Introduction to Focusing with Children · History of Focusing and Research • 1958: Gendlin and...

Introduction to

Focusing with Children

copyright©2020 Sara Bradly. All rights reserved.

Sara Bradly MA

Workshop Structure

• History of Focusing & research

• What is Focusing?

• Using a body map to facilitate a Focusing process with a

child

• Activity in pairs / triads

• Sharing

• Questions


History of Focusing and Research

• 1958: Gendlin and Carl Rogers. Worked together with a team of

researchers on a research project lasting five years from 1958-1963.

• Focusing was ‘discovered’ and developed by Professor Eugene Gendlin

(University of Chicago 1964-1995) in the 1950s and1960s.

• Together completed a highly regarded piece of research into what

makes therapy successful.

• Surprising finding - successful therapy could be predicted by 4th

session and the variable wasn’t what the therapist did but what the

client did.



• Gendlin developed a method by which anybody could be guided to do

what these successful clients did. He called this method ‘Focusing’.

• 1968: Wrote ‘The Focusing Manual’ - began to teach Focusing.

• 1978: Published best selling self help book, ‘Focusing’. Translated

into17 languages and sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

• 1985: Founded the Focusing Institute, now the International Focusing

Institute


• 1996: Published book, ‘Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy’


• Modern research corroborates the positive correlation between use of

Focusing characteristics in therapy sessions and successful therapy

outcomes.

- Clark, 1990, Iberg, 1996, Durak, Bernstein & Gendlin, 1996, 1997, Morikaya,1997, Leijssen,

1997, 2000, Sachse, Atrops, Wilke & Maus, 1992. (Survey publication of Elliott, Greenberg and

Lietaer - 2004)

Source: Person-Centred and Experiential Therapies Work: a review of the research on

counselling, psychotherapy and related practices. (Ed) Cooper M, Watson JC, Hölldampf D.

(2010), PCCS Books, p150.



Since its inception Focusing has developed into various

models:

• Whole Body Focusing

• Inner Relationship Focusing

• Bio-Spiritual Focusing

• Children Focusing



Within a therapy context:

• Integral to the Person-Centred Experiential (PCE) model of therapy

• Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy

• An explicit aspect of Emotion Focused Therapy, which has been

adopted by the NHS IAPT service as an evidence-based alternative

to CBT for treating depression (CfD - Counselling for Depression).


What is Focusing?

• Focusing is a process by which a person becomes aware of a bodily

‘felt sense’ of a situation in their life, stays with this inner experiencing

with an attitude of acceptance and curiosity, and thereby enables it to

open up, revealing aspects that are new and that were previously

unknown. This leads to a ‘carrying forward’, to psychological growth.

• Key aspects of the process: ‘clearing a space’, ’creating distance’,

‘focusing attitude’, ‘felt sense’, ‘asking’.

• Can be practised alone, in pairs (i.e.peer partnerships, with a therapist/

focusing professional) and in groups.

• Not confined to therapy. It is widely taught to the public, businesses,

churches, Buddhist organisations, schools and other groups.


Children Focusing ‘an action statement that describes the fundamental goal’

Publications

• Marta Stapert and Erik Verliefde (2008): Focusing with Children: the

art of communicating with children at school and at home. PCCS

Books.

• Bart Santen (2014): Into the fear-factory: Connecting with the

traumatic core. Person-Centred & Experiential Psychotherapies.13(2),

pp.75-93.

• Bart Santen (2015): Treating dissociation in traumatised children with

body maps. In Cathy Malchiodi (Ed.), Creative interventions with

traumatised children pp.126-149. New York: Guildford Press.


Children Focusing Resources

• art

• sand tray

• small world figures

• puppets

• body mapping


• clay / play dough

• collage

• role play / movement

• sound/ music

Using a Body Map To Facilitate a

Focusing Process With a Child

Why?

• Body mapping enables children to be in connection

with a bodily felt sense and to communicate it to the

therapist. (Santen, 2014, 2015)

• Offers an accessible way for children to depict events

that are difficult to verbalise. (Hemmings,1995; Santen, 2014, 2015)

• Qualitative evidence of the benefits of body mapping

include increased empowerment, self esteem and

hope, and decreased self disapproval.

Source: FQS Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Embodied ways of storying the self: a

systematic review of body-mapping, Vol 17, No 2, Art. 22, 2016 - Adele de Jager, Anna

Tewson, Bryn Ludlow & Katherine M. Boydell


Using a Body Map To Facilitate a

Focusing Process With a Child

• Clearing a space

• Putting difficult feelings outside of the body

• Creating distance

• Which feeling/ problem wants my attention?

• Giving space to the felt sense

• Can I be kind to it?

• What does it need / want?


Case example 1












Case Example 2










Case Example 3


©Sara Bradly 2019





Thank you


• www.inner-focus.co.uk

• [email protected]

• 01603 514197 / 07979 180170

Focusing Training

Children Focusing Training

Focusing-oriented Psychotherapy

(adult and child)

Inner Focus Ltd, Registered Company Number: 12290120, registered in England & Wales. Registered address: The Union

Suite, The Union Building, 51-59 Rose Lane, Norwich, NR1 1BY

Sara Bradly MA


http://www.inner-focus.co.uk

mailto:[email protected]?subject=


Activity in pairs / triads

• Clearing a space: notice what is going on inside your body (feelings/ emotions relating to

different situations/ problems in your life) - symbolise these briefly with sticky notes /

objects.

• Notice how it feels in the body when all these feelings are put outside the body onto the

body map.

• Sense into which feeling on the body map wants your attention.

• Clear body map of other feelings (let them know you can return to them another time).

• Allow felt sense to form: Staying connected to the feeling that wants your attention,

choose objects to symbolise it. Allow it to take as much space on the body map as it

needs. Keep checking (sensing) if it needs to express more.

• Stand back, connect with a part of you that can feel friendly towards this feeling. Sense

into what the feeling needs / wants. Adjust image on body map to reflect what feels right.

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Introduction to Focusing with Children · History of Focusing and Research • 1958: Gendlin and...

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