Umbrella organization - The main umbrella organization for Focusing is the Focusing Institute. They publish a journal, maintain email groups, sell the accumulating number of books related to focusing, advertise workshops related to focusing, maintain a video library and provide access to most of Gendlin's writings.
Other focusing groups -
Focusing Resources - This is Ann Weiser's website. She has developed her own distinctive way of doing and teaching focusing. Carlisle Focusing Friends tries to model itself on her flavor of focusing. She writes a regular column of focusing advice. She also edited a journal for years that contained articles mostly devoted to practical issues around focusing. She also has lots of good materials on her website for free.
Other focusing groups -
Focusing Resources - This is Ann Weiser's website. She has developed her own distinctive way of doing and teaching focusing. Carlisle Focusing Friends tries to model itself on her flavor of focusing. She writes a regular column of focusing advice. She also edited a journal for years that contained articles mostly devoted to practical issues around focusing. She also has lots of good materials on her website for free.
Structured Conversations
Is it inevitable that so many conversations should be fruitless? Why, after centuries of experience, are humans still so awkward, rude, inattentive in conversation, with even 40 per cent of Americans - brought up to regard silence as unfriendly - complaining that they are too shy to speak freely? The answer is that conversation is still in its infancy - Theodore Zeldin
Focusing is one of a number of structured conversations that Friends (Quakers) promote in an effort to foster "moments that matter," to borrow a phrase from John Stewart's U&Me. The kind of conversations we care about are emergent, inclusive, based on equality, exploratory, experiential, creative, patient, gentle and kind. Specific Quaker practices include
Quaker Meeting for Worship
Quaker Business Meeting
Worship Sharing
Quaker Bible Study
You can find out more about Friends/Quakers at Carlisle Friends Meeting - our home meeting.
Related practices include
Sociocracy, which is a way to scale the consensus model of Quaker business meeting to larger groups and organizations
Non-violent Communication - Like focusing, NVC has its origins in Rogerian Client-Centered Psychotherapy. Where Focusing is
designed more for one person to explore their inner landscape, NVC is more for interaction between people.
Diapraxis - Designed for groups working on problems about which there is some conflict. The process leads to a kind of group coalescence with
the same kind of aha that you get in focusing, but as a group.
Open Space Technology - This is a scalable and extremely open-ended way for groups to come together. Friends have a weeklong national conference called Friends General Conference that is organized along similar guidelines.
Nancy Kline's Time to Think program - this is a process very similar to Focusing but described in completely different language. It came out of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, the larger group that Carlisle Friends Meeting is part of.
Is it inevitable that so many conversations should be fruitless? Why, after centuries of experience, are humans still so awkward, rude, inattentive in conversation, with even 40 per cent of Americans - brought up to regard silence as unfriendly - complaining that they are too shy to speak freely? The answer is that conversation is still in its infancy - Theodore Zeldin
Focusing is one of a number of structured conversations that Friends (Quakers) promote in an effort to foster "moments that matter," to borrow a phrase from John Stewart's U&Me. The kind of conversations we care about are emergent, inclusive, based on equality, exploratory, experiential, creative, patient, gentle and kind. Specific Quaker practices include
Quaker Meeting for Worship
Quaker Business Meeting
Worship Sharing
Quaker Bible Study
You can find out more about Friends/Quakers at Carlisle Friends Meeting - our home meeting.
Related practices include
Sociocracy, which is a way to scale the consensus model of Quaker business meeting to larger groups and organizations
Non-violent Communication - Like focusing, NVC has its origins in Rogerian Client-Centered Psychotherapy. Where Focusing is
designed more for one person to explore their inner landscape, NVC is more for interaction between people.
Diapraxis - Designed for groups working on problems about which there is some conflict. The process leads to a kind of group coalescence with
the same kind of aha that you get in focusing, but as a group.
Open Space Technology - This is a scalable and extremely open-ended way for groups to come together. Friends have a weeklong national conference called Friends General Conference that is organized along similar guidelines.
Nancy Kline's Time to Think program - this is a process very similar to Focusing but described in completely different language. It came out of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, the larger group that Carlisle Friends Meeting is part of.