Hi Franc,
should have a better go at ECM.
I too liked that about focusing. I find it really interesting that one can 
have awareness of a felt sense, and images, and so on and know instantly 
what it is about in ones life- which is I guess a field of experience, which 
could be put to words as a narrative.
Think re EFT its the general point that what we are doing or think we are 
doing is probably not inclusive by a long way as a description or 
understanding.
Best wishes,
Tasha



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Franc Chamberlain" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: Mathias Dekeyser


> Hi tasha, yes, ECM is quite a tough book - although there are some
> very accessible parts of it, I think.
>
> Yes, storying -- one of the reasons I liked focusing was the sense
> that the focuser was not required to share their story with the
> listener if they didn't want to - they could share as much or as
> little as they wanted - the listener's role is to support the focuser
> to pay attention to hir own experiencing, and not to interpret or
> create a story for the focuser.
>
> This seems to me to be particulary important where there are abuse issues.
>
>
> In relation to EFT, do you mean that the tapping is a diversion? Or
> that tapping is a way of making you more open to the 'narrative'?
>
> best wishes
>
> Franc
>
> On 17/10/06, Natasha Barlow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Hi Franc,
>> Thanks, thats interesting. I also first leanred of focusing through the 
>> book
>> On Being Intimate, and also got to thinking about how I was relating to 
>> my
>> own experience through my early expereinces focusing.
>> I've had a look at 'Experience and the Creation of Meaning', but find it
>> hard going.
>> Something that interests me is how we story expereinces- thinking now of
>> psychotherepeutic experience as a client or therapist, or indeed any
>> expereince. Recently went to someone who practices EFT, to see what it ws
>> about- and found myslef noticing the gap between her story of what she 
>> was
>> doing and 'what was happening' and mine, which were different- because 
>> she
>> was convinced that the tapping was having an effect, meanwhile she was
>> talking to me using a very particular langauge, metaphor, encouraging a
>> certain stance on interpreting expereince and so on, which seemed to me 
>> the
>> instrument of the therapy (not the tapping).
>> Any way all food for thought!
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Tasha
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Franc Chamberlain" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 12:36 PM
>> Subject: Re: Mathias Dekeyser
>>
>>
>> > Hi Tasha,
>> >
>> > I'll try.
>> >
>> > I think my first encounter was though John and Kris Amodeo's book
>> > 'Being Intimate', which really is a book to practice -- but I dealt
>> > with it very much through ideas and patterns rather than using it as a
>> > way to learn focusing. It had connections to my experiencing and what
>> > I was exploring in counselling (Rogerian) and therapy (post-Reichian)
>> > at the time...
>> >
>> > The next connections were through David Michael Levin's work, which I
>> > was using in my PhD (on  theatre and its relationship to alternative
>> > spiritual movements and practices between 1890 and 1916 - title:
>> > Embodying the Spirit) and a proof text of an essay of Gendlin's that
>> > was loaned to me by David Wood when he was at Warwick. I resonated
>> > with what Gendlin was writing -- but I still wasn't practicing
>> > focusing.
>> >
>> > Some time later I was exploring the Process Work of Mindell et al and
>> > found myself with a particular difficulty. So, intuitively, I decided
>> > to explore Focusing to see if it would help with the difficulty. It
>> > did and I eventually qualified as a Focusing trainer. I want to say
>> > that there wasn't a problem with 'process work' but there was
>> > something that I wasn't getting and Focusing helped me get to it.
>> >
>> > The experience of practicing focusing was different from reading about
>> > it. Sounds obvious, doesn't it? Like reading about a place and then
>> > visting it -- no matter how much you 'know' through the reading, (and
>> > I don't mean that simply logically as a list of facts, but also the
>> > imagination, the bodily experience of this other place) the 'knowing'
>> > through actually beng in the place is different...
>> >
>> > I don't mean focusing is or leads to a place, of course...
>> >
>> > For me, the practice of Focusing quickly brought into awareness a
>> > particular atitude that I had towards myself that was quite
>> > destructively critical, and that affected my relationship with myself
>> > and with others. It really didn't matter how much I 'knew' about
>> > supergos. cops in the head, inner fascists. judges or critics, top
>> > dogs - there was a shift in awareness with Focusing, as if another
>> > dimension had been added. That helped me allow things a little more
>> > time to unfold in my body, to allow the felt sense to develop, and to
>> > have a good sense of where the destructively critical attitude was
>> > manifesting itself.
>> >
>> > There are numerous ways in which this awareness shift might have
>> > occurred but it occurred through focusing in me. That then fed back
>> > into the other work I was doing, whether it was teaching performance,
>> > or exploring process work, or underatking somatics training with
>> > Sondra Fraleigh.
>> >
>> > But I guess there are different things here
>> >
>> > (i) the shift in attitude that occurred through the focusing process
>> > (content)
>> >
>> > (ii) the 'doing' of focusing which becomes and embodied awareness of
>> > the form as opposed to a theoretical awareness of ts shape.
>> >
>> > So, I guess the shift in my relationship to focusing is that I am now
>> > informed through the process of focusing rather than having
>> > information about it.
>> >
>> > This has implications for my understanding of Gendlin's philosophical
>> > work, (or any philosophical work) because I read from a differently
>> > informed perspective.
>> >
>> > This probably holds for any kind of shift in awareness, any kind of
>> > newly embodied knowledge, that it affects how we understand things -
>> > but Gendlin is saying something about that..... Drawing attention to
>> > it and thinking with it.
>> >
>> > I hope that gives something of an answer to your question (and in the
>> > process gives a little more information about me).
>> >
>> > Both Focusing and Thinking at the Edge are practices which can be said
>> > to emerge from Gendlin's Philosophy of the Implicit.
>> >
>> > best wishes
>> >
>> > Franc
>> >
>> >
>> > On 16/10/06, Natasha Barlow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >> Hi Franc,
>> >>
>> >> Thanks. Is it possible to say  anything about the sense it made moving
>> >> from
>> >> your philiosophical understanding to the experiential?
>> >> or suggest any reading in particular?
>> >>
>> >> Best wishes,
>> >>
>> >> Tasha
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ----- Original Message -----
>> >> From: "Franc Chamberlain" <[log in to unmask]>
>> >> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> >> Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2006 5:00 PM
>> >> Subject: Re: Mathias Dekeyser
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> > Hi tasha,
>> >> >
>> >> > That's pretty close to my understanding of the development of 
>> >> > focusing
>> >> > in relation to therapy... I was wondering about Adrian's notion that
>> >> > Gendlin's 'felt sense' emerged from psychoanalysis.
>> >> >
>> >> > I first encountered Gendlin's work as a student but as a 
>> >> > philsophical
>> >> > text rather than an embodied practice. I eventully learned 
>> >> > Focusing --
>> >> > and to assist others to learn it.
>> >> >
>> >> > best wishes
>> >> >
>> >> > Franc
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >
>>
>