Christiane is a long-standing teacher and therapist in the person-centred world and the international Focusing Community. In this conversation, we explore the early development of Focusing and how she and her colleagues formed a supportive group to learn it based on Gendlin’s early teachings and their own empirical research. Christiane describes how initially Focusing only brought her to a state of ‘nothingness’ until she learned to become interested in this particular state. She also distinguishes between the idea that felt sensing occurs ‘in’ the body and a sense of a whole situation. We also discuss ‘structure-bound’ processes and existential questions that arise at a particular life stage.

Episode 38 with Christiane Geiser: https://youtu.be/ImR_433X7ew

The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links: https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/

TLP YouTube video channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC0TgN6iVu3n9d9q2l43z1xBMYY3p9FQL

Christiane Geiser lives and works in Zurich and Solduno/Ticino as a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice for 40 years. She is the former director of a post- graduate training-institute GFK (person-centered, experiential, body oriented) in Zurich, where she still teaches. She’s also a certifying coordinator of the International Focusing Institute (TIFI). She writes about learning and teaching person centered/experiential psychotherapy and it’s philosophical background. Together with Donata Schoeller she has translated Gendlin’s “A Process Model” into German, and they are currently doing the same with Gendlin’s early work “ Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning”.

Her new article is coming out soon, When focusing wasn't yet called focusing: An early text by Gene Gendlin on experiential learning published in Person, 2025. You can find her articles on her website: www.christianegeiser.ch

#Focusing #GFK #Gendlin #Rogers #person-centred #structurebound #stuck #Somaticwork #Bodytherapy #swissfocusing #processmodel #somaticexperience #thelivingprocess

Allan Rohlfs guest on Episode 37 of The Living Process. Roots and Branches of Empathic Listening Allan describes to us his method of empathic listening described in his new book, When I Listen People Speak and Come Alive - why write that now?

Allan has an extensive history from the early days of Gendlin, Rosenberg, and Roger’s work on therapy, listening and non-violent communication. Allan has some great stories about the early days of Gendlin's teaching and Changes groups. He describes his integration of the steps of NVC and Focusing. It is an entertaining and joyous conversation. I hope you like it as much as I did. Allan on The Living Process:https://youtu.be/dK1IxSrqQ9EAllan Rohlfs is a seasoned psychotherapist, educator, and certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Focusing with over five decades of experience in empathic listening, and integrating Focusing skills into interpersonal communication. His extensive career includes teaching at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago for 30 years, where he focused on pastoral care and listening skills. "When I Listen People Speak and Come Alive" is the culmination of author Allan Rohlfs five decades long work of practicing listening and teaching. Allan's website: https://allanrohlfs.comAllan's new book: https://www.amazon.com/When-Listen-People-Speak-Alive/dp/B0DRS166NQThe Living Process - all episodes and podcast links: https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/TLP YouTube video channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC0TgN6iVu3n9d9q2l43z1xBMYY3p9FQL

Gugga was introduced to Focusing by philosophers at The University of Helsinki. She is a part of the Embodied Critical Thinking and Freedom to Think projects and teaches Focusing and Thinking at the Edge to academics and artists. Gugga came to philosophy after years of being a musician and photographer. Her love of nature made environmental aesthetics and landscape studies an area of philosophy that felt applicable to how she understands the world. In this episode Gugga discusses her interest in the concept of beauty and how it is often narrowed down to something superficial but she redefines beauty as something at the core of being human, an experience that allows us to sense our connection to the world. For Gugga the subtle everyday experiences of beauty can be profound, offering a glimpse of our deep connection to the world. We discussed the meaning of landscape as an interaction between the person and the land and how to be a tourist so that our relation to places is not superficial, taking selfies, but deeper and aesthetic. Guðbjörg (Gugga) Rannveig Jóhannesdóttir is an associate professor at Iceland University of the Arts' department of art education. Environmental philosophy, environmental ethics, phenomenology and aesthetics, and the study of beauty and sensuous knowledge are at the centre of her work. She is a expert group member of the Icelandic government's Masterplan for nature protection and she is an active member of the Embodied Critical Thinking research team and the Freedom to Make Sense research project. She has training in Thinking at the edge and is a certified Focusing trainer. In her teaching at the IUA she has been developing ways to integrate ECT methods into research practices in art and education. Gugga on The Living Process:https://youtu.be/E6WrG8SfP8wA link to one of Gugga's chapters: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-41344-5_7A video of Gugga's workshop to a group of artists: https://vimeo.com/1053356564The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links: https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/TLP YouTube video channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC0TgN6iVu3n9d9q2l43z1xBMYY3p9FQL