This important book addresses specific ways in which therapists can engender the therapeutic process, especially with clients with whom nothing effective is happening. In actual transcripts, the author examines each client statement to show where therapeutic movement has taken place, and each therapist response to show how to did or did not help to bring about direct experiencing, or focusing.

Introduction. Focusing and Listening. Dead Ends. Eight Characteristics of and Experiential Process Step. What the Individual Does to Enable an Experiential Step to Come. What a Therapist Can Do to Engender an Experiential Step. The Crucial Bodily Attention. Focusing. Excerpts from Teaching Focusing. Problems of Teaching Focusing During Therapy. Excerpts from One Client's Psychotherapy. Integrating Other Therapeutic Methods. A Unified View of the Field Through Focusing and the Experiential Method. Working with the Body: A New and Freeing Energy. Role Play. Experiential Dream Interpretation. Imagery. Emotional Catharsis, Reliving. Action Steps. Cognitive Therapy. A Process of the Superego. The Life-Forward Direction. Values 22. It Fills Itself In. The Client-Therapist Relationship.

Eugene T. Gendlin, PhD (1926-2017), taught at the University of Chicago from 1964 to 1995. He was the founder and, for many years, the editor of Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. Dr. Gendlin was honored numerous times for his development of experiential psychotherapy. He was the first recipient of the Distinguished Professional Psychologist of the Year award from Division 42 (Psychologists in Independent Practice) of the American Psychological Association. He was awarded the Viktor Frankl prize by the city of Vienna and the Viktor Frankl Family Foundation in 2008. In 2016 he was honored with lifetime achievement awards from the World Association for Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling and the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy.