by Alan Tidmarsh
Paper presented to the 22nd International Focusing Conference, 5-9 May 2010 Hohenwart Forum, Germany.
Focusing-oriented therapy shows a great sensitivity towards a client’s felt sense and the need to be with that... more
Focusing-oriented therapy shows a great sensitivity towards a client’s felt sense and the need to be with that ‘something’ in a special way. Yet where the therapeutic relationship fits in, so important in other therapies, is far less clear. Sometimes it seems as if focusing is merely a subjective process that could be done just as well alone.
I disagree. Using Gendlin’s concept of ‘interaffecting first’ I am developing a focusing-oriented practice where the therapeutic relationship has a pivotal place. I work with ‘addicts’ and ‘substance misusers’, people who seem to absent themselves in so many ways. A strong ‘being-with’, an intersubjective felt sense, seems just the right way to address their ‘being-without’.
This session builds on a presentation made in Awaji in 2009. Alan Tidmarsh is a focusing-oriented therapist in Norwich, UK, working with substance abusers. He is studying for a PhD on focusing-oriented therapy and ‘addiction’.
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