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Home > Learn Focusing > How to Become a Trainer
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Becoming a trainer is a possibility for someone from any walk of life. You do not need to be a therapist or have other formal credentials. This is a human process open to any person. Focusing joins naturally with any kind of work in which you are attending to an ongoing process. For example, it can fit seamlessly into your work if you help others move forward or find more ease, or your work is about finding the right expression for something. You might be a nurse, a doctor, a massage therapist, a child care worker, a teacher, a home schooling parent, a secretary, a manager, a pastor or spiritual director, a hospice worker, a designer, a housewife, a retired person... Even if you start out learning Focusing so that you can use it in your own work life, you may find as you begin to apply it that you have a growing desire to teach it to others. For instance, a therapist may originally learn Focusing to use with their own clients, and later begin to see that they could train other therapists in their agency to use Focusing in their work, as well.
The Focusing Institute purposefully does not standardize the content of our training or what is taught at each level. In is the nature of the focusing process to respond to each situation freshly. Focusing in not a technique. It is a level of human process. Our intent is to help any person find this level of their own process. This can be done in many ways and teaching arises out of each trainers own sense of how to help someone find this level. We protect diverse ways of teaching from pre formed exact steps to working newly with each situation. We recognize that teachers can be of high quality throughout this range of approaches.
You start by learning Focusing. We have made learning to Focus both affordable and flexible, while still giving you maximum support as you learn. You can come to Level I and II workshops in New York, or you can learn with any of our certified trainers. Click here for Upcoming Workshops. Click here for Focusing Trainers. We encourage you to join the Focusing Institute as a Member, or Professional Member. Click here for Membership Benefits and How to Become a Member. There is also a separate therapist training track. Click here for Focusing-Oriented Therapist Training Track. (back)
When you have completed Level I through II workshops or the equivalent with any of our certified trainers, and you feel ready to take the next step in the process of becoming a Focusing Trainer, you have two options.
Trainer-in-Training membership status is required.
When this process is complete you may call yourself a Certified Focusing Trainer. You will be listed in the Directory and Website for the Focusing Institute, and will appear on the list of trainers sent to anyone in your area who asks for referrals, as long as you remain a member in good standing. As a trainer, you are encouraged to help people in your area and in your working community become familiar with Focusing. The Institute offers support to trainers involved in bringing Focusing into new geographic areas and settings.
To maintain your certification on an annual basis, you will need to remain a member
in good standing of the Focusing Institute at the Trainer rate, which is currently
$125/year. (Different fees apply for outside the US.) Trainers are also asked to remain active members of the Focusing community.
You can do this by attending the International Focusing Conference or a workshop offered
by any Focusing Institute trainer at least once every 3 years. Stay informed by reading
the Folio, reading the Focusing Connection newsletter, or participating in the online
Focusing discussion group.
If you have further questions contact The Focusing Institute at info@focusing.org or
call 845-362-5222.
[There is also a separate therapist training track. Click here for Focusing-Oriented Therapist Training Track. (back)]
This program is for people from all walks of life who want to become a Certified Focusing Trainer. We will meet once a month for approximately one year.
The training will end with a Certification Retreat . This is a five and a half day International retreat held near New York City.
The training is designed to help you become firmly rooted in the focusing process, integrate focusing into your life, bring it into your particular areas of interest and teach it effectively to individuals and groups. Upon certification Focusing Trainers are listed on The Focusing Institute on-line referral site.
- Level 1 and Level 2 with any Focusing Institute Certified teacher
We will learn to ask Focusing questions from a deeper understanding of the process. We will help each other to a clearer understanding of what issues we are working on. We will develop our ability to stay with and deepen the Felt Sense and develop more capacity and range of self empathy.
After completing these Prerequisites you can apply to become a Trainee through the Focusing Institute. ($75)
This is an outline of the curriculum modules. The exact order we will teach this will be determined by the group needs and interests. Robert Brugger will teach most of the workshops and there will also be guest teachers. ($125 per day)
This is the most important part of the training. We will rotate partnerships throughout the training. This is important because the ability to have a successful focusing experience with a wide variety of people will help you in teaching this process to a wider range of students. Also whatever problems you have with some of your partners will be material to work with in the classroom.
Familiarizing yourself with different methods of teaching this process and finding how you would teach this process.
Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin's method
Robert Lee's Domain Focusing
Any other method you would like to work with.
How to teach this process to different populations in different situations (for self help, for professional goals, creative process, ...)
We can practice doing this with each other and also think of steps to do something outside the classroom.
Teaching Focusing to a new person in person or on the phone. You will be asked to come to some of our Changes Meetings to help a newcomer.
($900 tuition not including room and board)
Required reading:
Focusing by Eugene T. Gendlin, Ph.D.
Power of Focusing by Ann Weiser Cornell, Ph.D.
The Focusing Student's and Companion's Manual - Part One and Part Two by Ann Weiser Cornell, Ph.D. and Barbara McGavin.
For more information: please contact Robert Brugger: rbrugger@earthlink.net or 212-543-1422
Request an evaluation of your readiness to begin work as a trainer-in-training. Preferably this evaluation will be made with a Certifying Coordinator who has worked with you over time. Discuss your interests, and your needs for the training process, as you think together about your readiness to work towards certification as a trainer. If you both agree that you are ready, and that you would like to work together as Coordinator and student, this Certifying Coordinator can become your mentor.
This training program is for people from all walks of life who want to become a Certified Focusing Trainer. The program is designed to help you become firmly rooted in the Focusing process, to be able to effectively introduce others to Focusing, and then to teach the process. Among other things, as a Certified Focusing Trainer you are officially affiliated with The Focusing Institute, and are entitled to advertise as a Certified Focusing Trainer. Furthermore, you become listed on the Focusing Institute’s Website as a Certified Trainer. Therefore, people who are looking for a Focusing Trainer, to learn Focusing privately or through a workshop, are referred to you through the Website.
If you are unable to attend the Levels workshops at the Institute or set up a program with a Certifying Coordinator because of distance or other factors, you may be accepted into training with a Certified Focusing Trainer as your mentor, but you must contact the Institute to have this arrangement approved and to get further details about how the training process will be set up in this case.
If you’re interested in becoming a Certified Trainer, send email to: melinda@focusing.org. If someone wants to become a Focusing Trainer, but cost is an obstacle, partial work/study scholarships are available through The Focusing Institute.
The reasons you might choose a particular Certifying Coordinator (also called Certifying Coordinators) could include: geographical proximity, a particular specialty, or simply personal preference (for instance, you took a workshop with them and felt comfortable).
Contact the people you might like to work with, and find out what they need in order to know you well enough to accept you in training. Find out each Certifying Coordinator's requirements and needs, and let each know what you are hoping for from training, as well. Find out the fees you will be expected to pay as well. Both you and the Certifying Coordinator need to feel confident that you are ready for training, and that you are a good fit as Coordinator and student, before you are accepted as a student.
Each Certifying Coordinator is empowered to create a training program by his or her own standards and beliefs. Thus, each Certifying Coordinator's program will be somewhat different, and will usually be a flexible program responsive to your needs and interests.. We consider this a positive benefit of the Focusing philosophy of trusting each person's inner sense of rightness.
Individual Certifying Coordinators' programs almost always include these elements at their core:
- The requirement to maintain an ongoing Focusing partnership, in person or by phone,
- Taking courses; assisting your Certifying Coordinator or other Trainers in teaching workshops; and being supervised in your own work with Focusing clients.
Click here for List of Certifying Coordinators. Select "YES" for the "Show Coordinators, only" option on the search form.
This page was last modified on 27 January 2004
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