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Certification as a Focusing Professional (Trainer)
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"I want to thank you for all the loving support and guidance I’ve received from you during this Focusing training process. Your support was so well attuned to my needs that I’ve felt free to express my Focusing according to my own inner guidance and sense of ‘rightness’ while stilll able to accept input and suggestions from others. Your and Terry’s belief in my potential has been/is tremendously inspiring to me, and I’m excited and curious to see what new directions I hope to take Focusing in. Stay tuned, and I’ll be in touch.”
“I wanted to express my deep gratitude to you for everything you've given me
to help me sit with my first Level One class (8 lovely people) and feel confident and lucky to be sharing Focusing!”
“I just wanted to write to you to thank you for the wonderful experience of your Focusing training classes. I got so much out of it on so many levels! I’m still feeling all that energy pour through me... I am so grateful for your wonderful way of teaching and your love for what you do.” |
Becoming a Certified Focusing Professional is a possibility for someone from any walk of life. You do not need to be a therapist or have other formal credentials. You might be a nurse, a doctor, a massage therapist, a child care worker, a teacher, a home schooling parent, a secretary, a manager, a pastor or spiritual director, a hospice worker, a designer, a housewife, a retired person...
Certification training is in two stages: first, Focusing training (which includes Focusing/listening partnerships); second, Trainer training.
Step One: Learn to Focus Before teaching Focusing to others, you’ll need to have it deeply for yourself.
Focusing Resources offers Focusing training in four levels. These can be done on weekends in person or in phone seminars. To learn more about the Learning Focusing Workshop series offered by Focusing Resources, click here.
Step Two: Become a Trainer-in-Training After the four levels, you can apply to become a Trainer-in-Training.
Upon acceptance to this second stage, you would choose a second mentor, usually a certified Trainer who lives near you or who has a specialty you would like to develop. (Ann Weiser Cornell is your first Mentor.) The two mentors then support you in creating your own self-directed "internship" which usually lasts about a year from when you start.
Often this includes assisting in our workshops, teaching your own practice workshops, working with people one-to-one, and taking the course Level 5 (Guiding New People) and Teaching Focusing. You also need to meet the membership requirements of The Focusing Institute.
A Skills Based Program The training program is skills based. To view a comprehensive list of the recommended skills and objectives of Focusing Trainer Certification, click here. In addition to these skills, you are welcome to add more skills that you would like to accomplish in your work. Your self-assessment of your progress in gaining these skills is a key part of the program.
You are required to be in an ongoing Focusing partnership and/or a Changes group throughout your training.
The Certification Process Step One: Core Courses
Step Two: Application
Step Three: Choose Two Mentors
Step Four: Begin Creating Your Personal Learning Plan
Perhaps your primary intention in becoming certified is to bring Focusing into your profession. Your learning plan would include activities that would enhance your ability to do that. Or perhaps your primary intention is to be a professional Focusing guide, and do one-to-one sessions with people. Your learning plan would emphasize one-to-one sessions. Or perhaps you are interested in both teaching Focusing to groups and one-to-one sessions. Your learning plan would include both.
Here are some activities that learning plans have included: assisting at workshops of your Mentors, teaching Focusing to your friends and other volunteers, attending consultation groups and supervision workshops, having tapes of sessions done by you reviewed by one or both mentors, participating in other workshops, teaching a practice class, creating and hosting a Changes group, creating a special project. What fits for you may not be on this list. Your personal learning plan is guided by your inner sense of rightness.
A consultation group and support group meets monthly by phone at two different times, for regular contact with Ann and your fellow trainees.
You may also want to have a list of articles and books to read about Focusing and your special area. Also recommended: having regular Focusing sessions for yourself with your Mentors. Once a month is a good average.
Step Five: Your First Self-Assessment
A self-assessment session is a Focusing session: yours. In the presence of your two Mentors, you Focus on issues of your training, such as “How am I feeling now about Focusing?” “What are my strengths?” “Where do I need to grow?” “What support do I need?” The Mentors listen to your Focusing, reflect, (and guide if you ask). Then the Mentors respond from their felt senses in a Focusing way.
The self-assessment is not an evaluation of you by your Mentors. It is truly a self-assessment. This is a radically different educational form. In the process, people have found that they experience their growing readiness to teach Focusing in a bodily way. Rather than being told from outside that you are ready, this process allows you to feel it from inside.
The completion of your training is determined by a consensus process between you and your two Mentors. Consensus means that the felt senses of all are respected and heard, and trusted, until a shared result emerges. The primary judge of your readiness is you, and your felt sense. We suggest that you expect your training to take at least one year after completion of the core.
Fees There is a fee to each mentor of $300 (Total: $600) at the start of the program. This is an overall fee for “shepherding” your training, and has no time limit. Even if your training lasts more than one year, no additional overall fee will be due.
Other expected costs:
The Role of the Two Mentors The task of the Mentors is to support your process of training by being present for your Self-Assessments and staying in touch with you in between, being available for practical questions and emotional support. Each Mentor also supports your relationship with the other Mentor. If you and either Mentor encounter issues between you that need to be worked out, the other Mentor will support the working out of the issues by listening to you both, and with other interactive techniques.
Recommended: email both Mentors with questions that arise during your training.
Becoming Certified At the completion of your training you have the choice of going to New York for a certification weeklong at the Focusing Institute, which is highly recommended, or paying $500 to the Focusing Institute in lieu of the weeklong training. The philosophy here is that your work with Ann Weiser Cornell and your other Mentor is complete training in itself, but the Focusing Institute receives a fee (either directly or from the weeklong workshop) for your certification. The weeklong workshop is also a valuable experience, both professionally and personally. As of this writing, this workshop is given only once a year, usually in late September or October.
In the past, certification was only possible by traveling to the Focusing Institute in person, for a weeklong workshop, after working with a Mentor. We worked hard to create an alternative to this. Working with a “Certifying Coordinator” and paying the $500 is now an alternative to going to New York. A full list of Certifying Coordinators is available from The Focusing Institute.
What Certification Means When this process is complete, including the certification weeklong in New York or payment of $500 to the Focusing Institute, you may call yourself a Certified Focusing Professional. You will be listed in the Directory published by the Focusing Institute, as long as you remain a member in good standing. The Focusing Institute will refer interested people to you for Focusing training.
To maintain your certification on an annual basis, you will need to remain a member in good standing of the Focusing Institute at the Trainer rate, which is currently $125/year.
A Typical Certification Timeline I. Take the four courses of the "core," or gather those skills in another way.
The process described here is the process of certification as Focusing Trainer with the participation of Ann Weiser Cornell, Certifying Coordinator. For other ways of becoming certified as a Focusing Trainer, contact The Focusing Institute directly:
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