The father of this technique was Eugene Gendlin , an Austrian philosopher who died in May of this year. This man, a doctorate in philosophy and also in psychology, discovered that human beings, in some way, can get in touch with their own sensations, something that a priori could be very important to understand ourselves and to be able to solve many of our problems.
This way of learning to relate to ourselves is what receives the strange name of Focusing, therefore, we could say that it is a process of self-awareness aimed at working with our body to learn to guide it and heal ourselves from the emotional wounds that cause the most of our problems. Ultimately, it is what has become so fashionable in childhood thanks to books such as El emocionario , by Cristina Núñez, consisting of the need to ensure that children learn to recognize their emotions and manage them effectively , so that they can avoid many of the problems of adults in the future.
Focusing, in any case, is not intended to end our concerns and our problems, and this must be clear, but it can help us manage them better and not end up sunk at the slightest setback. Focusing allows us to face them decisively, recognize those feelings and emotions that arise with their presence, and tackle them in the best possible way.
How we can adapt Focusing to childhood
When children have a problem that makes them feel bad, there is no one better than them (not even their parents) to identify it. However, many times young children still lack techniques that allow them to identify things by name or the simple fact of relating cause to effect. That is why we must help them in the process with a simple formulation of questions that allows them to arrive at their own answer. Questions like, what makes you not feel good? Little by little, children will find answers that will need to be analyzed, always without pressure.
What makes you feel worse about all those things you say? Or, how do you feel when it happens? These are questions that we could ask later, once the child has known how to name the answers to the first question.
A good way for children to learn to identify their emotions is to create a symbolic relationship with them, either through colors, figures, images …
What could make you feel good? It would be one of the last questions in this process, since for someone to know that they need to change something, they must have really realized what that something is, that is, they have already learned to identify their problems and their emotions associated with them. themselves.
This process, similar to the Arturo Bear Technique , which we already saw on another occasion, teaches us to listen to ourselves and informs us about the importance of communication, both with our own interior and with those around us.
That is precisely what makes Focusing applied to childhood important, the need to make the little ones see that what is important is not failures, but rather our own strength and our ability to grow and not decline despite them.
And you, do you practice Focusing?
Very interesting I like to continue strengthening my knowledge