How We Work: Giving Psychology Away

THE FOCUSING DIAMONDS: Hands-on, Active Learning 

Creative Edge Focusing™ is a self-help model. We are actually teaching you, our customers, the crux, most central skills used by psychotherapists, coaches, and consultants to bring about creativity and change  --  Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening. You, your loved ones, and your co-workers will learn self-help skills which can be deepened through practice together, every day, for years.

Basic Listening/Focusing Training Model: Experiential Learning of Self-Help Skills and Each One/Teach One

Our training is hands-on, active learning. Everyone learns by doing. Depending upon your needs and resources, you can learn from our manuals and multi-media learning aids, you can take classes or workshops, you can have individual Coaching sessions, or you can plan onsite training programs.

While other coaches may help clients to access their creativity, Creative Edge (CE) Focusing Consultants teach all participants to do this themselves through the PRISMS/S Focusing Process .

While other consultants may come in and mediate your interpersonal conflicts, CE Focusing Consultants teach everyone to resolve conflicts, using the Interpersonal Focusing method of Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

While other consultants may teach managers to run efficient meetings, CE Focusing Consultants teach everyone to take responsibility for group decision making process and to share leadership at meetings through the Collaborative Edge Focusing Decision Making method of Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

The Each-One-Teach-One model insures that the first people trained can turn around to teach the next group and so on, including carry-over between home and work situations.

Application of PRISMS/S at all levels of Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid nourishes a Culture of Creativity Cultura de Creatividad.

THE FOCUSING FACETS: Core Beliefs of A Culture of Creativity

Listening/Focusing Norms and Structures Protect Creativity

We will instill norms -- underlying values supportive of creativity -- and structures --the specific skills and methods that actualize these norms. Everyone will understand the norms and structures. Everyone will know the Core Skills and Creative Edge Pyramid  of Applied Methods:

Listening/Focusing Conflict Resolution

Working through conflict is established as the norm.  Interpersonal conflicts and argument are seen as creative, each side having an important contribution to the whole, and that they will be dealt with using Interpersonal Focusing, a chance for participants to use Intuitive Focusing to articulate the “intuitive Wisdom” underlying their position and to use Focused Listening to come to a deep understanding of the position of the other.

At work, when there is an obvious interpersonal conflict going on, either within a meeting or in the work environment, anyone can call for Interpersonal Focusing between the affected parties. When and where, with or without a third person facilitator, can be worked out, but anyone in the organization can ask that the norm be respected.

At home, anyone, including a child, can call for Interpersonal Focusing or a Collaborative Edge Focusing Decision Making meeting for problem solving.
 

“No Interruptions” and Turn-Taking Encourage Listening/Focusing

Creating “pauses” for accessing the Creative Edge is the norm. Pauses must be created for accessing and articulating The Creative Edge, the “intuitive feel” of problems and situations – for individual problem solving, at group/team meetings, and at decision making meetings.

Using the Shared Leadership and Coordinated Collaboration structures insures that group meetings are respectful and protective of Creative Edge problem solving. If  interruption or aggressive turn-taking and argument take over, anyone can ask that a Listening facilitator help the involved parties to take Interpersonal Focusing turns, looking for the creative energy and important information in the polarities of the conflict. Anyone in the group can call for Creative Edge Impasse Resolution.

Listening/Focusing Respect For Individual Differences

Seeing individual differences as contributing to overall creativity is the norm. Everyone will have experienced the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) and other measures of individual differences. More importantly, through the exchange of Listening/Focusing turns, everyone will have experienced both the uniqueness and the shared humanity of others.

Not everyone will be interested in achieving total mastery of all of these skills.
Some people will feel more comfortable or be more naturally skilled at facilitating Interpersonal Focusing, for instance, or leading Collaborative Edge Focusing Decision Making meetings. However, everyone will understand the norms and structures and be able to participate in them. And everyone will respect the right of all to be heard and appreciated.

Creating At The Edge Overcomes Apathy

 In groups and organizations, every individual must be engaged at their Creative Edge, in line with their own personal mission as well as advancing the common cause. Apathy calls for PRISMS/S to rediscover this Creative Edge.

Creative Edge Focusing Skills Carry Over At Home and At Work

Creative Edge Focusing skills can be carried over between home and work, increasing intimacy and understanding, decreasing stress. 

Below, you will find how we work with:

  • Organizations: Executives, managers, human resource personnel looking for explicit skill training for creativity, innovation, conflict resolution, and collaborative decision making
  • Individuals: Parents, lovers, friends looking for specific skills for creating more intimate and supportive relationships
  • Community Builders: Grass roots organizers,  volunteer coordinators, support group facilitators,  spiritual communities looking for specific methods which bind people together through empathy and which can also motivate them for concerted effort for the common good
  • Helping Professionals: Physicians, nurses, counselors, psychotherapists, body-centered healers, teachers, ministers looking for specific skills to deepen their healing work while deepening their own growth and preventing burnout
  • Creative Edge Collaborators or Consultants: Volunteers, foundations, Focusing Professionals, and others wishing to join us in spreading Listening/Focusing skills, basic human literacy, throughout the world.

Now that you have explored how we work with clients like you, Click Here For Specific Services And Programs NEXT>>

But, first, if you haven't yet, download our FREE Instant "Ahah!"s Mini-Manual  and FREE Complete Focusing Instructions by clicking the icons in the right column.

Want to learn more about Focused Listening and Intuitive Focusing?

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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.