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Focusing courses with a symbolic approach

Basic Course, Focusing Facilitator and Trainers Course in Milan and online, with Maria Dionisio, Trainer and Coordinator of The International Focusing Institute, New York.

Focusing

What is Focusing?

Focusing, the technique developed by the philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin, is a capacity that reawakens through a method of self-help and mutual help.

We have one more sense, the sixth sense, but we have forgotten it. The body speaks to us all the time through physical sensations, the felt sense, but we ignore them.

“Your physically felt body is in fact part of a gigantic system of here and other places, now and other times, you and other people – in fact the whole universe.”
– E. Gendlin, 1996

Paying attention to physical sensations, and knowing how to open a dialogue with them, helps us to:

  • dialogue with physical sensations
  • turn into awareness everything the body knows about us and the mind ignores
  • transform automatic patterns
  • know ourselves
  • learn to disidentify
  • make decisions
  • make peace with the critical part
  • stop always falling for the wrong person
  • develop creativity and intuition
  • dialogue with the parts that keep us from abundance

The method

“Ask a question, the body answers!”

It is a valuable tool alongside Counselling, Craniosacral treatments, the TRE© Method and all body-mind practices.

Why a symbolic approach. The body speaks in symbols, and each of us will be the interpreter of our own symbols. Starting to learn the symbolic language helps to decode the messages, which will reveal their countless facets only when we are able to grasp them.

Who it is for

Who is it for?

It is for everyone.

  • For those who meditate.
  • For those who want to rediscover the dialogue with their body, to live more calmly and be more effective in every situation.
  • For those who want a powerful tool to improve themselves and their relationships, or to transform the parts that drive them on autopilot.
  • For artists, to cultivate creativity and rekindle inspiration.
  • For professionals in the helping relationship.
  • For those with a sabotaging inner Critic who want to help it become a wise and competent ally.

The path

Three levels of Focusing training

YEAR 1 · 6 MONTHS

Basic Course

Teaches you to focus on your own or with a partner who knows how to focus.

The programme

YEAR 2 · 10 MONTHS

Focusing Facilitator

Certified by The International Focusing Institute, New York: to guide Focusing sessions with people who do not know it.

How it works

AFTER FACILITATOR

Trainers Course

Qualifies you to teach the Basic Focusing Course.

Requirements

Year 1

Basic Focusing Course

The basic course teaches you to focus on your own or with a partner who knows how to focus.

The Basic course, theoretical and experiential, lasts 6 months: one full-day meeting a month and one individual session between meetings. Individual sessions and courses are also available online on ZOOM.

At a glance

Length
6 months, one full-day meeting a month
Hours
9:30 am to 5:30 pm
Total
42 hours: 36 hours of course plus 6 hours of individual sessions
Fee
€100.00 per day, €60.00 per individual session
Format
in person, or online on ZOOM

Programme

The six lessons

01Lesson

  • Introduction to Focusing
  • The basic agreement
  • The right attitude for focusing
  • How to find the felt sense

02Lesson

  • What to focus with
  • The steps, the handles that open the door to the felt sense
  • The art of “reflecting”

03Lesson

  • Clearing a space
  • Disidentifying
  • The Self: an impartial “Observer”
  • Focusing with a partner

04Lesson

  • The art of asking questions

05Lesson

  • Difficulties when focusing

06Lesson

  • Different states of Being: Identification and Self in Presence
  • The Self and Presence

Year 2

Focusing Facilitator Course

Certified by The International Focusing Institute, New York.

An integrated Focusing course with a symbolic approach, for those who want to make Focusing their profession, or to deepen this wonderful tool and explore its potential.

Goal: to acquire the ability to guide a Focusing session with people who do not know it, with a traineeship supervised by the teacher.

How it works

One full-day lesson a month and 3 weekend lessons:

  • Weekend – From pain to love: the Parts, how to recognise them and help them evolve
  • Focusing Facilitator lesson 1
  • Symbolic language in Focusing
  • Focusing Facilitator lesson 2
  • Weekend – Making peace with the inner Critic
  • Focusing Facilitator lesson 3
  • Focusing and Presence
  • Focusing Facilitator lesson 4
  • The power of Love in Focusing
  • Weekend – Symbols of awakening from the Palaeolithic to today, to begin the path of shamanic Focusing

At a glance

Length
10 months
Course
100 hours
Supervision
15 hours, at least 10 supervised sessions with people new to Focusing
Self-focusing
3 hours, 2 sessions before and after the course
Final paper
How Focusing has helped me evolve

You will also need to complete:

  • an initial and a final self-focusing session, asking yourself: How do I feel about accompanying people who do not know Focusing through the process?
  • at least 10 supervised sessions with people who do not know Focusing
  • exchanges and supervision with other students
  • Focusing sessions whenever unresolved parts emerge, as needed

The path is first of all a path of personal growth, and you will be qualified to accompany others only once you are able to: disidentify, lead the other person into disidentification, use the art of asking questions correctly, use symbolic language, and know the roles of the Parts and explain them in a session.

Focusing is a path beyond the Ego and the wounds that drive us. We cannot expect to accompany others unless we have lived the inner transformation ourselves. That is why the course lasts 10 months but will end as soon as your work on yourself has brought you to stay in Presence and be able to teach it, and to know Focusing well enough to teach it to those who focus with you.

Courses can be repeated for a small participation fee. The demos on Wake up! and the meditations will help you stay in touch with the felt sense and the method.

Teaching Focusing

Trainers Course

Qualifies you to teach the Basic Focusing Course. To teach it, you must have turned it into a way of being.

Requirements

  • having accompanied people as a Facilitator for a couple of years
  • organising a Focusing course, with at least one student, run under the Coordinator’s supervision
  • focusing on the themes and difficulties that arise
  • practising Focusing regularly with a partner and by accompanying students
  • individual sessions, as needed

Having acquired the ability to

  • ask questions in sessions
  • disidentify in every situation
  • work with the Parts
  • transform the inner Critic
  • understand symbolic and metaphorical language

The teacher

Maria Dionisio

Somato-relational Counsellor, Trainer and Coordinator of The International Focusing Institute, New York.

She leads the courses of the Focusing School Milano, her Focusing school in Milan.

Reading list

Recommended books on Focusing

  • Focusing – Eugene Gendlin
  • The Power of Focusing – Ann Weiser Cornell
  • Focusing with Children – Marta Stapert and Erik Verliefde
  • Il Focusing e la saggezza del Corpo – Germana Ponte (Italian)

Further books will be recommended along the way. The Institute’s website: www.focusing.org

Focusing is a practice of listening and awareness: it does not replace diagnosis, medical care or psychotherapy.

Information and enrolment

Contact Maria Dionisio directly

The Focusing courses are led by Maria Dionisio and organised by her school, Focusing School Milano.

For dates, venue, fees and enrolment in the Focusing courses, please contact Maria Dionisio or Focusing School Milano directly: the Biosintesi office does not handle these courses.

Other paths

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