We bring leading professionals and guest teachers to Vancouver, BC, Canada and online meetings. Guest Teachers and Scholars include the topics listed below (click on a name for more information):
Feldenkrais® Guest Teachers & Scholars:
Angel Di Benedetto, Anna Haltrecht, Michael Krugman, Ralph Strauch.
Focusing Guest Teachers & Scholars: Glenn Fleisch, Ruth Hirsch, Mary Jennings, Christel Kraft, Christopher McLean, Hanspeter Mühlethaler, Janet Pfunder
Rob Foxcroft – Meditative Listening and Four Pillars of Focusing
Rob Parker seminars on Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit
Gisela Uhl – Ulumagila Focusing and Philosophy
Hanspeter Mühlethaler – Focusing and Thinking at the Edge (TAE)
Viola Rusche Focusing, Films, Dreams
Neil Dunaetz – Domain Focusing and Philosophy of the Implicit
Alessandro Rossi – Focusing Theory and Practice
Rob Foxcroft – Meditative Listening
“Empathy is the essence of our humanity .”
“The way is one of hope, love and commitment”.
One of many noteworthy articles by Rob: “An Earlier and (Perhaps) More Searching Focusing” – Rob Foxcroft’s November 5, 2005 article on Gene Gendlin’s book Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning (1962)
Rob’s first website is at www.robfoxcroft.com. On the first page you will see his lovely description of “four pillars” of Focusing: 1. Relational depth 2. Experiential search 3. The transition to the new space 4. The open space.
Rob Foxcroft writes:
I see Focusing as having four pillars:
1. Relational depth
As relational beings, we need to be able to tell when we are in touch with one another, and how to evoke a sense of encounter, when contact is thin or not yet present.
2. Experiential search
You are the expert on your life, both on what to say and on how to move forwards. It is your life. My role is keep you company whilst you are feeling your way forward, to follow attentively the fine workings of your emotional intelligence.
3. The transition to the new space
Suppose you’re exploring some problem or situation in your life. After a while you come to a halt. You’ve said all the part you know, and find yourself stuck or puzzling. Something new needs to come, and you don’t yet know what this will be. As you begin to dwell at that point of uncertainty, you let some mild new sense come to you of the-problem-as-a-whole. What is this whole thing like? What does it feel like, as a whole?
4. The open space
Finally: when you are with another person, you can lean into a flow of listening, wrinkle by wrinkle, trusting the other to find a way forward. Listening is a beautiful open space. In that open space, something may come to you. Why not say it? You can say anything at all which seems likely to be helpful, or just because you feel like it. And then you listen carefully once more, to see how they are taking what you said.
These four pillars are the foundations of my work. They are simple, clear and poignant.
Rob Foxcroft’s new website which we also refer to again and again is at:
http://www.meditativelistening.com
meditative listening
the listening partnership
the listening circle
listening in everyday life
meditative communion
spiritual accompaniment
about the retreats
the long retreat 2013 – 2014
the short retreat 2013
focusing and music
listening fundamentals
listening apprenticeship
about lineage
about me
Gisela Uhl – Ulumagila Focusing and Philosophy
Ulumagila Focusing
Gisela Uhl
Focusing and Philosophy
Presenter at the 2011 International Focusing Conference
Focusing training with Rob Foxcroft in Scotland and Mary Armstrong in Toronto
12 years participation in a Focusing and Philosophy reading group with Ann Weiser Cornell and Rob Parker 1999-2012
Offering Focusing sessions and tutorials in Focusing and Philosophy
Gisela Uhl in Bensheim, Germany (North of Heidelberg)
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (49) 6251-780 515
Hanspeter Mühlethaler – Focusing and Thinking at the Edge (TAE)
Hanspeter Muehlethaler
Ph.D in Physics
Focusing Trainer and Lecturer at the Universities in Zurich
Focusing and Thinking at the Edge (TAE)
classes and tutorials in both German and English
4600 Olten SO SWITZERLAND
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.hpm-focusing.ch/
Telefon +41 (0) 62 296 59 25
Mobil +41 (0) 79 619 95 19
Viola Rusche Focusing, Films, Dreams
Viola Rusche
In addition to giving Focusing sessions,
I work as an editor and filmmaker in Berlin, Germany.
I have practiced Focusing since 1998, starting with Astrid Schillings in Cologne and going on with the DAF in Würzburg. I have a Focusing partnership since ten years, which is a constant source of wonder and thankfulness in my life. I love reading Gene Gendlin’s philosophical texts, so often it feels just like: Yes, exactly!
There is one experience, I would like to share with you: not only the dreams are fascinating, but also the way, we forget them! Sometimes I lose a dream just in the moment I thought I could get hold of it and this phenomenon evokes a very strong felt sense in my body.
So I looked a bit closer and found out, that in normal life I only realize when I have already forgotten something, but I never witness the process or even the moment of the forgetting itself. So this starts to become quite exciting for me and gives me a double profit, either working with a dream (if it stays with me) or exploring the way I have forgotten it (which sometimes really feels as if somebody from the other side is pulling it away from me.)
I have the vague feeling that there is something important to find out about all this, that is why I want to share this with you.
For me a good balance of remembering dreams and forgetting dreams feels best, although this is not in my control, of course.
I felt a lot of respect for our inner regulation. It is not the quantity that counts and a comparison with eating (chewing slowly) feels right for me, too.
There is always a good reason, when dreams do not want to stay. Sometimes they are a bit like shy and wild animals and we should not aim at them so directly and better give them THEIR time to come. But also I have good experience with making the effort to write down immediately, even if something in me feels too tired. Funny, but for me it helps to keep one eye closed while writing, so that at least the closed eye can stay in sleep-mode. Of course, it is a trick, but it helps.
Concerning the theme of forgetting dreams, I now study the ways, they go away: sometimes it feels like they slip away, sometimes it is like evaporating, and sometimes as if somebody tears the dream away from the other side. I find that very fascinating, because it always feels as if on this other side there is kind of a huge reservoir of the other me, that I normally have no access to.
Neil Dunaetz: Domain Focusing and Philosophy of the Implicit
| I teach focusing in the context of Gendlin’s philosophy of the implicit because this furthers our process and expands what is possible. I also offer small group and individual study in Gendlin’s philosophy.My background is in biological farming, progressive political activism, and personal growth. The relevance of focusing, for me, is not only to our personal issues and situations, but also to our social and economic relations, how we go forward together (or not)on this planet, including our interface with the other life.My Publications:
First-Applying: An Experiential Approach to Reading Gendlin’s A Process Model |
Exploring Gendlin’s Process Model – for Focusers and Focusing Teachers
7 classes June 25 through August 6
Would you like to get more experience with Gendlin’s Process Model? This short 7-week course is for Focusers and Focusing Teachers, and is intended to give a “solid taste” of Gendlin’s deepest philosophy.
Together we will read and discuss selected parts of the text, engaging key concepts and workings of the model. Along the way, there will be experiential exercises to help you “find” the new meanings.
With a maximum of 8 participants, you will be encouraged to ask questions and actively participate in discussions. The classes will be recorded; if you miss one you can listen later.
We will meet by combination of Skype and phone—you can use either.
Please let me know if you are interested so that I can reserve a space for you. I also offer one-to-one study in Gendlin’s philosophy.
Neil Dunaetz
email [email protected]
phone 707 829-8938
skype name neildunaetz
“….your approach is the first that has worked for me, i.e. I tried at least two if not three times to study the PM with others and I just gave up. So I thought you should know that I am still here!
“…. I am getting some understanding of the concepts even though I probably couldn’t explain it to anyone. Someday, I may want to tackle the whole book but for now, I feel that there is a glimmer of light getting through and with that, more patience to explore further. It is an exploration for me with the aim to be a better Focusing teacher. It is my first time studying philosophy, so reading the text many times has helped.”
– Michelle Habington, Focusing Teacher, Canada
Alessandro Rossi: Focusing Theory and Practice,
Addressing Social Problems and the Educational System with the Philosophy of the Implicit, crossing with System Dynamics and Psychosynthesis
Could the Focusing process, the TAE (Thinking at the Edge) process, in general “Thinking with the Implicit” be applied in a group, having each member the ‘same’ social problem or situation as reference? What kind of specific integration or differentiation steps would such a process require? And could it be experienced in the school system? Are there any experiences, applications, experimentations in these directions? Would it be possible to start an experience in such areas?
I graduated in Economics (with a thesis in sociology about the autonomous work groups experimentations to overcome the alienation of the assembly line organization…how has the world changed!). Professionally, I have applied the system dynamics approach in business organizations.
In the early ‘90s I met the system dynamics and systems thinking methodologies. What has fascinated me is the possibility to ‘enter into’ a complex problem, at the beginning unstructured and unclear, and – applying the specific language, simulation tool and building process – to discover (in which space?) and represent (symbolize) gradually the ‘implicit’ feedback structure that cause the critical dynamic behavior of the system. In fact, it is a learning process, a process that allows to make explicit our implicit mental-models about the structure of the problem and its dynamics, to become aware of the weaknesses and consequences of our worldview, of new connections and new feedback loops, enhancing as a result our way of thinking and the quality of our decision process.
In addition to completing my Focusing training with Germana Ponte., my background includes the Psychosynthesis of Roberto Assagioli training journey (based on experiential groups) and, subsequently, the psychosynthesis counseling course at the Milan Institute. The journey (never finished) has been a fundamental personal transformational experience.
I read the main articles of the rich Gendlin Online Library about The Philosophy of the Implicit, TAE, and A Process Model (alone!..you can imagine the result..). I realized the relevance and the novelty, not only for the personal dimension, but I felt a great frustration for the philosophical complexity: alone I would never have been able to ‘enter into’ it, ‘have’ it..let alone practice it.… Now I am engaged in ongoing study of Gendlin’s philosophy with Neil Dunaetz. Thanks to Neil and his courses, I would like to continue the ‘journey’ in deepening and ‘having’ in more precise way The Philosophy of the Implicit (even though I am aware that the learning process has no end). Why am I so interested in the APM VIII sequence and Thinking with the Implicit? The answer is still implicit in me. I feel them as a kind of attractor of my energy field. Besides the personal dimension, maybe for the ‘crossing’ of all my experiences, I feel (bodily) that the attractor has a particular focus and dynamics when we speak about social problems and the educational system.