching otherwise unsuccessful clients how to emulate what the successful clients were doing.
Focusing Partnerships
In a focusing partnership, two people agree to act as 'focusing partners' for each other. Focusing Partnerships involve one person acting as a 'Focusing companion' to the other person who is focusing. There is often a break, and the focusing partners then switch roles. Focusing partners can either meet face to face, or they can do focusing via skype or the telephone. Focusing partners agree a time limit, and the time is usually equally divided between them.
Both the British Focusing Teachers Association and the Focusing Institute run 'a Focusing Partnership' page on their web sites. Basic contact details are placed on the web site, and a person who is looking for a focusing partnership then makes contact with another person on the web site. Focusing partners will have received a minimum of two days of group training ( 12 Hours), or six hours of individual training. Not all focusing partners will have counselling training.
Attendance at the Focusing Oriented and Experiential Therapy programme at the Summer School, will allow you to register for free on the BFTA Web Site. For a small fee you can also register on the Focusing Institute International Focusing Partnerships Page. You will need to state that you have received training in Focusing- Oriented Therapy, which included Focusing partnership skills, with myself, John Threadgold. There will also be a BFTA Focusing Partnership application form in your information pack.
Course Objectives for the four days
- Understand some of the basic concepts of Focusing oriented therapy
- Spot potentially successful clients, and be able to facilitate client process using a range of skills
- Be able to spot potentially unsuccessful clients and be able to help those clients do therapy better
- Have an understanding of basic concepts in FOT, such as the Felt Sense, The Felt Shift, the Body shift, the role of structure bound Experience in psychological disturbance
- Be able to offer a guided focusing journey, to your clients, using experiential guiding and listening skills
- Experience Guided Focusing, both as a Focuser and a Client, so that you can experience firsthand the delights and some of the process difficulties that clients can face
- Explore process difficulties in FOT, for example dealing with the inner critic, overwhelming feelings, when there is no felt sense, process difficulties outside of therapy, etc.
- Discover how to use your existing skills in a focusing oriented way, eg, interpretation, cognitive reframing, behaviour experiments etc.
- Explore focusing partnerships
- Explore how you might integrate focusing oriented therapy into your practice.
All who complete this course will be able to:
1) register for free on the BFTA Focusing Partnership Page
2) register, for a small fee, on the Focusing Institute International Focusing Partnerships page.
