An interview with Ann Weiser Cornell

KG: What exactly is Focusing? What is it used for? What benefits does it give people?

AWC: Focusing is a skill of awareness that involves sensing inwardly, sensing a certain kind of inner experience that everyone has but that we haven't learned is important. It is turning attention to something called a "felt sense" — a kind of body awareness that is subtle and (at first) unclear. For example, an uneasy feeling in the stomach or a fluttery feeling in the solar plexus or a slight tightness in the chest. These sensations are subtle enough that you can easily ignore them — and in fact many of us do.

What Eugene Gendlin discovered when he did the research that lead to the development of Focusing was that these body sensations carry messages from a kind of holistic inner awareness. By listening to these, you find that they contain a great deal of wisdom. They also contain what is called the life forward direction, the forward movement of your organism, so that you can actually use the awareness of these subtle sensations for positive life change — and feel the results in your body.

KG: Where do these sensations come from?

AWC: They are quite simply messages from your self.

KG: It is a kind of listening to yourself?

AWC: Yes, Focusing is listening to yourself, listening in the body. We already listen to ourselves all day long in our heads. The head chatter — "I should do this" and "What is wrong with me?" — that doesn't get us very far. When Gendlin did the research that lead to Focusing, he discovered that the two dead ends of therapy, the classic ways that therapy doesn't work, are either repetitive talking or repetitive emoting (crying).

So there have been people who have been in therapy for years talking in circles about the same things. Or they sit there using up Kleenex crying about the same things. These things don't work, because people aren't dropping down to a level of awareness where they are paying attention to the felt sense. The felt sense is not exactly emotional. It is also not exactly thought. You know how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? The felt sense contains much more information than can be put into words.

KG: It is more than just being aware of these felt senses, but being able to interpret them or talk to them. What are the steps?

AWC: You're right, it's more than just awareness. First you describe something physically — like "tightness" or "jumpiness." Then you stay with it in a nonjudgmental, accepting way. (Attitude is very important!)

The next step would be to sense the emotional state, for example maybe it's a "scared jumpiness." There is more detail, of course, than I'm able to go into here. At a certain stage there is what Gendlin would call the "felt shift"— a release of information and positive feelings. It starts feeling really good in there!

KG: Do people find that when they are doing this that in the beginning they are uncomfortable?

AWC: No, I wouldn't say that uncomfortable is a common experience. Some people find that they are doubtful. Like they are being asked to pay attention to something that never before had been given any value. They ask if this is really right and if they are supposed to pay attention to this little fuzzy thing that they can't put words on! Yes, that is exactly right.

KG: It is a very subtle thing?

AWC: It can be subtle, yes. You can also use the Focusing process to work with strong emotions, like strong sadness or anger. Even then, you will be paying attention to the subtle edge of that, almost like the aura around the emotion.

KG: Is this something that people only do when they are in therapy?

AWC: Now we are getting to the question of the uses of Focusing. No, it's not only for therapy. It was developed thirty years ago to help people in therapy, yes. But since then it has been used in so many other areas that the list is very, very long.

KG: Making clear decisions and knowing better what you feel and what you want?

AWC: Yes, and also handling strong emotions, like fear, anger, or sadness. Getting past blocks, like writer's block or other kinds of action blocks. Understanding puzzling reactions to people, like, why does that person bug me so much? Working with the kinds of things that you might go to a therapist for, like addictions, or depression. It's especially useful for situations of inner conflict, like part of me wants to slow down and another part of me wants to speed up!

It is actually a marvelous tool for every moment of life. It is essentially a way of being aware of your true self and your ongoing moment-to-moment experience. There are many, many possible applications.

KG: One of the things that you mentioned were one of the ways that you could apply this was why do I react this way or that way to that person. Is it something that is truly only for personal self-insight or can people in a relationship do it together.

AWC: Yes, people in a relationship can do it together. It is a wonderful thing to do with an intimate partner, especially if you take turns, one Focusing and the other one listening. "Something went wrong between us and we had a misunderstanding. We both feel kind of crummy. Maybe I will take a turn first sensing what it means and what it is for me and what it is that that touched me so deeply and what buttons it pushed in me." While I do that, my partner would just listen and "hold the space." Then after an agreed time, we would switch and take turns. It's no longer one of these "well, you did this and you said that" kind of reactive discussions. You really take the time to listen respectfully. Already, that will get you quite a long way into the deeper levels of compassion for each others' point of view.

KG: It sounds like there are very specific steps to doing the process.

AWC: There are specific steps. As you learn to do Focusing, you learn to take yourself through those steps. Rather soon however it starts feeling very natural, not like you're following steps, but more that you're simply bringing awareness to how you are. Your true self.

The other thing that I wanted to say about that is that I am always teaching Focusing to people both for themselves and to do with a partner. By that I don't mean an intimate partner, although it could be that, but I mean for example a friend, or someone you meet through the classes. People often find it is very easy and rewarding to do Focusing in a partnership, taking turns. I focus and you hold the space for me. You focus and I hold the space for you. It is a little easier than doing it alone.

KG: It sounds like that would be very helpful to be supportive of the process, as well. If you feel like you have missed a step or something, there is someone there to remind you.

AWC: Yes.

KG: If people were to come to a workshop with you, what can they expect out of a first time workshop versus or are there more advanced kinds of things they can learn?

AWC: In the Level One workshop you begin to learn how to take yourself through the Focusing process, and how to be a partner to another person who is Focusing. You complete the workshop knowing what your own Focusing process feels like, and knowing how to continue practicing. Like any skill which is partly physical, like tai chi or playing an instrument, Focusing takes practice and it gets easier with practice. By the end of a two-day workshop, you have what you need to keep going with that practice.

Then there are three more advanced levels. At each one we teach more advanced and sophisticated "guiding skills," for helping the other person. By the end of the whole training, you could even take somebody through the Focusing process who has never done it before.

At the same time, the self-Focusing skills increase through the series of workshops. As the workshops continue people become able to take themselves to deeper and deeper levels with the help of less and less sophisticated partners or alone.

KG: How did you get involved with this yourself? Did you take classes in this yourself? How did you get started?

AWC: When I first got involved, there were no classes yet. This was 1972 and I was a graduate student in Linguistics. I was one of the people who would not have been successful at therapy, according to the research; I was not in touch with my body, I was not able to feel at a subtle level. At that time, I was not necessarily looking for something and I wasn't even in touch enough to know I needed it. I did know that my personal life was a mess.

A couple of different friends of mine said that there was something exciting happening on Sunday nights. This was in 1972. It turned out that Eugene Gendlin, who later wrote the book Focusing, was teaching the method for free out of a community church in the neighborhood where we were going to school. He is really a remarkable person, by the way, one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. Every Sunday night a hundred people would come and sit in this little church library and learn Focusing together. We became a community of the process. It was then that I began turning inward for the first time. I was 22 years old.

I thank the divine spirit that I was that young that I began my inner journey, because I had a long way to go! There I began the process of introspection. I began the process of finding out who I was and following my own inner light instead of just giving myself away and doing what was expected of me and doing what I thought other people wanted.

KG: Do you find that this is a "lifelong process"? Do you find that people do Focusing for a while and then back away from it and then move into other parts of their life, but still keep coming back to it? Is it really a once thing, like you do it for one year or five years, and it has enough impact that carries you?

AWC: I believe that Focusing is a natural human ability that is our birthright. It is simply bringing awareness to our present experiencing. I believe that cultures that are less cut off from the earth than ours is, have it already. They don't have to have Focusing teachers! It is also something that babies have naturally. I think that for the advantages that western industrial culture has brought us, the cost has been to cut us off from other ways of knowing.

As I teach people Focusing, I am helping them rediscover a birthright. Focusing was discovered, rather than invented. It was discovered due to research into what some people were doing naturally, looking for how we can teach this to the rest of us.

For me, it has been 27 years now and it just gets deeper all the time. That is what I expect and what I hope, that people will get Focusing and keep it, as I have. It will be a lifelong friend, you might say. What is nice about Focusing is that it is combinable with other methods. Once you learn Focusing, let's say, you then learn a meditation technique. You can combine it with Focusing. Or you may learn a kind of cathartic or expressive therapy technique and you can combine that with Focusing. Or you can use Focusing to make decisions to go into this or that or to take this or that road in your life. My hope that Focusing is a lifelong friend for people, a lifelong support in whatever you do.

KG: People who are perhaps therapists or personal empowerment coaches, can they learn this in order to teach this to their clients?

AWC: Absolutely! There are thousands of therapists all over the world who are having a better time as therapists because they are bringing Focusing into their sessions. No therapist wants to sit across from a client who is stuck. You want to feel that the client is getting somewhere and that you are really empowering them.

KG: What about people who aren't psychotherapists or psychiatrists, do you find that people want to learn to teach this just as a tool, not necessarily for therapy, but as you said, they are teaching it at a church on Sunday nights?

AWC: I have many students in my advanced teacher training who are not therapists, who are wanting to be helpful to people and to teach them this wonderful skill, without going through the therapy training and whatever that involves. I also have body workers who find this a great addition to touch therapies.

KG: Have you found that the body workers also can be in close touch with the sensations that they are feeling while working on people that may be a reaction to the person?

AWC: Yes, and not only body workers, but therapists, too.

KG: Or nurses?

AWC: All kinds of people who are in those caring-for-people professions. First of all, if your body is sensitive, and why wouldn't it be, you might be picking up the other person's stuff. "Is this tightness in my throat mine or yours?" Focusing helps you distinguish very quickly between mine and yours and what to do when it is yours and what to do when it is mine.

KG: That is so important for people who are in the caring field because a lot of times they will pick up things. They won't know what it is and they will bring it home with them. Then they can't understand why they don't feel good or they are in a bad mood.

AWC: A few years ago I started having what you might call psychic experiences. I would go to sacred sites, for example, and be able to sense the guardians there. Because of my Focusing training I was better able to handle the doubts that might have come up, like, "Am I making this up? Is this me? Or is this really here?"

KG: That is so important. As you know, I teach intuition development. Doubt is one of the big pieces of the puzzle, trying to get past that with people. If they had a technique to use to make them more aware of what is going on internally, they would be able to go a step further.

AWC: I am very excited about Focusing as a way of dealing with doubt, because doubt cannot be resolved in the mind. The mind is where the doubts are generated. "It could be the way I am sitting. It could be something I ate. It could be my imagination." The doubts cannot be resolved from the same place that they are generated. People can just go in circles endlessly. They can make themselves feel crazy.

Going into the body, you can find a confirmatory place where doubts can be resolved, where you can really feel, "Yes, this much I know." It is very relieving to have a place where doubts can be resolved.

KG: It is good to have a knowing — to be sure, not on an intellectual level, but on a very much gut level. "I know this to be true, just as I know the sun rises in the east. I have experienced it." Do you have to know how to meditate to do Focusing?

AWC: Not at all. Did I give that impression?

KG: No, I am just wondering what the process is.

AWC: Actually, when I am giving somebody their first Focusing session, I sometimes ask if they are a meditator, because there may be some things that a meditator may need to un-learn.

KG: Really?

AWC: Any method that you are good at or practiced at can interfere with learning another method, especially a similar one. That is just how it is. No, you don't have to know meditation. It can help, but it can also get in the way.

KG: Because as many people that do meditate, there is also a large group who cannot meditate, they just can't focus that way.

AWC: I'm one of those. Meditation has never appealed to me. But many people have told me that, for them, meditation and Focusing go together very well.

KG: Can people do Focusing anywhere?

AWC: Yes.

KG: You don't need to be in a quiet room alone?

AWC: No. When people are first learning it, they may need to set aside the time and be in a quiet place all alone. But once you learn it, you can do it anywhere. I am doing it right now while I talking to you on the phone. You can do it driving. You do it in the middle of a meeting, which is fabulous. You can say, "Excuse me, but before we move on from this topic, I need to take a little more time with it because there is something about it that just doesn't feel quite right yet." Whether you are in a congenial meeting where you can actually use those words or whether you need to find other words that fit the culture you are in, it's still a great thing to be in touch.

KG: That makes great sense. Then you feel comfortable moving to the next stage with people, regardless of what the discussion is, because you know you are at that place where you have absorbed it and you are comfortable with it. There is not that sensation that sort of taps you on the shoulder and says, "There is a little bit more here."

AWC: Yes, that's the one!

KG: I had seen also that you do something called phone Focusing. What is that?

AWC: The ideal first step to learning Focusing is to have a one-to-one session with a skilled guide. It can be done on the phone just as easily as in person because it is verbally guided. The guide takes you step-by-step through the process. This is the best preparation for a workshop or for learning on your own.

KG: When you do your workshops, do you limit the size of them so that people get that kind of attention?

AWC: No, I haven't found a need to do that. I do ask people to have that individual session, in person or on the phone, before coming to the workshop. By the time they come to the workshop, they are not asking, "Can I do this?" Because they know they can.

KG: That is interesting.

AWC: Instead they are saying, "I know I can do it. How can I do it myself?" Because I have such an active training program, I often have assistants at my workshop. If there's a need for individual attention, we find ways of giving it.

KG: How often do you do workshops and where do you do them?

AWC: In the San Francisco Bay area, I give my workshops every three months. I am teaching in New York about every six months.

KG: New York City?

AWC: Yes, New York City. There is a Focusing Institute, which is the non-profit institute created by the originator of Focusing, Eugene Gendlin, and he lives in New York. His wife is the Director of the institute. They are fabulous. I am one of the main teachers in the Institute's New York programs.

KG: Obviously, people can go to your web site and I will give them your address, but what about people who aren't on the internet. How do they get in touch with you?

AWC: They can call 510-666-9948 and we will be happy to send out information.

KG: That is wonderful. You also teach overseas?

AWC: I teach overseas. I teach every year in the Netherlands. I teach two or three times a year in Germany. I have been teaching every year in Japan. I will be in Ireland next year. I enjoy travelling.

KG: That is so exciting. That is so great. We are almost out of time. Are there any final thoughts or main points that you wanted to bring up that we didn't cover?

AWC: Let me focus a minute! ...I just want to mention that the newest area of my work is helping with really stuck and difficult places like very blocked actions, or addictions, or depression. I am having a lot of successes and am working on a book on that.

KG: That is great. The other thing I wanted to ask you is that, can this or does this work with children or teenagers? Or is this something that people shouldn't try to learn until they are an adult?

AWC: It works with kids and teenagers. If you work with kids young enough, they will teach it to you!

KG: They already know how, you are saying?

AWC: That is what the research with kids has shown. They know how and then at a certain age it gets trained out of them, unfortunately, by our culture's emphasis on external authority.

We have parents Focusing with their kids. We have people training teachers to work with kids in classrooms. We have people working with teenagers. It is very exciting and I know a number of people who are working in those areas.

I do want to mention that I have a newsletter about Focusing called "The Focusing Connection." The reason I think of it is that a recent issue has several articles in it on working with kids. The newsletter is $18 a year inside the US and Canada. It has articles of interest and applications of Focusing. The latest issue had an article on working with women and confidence, discussing women who are entering the job market and empowerment and how it really helps with that.

KG: It sounds like a lot of this would work well if people were just on a generic discovery path along with perhaps doing therapy, personal empowerment workshops or creativity workshops. This can really touch so many parts of people's lives in not just "I am having trouble with an addiction and I would like to work on it," but with so many different parts of their lives.

AWC: That is exactly right. It will enhance whatever people are already doing. If people are seekers and they are wanting to know themselves more deeply and bring forth the purposes of their soul in this life, they can use it along with anything else they are doing.

KG: That is wonderful. That is so exciting. I know I am going to take a class! I don't know which one, but I am going to do it.

AWC: I must say that I have never had such an intelligent and to the point interview.

KG: Good, I'm glad!

AWC: My body is telling me that it really feels so complete, like you have facilitated me to say everything that I wanted to say. You were a good listener.

KG: Thank you.