Experiential Focusing Research Articles

It is all about clauses: Speech analysis using systemic functional linguistics theory

Text and context are tightly related. Although previous studies have revealed the benefits of employing Systemic Functional Linguistics theory (SFL) in revealing the language functions, the specific examination of text ideational or experiential focusing on transitivty process type analysis is lacking. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the transitivity process type of a text. To achieve this purpose, Joe Biden’s victory speech was chosen and analyzed. In this respect, to make the analysis easily done, the speech text was changed into some sentences and clauses and thereafter analyzed following the aim of the study in question. The result of analysis has shown that the the material process type appears at most, which indicates the action of the participants involved in the speech. In addition, by means of transitivity analysis, interpersonal and power relation might be revealed as the existence of pronouns linking to verbs used in clauses of the text. As a conclusion, different language patterns might signify different concerns of the experintial or ideational functional category. Future research studies, by means of different ways of analysis, might be of benefit to examine the effectiveness of Systemic Functional Linguistics theory (SFL) in a text analysis.

Combined soundwalks and lightwalks

ABSTRACT Health and wellbeing are strongly influenced by what our senses perceive or cannot help perceiving. In city planning – like in most parts of our culture – vision is privileged, while the other senses are often neglected. In line with environmental policies to abate any kind of pollution, the importance of favorable sensory environments is increasingly realized. Soundwalks – as one type of sensewalks – have the most advanced methodology but walks for the other senses have also become more common. Sensewalks are usually done for only one sense at a time. But urban environments are multisensory, and perceptions – not only objectively measurable facts – play a major role for health and wellbeing. Therefore, multisensory walks are proposed as an appropriate method to generate knowledge about citizens’ perceptions as an integral part of urban planning. As a first step, a combined sound- and lightwalk was conceived. It was performed as an experiential walk focusing on two stressors – sounds/noise and artificial light(pollution) – that have a major impact on human health and wellbeing. After a brief description of the method, the first results are reported and further developments are suggested. Since lightwalks focus on artificial night lighting, combined sound- and lightwalks are restricted to the specific timespace of the night.

The Effect of Implementing the Experiential Learning Model in Listening Comprehension for the Eleventh Graders at SMAN 1 Telaga Biru

This study is aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the experiential learning in listening comprehension with the focus on the implementation of the class story using language experience at SMAN 1 Telaga Biru. As the pre-experimental research, this study involved one class consisted of 27 students in the eleventh graders. However, most of the students of the eleventh graders in this school have some problems in their listening comprehension. This current research, therefore, aims at finding the result of the students’ listening comprehension by using experiential learning in focusing on the class story using language experience for the eleventh graders at SMAN 1 Telaga Biru and defining the students’ achievement in listening comprehension by using experiential learning focusing on the class story using language experience. This study also explored the learners’ listening comprehension by analyzing the result of the students’ pre-test and post-test. It was found that the mean of the pre-test was 60 while the mean of the post-test was 80,6. By analyzing this result, it indicated that the post-test was higher than the pre-test. In conclusion, the finding of this research showed that teaching listening in the eleventh graders of SMAN 1 Telaga Biru using experiential learning in focusing on the class story using language experience was effective to teach students’ listening comprehension. Therefore, it can be suggested that it was an alternative way to use of experiential learning focusing on the class story using language experience in teaching listening.

Sustaining care: cultivating mindful practice in early years professional development

The practitioner’s own self is a resource in early childhood education and care (ECEC). It is proposed that an experiential training focusing on the ‘professional self’ helps to raise awareness of how psychological dispositions may impair or enhance quality of provision. A key concept in such training is emotional labour, explored with students through examples of ‘relational pedagogy’ and ‘attunement’ to the needs of children. The argument of this paper, underlying the training, is that the expectation of attunement encapsulates both the best and worst aspects of such labour. The research focuses on the introduction of mindfulness exercises into the training in order to sustain this attunement. It seeks the students’ responses to them and to the experience of the training overall. The paper concludes by recommending that such practices be incorporated into professional development whilst acknowledging that such interventions can only succeed where working conditions reflect a compassionate culture.

What a Tangled Web We Weave: Contextualizing Debate about ‘Reparative Therapy’?

SYNOPSISCurrent argument about—and recent prohibitions of—‘reparative therapy’ ignore a broader, deeper context. When there is something about ourselves we do not like or want, we expect choices. I explore the structure and logic of those choices from the perspective of a counsellor rooted in Person-centred practice and Experiential Focusing who is personally averse to ‘pushing rivers’. Exploration daylights a powerful distinction between two radically different approaches to counselling and psychotherapy. It can then be used to expose a moral and political context that is going unregarded, for not entirely benign reasons.

Designing of an Experiential Curriculum: A Phenomenological Approach

The present study embarks upon the designing of an experiential curriculum based on a phenomenological approach. In this theoretical study, attempts has been made to decode and analyze the text messages using library sources and then design a new model emphasizing the views held by Van Manen and Ted Aoki. The levels of this model include: Expected Curriculum, Imaginal Curriculum, Concealed curriculum, Interactive curriculum (Pedagogical Action, in loco Parentis, Covered Curriculum) Pedagogical Influence and Self- Reflective. Serving as a research model offering the various planes of the experiential curriculum and focusing more sharply on the dimensions of curriculum than the formal plane, the present study is recommended to the decision-makers of education curricular system.

Effects of Experiential Focusing-Oriented Dream Interpretation

This two-part study investigated the effects of a particular approach to dream interpretation. In the first part, the Dream Interpretation Effects Questionnaire (DIEQ) was developed to assess both quantitatively and qualitatively seven specific effects of Experiential Focusing-oriented dream interpretation. In the second part, the DIEQ was used along with a structured interview in a pretest-posttest control group design to examine the effects of Experiential Focusing-oriented dream interpretation. The results were, first, that the DIEQ proved to be highly reliable and, second, that Experiential Focusing-oriented dream interpretation demonstrated significant results. This study offers support for Gendlin’s assertion that an Experiential Focusing approach to dream interpretation facilitates constructive psychological change for the dreamer.

Defining the Spiritual Experience

The author presents a process definition of spirituality that includes the spiritual experiences of all clients in counseling in a culturally respectful way. The distinction between process and content brings clarity to the subject of spirituality in counseling. An example of using the Experiential Focusing Method to help a client experience her spirituality is given, and implications for practice are discussed.

Integrating Spiritual Experiences in Counseling

Although the spiritual dimension is an integral part of psychotherapy, most mental health professionals lack the necessary training for working with spiritual experiences therapeutically. The experiential focusing method developed by Eugene Gendlin (eg., 1969, 1981) offers a key tool for counselors to help clients integrate their spiritual experiences in counseling. In this article, the author offers a definition of the spiritual experience, outlines the focusing method, presents examples of its application, and discusses the implications of using focusing to help clients integrate spirituality in counseling.

A research study on anxiety and movement

This phenomenological research study examines the relationship between the description of the experience of anxiety, and the description of the expression of anxiety in physical movement. Ten professional dancers (five women, five men) and ten non-dancers (five women, five men) were individually interviewed and videotaped. In addition to asking for demographic data and opinions on the nature of anxiety, subjects were asked to describe two situations in which they experienced anxiety, then physically demonstrate the experience of anxiety in each anxiety-provoking situation. To assess both the quality and degree of psychic anxiety's transposition into physical movement, two independent experts in Eugene Gendlin's theory of Experiential Focusing were asked to view and respond to an edited videotape that only showed the subjects' physical demonstrations. Immediately after viewing each videotaped excerpt, the experts were asked to write responses to three questions based on their knowledge of Experiential Focusing: (1) Did you feel anxiety in your body as you watched the videotape? (2) If so, where in your body did you feel anxiety? (3) If not, will you please describe why you think you did not feel anxiety? Examination of relationships between the dancers' and non-dancers' verbal statements, physical demonstrations, and experts' assessments revealed that dancers tend to have more ability (in contrast to non-dancers) to physically articulate anxiety into psychically manageable forms.

Winnicott's Mindpsyche and its treatment

This paper presents Winnicott's concept of Mindpsyche and two clinical examples of how the concept is applied in two treatment modalities. First, a discussion among the members and leader of a dance therapy group is presented, in which participants attempt to understand why certain moments in the dance experience feel both frightening and exciting for them. They specify that these moments have to do with improvising in such a way as to generate a certain level of arousal which produces a momentary integration of feelings, thoughts and behavior, and with being seen at such moments. The author suggests that these experiences of embodiment suggest a solution to the problem of Mindpsyche, which is a state in which the soma has been drawn into the mind, depriving the individual of the natural process of mutual interrelation between psyche and soma. Moments of embodiment can be perceived not only by the dancer, but by others who witness the dance. Yet it may be impossible to specify what is unique to the outward manifestations (the real actions) of these dances that demonstrates their embodiment. The first example of embodiment is from Gendlin's Experiential Focusing. The dance therapist may be in a particularly advantageous position regarding work with problems of mindpsyche. In the second example, three moments of treatment are presented, in which a bulimic patient who is “in her head” learns how to establish a mutual interrelation between certain movement cues and breathing to generate momentary states of embodiment.

The use of imagery in experiential focusing.

The use of imagery in experiential focusing.