CASE STUDIES AND TESTIMONIALS

4. Focusing Groups/Teams -- Check In, Then Break Into Pairs Or Triads

  1. Focusing – Individualmente, con un Entrenador de Borde Creativo o con un Terapeuta de Focusing Experiencial.
  2. Turnos Iguales de Intercambio de Escucha/Focusing
  3. Focusing Interpersonal – Usar Escucha/ Focusing Para Facilitar la Resolución de Conflictos
  4. Grupos y Equipos de Focusing – Registrarse, Luego Dividirse en Parejas y Tríadas
  5. Reuniones de Toma de Decisiones
  6. Communidades de Focusing
  7. Organizaciones de Borde Creativo

Focusing Groups have functioned successfully for thirty years, all over the world,  since the original Changes Group in 1970, without professional facilitators. Our manual, Focusing in Community (Focusing en Comunidad), in our Self-Help Package, teaches you how to start your own Focusing Group or Team. Often group members take a Listening/Focusing Training Workshop or Class together, then continue on as their own self-help group. You can find a listing of existing Changes Groups, maybe one in your area, through our Free Resources area.

Often the same group of people continue to meet once a week or twice a month for fifteen or more years. There might be a core group of up to fifteen people. Not all come every week. As long as there are two people, the Focusing Group can happen. Optimal size is six-eight per meeting, given how long Check-In takes. New people may or may not be incorporated, depending upon the decision of group members.

In an emotional Support Group, turns are more likely to be about personal issues. Because of the nature of Focused Listening, which does not include giving advice or judgment, the Listening/Focusing Exchange has proven to be a safe yet powerful form of mutual peer self-help for over thirty years. Video: Beginning Empathy Circle

In a work group or team, Check-In can be each person’s update on work on a joint project, then the Listening/Focusing turns can be on topics related to problems or next steps related to the project. If there is not time for turns in the group setting, team members can also use the time after Check-In to arrange separate Focusing Partnership turns at other times during the work week so that they can continue to support each other in creative thinking and problem solving. Video: Task-Oriented Team Meeting

Meetings are typically 1 ½ to 2 hours long. Basically, the group meeting starts with “Check-In,” an uninterrupted, three minute turn for each person to share their “News and Goods” since the last meeting. Check-In is so valuable to group members that, often, a person will drive a considerable distance and announce, “I don’t have time to stay for Turns, but I didn’t want to miss Check-In. I want to hear how everyone is doing.”

After Check-In, the group members split into pairs or triads and go off into separate quiet spaces for the exchange of equal Listening/Focusing turns, as in a Focusing Partnership above. Turns last from twenty minutes to 30 minutes each way, a total of 50 to 70 minutes, including feedback at the changeover.

If the group is small (four or five people), they can choose to stay together, each taking a shorter, 15-minute turn, one Focuser with one Focused Listener, with the rest of the group listening in passively. This can be an effective way for a work group to create innovative solutions together.

At the end, people join together for a few moments, each individual Focuser choosing to share anything that came up in their turn. In a work group or team, individuals can share the new steps they came to in problem solving and make plans for next steps in carrying the project forward. Since the central model, with Check-In at the beginning and Closing at the end, is the same as the Focusing Partnership model outlined above, I will not give a lengthy example here.

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These materials are offered purely as self-help skills. In providing them, Dr. McGuire is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.