Find participants from all over Europe ready to share their experience with Focusing and Focusing applications, co-creating new European projects.
GET CONNECTED ...
with other European Focusing Professionals
EFA is a European network for Focusers, Focusing professionals and Focusing practitioners,
who wish to develop Focusing and the Experiential Approach through collaboration, openness and mutual support.
Membership
of The International Focusing Institute (TIFI)
is not requested.
Dear European Focusing Association Member
Welcome to the new European Focusing Association (EFA).
We are delighted that you are joining us, and we look forward to collaborating with you in joint ventures to carry forward the gifts of Focusing.
In the next few months, we will set up web pages to support our work together.
Here, in this website, you can say something about your interests (by adding details in your professional profile),
and how you might want to contribute to EFA, as well as what you want from EFA.
We are attaching the Vision Statement 
, so that you can save it on your computer,
and forward it to other people who might be interested.
We want to be a truly European association and we want to address language needs immediately.
We invite translators, who can translate the Vision Statement into:
Spanish, French, Hebrew, Polish, Romanian, … (more)
Download the Swedish 
, Greek 
, Italian 
and German 
translation of the EFA vision statement
If you see your language here, can you please let us know if you can translate into your language,
and which language you can translate it into.
We will put the vision statements on the web site.
We look forward to our collaboration together.
Best wishes
Fiona Parr – fiona@fionaparr-focusing.co.uk
Judy Moore – moore.judy@hotmail.com
Hejo Feuerstein – h.feuerstein@focusing.de
Pavlos Zarogiannis – pavloszar@yahoo.com
Tine Swyngedouw – tine.swyngedouw@gmail.com
Nikos Kypriotakis – nikoskypriotakis@gmail.com
How to Become a Participant – How to Register
1. Register
Those who register
are asked to commit to the
EFA Vision Statement.
(You can download it by clicking on the link above)
Registration by email
You may use the easy registration way of sending us an email at efa@efa-focusing.eu. In that case please fill out at least the first of the following forms: Registration-Form, Focusing-Profile-Form
Self Registration
In case you need help for the registering process,
please do read the following instructions
2. Professional Focusing profile
After you are registered you can offer your professional Focusing profile data.
By your profile data you release information about you and your work to other people who might be interested in sharing experience or create projects in special domains. You can choose between different options for the visibility of your Focusing profile data: everyone, all members or “only me”.
We recommend to set the information “everyone” (public).
3. Login and Start Collaborating
Clicking on your username (upper right corner) you get access to the different ways to communicate and collaborate with other EFA participants:
- messages: private messages to other participants within the system
- groups: you can create and join to EFA task groups
- forums: you can create a post within the EFA task groups
- events: you can post your personal events like workshops
- buddydrive: you can share files (e.g. powerpoint) within EFA task groups and other participants
Target Group
- European Coordinators
- Coordinators in Training
- Focusing Trainers, personally invited by Coordinators
- Focusers, Focusing professionals and Focusing practitioners
European Focusing Association (EFA)
EFA Vision Statement and Invitation (Version July 19, 2016)
Presented and discussed at the European Coordinators’ Meeting July 18, 2016
EFA is a European network for Focusers, Focusing professionals and Focusing practitioners, who wish to develop Focusing and the Experiential Approach through collaboration, openness and mutual support.
The Association embraces diversity and multiplicity. All members share the common ground of Focusing. It does not favour any particular understanding of Focusing.
I. Principles
The aim of EFA is to provide a European-wide network for those Focusers and Focusing Professionals engaged in research and practice who:
- have a commitment to the primary importance of the philosophy of Focusing, its attitude and ethics.
- recognize the centrality of the ‘felt sense’ in their practice.
- embody in their work those Focusing attitudes as first postulated by Eugene Gendlin.
- have an openness to the future development of Focusing in the light of research and evolving practice.
II. Goals
EFA has the following goals:
- To promote continuing dialogue and good practice between the European Focusers and Focusing Professionals.
- To be a network for exploring different ways of teaching, researching and using Focusing.
- To provide ongoing support and professional development opportunities to individuals trained in Focusing and to European local and national Focusing organizations.
- To promote the Focusing paradigm, to support and encourage scientific study in all fields of application.
- To engage in socio-political processes to ensure the continued contribution of Focusing in health, social insurance, education, academic contexts, etc.
- To foster the exchange of research, theory and practice among a variety of language groups.
- To make use of our intercultural diversity, to learn from one another, to improve the practice of Focusing and the Experiential Approach.
- To develop training programmes that are appropriate to the multi-cultural and multi-lingual European context.
- To validate and accredit/recognise European Focusing-oriented training programmes.
- To work together closely and to exchange ideas with other European and world associations and institutions.
III. How does EFA operate?
EFA will be carried forward by a steering group, which will include representatives of specific task groups.
EFA aims to make sure that the workings of the association are in harmony with the processes of Focusing itself. Structures and task groups evolve as the need arises (e.g. a training group, an Internet group). Membership of these groups is on a rotational basis, ideally representing European diversity by the multinational composition of its members.
An eventual need for paid administration and for the support of web-based resources is recognized. This will mean the eventual payment of a subscription once the organization is firmly established.
IV. Meetings
EFA will discuss development of the Association at an annual meeting, the General Assembly, to be held in Europe. This meeting will also facilitate the formation of project groups that can be continued through web meetings. Specific interest groups will organize events throughout the year to demonstrate and develop new directions in Focusing. We will make use of Internet options (e.g. the European Focusing Website, Facebook) to share information and to promote training programmes and workshops.
All members of the Association may attend the General Assembly. Members who are unable to attend in person, can have their views taken into account. They can use email or other online means to communicate their views. We make all our decisions by consensus.
V. Principles and ethics
Each small group, including the steering group, follows the following principles:
- All members have equal say in how the group is run.
- All members have equal access to information.
- All members consult with their inner sense of an issue to help find a way forward.
- All members undertake to listen to their own felt sense and to the felt senses of others when reaching decisions.
The multi-national and multi-lingual nature of the organization and the fact that different individuals are likely to come together in different permutations means that there needs to be a commitment not to ‘reinvent the wheel’ or undo the work of previous groups, while respecting the groundwork provided through the work of others.
EFA accepts that working with Focusing can never be reduced to rules and regulations or detailed criteria and standards. Instead we will have guidelines and principles to be developed in detail at a later stage. Each person has the freedom to develop their work in ways that feel right with their inner felt sense and to develop their work according to their sense of responsibility for the content and process of their teaching or professional practice.
