Category: health

HARD-WIRED FOR COLLABORATION: PHYSICAL TOUCH INCREASES PERFORMANCE

By , March 1, 2010 1:23 pm

In Born To Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (Norton, 2009),  Dacher Keltner of UC/Berkeley discusses the relationship between physical touch and performance: a supportive touch on the shoulder can increase participation in classrooms, and new research by Michael Kraus and co-authors Cassy Huang and Keltner, soon to appear in the journal Emotion, shows that basketball teams where players touched each other, in a supportive way, performed better than those with less touch. Highest performing players were also those giving the highest number of supportive touches. As summarized in a recent article by Benedict Carey of  The New York Times, “Touchy-feely sports teams have edge, evidence suggests,”:

“A warm touch seems to set off the release of oxytocin, a hormone that helps create a sensation of trust, and to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol. In the brain, prefrontal areas that help regulate emotion can relax, freeing them for another of their primary purposes: problem solving. In effect, the body interprets a supportive touch as ‘I’ll share the load.’

‘We think that humans build relationships precisely for this reason, to distribute problem solving across brains,’ says James A. Coan, a psychologist at the University of Virginia. ‘We are wired to literally share the processing load, and this is the signal we’re getting when we receive support through touch.’ ”

More evidence for the assumptions of Creative Edge Focusing (TM)’s model for Creative Edge Organizations, where more “feminine” values of support, empathy, listening, colleagiality, and attention to relationships feed the bottom line, encouraging creative problem solving through collaboration.

Free Downloads: 

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (TM) (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

Resources: Free Articles, Training, Classes

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

MICHAEL JACKSON: CREATIVITY AND BIPOLAR DISORDER

By , August 24, 2009 4:26 pm

In her book, Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and The Artistic Temperament , Kay Redfield Jamison researched the relationship between creativity and madness. Looking at Poet Laureats of England, and their family histories, she found that, yes, there was a statistically significant greater incidence of institutionalization for mental illness and suicide in these highly creative people and their ancestors.

Jamison concluded that manic-depressive disorder, unless treated with medication and/or psychotherapy, was a TERMINAL ILLNESS — e.g., highly likely to end in death from direct suicide or the slower suicide of alcoholism and other addictions.

In her next book, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, Jamison, a neuro-psychiatrist, presented herself as suffering from manic-depressive disorder (recently renamed as “bipolar disorder”) of an extreme form, including psychotic hallucinations. When depressed, she saw blood streaming down her windows; when manic, she bought all the snake bite kits in her city, fearing an overrun of snakes.

Jamison describes the difficulty in giving up the manic state, giving up the poetic, mysterious, depressive boyfriends, the heightened sense of aliveness. But she also describes the final pleasures of stable relationship and stable moods. She also sees psychotherapy as a viable option to long-term medication.

I did not know Michael Jackson. I cannot diagnose him. But I wonder when I see “super-human” people, many of them performers, crash and burn. Jamison says, “Manic-depressive disorder is a terminal illness.”

Manic-depressive, or bipolar, disorder comes on a continuum of severity, from the mild ups and downs of mood to more pronounced cycles of mood to the extremes of psychotic hallucination. It is not uncommon for great artists to wake up with a whole symphony written in their head, to stay awake for several days writing it all down, to be bursting with energy. This can be a manifestation of mania.

Does that mean the person is mentally ill, and not creative? Not at all. The creations stand as authentic. It is only the ravages of such creativity on the physical body, and the effect of its cyclical aftermath of depression upon the creator that is of concern.

I hope that, using Jamison’s wisdom and research and personal experience, we can help our “super-humans,” those with monstrous creativity, to receive help that might stabilize their lives and help them stop self-medicating with addiction and STAY ALIVE,  without putting out their mighty creative spark.

Creative Edge Focusing (TM) teaches self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing, which can be used for centering and unfolding one’s creativity by “listening” to the inner self, and Focused Listening, helping another to articulate their creative ideas and heal emotional stuckness and overwhelm.

Find free instructions and downloads as well as classes and Focusing-Oriented therapy below:

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads: 

 

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

 

 

 

MIND/BODY HEALING: FOCUSING-ORIENTED BODY WORK

By , May 25, 2009 9:26 pm

Gendlin’s Focusing (Bantam, 1981, 2007; www.focusing.org ), and McGuire’s Intuitive Focusing, are premiere techniques for mind/body healing. Focusing happens exactly at the edge between conscious and unconscious, the “preconscious” that is immediately available as a “bodily felt sense.” McGuire’s calls it  “intuitive feel,” the “something-more-than-words,”  The Creative Edge, the source of creativity, innovation, and problem solving.

Michael Mayer has years of experience working at the interface between mind and body, and between conscious/unconscious/preconscious. He has worked extensively combining body-centered practices like Tai Chi and Qigong with Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy. Below he reviews his past work and announces his new book, Energy Psychology: Self Healing methods For Bodymind Health, which integrates energy therapies, meridian tapping methods like Emotional Freedom Techniques (www.emofree.com)  as well as Qigong and many others, with Focusing for mind/body self-healing. Quoted from Dr. Mayer on The Focusing Discussion e-list at www.focusing.org (subscribe in Category “Felt Community”, then e-lists): 

I was the Focusing training coordinator for the San Francisco East Bay area from around 1978 to 1988, and Focusing has been close to my heart and an important part of my professional  life for many years.

Over the years I have integrated Focusing with many other traditions: In the 1980’s I  combined Focusing with psychomythology with my “Mythic Journey Process” (Mayer, Focusing Folio 1982);  in the 1990’s I integrated Focusing with  Qigong and Chronic Pain (Mayer, “Qigong and Behavioral Medicine, An Integrated approach to Chronic Pain,” Qi Journal, 1986). Then I brought Focusing together with many facets of Qigong and other traditions of postural initiation (Mayer, Bodymind Healing Psychotherapy, 2007). Now with my latest book I’m hoping to show the importance of Focusing to bring out the inner energetic dimensions of Energy Psychology.
I wanted to let the Focusing community know that I have a new book , Energy Psychology: Self Healing Methods for Bodymind Health (North Atlantic/Random House, 2009) that will be released tomorrow April 28th. Here’s an excerpt:
“In order to bring the healing abilities of a comprehensive energy psychology to the public, I believe that in addition to the well-known energy psychology methods such as EFT, the field of energy psychology (EP) would be well served by expanding its terrain to include Qigong and methods of energy cultivation from other traditions of meditation and postural initiation (Goodman, 1990), depth psychology, Gendlin’s Focusing, symbolic process traditions, Kabalistic methods, etc…

…The internal process of psychological change, as Gendlin (1978) rightly pointed out, has energy activation  (Qigong) as an inextricable part of it, as a patient’s energetic “felt shift” emerges along with a patient’s discovering new meaning. //bolding by Dr. McGuire//

Also symbolic process methods, such as my Mythic Journey Process (Mayer, 1994) and River of Life Process (Mayer 2007, 2009), create an internal energy (Jung, Vol. VIII) that helps a person find a meaningful life path, and helps patients to find a new life stance (Goodman, 1990, Mayer, 2004). As related to EP, this expands the field to include both internal and external methods of energetic change. ..My newest book, Energy Psychology: Self-Healing Practices for Bodymind Health is written to help accomplish these aims (Mayer, 2009)….”

If you are interested in getting a copy of Energy Psychology, on April 28th,  tomorrow, the book will be  available on Amazon.com(direct link to Mayer’s book), and all major books stores, or you can order Energy Psychology or any of my other books from my website www.bodymindhealing.com.
I’ll look forward to hearing more about what other Focusers are up to nowadays from this list, and feel free to email me drmichael@bodymindhealing.com.
Warm regards,
Michael Mayer

Claudia Conza also announces the Second International “Focusing in the body-oriented professions” residential workshop, Sept. 22-26, 2009, Maennedorf, Switzerland (also from the Focusing Discussion e-list):

 
Dear all, Guten Tag
 
Finally I am happy to announce our 2. International residential workshop “Meeting at the Edge”2009 in Switzerland
After the big success in Ischia, Italy in 2007 we are ready to introduce the next location for:
 
“MEETING AT THE EDGE”
Focusing in the body-oriented professions
A 4 day residential workshop
September 22 – 26, 2009
Boldern, conference center, Maennedorf, (Zurich) Switzerland.
 
The event will be in English with translation in to German and Italian. Please check our webpage: www.mae2009.org where with time we will ad more and more information, photos and answers to the FAQ.
Attached to print I am sending our flyer in pdf format to print our flyer.
 
I am looking forward to meeting you in September 2009 here in Switzerland to share and explore on our topic and to show you the lovely site with the view down to the lake of Zurich and our mountains.
 
Claudia
In the name of the organising board, Francesca, Nicoletta, Mathias, Larry, Steve, Jack

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

INTUITIVE FOCUSING: FROM MUD POTS TO GEISERS AND TECHTONIC SHIFTS PHOTOS YELLOWSTONE CLICK!

By , March 21, 2009 2:34 pm

Stagnant and sterile: Stuck!

The psyche, like Yellowstone Park, is a seething cauldron, brewing and steaming, shrouded in mist, ever ready to throw up a bubble or a blast of something new, and capable of deep change, techtonic shifts.

Intuitive Focusing, based upon Eugene Gendlin’s six-step Focusing Process (Focusing   www.focusing.org ) is a simple, predictable self-help method for “sitting with” the mist, the bubbling, the cauldron, and finding words and images which bring the depths into consciousness.  Undercurrents  can become “techtonic shifts,” Instant “Ahah!”s of creativity, emotional problem solving, innovation, spirituality.

The PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process begins with the pregnant Pause and uses Intuitive Focusing to find words and images which lead to paradigm shifts.

The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid of applications allows use of Intuitive Focusing at home and at work,  alone, in partnerships, in groups/teams, for interpersonal conflict resolution, for Creative Edge Meetings, and Creative Edge Organizations.

See my article, “Creative Edge Organizations: Businesses and Organizations As A ‘Kind’ Of Focusing Community” from The Folio: Thirtieth Anniversity Tribute edition at The Focusing Institute, www.focusing.org .

You can learn all about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening with the many resources listed below:

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

COLLABORATIVE EDGE SEXUALITY: TANTRA FOR BUSY COUPLES BOOK

By , March 9, 2009 11:30 am

Here is a book of interest to those seeking greater intimacy through the gentle combination of sexuality and spirituality found in Tantra, with a recommendation from internationally-known Focusing Teacher, Ann Weiser Cornell:
~~~~~~~~~~
Diana Daffner
BOOK: www.TantraforBusyCouples.com (Hunter House, March, 2009)

“As a lifelong advocate of how body awareness can bring us into connection with the present moment, I was delighted to encounter this book. With charming anecdotes and refreshing clarity, the Daffners offer a practical guide to that most elusive of states: true intimacy. Highly recommended! “–Ann Weiser Cornell, Ph.D.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Daffner’s also offer educational Intimacy Retreats:

www.IntimacyRetreats.com
941 349-6804
Florida

And Diana offers a CD audio experience guiding you and your lover to greater intimacy: http://www.intimacyretreats.com/lessons2.htm

Diana also participates in Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s e-course (three e-newsletters a week teaching skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening as applied to personal growth, creativity, spirituality, intimacy, conflict resolution, and creative problem solving at home and at work) and writes:

Dear Kathy,
 
I’ve been meaning to write to thank you for your emails. They are so rich with information and guidance. An impressive body of material. That this one referred to “intimacy” of course caught my attention!
 
~ Diana

You can subscribe to the e-course at the link below and also find links to our Mini-Course on Intimate Relationship, which includes lessons on Sharing Your Day, Equalizing Sexual Desire, Erotic Massage, Tantric Sexuality, and Sacred Spot Massage.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

“WHY CRY?” PART 5: BOOKS AND ARTICLES ON TEARS, CRYING, BEING TOUCHED AND BEING MOVED, INNER CHILD HEALING, ACTIVE GRIEVING, TRANSFORMATION

By , March 4, 2009 6:41 pm

Articles by Dr. Kathy McGuire: Being Touched and Being Moved, The Alchemy of Grieving, Focusing Inner Child Work, Finding The Meaning of Tears
 
Crying and vision, crying and opening the heart, crying and connecting (this is such a profound experience when it happens — as a Listener, I tear up in empathy with a Focuser, who may also be touching on tears, and, in my experience, the walls, the envelopes of flesh separating us simply melt away, and we meet in Buber’s I-Thou space — the two of us and The Something More, The Sacred entering in).
 
In my own journey to understand the place of crying, being touched and being moved, particularly, I have found
 
(a) an early book by William Frey called Crying, which, when first published, was a media event. He collected tears in test tubes from people watching a tear-jerker movie, and compared them, their chemical analysis, with “non-emotional” tears, collected questionnaire data on frequency of crying (women five times as often as men!), etc.
 
(b) The book by Anglican hermit Maggie Ross, The Fountain and The Furnace, cited above.
 
(c) Pema Chodrin’s (Buddhist nun) work on the “way of compassion” as a complement to, for instance, Tolle’s “way of enlightenment.” While much of Eastern philosophy seems to emphasize “detachment,” “objectivity,” Chodrin talks about going DOWN into the morass of human pain and living through it and into it, with other humans, with compassion.
 
(d) William Gaylin, Feelings: Our Vital Signs (Harper & Row Perennial, 1979), where he has chapters that are a phenomenology of many different feelings. He has a chapter on “being touched” as a human to human happening, and one on “being moved” as between a human and The Something Greater.
 
Here are links to some of my articles (all found on my website, www.cefocusing.com , Category Free Resources, then Articles):
 
“On Tears and Focusing,”  a mini-research where Focusers spoke about their experience with tears (I have tons of great quotes!). SHORT BUT SWEET
 
“Being Touched and Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears”,   with lots of quotes about how Focuser value their tears. 
 
“Finding The Meaning of Tears,” a book chapter, with more great quotes about how Focusers use their tears and giving actual Focusing exercises for following the path of tears.
 
“Affect in Focusing and Experiential Therapy”, containing quotes from dialogue between Gene Gendlin and myself about the value and role of what I call “cathartic unfolding” vs. “sheer, repeating emotions.” THEORETICAL WITH EXAMPLES
 
“Medical Change Events Through Experiential Focusing,” including the complete transcript of the 12- minute session (also on my DVD Listening/Focusing Demonstrations) where a woman goes from depression/migraine to felt shift, including joyful releasing teariness, and also including my “Five-Minute Grieving” procedure for helping professionals, immediate application for all physicians and helping professionals.
 
“Active Grieving Part One,”  a perspective on grieving as an alchemical, tranformative process
 
“Active Grieving Part Two,”  an actual protocol for active grieving of a loss.
 
“Focusing Inner Child Work With Abused Clients”, which is not about tears directly but about the extreme attitude of awareness toward subtle nuances of word or body gesture which can indicate repressed memories of emotional/sexual/physical abuse in childhood and the extreme attitude of gentleness needed to allow clients to “be with” and work through, “carry forward,” these painful experiences.
 
It was enlightening to me to see how much of my work has this emphasis upon a kind of “going deeper” and “connection” that is associated with even a slight SHEEN OF TEARS in the eyes (sobbing not necessary but welcome!)
 
GREAT BOOK: WHY GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE
 
By Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen To Good People: The Exciting New Research That Proves The Link Between Doing Good And Living A Longer, Healthier, Happier Life, Broadway Books, 2007. Read about the Ways of Celebration, Generativity, Forgiveness, Courage, Humor, Respect, Compassion, Loyalty, Creativity , and
 
Chapter 11: The Way of Listening: Offer Deep Presence
 
See more at the author’s organization site,
Unlimited Love Institute. 

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

“WHY CRY?” PART 4: CRYING FOR A VISION, OPENING OUR EYES TO TRUTH

By , February 28, 2009 7:59 pm

The Opening of Vision: “Crying For A Vision” by David Michael Levin
 
A key quote from Levin:
 
“Crying, of course, is involuntary.  But the experience of crying, with which we are all familiar, can be taken up by the self, taken to heart, and turned, through the gift of our thought, into a PRACTICE of the self.  The practice is concerned with the cultivation of our capacity for care —  Crying becomes a critical social practice of the self when the vision it brings forth makes a difference in the world, gathering other people into the wisdom of its attunement.”

Crying as a PRACTICE, a discipline like yoga or meditation or Focusing, a social practice for CULTIVATION OF OUR CAPACITY FOR CARE!!!

Dave Young, Focusing Teacher in Colorado,  brought attention to the work of David Michael Levin, a Focuser and philosopher-colleague of Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing, particularly Levin’s book, The Opening of Vision, Chapter 2, “Crying for a Vision.” Here are Dave’s comments interspersed with quotes from Levin. I include the entirety, since most will not have the Levin book at hand (original discussion happened on The Focusing Discussion e-list, joined at www.focusing.org , under Felt Community).

Dave says:
 
[Kathy]You challenge us brilliantly & beautifully, with your question:  “So, just wanting people to look and then ask themselves, “What is this about humans being ‘touched and moved’ to tears, and how does it relate to guiding oneself and others during Focusing?”
 
I’m presenting some quotes, with a bit of my own commentary, from the best philosophical writing on crying that I know, this from one of Gene’s closest philosophical colleagues, himself a Focuser, David Michael Levin.  It’s found in his marvelous book, The Opening of Vision, Chapter 2, “Crying for a Vision”.

  “This work on vision began, not with a vision, but with an experience of crying.  Crying for the earth, the earth itself, whose devastation I see all around me.  Crying over the plundering of the land.  Crying from the depths of my ancestral body for the victims of the Holocaust.  Crying for the Indians massacred in my country — “
 
Let me urge our discussion of crying, as Focusers, begin here:  with specific experiences of our crying, not merely of our sense of crying in general.  And let it include our own crying & our own struggles with crying.
 
Levin makes a startling claim, based on his Focusing-oriented experiences:
  “With crying, I begin to see, briefly, and with pain. Only with the crying, only then, does vision begin.” 
 
Perhaps carefully, caringly examining our own specific experiences of crying we can bring Levin’s claim within us.
 
Levin:
  “Our eyes are not only articulate organs of sight; they are also the emotionally expressive organs of crying.  The site where vision takes place is sometimes a site where a very different kind of process takes place.  We will now give some thought to the character of this process. What is crying?  Is it merely an accidental or contingent fact that the eyes are capable of crying as well as seeing?  Or is crying in the most intimate, most closely touching relationship to seeing?  Is crying essential for vision?”
 
Understand that Levin is a Focuser.  Therefore, as he will point out later, vision is never divorced from the body, and in particular, vision is never divorced from what he calls the body’s “moodedness” or as he says, “our capacity for care, ‘Sorge’, feeling:  our care-taking capacity, that is, as visionary beings.”  More strongly, he says, “Crying is visionary feeling, and feeling is inherently closer to a sense of wholeness than the disembodied intellect.”
 
This, then, is what Levin means when he says that crying & “vision” are linked, when through his question he implies that crying is “essential for vision”.
 
Levin:
 
“Only human beings cry.  Animals are beings endowed with sight; but only we are capable of crying.  What does this show about us?  What does this show TO us?  Is it this capacity for crying, then, which ennobles our vision, makes it human?  And is it not the ABSENCE of this capacity which marks off the inhuman?  By the ‘inhuman’ I mean the monstrous and the inwardly dead:  the Nazi commandant, for example, and his victim, the Jew, locked into a dance of death, neither one, curiously, able to shed a tear:  for different reasons, their eyes are dry, empty, hollow.”
 
Very strong, what Levin is challenging us to examine.  And yet, on a deeply felt-sensed level, we know this.  I would hold that, in any discussion of crying, the state or rather the stopped-processing of not-crying must also be closely examined, experientially, in ourselves and in others.  What, societally, that stops us from crying is, of course, what we most need to cry about.  And as this need is a stopped-processing, that means the need always remains within us, waiting, crying to come forth.
 
Levin:
 
“What does this capacity [for crying] make visible?  What is its truth?  What is the truth it sees?  What does it know as a ‘speech’ of our nature?  How does it guide our vision?”
 
Certainly, these are questions which we, as Focusing/Listening guides need to address.
 
Levin:
  “Crying is not something we ‘do’.  Crying is the speech of powerlessness, helplessness —  As a response to what history has made visible, crying calls for vision, for thought, for understanding; we need to SEE what IT make VISIBLE.”
 
Levin points what, to me, is a key in crying:  that crying isn’t a self-chosen act.  Though we do, of course, choose to embody-open ourselves up to seeing what calls for crying.  Yet crying, genuine crying always comes as a kind of cleansing & joining gift.  But more on this later, when I have time to better think it through, based on my own personal experiences.
 
Continuing & developing this thought, Levin states,

“Crying, of course, is involuntary.  But the experience of crying, with which we are all familiar, can be taken up by the self, taken to heart, and turned, through the gift of our thought, into a PRACTICE of the self.  The practice is concerned with the cultivation of our capacity for care —  Crying becomes a critical social practice of the self when the vision it brings forth makes a difference in the world, gathering other people into the wisdom of its attunement.”
 
This will take an unbundling I cannot do now.  But know:  crying does make a difference.  Kathy, it’s not only pointing to meaning, but to a special type of meaning.  And this meaning is a connecting, an act that reaches out and makes a difference in the world.  This I know from my own crying for abused & neglected clients who have been alienated from their capacity to cry for themselves and, worse, have become alienated from the truth that they are worth crying over.  And that is only one example.  But this points to a powerful truth which, when we guide those who have greatly suffered, we should not shirk from.  Always, of course, we see how our crying affects, not only is affected by, in our intense “interacting first”.  But we must never rule away our crying out-of-hand.
 
Additionally, when I allow myself to cry for my clients, not only does this crying — not all crying, not the crying of pre-empting or communicating this is too much, but the crying of being deeply touched which can be held  & presented  — not only does this crying usually bring for depths & healing from within my clients or rather from within our interacting.  I myself, by our genuineness, by my congruence, am far less likely to be drained & burned out.  This healing capacity of crying should also be noted in our discussion.
 
Levin gives us a starting point to understand the types of “moods” in crying, paralleling yours, Kathy:
 
“We could think of our eyes as capable of three kinds of mood:  (i) the ontical moodedness of everyday seeing, which can differentiate and articulate what it beholds only in a more or less dualistic, objectifying, re-presentational manner; (ii) the transitional moodedness of a seeing which cries for vision, immersed in painful seeing, immersed in the processes of its subjectivity; and (iii) the moodedness of a more joyful, more fulfilled seeing, clear and bright and articulate, and capable of being deeply touched and moved, even at a distance, by what it is given to see.”
 
As a taste of where this leads, permit me one more Levin quote: 
 
“Crying is the rooting of vision in the ground of our [universal, shared & interacting] needs:  [our] need for openness, [our] need for contact, [our] need for wholeness.” Dave

And Franc Chamberlain, Certified Focusing Professional in Ireland,  also dives into Levin’s work, with more on Vision and Crying:
 
“Hello, I haven’t been following closely, so apologies if I’m repeating — I’ve recently been dipping back into some of the Levin books, such as The Opening of Vision — and there’s also a questioning about tears in the early part of The Philosopher’s Gaze, in the section entitled ‘Blindness, Violence, Compassion’ (which seems to link the two threads of tears and (non) violence).
 
After discussing briefly T.S. Eliot’s ‘I see the eyes but not the tears/this is my affliction’ he goes on to say:
 
“What must we say about philosophers? When have philosophers seen the tears? When have they given thought to what, without words, tears are saying? Is the history of philosophy a history of blindness, a discourse disfigured by traces of this terrible, unavowable affliction? Is there something inherent in the philosophical gaze that compels this affliction to remain unavowable? (The Philosopher’s Gaze, 1999 p.4)
 
So, is there something in the philosophical gaze that both arrests crying whilst at the same time prevents us from knowing that crying is arrested? So, could we discuss ‘crying’ in a philosophical sense, and even discuss the arrest of crying, without even knowing that our own crying is a stopped process? Because western philosophy often splits itself off from ‘experiencing’ even when speaking about ‘experience’
 
Franc

Dave and Franc and Levin all pointing to the experience that crying is essential to our caring, having compassion, “seeing” the truth of this world, and acting on its behalf. “Being touched and being moved” as essentially human, and essential-to-humanness.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

“WHY CRY?” PART 3: TEARS OF WONDER/JOY DESCRIBED

By , February 26, 2009 3:36 pm

Tears often come at times of great joy, love of nature, music, spiritual experiences, weddings, births. A number of researchers have asked people to describe their positive experience of tears and crying. See “Why Cry?” Part One: Are Women Better At Crying Than Men?” and “Why Cry?” Part Two: Videos of Thinkers vs. Feelers on the MBTI
 
“Tears of Wonder/Joy” by William Braud 

In this wonderful qualitative research article,  William Braud  is doing a “phenomenological description” of the experience he calls “tears of wonder-joy,” with many concrete examples. He asked people to exactly describe this experience.

In a section called “Felt Experience,” (I wonder if the author is a Focuser!), Braud describes that participants reported positive affect and “feelings of joy, peace, awe, love, compassion, empathy and acceptance. There are feelings of unity, union, oneness, closeness, connection and immersion.” Read Braud’s article for a complete description of these powerful, positive experiences.
 
Braud goes on to define “wonder-tears” as an innate biological “empathy indicator,”  an indicator of entering the numinous (holy, sacred) and a  “signal” toward what is meaningful for each individual, a “sign post” on the path.
 
Now, imagine adding Intuitive Focusing to go deeper, to articulate these deeper meanings, as I teach in my article, “Finding The Meaning Of Tears.” The Focuser can articulate the landscape of their own soul, their “unique blueprint” in the Rogerian sense, using tears of being touched and moved as a kind of moral “compass,” keeping the keel of one’s soul-ship on one’s unique path, leading to action steps toward “carrying forward” on this path of meaning.
 
Here is the link to the entire article,
“Experiencing Tears of Wonder-Joy: Seeing With The Heart’s Eye” by William Braud . 

Tears ARE Transformation, Felt-Shifting Happening
 
I have found another wonderful phenomenological study of tears, this one, “Nine Psycho-Spiritual Characteristics of Spontaneous and Involuntary Weeping” by Rosemarie Anderson, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, CA. Anderson confirms my own experience that a certain kind of tears IS transformation happening, is our body’s sign that something is changing, shifting at the deepest level, an “integration,” not simply a by-product of the deepest felt-shifting but part and parcel of it. She states that tears may be the border between mind/body/spirit, an essential part, perhaps even a causative factor in transformation.
 
See my paper
“Affect in Focusing and Experiential Therapy” , which makes the same argument in terms of tears of “cathartic unfolding.” 
 
Anderson cites the dissertation of one of her students, Dufrechou, J. (2001). Coming home to nature through the body: An intuitive inquiry into experiences of grief, weeping, and other deep emotions in response to nature. Unpublished doctoral dissertation proposal,  Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, CA. I have not found a copy, but I would love to read it.
 
The Fountain and The Furnace: The Way of Tears and Fire by Maggie Ross
 
AND Rosemarie Anderson cites the book on The Way of Tears that I have been seeking since a friend loaned it to me over twenty years ago:

Ross, Maggie. (1987a) The Fountain and the Furnace: The Way of Tears and Fire. NY: Paulist Press.  And a related article: Ross, M. (1987b) Tears and fire: Recovering a neglected tradition. Sobornost, 9(1), 14-23
Now to find the book! You can get it used from $22 up through
Amazon.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

“WHY CRY?” PART TWO: VIDEOS OF MBTI “THINKER” VS. “FEELER”

By , February 23, 2009 4:11 pm

In “Why Cry?” Part One, “Are Women Better At Crying Than Men?”, I pointed to a gender difference, but I also found a better descriptor in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator distinction between Thinkers and Feelers, allowing for a goodly percentage of male Feelers and women Thinkers who do not fit the gender mold on this distinction.

Here, I will compare two videos, one of Eugene Gendlin describing Focusing as a Thinker on the MBTI, a second of Kelly Corrigan describing Women’s Strength and Connection as a Feeler on the MBTI, becoming “touched” and “moved” to tears during her presentation.

Gene Gendlin on YouTube
 
First, let’s take a look at Gene Gendlin, creator of Focusing,  in person on YouTube, through the wonderful efforts of Simon d’Ortega and Nada Lou. You will see Gendlin, now in his 80s, in his gentleness, his intelligence, his great wisdom, and his wonderful humor. However, you will not see him “being touched” or “being moved” to tears (I have, however, seen Gendlin with tears. So I include these videos just as a contrast in these moments)
 
Short but sweet, less than two minutes:
“That Place That Knows”
 
Longer: 
 
“Theory, TAE, and Democracy 

 
Thinking At The Edge Part One: Mary Hendricks-Gendlin Introduction
 
For more, go to
www.youtube.com and Search Eugene Gendlin.
 
Being Touched: Kelly Corrigan on Transcending: Words on Women and Strength
 
I got this message by email from my “Women Relatives” group:
 
“I wonder if you’ve seen this ~ it’s perfect and so are all of you ~
friends, sisters, moms.” And the following link:
 
 
Transcending: Words on Women and Strength 
 
If you can’t open this, go to www.youtube.com  and search for Kelly Corrigan and watch Transcending: Words on Women and Strength. You will see Corrigan “being touched” and “being moved” to tears as she speaks, and you may well find yourself having a corresponding emotional response. My women friends and relatives communicate between each other in this way as a matter of course, sending each other “touching” emails, as well as humorous ones. Corrigan and the women experiencing their tears with her are also being “bonded together” by their shared empathetic response. Feelings are inherently relational and draw people into contact.
 
Okay, in case you thing this topic of tears is “too heavy,” here are two more humorous YouTubes to check out, totally for fun and having nothing to do with Focusing:
 
“The Mom Song,” this is hysterical. Sung to William Tell Overture, about 3 minutes.   
 
“The Mean Kitty Song”
 
Tears As Harbingers Of Deep Meaning
 
I have collected countless paragraphs from works of fiction which mention the “coming of tears” as harbingers of deep meaning — profound love, relief, connection, millions of things. We all know that people cry at births and weddings, beautiful, moving music, sunsets, moments of compassion seen between people, etc. Even grieving, if looked at without prejudice, contains many warm, joyful memories and re-connections with the beloved. Etc., etc. 
 
What matters to me in terms of Focusing is that, noticing even the tiniest sheen of tears in the eyes, or sometimes just the softening of the skin around the eyes, or the quivering of a cheek muscle, or a slight wiping gesture toward the eyes — if the person or the Listener/therapist notices these “openings,” and suggests spending some Focusing time with “Whatever brings the tears,” huge wealth of personal, profound, meaning/carrying forward usually arises, as well as life-giving moments of I-Thou connection between the participants (even a whole group of “witnesses”) that is Sacred/soul-building.

In “Why Cry?” Part Three, I will explore phenomenological research on the kind of crying called “Tears of Wonder/Joy,” a positive experience of awe and transcendence.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

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Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

 

“WHY CRY?” PART ONE: ARE WOMEN BETTER AT CRYING THAN MEN?

By , February 22, 2009 6:06 pm
TAKING TEARS SERIOUSLY: WOMEN CRY FIVE TIMES AS OFTEN AS MEN!
 
William Frey, in his book Crying,  states research which found that women cry five times as often as men. Certainly, there is a difference, and perhaps a skill, worth exploring here, if we take the value of tears and crying in a positive way.
 
TEARS OF WONDER/JOY, BEING TOUCHED AND BEING MOVED, AS POSITIVE, TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES
 
In a recent discussion about the many photos of “tears of joy” throughout the world which appeared in conjunction with Obama’s inauguration, I started a discussion about such “tears of joy,” “tears of ‘being touched’ and ‘being moved’ on The Focusing Discussion e-list (join at www.focusing.org under Felt Communities and read the archives for November/December, 2008 —). Fellow list members came back with some wonderful articles and multi-media on the positive place of tears.
 
I have had an ongoing debate with Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing, and others about the place and value of tears in change processes using Focusing and Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy.
 
Gendlin’s position is that some tears are simply repetitive, “sheer” emotion, and change will not happen unless the Focuser pays attention to the wider, deeper, “felt sensing” under the tears: “What are these tears about for me?” and pausing for a “felt sense” of “the whole thing” to form.
 
I agree with Gendlin about this, tears and crying that seem repetitive, stuck, often cried from a helpless, “victim” stance.
 
But there is another kind of tears and crying which I experience as deeply transformative, as part of Gendlin’s “felt shift,” the crux of change within the Focusing model. I call these tears “cathartic unfolding”: tears and crying accompanying a deep shifting and opening and “carrying forward” at the bodily level. I experience these kind of “tearful felt shifts” as among the deepest in terms of true, lasting transformation of the psyche.
 
Gendlin tends to say, “Yes, receive these tears, value them, but they are a ‘side product,’ not an essential aspect of the ‘felt shift’ through Focusing.” I agree that ALL “felt shifts” do not have to include tears, in fact, most do not. But I think I disagree with Gendlin and others on what I see as the ADDITIONAL significance of felt-shifts accompanied by “cathartic unfolding.”
 
I also see more subtle “tearing up,” the slight sheen of tears in the eye, as an indication of places of deep meaning. So, when being a Listener for a Focuser, or a Focusing-Oriented Therapist, I am likely to ask the Focuser if it would make sense to stop and “sense into” the place of tears, as a pathway to profound personal meanings.
 
I have approached this difference with Gendlin as a difference between “masculine” and “feminine” in the Jungian sense, as a difference between being a strong Thinker (T) and a strong Feeler (F) on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). On the MBTI, 60-70% of men score as Thinkers, leaving 30-40% male Feelers, and vice versa for women, 60-70% Feelers but also 30-40% Thinkers. So, there are many men for whom tears come easily, and many women who are not so close to their tears. See my articles, “Jung, MBTI, and Experiential Theory,” “The Body As A Source Of Knowledge,”  and “Existential Phenomenology: A Philosophy Articulating Feminine Experience,” .

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

 

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