I hadn’t considered the possibility that techniques prior to Gendlin might have included focusing-like techniques, and especially that he’s claiming to have synthesized what was already there. This makes me less confident in my impression. What you say about the textbooks you read definitely also moves my view somewhat.
(By contrast, what you wrote about studies on focusing probably makes me somewhat reduce my guess on the strength of the evidence of focusing, but obviously I’m highly uncertain here as I’m extrapolating from weak cues—studies by Gendlin himself, correlational claim of intuitively dubious causal validity—rather than having looked at the studies themselves.)
This all still doesn’t square well with my own experiences with and models of therapy, but they may well be wrong or idiosyncratic, so I don’t put much weight on them. In particular, 20-30% of sessions still seems higher than what I would guess, but overall this doesn’t seem sufficiently important or action-relevant that I’d be interested to get at the bottom of this.
Thanks, this is helpful!
I hadn’t considered the possibility that techniques prior to Gendlin might have included focusing-like techniques, and especially that he’s claiming to have synthesized what was already there. This makes me less confident in my impression. What you say about the textbooks you read definitely also moves my view somewhat.
(By contrast, what you wrote about studies on focusing probably makes me somewhat reduce my guess on the strength of the evidence of focusing, but obviously I’m highly uncertain here as I’m extrapolating from weak cues—studies by Gendlin himself, correlational claim of intuitively dubious causal validity—rather than having looked at the studies themselves.)
This all still doesn’t square well with my own experiences with and models of therapy, but they may well be wrong or idiosyncratic, so I don’t put much weight on them. In particular, 20-30% of sessions still seems higher than what I would guess, but overall this doesn’t seem sufficiently important or action-relevant that I’d be interested to get at the bottom of this.