What is Focusing-Oriented Therapy?
Focusing-Oriented Therapy (FOT) is a client-centered, process-oriented, experiential therapy that works with immediate experience by using the felt sensing method—directly felt bodily experience of one’s lived reality. The therapist attributes central importance to the client’s capacity to be aware of their “felt sense” and the meaning behind their words or images, encouraging clients to sense into feelings and meanings which are not yet formed. What sets Focusing apart from other methods of inner awareness is the combination of the “felt sense,” a quality of engaged accepting attention, and a research-based technique that facilitates change.
Unlike traditional talk therapy that relies on cognitive analysis or emotional catharsis alone, Focusing-Oriented Therapy teaches people to pause and attend to a subtle, pre-verbal bodily awareness—a visceral sense of “something” about a situation that has not yet been put into words. This “felt sense” is a kind of pre-verbal, bodily intuition about a situation or emotional state. When the right words or image emerge that match this bodily knowing, a “felt shift” occurs, which is one “motor of change” in psychotherapy.
Origins & Lineage
Focusing began with the philosophical work of Eugene Gendlin at the University of Chicago in 1952, where he teamed up with psychologist Carl Rogers and later developed Focusing and Experiential/Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy. Gendlin studied under Carl Rogers, the founder of client-centered therapy, during the 1950s, receiving a PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1958.
Research on Focusing began in 1957, and eventually over 100 research studies showed Focusing to be a success variable in psychotherapy, correlating with personality and physiological measures. The empirical evaluation of numerous tape recordings of therapy sessions revealed that there was one single significant predictor of therapy success: the way in which the client related to his or her own experience. Gendlin determined that those who were successful had a special way of going inside to get the answers when asked a question by the therapist, that those who weren’t successful did not.
In 1978, Eugene Gendlin’s popular book, Focusing, was written to make the practice accessible to the public. The Focusing Institute was established in 1979 out of the University of Chicago office of Eugene Gendlin to gather and create resources and to develop a worldwide teacher training network. In 1996, Gendlin published a comprehensive book on Focusing-oriented psychotherapy. In 1970, Gendlin received the “Distinguished Professional Psychologist of the Year” award from the American Psychological Association for his study of client Focusing. Eugene T. Gendlin died on May 1, 2017, at the age of 90 in Spring Valley, New York.
How It’s Practiced
In Focusing-Oriented Therapy sessions, the therapist listens in a way which helps the client find his or her own felt sense of their experience. The basic criterion is whether the client’s experience is being carried forward in the moment in the particular interaction with the therapist, with the therapist interacting in such a way that the client can contact a bodily felt sense of life situations.
The process typically involves several key steps: Clearing a Space—the individual takes time to relax and mentally set aside current worries and concerns, creating a receptive internal space. Felt Sense Formation—the person brings attention to an issue and waits for a bodily sensation related to it, a “felt sense” that is vague and hard to describe at first. Clients pay attention to what is, at first, a vague yet persistent, bodily felt sense of some problem or situation, pause and grope for words to get at this sense, often creating a metaphor to describe it, and when they find words or an image that “gets it exactly,” there is a felt relief and sense of meaning and movement.
Therapeutic change is bodily and feels good, even if the content being dealt with is painful, with resolving problems usually coming in small, successive steps of contacting the felt sense and waiting for it to bring something new to the situation. Focusing-oriented psychotherapists encourage their clients to engage in Focusing both during and between psychotherapy sessions, and may also use journaling or drawing to encourage Focusing and the establishment of a felt sense.
Focusing-Oriented Therapy Today
Focusing-Oriented Therapy is practiced worldwide through a network of certified practitioners trained by the International Focusing Institute, founded in 1985. FOT certification is supplemental to rigorous academic training in the practice of psychotherapy and does not replace it; one can only receive an FOT certificate if one is already a counsellor or psychotherapist, as legally defined in one’s own country, state or other jurisdiction. However, becoming a Certified Focusing Professional (Trainer) is a possibility for someone from any walk of life—you do not need to be a therapist or have other formal credentials, as this is a human process open to any person.
Several adaptations of Gendlin’s original six-step Focusing process have been developed. Ann Weiser Cornell, together with Barbara McGavin, further developed Focusing and called it Inner Relationships Focusing. Focusing has also been integrated into expressive arts therapy, creating Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy (FOAT).
Practitioners today work in private practice, therapeutic settings, and through online platforms. The International Focusing Institute maintains a directory of certified professionals and offers training programs ranging from introductory workshops to multi-year certification tracks. Focusing is increasingly integrated with other therapeutic modalities including trauma work, somatic therapies, and mindfulness-based approaches.
Common Misconceptions
Focusing is not pure emotion work. The felt sense is a special level of internal awareness, a capacity for knowing that is not simply emotion. It’s more subtle than feeling states—a bodily-sensed understanding that includes but transcends emotional content.
It’s not a quick fix or relaxation technique. While Focusing can bring relief, it occurs at the mind-body interface, with carrying forward stuck situations so that they release in the body probably aiding healing. It requires patience and practice to develop the capacity to attend to felt senses.
FOT is not formulaic. The therapist is in contact with their own felt sense, and knowing the territory firsthand, the therapist is never applying a textbook theory or formula but can creatively find many ways to point the client to their own felt sense.
It’s not separate from other therapies. The philosophical concepts in the Focusing-oriented school of therapy enable therapists to relate any psychological theory to the client’s ongoing experience, allowing therapists from any theoretical orientation to practice in a Focusing-oriented way.
How to Begin
For those curious about what is Focusing-Oriented Therapy and how to practice it, the canonical entry point remains the mass-market edition of Gendlin’s popular classic Focusing, which has been translated into 17 languages and sold more than a half million copies. A first account of Gendlin’s ideas appeared in 1962 with his book Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning, while his 1978 method-oriented book Focusing was translated into eight languages.
To experience Focusing directly, seek out a Certified Focusing Professional or Focusing-Oriented Therapist through the International Focusing Institute’s directory at focusing.org. Many practitioners offer introductory workshops, Focusing partnerships (peer practice sessions), and individual sessions both in-person and online. The Institute also offers an annual Advanced and Certification Weeklong intensive for those pursuing deeper training.
For self-study, beginners can explore Focusing through guided audio recordings, online courses, and practice with Focusing partners. The key is learning to pause, turn attention inward with gentle curiosity, and wait for the bodily felt sense to emerge—a skill that deepens with consistent practice over time.