With more than 50 years of studies demonstrating the usefulness of focusing-oriented-experiential therapy (FOT), new research findings have provided further evidence of its efficacy in the treatment of various psychological disorders and issues. Traditional outcome research studies are being augmented by other microprocess-oriented studies, which look closely at the small change events clients and therapists report when reflecting on therapy. Microprocess research on FOT represents a growing body of research that illuminates these small steps of therapeutic change found in FOT sessions and provides practitioners with further evidence of how and why FOT works.This chapter includes a summary of the research on FOT since the last review conducted by Hendricks (2002), who looked at 89 empirical experimental research studies on focusing and focusing-oriented therapy, mainly those using the Experiencing Scale

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In this article, we address the vital, yet largely ignored role conversations among researchers play in furthering qualitative research projects. We identify conversations as vital when they foster creativity and afford the researchers an opportunity for clearer focus. Through a close examination of four distinctly different qualitative research experiences, we show how these conversations open and deepen reflective relationships among the researchers and with the phenomenon being studied, both of which lead to a reformulation of the research process. Finally, we suggest that these kinds of conversations emerge out of relational contexts that honor personal meaning, care, openness, and even vulnerability among researchers.

This article is based on a treatment intervention study teaching Focusing (Gendlin, 1981), a mind-body awareness technique, to four men with AIDS. Philosophical and therapeutic questions regarding the lifeworlds (lebenswelt) of persons with HIV spectrum illness are raised. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis are presented with an emphasis on the phenomenological method suggested by Giorgi (1975) and others. The analysis uses material from the tape recordings of each session addressing the aspects of change reported by each participant. Borrowed from the words of one of the participants, the shift in capacity to listen to oneself over time is called the "recovery of will." This process has three movements, which are characterized by the reduction of judgmental self-beliefs, fresh dialogue with significant processes within the self, and the integration of new knowledge derived from the process of listening and being heard. It is as though he listened, and such listening as his enfolds us in a silence in which at last we begin to hear what we are meant to be. Lao-Tse