Okay, but wait..

What is Focusing?

Focusing is a technique first developed by Eugene Gendlin in the 1950s that’s since grown to include a wide variety of practitioners and styles. I am particularly influenced by the Center for Applied Rationality’s approach, as well as Ann Weiser Cornell’s parts-based system called Inner Relationship Focusing.

The term “focusing” comes from a microscope lens. You start with something blurry, but given time and attention and adjustments, something clear emerges.

How do we apply the metaphor? Well, there’s this notion of the conscious and the unconscious, the idea that there are things that you know and that are influencing you beneath the surface. Maybe you’re furious that your partner keeps leaving dishes in the sink, but you notice your response is interestingly, suspiciously large.
Isn’t that curious?

In this process, we take something that’s implicit or under the surface, and we bring it to the explicit. It begins with noticing a felt sense in your body, a sensation, a vague and subtle something…. you put your attention on it… attempt to find words that describe it or fit it… then check back with the sensation to see if it’s accurate. Often there’s a lot of back and forth, and how this actually looks varies quite a lot. But a “successful” focusing session often has the phenomena of a felt shift - a moment of surprise at what comes out of your mouth, “oh!”, a sense of rightness, an automatic release of breath and relaxation.

You can almost conceptualize it like the body is a phone sending you notifications. They’ll keep pinging you until you finally check them and receive the message.

Let me show you

Each session is $170 for 60 minutes.