From the Bookshelf of Paths to Wholeness…

[close] Although it was ten years or so between the time I bought Eugene Gendlin's 'Focusing' and when I actually began to use this technique in my personal life and my therapy practice, in many ways it is now at the heart of both. In the late 60s and early 70s, Gendlin teamed up with pioneer psychologist Carl Rogers to try to figure out why some people seemed to get better with therapy while others did not. After screening for all the factors one might suspect made the difference - therapeutic training and approach, experience, types of problems clients came in with, demographics, etc. - it turned out that the dominant factor was something clients either came into therapy doing (and improved) or didn't do (and didn't improve). Gendlin realized that this factor was a natural human quality, and he created this book, and many others, to help those of us who didn't natively do it learn how. I have practiced Focusing for many years, and I have taught it to a wide variety of clients so they can do it themselves. Easier to do than to explain, Gendlin's book nevertheless does an excellent job of summarizing the rationale behind it, the technique itself, and what to do if things don't seem to be working.