How We Work: Giving Psychology Away

Helping Professionals: Physicians, nurses, counselors, psychotherapists, body-centered healers, teachers, ministers

Because of her retirement from active teaching and training, Dr. McGuire is no longer running an experiential learning community to train helping professionals or Experiential Focusing Professionals.

There are many training programs for helping professionals through Certifying Coordinators at The Focusing Institute. Dr. McGuire especially recommends training with:

  1. Certifying Coordinator Ruth Hirsch, who has many years experience with Focusing-Oriented Body Work as well as Inner Relationship Focusing and offers Level 1-4 training in Israel, the USA, and by teleconference. www.ruthhirsch.com
  2. Coordinator-in-Training Suzanne Noel, who has developed a unique application of Focusing to 12-Step programs for recovery from addiction and offers training by teleconference. www.recoveryfocusing.com
  3. Certifying Coordinator Laury Rappaport, Ph.D., of the Focusing and Expressive Arts Institute, Santa Rosa, CA, integrating Focusing into Art Therapy www.focusingarts.com
  4. Certifying Coordinator Doralee Grindler Katonah, Psy.D., M.Div, integrating Focusing into healing ministry, www.livingforwardwhole.com
  5. Certifying Coordinator Jim Iberg, Ph.D. , Clinical Psychologist specialized in  Focusing-Oriented Therapy and empathy education, http://empathywork.weebly.com
  6. Elizabeth Lehmann, Ph.D. Integrating Focusing with the latest body/brain methods for restoring connection within and between ourselves and with our environment. Clinical psychologist experienced in trauma work www.restoringconnection.c

However, because of her commitment to helping professionals' training through a peer counseling model and within a supportive community based upon active practice of Listening and Focusing, Dr. McGuire is leaving her model for training up as an example of such an experiential learning approach. You can read about it below:

Creative Edge Focusing™ provides an online and face-to-face experiential learning community where you will learn counseling skills by spending time in the role of client (Intuitive Focuser) as well as counselor (Focused Listener). If you have not done so yet, you can begin with a Basic Listening/Focusing Training class or workshop in your area and language or join a Focusing-Oriented Therapy training program. Some of these offer Continuing Education or University credits.

However, as a major step in your training, you are asked to start a peer counseling training group of colleagues. Our Self-Help Package, with the manual Focusing In Community (Focusing en Comunidad), the DVD including four 12-minute Experiential Focusing session with Dr. McGuire as Focused Listener, and the CD with Complete Focusing Instructions, will tell you all you need to know, and you will have ongoing support in our e-support groups.

Through your own peer counseling group of fellow learners, and through additional phone supervision with Dr. McGuire and participation in our experiential learning e-groups, you will learn and practice her specific skills for deepening your work as an Experiential Focusing Professional.

Problems You Face And Our Solutions

  • Problem: You are burned out. You’ve been to countless workshops, but nothing sticks.
  • Solution: The advantage of our experiential learning model is that, while you actually practice new skills until they “stick,” you are receiving healing yourself and learning self-nurturing skills for preventing burnout.

    Through our peer counseling model for training, you will spend time as the Intuitive Focuser and as the Focused Listener. You will learn to incorporate the Listening/Focusing orientation into skills and methods you already use. You will experience first-hand how these “experientializing” methods offer depth and grounding to everything you already do.

    You will also learn to apply these methods to work with couples and families while you heal your own “blind spots” and “shadow sides” through the use of Interpersonal Focusing with personality conflicts which arise within the experiential learning community.

    And, as a bonus, you will learn how to work collaboratively with colleagues and groups and to build community, strengthening your own supportive network and that of your clients.
  • Problem: You feel the pressures of managed health care, little time to connect, yet you hunger for connection and depth.
  • Solution: Dr. McGuire has specialized in facilitating deep, lasting change within a brief therapy context. Her “Five Minute Grieving” protocol under Instant “Ahah!”s  allows for deep connection and healing even within the constraints of short medical appointments. Her articles provide theory and case studies of Focusing as a brief therapy intervention. Her “Focusing Inner Child Work” uses Experiential Focusing for healing emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in a brief therapy context. At the same time, her work with “Being Touched and Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears” allows access to a place of deep, profound spirituality during client/patient contacts. Specific to Dr. McGuire’s approach is an emphasis upon :
    • Focusing Inner Child work
    • The “sheen of tears” as an indicator of areas of profound personal meaning as well as of possible unresolved childhood issues
    • Experiential Focusing as a method of brief therapy from a humanistic standpoint (
    • Psychotherapy training through peer counseling
    • Integrating Listening/Focusing moments into medical interviews and situations

Order Dr. McGuire’s The Experiential Dimension In Psychotherapy manual.

Click here to view the Experiential Focusing Professional Training Program . Use the Free Phone Consult icon to email Dr. McGuire at kathy@cefocusing.com to discuss options.

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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.