Painting by Janet Pfunder
Focusing Oriented Relational Psychotherapy Study Programs
with Lynn Preston and the FORP faculty
They will develop:
• Confidence, freedom and versatility in the use of focusing to facilitate therapeutic change
• A more in depth grasp of the Philosophy of the Implicit as it informs therapeutic processes
• A working knowledge of how to use contemporary psychoanalytic relational theories as they are experientialized by focusing
• Facility in tuning into the micro-moments of the therapy process and the larger unfolding journey of therapeutic relationship
• An in depth exploration of how focusing theory and practice can inform and enrich the psychotherapy relationship
These programs will introduce you to skills and theoretical understanding of how Gendlin’s philosophy of the implicit can broaden and deepen relational psychotherapy.
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TWO YEAR TRAINING PROGRAM
For psychotherapists and psychoanalysts who are already familiar with focusing. Classes meet on Monday evenings starting September 2009
This program includes:
• Six modules (3 each year) taught by Lynn Preston, and 6 mini courses (3 each year) taught by other faculty members
• Bi-weekly individual supervision or weekly group supervision (15 individual or 30 group sessions per year)
• Bi-monthly Sunday workshops (optional, open to the public)
• Bi-weekly Focusing partnerships
Each module will be both didactic and experiential.
Readings from focusing and relational psychoanalytic theory will be provided.
Year One
1. Implicit Intricacy – A New Look at Focusing
Explains what we commonly call the deeper level, or embodied knowing, will be explored theoretically and experientially.
2. Experiential Responding -Using the Felt Sense
Working with the subtle movements of responding from our own felt sense to the felt sense of the client and to the interaction. We will show how focusing concepts and skills can be used with clients who don’t have access to the feeling level as well as those who do.
3. Experiential Responding – Evocative Reflection
Working with the kinds of responses that invoke, evoke amplify and welcome what is emergent in the client and in the partnership.
Year Two
4. The New Us: The Felt Sense of the Relational Field and Carrying the Relationship Forward
We will explore the intricacies of attending not only to the client, but also to the therapist’s implicit process and to the intersubjective field. We will work with the understanding that out of a new “us” a new “I” emerges.
5. Micro-Movements of Focusing and Relationality
Studying and practicing through role play, demonstrations and videos, the focusing and relational skills inherent in spontaneous, graceful and impactful therapeutic process. We will approach some current relational psychoanalytic theories and how they interface with our understanding of Focusing.
6. Ruptures, Enactments and Impasses: When the Therapy Relationship Is in Trouble
This final course will focus on the challenges of pivotal periods in therapy in which the client and therapist have lost their way and are at their wits end – baffled, confused, conflicted and stuck. We want this exploration to offer theoretical perspectives and skills that provide concrete help for these critical moments.
Mini Courses
Taught by FORP faculty
Six mini courses – three per year. Each is four weeks long and will be held on Monday evenings in November, February and May.
Topics include:
1. Attitudes, Values and an Overarching Sensibility (Jenny Ross)
2. Making Space for the Many Aspects of Self (Judith Cobb and Anne Shollar)
3. The “I,” the “You,” and the “Us” (Charlotte Howorth)
4. Building a Culture of Relationality: Verbally and Nonverbally (Eileen Kaufman and Joan Lavender)
5. The Philosophy of the Implicit (Janet Pfunder)
6. Spirituality and Psychotherapy – The Largest Context (Ruth Rosenblum and Susan Rudnick)
Weekend Workshops
Meet on the first Sunday of October, December, February, April and June
Topics include:
• Applications of the Philosophy of the Implicit to Psychotherapy
Making a relationship with the “Client’s Client”
• Focusing on ourselves and the meaning of our work as therapists
• Applications of the art of improvisation to the theory and practice of psychotherapy
• Working with the patient who cannot “focus”
• At our wit’s end: focusing and the difficult therapy interaction
Particular applications of focusing for addictions, trauma, life transitions, etc.
• Visual experiencing
• Working with dreams
Supervision/Mentoring
Group Supervision
Lynn Preston’s group meets every other Tuesday evening from 6:00 –7:30
Jude Cobb’s group meets Tuesday mornings from 9:00 – 10:30
Janet Pfunder’s supervision/study group meets Wednesday evenings, 7:30-9:00 in Park Slope
Other groups to be announced
Individual Supervision
Supervisors are certified focusing trainers as well as experienced relational psychotherapists. (See bios on “Faculty and Supervisors” page.)
Fees
Classes and group supervision sessions are $50 per session ($200 a month)
Individual supervision is $80
Sunday workshops are $100
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OTHER COURSES OF STUDY
Ongoing Focusing Enriched Psychotherapy Study Group
This group includes psychotherapists who are new to focusing as well as those who are familiar with it. Individual and group supervision is available to participants as well as weekend workshops.
Classes meet every other Tuesday evening from 6:00 – 7:30pm.
(Alternating with Lynn Preston’s supervision group)
Classes and group supervision sessions are $50 per session ($200 a month)
Advanced FORP Study Group
This new ongoing study group is open to all therapists who know focusing.
It is both experiential and theoretical. Using readings from relational psychoanalysis and Gendlin’s philosophy of the implicit, we look at how theory shapes practice and practice, along with creative thinking, generates theory. Although the structure of this group is flexible and improvisational, we usually start from our immediate experience of the ideas presented and spell out the implications of these ideas for practice. We use focusing processes, demonstrations, and clinical examples to integrate our personal self-experience and professional development.
This class meets every other Monday morning from 10:30 – 12:00, starting September 2009.
Classes are $50 per session ($200 a month)