Services/Programs
Services and Programs: Multi-Media, Online, Onsite, International
Experiential Focusing Professional Training Program: For Helping Professionals ( Physicians, nurses, counselors, psychotherapists, body-centered healers, teachers, ministers) Worldwide Who Want To Deepen Lasting Change with Clients/Patients While Nurturing Themselves
Experiential Focusing Therapy
Experiential (EXP) Focusing Therapy is Dr. McGuire’s version of Gendlin’s Focusing-Oriented Therapy (Focusing-Oriented Therapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method, Guilford, 1996).The core skills of Experiential Focusing Therapy, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening,integrate into all other approaches to counseling and therapy, including body-centered work, spiritual direction, and medical interviews as well as psychotherapy.
Experiential Focusing Professionals keep their attention upon the client or patient’s Creative Edge, the “intuitive feel” from which new solutions and creative ideas can arise. They also pay attention to the Relational Edge (term created by Glenn Fleisch), the “intuitive feel” of the interactional space created between therapist and the client.
Experiential Focusing Professionals use Focused Listening to encourage Intuitive Focusing by the client. However, counselors can also incorporate all other techniques which might enable the client/patient to step out of fixed, static patterns. This can include body work, Gestalt and other experiential interventions, psychoanalytic and Self Psychology, interpretations of the therapeutic relationship, cognitive/behavioral analysis, Emotion-Focused Therapy, whatever the counselor has in his or her tool bag.
But the goal of interventions is always the same: allowing the client or patient to experience and pay attention to the “intuitive feel” underlying “stuck” patterns, the Creative Edge of change, and to articulate Paradigm Shifts out of this fresh, felt experiencing.
In our Interest Area: Experiential Focusing Therapy, you can learn about Creative Edge Focusing ™’s initiatives in this area. You will find many articles by Dr. McGuire on Experiential Focusing Therapy. You can also view “The First Ten Ways” that helping professionals can begin to incorporate the principles of Experiential Focusing Therapy into their lives and professional work. You can consider how you might join us in the projects of this Interest Area.
1. Experiential Focusing Professional Training Program
Because of retirement from active teaching and training, Dr. McGuire is no longer offering this training program. However, you can find a variety of training programs for Focusing-Oriented Therapists at The Focusing Institute, www.focusing.org, and The International Association for Focusing-Oriented Therapists (IAFOTS), www.focusingtherapy.org
2. Experiential Dimension in Therapy Manual
Dr. McGuire’s manual, The Experiential Dimension in Therapy, teaches how to do Experiential (EXP) Focusing Therapy. It includes the full transcript of two hour-long therapy sessions, with commentary by Dr. McGuire as therapist explaining why she intervened as she did. She describes her own experience as the therapist and what she was trying to accomplish.
One client was highly intellectualized, the other highly emotional. In both cases, interventions were aimed at helping the client out of static, repetitive thoughts or emotions and into the rich, fresh “experiential ground” out of which new meanings and forward action steps could be articulated.
The manual includes an introduction to The Experiencing (EXP) Scale a highly-regarded research tool which measures the degree to which a client/patient is speaking from the fresh, ongoing, “intuitive feel,” The Creative Edge, vs. static intellectualizations.
Higher EXP Level is correlated with lasting change in psychotherapy.
Experiencing (EXP) Scale ratings of each client statement show the interaction between the therapist’s interventions and changes in the client’s EXP level.
Learning the EXP Scale offers clinically-meaningful and useful insights in helping clients to transition to deeper levels of experiencing. A Chapter looks at the sessions, both client Experiencing Level and types of therapist interventions, from a process research perspective.
Book Review - The Experiential Dimension In Therapy
Click here to view and order Dr. McGuire’s manual, The Experiential Dimension In Therapy.
Want to learn more about Focused Listening and Intuitive Focusing?
- Subscribe to weekly e-course
- Join e-discussion/practice/support groups
- Purchase Self-Help Package
- Purchase Coaching/Consulting
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.
