The International Focusing Institute hosts - Steve Moscovitch, Julie Ramsey, Mary Anne Schleinich & Susan Lennox will lead an online discussion as part of the Therapist Roundtable series. Register here: ttps://focusing.org/event/therapist-roundtable-psychotherapy-time-existential-threat-how-can-fots-meet-todays

We are living in a time of great danger and uncertainty which is affecting all of us in multiple and profound ways.  Climate change, already impacting us globally with natural disasters and fires, will cause more upheaval and unknown challenges in the future. Civil unrest, war, even the threat of nuclear extinction loom. Political polarization is on the rise around the world. Questions abound about how we can work together to meet the urgency of now.

The combination of these stressors is taking a severe toll on our collective mental health. There is growing awareness and concern about this problem. The World Health Organization reported in 2019 that 1 in 8 people in the world live with a mental disorder, with anxiety and depressive disorders the most common. In the US, the American Psychiatric Association’s 2020 poll found that 55% of Americans are anxious about their own mental health and noted an increase in symptoms including mild to severe distress, sleep disturbances, nervousness, high-risk coping behaviors, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. By 2022, a poll revealed that 90% of US adults say the US is experiencing a mental health crisis. (2022 CNN-Kaiser Family Foundation polI).

What does this mean for us, as therapists?  At a minimum we should anticipate increasing demand for our services and a rise in the number of clients with more serious conditions. How can we as FOTs respond to this mental health crisis in ways that are helpful to our clients, ourselves and our world? How do we foster resilience in the face of challenges of such magnitude? Do we have a responsibility to help our clients to turn towards their anxiety and explore ways to direct its energy into more creative and productive responses? What do we need for ourselves to rise to these new challenges? Do we need to think in new ways about our role as FOTs?

At the Roundtable we will have an opportunity to explore together how the impact of these challenges is (or is not) showing up in our therapy rooms and what we can do about it. Questions we might consider together are:

• How are these challenges showing up in our therapy rooms?

• How is this whole situation affecting us personally? What do we need for ourselves and our clients to face the challenges of such complexity and proportions?

• How can we bring our FOT knowledge and skills to meet the urgency of now? Are there new practices, skills or methods we need to develop?

• Is traditional therapy as we’ve known it enough or do we need to create new paradigms and ways of working?

This Online Therapist Roundtable will draw from chapter 21 on Values in Gendlin’s book, "Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method" (1996). In this chapter, Gendlin explores the meaning of values to us as humans and more particularly the role of values in psychotherapy.

Wednesday, June 8, 2022 at 11:00 am - Wednesday, June 8, 2022 at 1:00 pm Mountain Time

Register here: https://focusing.org/event/therapist-roundtable-role-values-psychotherapy-exploration-genes-thoughts

Therapists’ Circle: Back to the Basics, “The Client’s Client”: Applying Gendlin’s Gems in Our Own Practices. Two hour peer to peer conversation hosted by Mary Anne Schleinich, Julie Ramsey, Steve Moscovitch and Susan Lennox. Free for members of The International Focusing Institute.

Due to over subscription, a second offering will be held Mar. 24, 10:00 to 12:00 Mountain Time.

Details and registration for online event: https://focusing.org/event/therapists-circle-back-basics-clients-client-applying-gendlins-gems-our-own-practices