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IAFOTs
A Roadmap for Reading Gene Gendlin’s
Focusing-Oriented
Psychotherapy
From this has gradually emerged
a "roadmap" to
Gene's book, Focusing-
Oriented Psychotherapy, which is, of course, our main text.
Here is that roadmap for your
thoughtful consideration.
The reason for the roadmap
is that Gene's book is brilliant, dense and difficult.
Anything that helps with understanding it is useful. I
hope this will do that.
The place to start the book
is at chapter twenty-three, The Client-Therapist
Relationship. In this chapter Gene says that the relationship
of therapist and client
comes first. "Interpersonal interaction is the most
important therapeutic avenue" (p.283)
In this chapter Gene talks about the worst kind of therapeutic
relationship -one that
mimics a teacherish parent-child relationship) and the ingredients
of a good therapeutic
relationship, one that touches "the person in there".
Understanding this chapter is central
to getting the whole of the book.
After, comes Part One on focusing
and listening. Focusing and listening are the main
methods of Gene's FOT. He says in chapter twenty three that "In
therapy the
relationship (the person in there) is of first importance,
listening comes second, and
focusing instructions come only third." (p.297)
The first chapter of Part
Two is the linchpin from focusing and listening to other
psychotherapeutic methods.
Gene talks about procedures
and avenues of therapy. "Therapy
can consist of totally
different kinds of experience. I call these therapeutic 'avenues'.
A given therapeutic
event can consist of images, role play, words, cognitive
beliefs, memories, feelings,
emotional catharsis, interpersonal interactions, dreams,
dance moves, muscle
movement, and habitual behavior." The link is the felt
sense: "If we think of ourselves
as working with the client's felt sense, then each avenue
becomes a way to lead to a felt
sense. And, once there is a felt sense, all avenues are ways
too carry it
forward."(pp..170-171)
Gene says that FOT can also
learn from each of the other methods. He also says that
FOT is not the only way to do therapy helpfully. I think
this sentence is quite important: "No one has the right to claim that there is only one
way for human beings to grow, in
therapy, or in personal development, or in anything." (p.108)
There follow six chapters
( 12-17) on other avenues of therapy which can be utilized
in a felt sense-oriented way. Then comes what I think should
be Part Three of the book.
That is, I don't think it is just a two-part book. I think
part three is chapters 19-23.
The chapters on the critic
and the life-forward direction are the main ones there for
me. These are aspects of Gene's FOT that I don't have a good
name for. I will call them,
tentatively, special aspects of Gene's FOT.
Gene's chapter on the critic
can be usefully compared with Ann Weiser Cornell's
approach in The Radical Acceptance of Everything. (see, "Radical
Gentlenesss...") The
chapter on the Life forward direction can be read along with
Ann and Barbara
McGavin's essay on How the Life-Forward Direction Knows Which
Way To Go.
In chapter twenty-four, the
last chapter, Gene argues that not all that happens in therapy
is therapeutic. He wants the therapist to get past 'the
formal dance' that is an obstacle to
real relating. He is not arguing that therapy is the same
as friendship, but he is pointing
to some of the negative aspects that go along with being
labelled 'a therapist doing
therapy'.
I hope this sketchy summary
helps some in following Gene's text. The book, I think, is
brilliant. Perhaps the roadmap will help readers traverse
the difficult terrain that the
book seeks to cover. |
