FOCUSING from the person to the essence
from the person to the essence
by PONTE GERMANA
Focusing was developed more than fifty years ago within the field of humanist psychology by doctor Eugene Gendlin (who worked with Carl Rogers).Focusing means directing the attention to a specific form of “bodily sensation” that summarizes the complexity of everything we experience – the Felt Sense – which contains much more information about ourselves than what is kept in our minds. At a higher level, Focusing allows us to undertake a dialogue with the various aspects ofour personality and to comprehend their deep motivations: in this way energies which were blocked begin to flow again and inner harmony is reestablished. The author has an original perspective on this: “What we call the 'Parts' of our personality actually seem to be intelligent programs that developed over millions of years of evolutionin order to permit the physical body to live and interact on this material plane”. Focusing has enormous potential, much of which yet to be explored, since it reactivates our capacity to access information fields through “feeling-perceiving” rather than understanding. It could be of great support to scientists and researchers in anyhumanistic field since it adds to the understanding of reality an inner perception, or “subjective science”,as Gendlin called it.The text in the appendix, “THE GRACE OF THE STROKE. Encountering trauma and the gifts of listening”, by Roberto Tecchio, is an extraordinary example of how a traumatic event can be experienced in a constructive and integrated manner thanks to Focusing and, as in this case, be transformed into a spiritual experience.
