Focusing is an internally oriented psychotherapeutic process developed by psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin.
It involves holding a specific kind of open, non-judging attention to an internal knowing which is experienced but is not yet in words.
[2] At the University of Chicago, beginning in 1953, Eugene Gendlin did 15 years of research analyzing what made psychotherapy either successful or unsuccessful.
Gendlin found that, without exception, the successful patient intuitively focuses inside himself on a very subtle and vague internal bodily awareness—or "felt sense"—which contains information that, if attended to or focused on, holds the key to the resolution of the problems the patient is experiencing.
[3] "Focusing" is a process and learnable skill developed by Gendlin which re-creates this successful-patient behavior in a form that can be taught to other patients.
[3] Gendlin observed clients, writers, and people in ordinary life ("Focusers") turning their attention to this not-yet-articulated knowing.
[7] The Focusing-oriented psychotherapist attributes a central importance to the client's capacity to be aware of their "felt sense" and the meaning behind their words or images.
The most popular and prevalent of these is the process Ann Weiser Cornell teaches, called Inner Relationship Focusing.