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Yes. Focusing is interesting. It's not like said, an old idea rediscovered. Though, it may be that at one level. In itself, it is something that some people already do. And it's not old hat if I pay attention to precisely what it is. I can explain a little.
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I have recently revisited it, and I am finding it helpful to revisit. I think I was already "doing it" before I explicitly worked with it. In fact, Gendlin, by study, discovered it as something some people already do. His contribution was in making it explicit.
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The most interesting books on it for me on a revisit, are "Focusing-oriented psychotherapy: a manual of the experiential method", and A Process Model. The first is a rich run through of the method, the second a theoretical work that expands on Gendlin's thinking.
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And what Gendlin makes explicit in "the method" simply the productive use of an implicit bodily felt sense. And focusing he says, is merely "spending time with something bodily sensed but unclear until [it shifts or] comes 'into focus'." I can explain a little further.
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What I am interested in on a revisit is what I wrote as "the use of a direct bodily felt sense of an unclear edge to a feeling, emotion, or experience." That living frontier interests me. And it also interests me that some people, for different reasons don't have access to that.
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Gendlin emphasizes what he calls the murky edge of a felt sense. The murkiness is important because many people are not really checking in on their feeling. Some people think they know what they are feeling when they are not yet paying attention to the intricacy of feeling.
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Bodily felt sense is itself a rich frontier. It is not an idea only, but a reality to be explored. And as Gendlin mentions, it exist at the edge of the preconcious, at the tip of the tongue. It is precise in one sense, as a felt sense, and rich in potential verbal reference.
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Replying to and
Aha. Yes. An interesting and very precise point. That reality of no new developments (if true) may be an artifact of the implicit nature of "le corps connaissant". It is part of an implicit reality for those who make use of it, and it is unavailabe to those who cannot or do not.
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