Introduction to focusing

Focusing is a natural process of listening in to ourselves and accessing more about how we feel and what we need. This practice can be done alone or with a partner to help you gain confidence navigating your ‘internal terrain’ and developing a relationship with your feelings and different aspects of yourself.

Through noticing the wider sense of how we are, not just our thoughts or emotions but how our body holds our experience, we can develop the ability to slow down, be calmer, trust ourselves and our feelings. Our embodied sense can show us what we are needing as the right next step and a regular practice of Focusing can be supportive, connect you with others and enrich your life.

The evening will introduce you to the process of Focusing and tuning in for the ‘felt sense’ of something. The workshop will be experiential in nature and you will have opportunities to experience what a Focusing process may be like. We will explore the values underpinning Focusing as well as the conditions that we hope to create for ourselves (and potentially others) throughout the Focusing process.

This workshop is for anyone, and will be of interest for those interested in Focusing for personal use as well as counsellors and helping professionals.

Focusing is a radically gentle yet empowering approach

Used for many decades by people to support themselves and each other in peer partnerships as well as in therapeutic contexts

It is a process of learning to trust that your inner experience holds the key to knowing what you need

You can develop a relationship with your own experience which will stand you in good stead for life’s challenges

Focusing is a fascinating, supportive and enlivening process

As we recognise that our experience is always shifting we can see that there is always

the potential for fresh life and new hope

About Suzi

I have been Focusing since 2008 and teaching Focusing since 2014. I am also a Person Centred counsellor and Supervisor and have a long standing interest in mental health and social justice. I regularly teach Focusing to groups at novice and professional level and offer one to one Focusing sessions and tailored trainings for organisations. I have a background in the public sector/education and have volunteered in community organisations working with people affected by homelessness, AIDS/HIV, sexual abuse and mental health issues. I passionately believe in the human potential to learn, heal and grow from experience.

The Focusing approach chimes with my belief that human experience is too complex to reduce to diagnoses. We can be curious about the complex web of factors impacting on each individual's wellbeing. A Focusing approach supports a view of human potential and is a non imposing approach consistent with the Person Centred tradition: I see the individual as expert on themselves and humans as agents of their own meaning making.

I do not see human struggle through a lens of illness, rather I see our culture often pathologizing natural human emotions, states and processes. I trust that people are doing their best to make sense of and cope with their life situations and I believe that when people can access and trust their felt sense they are generally more fulfilled and have a greater sense of wellbeing.

Host or Publisher Jo Watson