I became aware of Focusing while listening to a lecture with Dr. John Gottman. He recommended Dr. Eugene Gendlin’s book Focusing to help couples learn to communicate better. Dr. Gottman recommended a simple exercise of feeling into the body how both truth and falsity resonate. Try for a minute by closing your eyes and saying a strong defining truth for you, such as, “I Love my dog.” See what you notice in your body. Where does it resonate? Then, follow-up with by saying the opposite of your truth. Sit with the feeling of what is not true for you. How does that feel for you? This process of recognizing a broader perspective perceiving is one aspect of the Focusing process. 

Gendlin’s self-help book, Focusing, published in 1978, came from the conjoint research with Dr. Carl Rogers at the University of Chicago. Their researched examined what makes therapy work and they discovered that therapeutic value transcended the methodology of the individual therapist and rested instead on something many clients were already doing within themselves. What clients were already doing came from what Gendlin described as a “Felt Sense” of something in the body that linked to a greater awareness of the individuals experience beyond mere conscious thought.