Presentation Descriptions: The Northeast Regional Focusing ‐ Oriented Therapy Gathering Saturday morning workshops: 9:15 ‐ 10:45 am Getting The Deeper Point of The Relationship: Charlotte Howorth, LCSW As Gene has said, “We are interaction.” As FOT therapists skilled at listening to the implicit felt sense of the client, we can use this same powerful process to explore the implicit felt sense of the therapy relationship itself – the deeper point that “we,” therapist and client, are living together as one interaction. We can listen not only for what the client needs, but what is needed in the therapeutic relationship. Through a clinical story I will show the way in which an exploration of relatedness between therapist and client can be used to facilitate life ‐ forward movement in clients alienated from their own self ‐ process. Charlotte has a private practice in NYC. She teaches two year certification FOT trainings for TFI as well as being on faculty of Focusing Oriented Relational Psychotherapy where she supervises and teaches. Charlotte is also the clinical consultant to CHDFS, a social services agency that works clinically with families. KEEPER OF THE FLAME: Healing Inter ‐ Generational Trauma Using Focusing ‐ Oriented Therapy Beilah Ross Inter ‐ generational traumatization can be defined as the experience of having disturbing and/or debilitating cognitions and emotions closely resembling the traumatic symptoms of a close relative or friend, living or deceased. In this workshop I will share how FOT helped free me of the emotional burdens I had unwittingly taken on as the “keeper” of my grandmother’s Holocaust story. Then, through guided Focusing exercises, participants will have the opportunity to explore whether they are “holding” traumas experienced by family members from previous generations, and to begin to liberate themselves from any they may be carrying. Beilah Ross is a Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Boston. She earned a certificate in Traumatic Stress Studies from The Trauma Center in 2001, earned certification as a Focusing ‐ Oriented Therapist in 2009, and has been actively involved in the Focusing community since 2006. This is Your Brain on…Focusing! Carol Ivan Do you ever wonder why Focusing works so well? This workshop will explain, in simple language, what is going on in the brain/body/mind system when we focus. Using current research from neuroscience and cognitive science, we will unravel the mystery of the Focusing process. You will walk away with new ways of conceptualizing FOT and Whole ‐ Body FOT, as well as with specific interventions to use with clients. Carol Ivan has worked for 20 years as a psychotherapist in the Boston area. She has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, is certified in FOT, and in Whole ‐ Body Focusing. Carol brings much enthusiasm to her teaching, motivated by both her love of WBF and her never ‐ ending quest to make therapy easier and more effective for all involved.
Listening Murals: A Creative Focusing Oriented Family Therapy Exercise Beth Mahler, LCSW, FOT Eugene Gendlin once said, “The essence of working with another person is to be present as a living being.” Distressed families get stuck in old, non ‐ fluid patterns of sensing and interacting. As a living being and therapist, I have turned to nature and its nurturing qualities to explore felt sensing growth. Through this integrative journey, I developed a creative approach to teach felt sensing, pausing, focusing, and listening skills to families in family therapy. The workshop will be 20 % didactic, 80% experiential. It will include a review of Attachment Theory and its relevance to this exercise. The experiential component to this workshop will demonstrate how nature, nurture, the family, and a focusing oriented therapist can resonate within the system in the therapy session. Each participant will have an opportunity to create what I call “listening murals”. We will explore how this exercise can be adapted for individual and couples work. Beth Mahler is in private practice in Wayne, NJ. Certified by TFI in 2011, Beth currently facilitates individual and group workshops and retreats to teach Focusing as a self ‐ care practice. Beth also teaches a 2 year CFT/FOT certification course. Beth teaches undergraduates as an adjunct professor in the Sociology Department at William Paterson University. Saturday morning workshops Session 2: 11 ‐ 12:30: Stepping into the Sacred in Psychotherapy Joan Klagsbrun, PhD. Many aspects of the Focusing/deep listening process can move clients (and therapists) in the direction of awe--and towards what we might call sacred experience. Through experiential exercises, case examples, reflection and discussion, we will explore how Focusing-informed psychotherapy can open us to this dimenstion; how resources for healing can grow; and how these experiences, which we might call ‘spiritual,’ can profoundly affect both client and therapist. Joan Klagsbrun, Ph.D . a long time Focusing coordinator and trainer of FOTs, is a psychologist in private practice and has taught graduate students in counseling psychology for 35 years. Joan's cutting edge is exploring how Focusing and positive psychology enhance spirtual development and lead to a sense of the sacred. The Creation of an Experiential Environment Joan Lavender, Psy.D. An experiential environment is a state of being in which both therapist and client are deeply in tune with the process aspects of human being. When the therapist engages her own bodily felt sensing to resonate with her patient’s words, stories, she is cultivating a shared experiential environment. When this move ‐ from talking about to speaking from becomes an infinite source of meaning, beauty and vitality, it is an affirmation of the experiential environment. Joan learned Focusing in the 1970s and was immediately touched by what happens when we articulate
our "below the surface" experiencing. I have learned other perspectives since then, yet I still see experiencing as the heart of our work. It engages what is unique, creative, complex and beautiful in us. Focusing Oriented Coaching & The Maori Drawing Exercise*: A Way In Presented by Judy Garfinkel, Board Certified Life & Career Coach, Certified Focusing Professional Craving for personal growth has fueled the astonishing expansion of life coaching practices across the world today. This workshop offers an introduction to the coaching framework and provides practice with The Maori Drawing Exercise , a focusing ‐ friendly tool that helps clients, especially those without any prior Focusing experience, access inner knowing about where they are in important areas of their lives. Judy Garfinkel (MA ACC) is dedicated to supporting people toward personal transformation through her life, learning and career coaching practice, Move Into Change. Judy’s abiding fascination with the body led her first to professional ballet and then to a 25+ year career in progressive education, where, working with children, parents and teaching colleagues, she championed the body’s wisdom as essential to all learning. Disorganized, Overwhelmed, Anxious, Depressed: Using a Relational, Focusing ‐ Oriented Approach to Treat “Hidden” Adult ADHD Larry Letich, LCSW ‐ C Adult Attention ‐ Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, is misunderstood and frequently missed by clinicians, yet it is at the heart of many chronic cases of dysthymia or generalized anxiety. What's more, recent research suggests that ADHD causes predictable emotional symptoms that are every bit as debilitating as the cognitive symptoms, if not more so. These include extreme sensitivity to rejection, a "devastating" reaction to even slight criticism or disapproval, and a constant feeling/belief that one is "failing." This workshop will address how to recognize "hidden" adult ADHD and use a pragmatic yet also relational and focusing ‐ oriented approach to treat the emotional and cognitive dysregulation it causes. Larry Letich, LCSW ‐ C is an individual and marital therapist in Frederick and Rockville, Md. providing Focusing ‐ oriented therapy and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT). In addition to his general individual and couples work, he specializes in the comprehensive and Focusing ‐ oriented treatment of gifted adults with ADHD. Saturday Afternoon workshops: 2:30 ‐ 4 pm: Forming Fresh Meanings as We Focus on Aging... Kelley Bothe, LICSW and Hadley Fisk, LICSW Moving into aging rarely begins with a chosen or graceful moment. Our own aging and the aging of those close to us confronts us with inevitable losses and changes, challenging our need for continuity and predictability. In this experiential workshop we will share our experiences and our family stories. Through Focusing we hope to move beyond our present fears and concerns to find richer meaning in all aspects of our aging experience.
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