- Discover how the felt sense—the body’s way of knowing—can guide clients toward fresh insight, emotional healing, and meaningful next steps regardless of what kind of psychotherapy you practice
- Learn how to support Self-in-Presence, a compassionate inner state that allows clients to stay connected to emotional experience without overwhelm
- Explore how empathic prompts and presence-based language can gently invite transformation from within
Focusing: Accessing the “Felt Sense” as a Powerful Catalyst of Transformation in Any Form of Psychotherapy
Ann Weiser Cornell, PhD
This video is no longer available for free viewing
If you purchased the event training package, login here.
Want to learn more about owning the recordings and earning up to 14 CE Credits?
Event pricing has been extended through end of day.
What you'll learn
About the speakers
Ann Weiser Cornell, PhD
Enjoying the summit?
Get lifetime access & earn 14 CE Credits with the Event Training Package
45 Responses
Very nice presentation! the content is very clear and helpful. The presenter was very grounded and was able to “show us” how to be in the presence of the self.
One of the most useful things in this video was some of the conversational exercises Ann offered as a way to find Self and from there to show compassion and awareness to triggered Parts in a Somatic say. This video really “married” Parts work and Somatic experiencing for me. Thanks for your compassionate work!
How do i Sign in to prove I am not a bot?
Is it possible to watch these for free?
Absolutely beautiful. This has been ‘something’ I’ve been looking to guide my potential clients as a counselling student. My own healing majorly sourced from my own inner dialogue and discovering that Eugene Gendlin has named this ,studied it and a group of practitioners has been using this gives me immense joy! I will book Introduction to Focusing asap as I’ve seen British Focusing Association has a free introduction next month. Very grateful for your greatly paced informative presentation and your presence Ann. Much love
So appreciate the experience of what it is like to be more connected with my own felt senses.
Yes, in agreement!
This has thought me a new way of working. Well presented, clear explanation , very informative i would recommend this to my colleagues
Fantastic, deep stuff, I love it! Thank you, Dr. Ann. I think I have actually been at least on the path doing some of this almost intuitively with self and others / clients, but I really appreciate your articulating it, grounding it in your and Dr. Eugene’s fine theory and excellent work. So thank you again for this valuable, insightful training. Shalom, peace!
Loved the presentation! Very clear , helpful and practical. Thank you so much Ann🙏.
Thank you this a helpful way of Helping Client articulate by asking questions ?
Thank you Ann. Grounded, clear, paced, practical, informative presentation.
Really useful, practical application of felt sense, focusing, and empathic response that I can take into the next session! Thank you!!
Thank you Ann. Clearly this approach works well and I believe can be advanced by the “Clean” Approach of David Grove and his focus on presence, acceptance, location and metaphor. As a Clean coach and Facilitator, I hold a “Clean Stance” ( “felt sense”) and focus almost exclusively on my client’s “stuff” expressed both verbally and non verbally inside and outside their system. ( eg via eye/hand direction) “there”. and with curiosity via Clean Questions re location, qualities and metaphor… while modelling non-judgemental acceptance and flow of their stuff without introducing a word like “feel” unless the client uses the word. In my experience, such externally introduced language can interrupt systemic “emerging fresh awareness/knowing” as for many folk esp highly/cognitive/intellectual, it is not part of their vocabulary..
Thank you, Dr. Cornell.
is it possible to get a transcript?
and thank you for your wisdom
Thank you! I loved the prompts you gave us to use these on our own clients….and ourselves. Very informative and beautifully presented.
I have come across hews words that I am looking forward to exploring more like the safe territory, self in presence, precise language and precise reflection.
A most gentle, compassionate tool to accompany the own heart and other people´s heart as well. I am not a therapist, just a “civil” striving to get over hard experiences. Heartfelt thanks to Miss Ann Weiser for this.
This was a very clear and practically useful lecture. Looking forward to using some of these techniques. I did not realise there was an actual formal name for what I call “knowing in myself, without knowing how I know” because that is one way I experience “felt sense”. Thank you Dr Cornell for a very enlightening and empowering lecture.
These are all really helpful and interesting but on the first day there was a lot of othering language. The speaker repeatedly discussed how talk therapy wasn’t helpful and brought that up an incredible amount of times but I saw more similarity than difference in this method and a lot of talk therapy methods. I don’t know anybody who is NOT using some form of somatic method in their practice (even if it’s only interoception work) so it seemed like an unnecessary vilification that caused more harm. I would love to go to a seminar where the interconnectedness of all methods was honored rather than it turning into a bizarre competition. I did still get a lot from the seminar just growing rather weary of this pattern in almost all CEU’s I go to.
I completely agree with your perspective. I also noticed how much overlap exists between the methods discussed and established therapeutic practices, particularly those already integrating somatic and interoceptive work. Framing it as an either/or division between “talk therapy” and somatic approaches feels unnecessarily polarizing. It would be far more valuable — and honest — to recognize the interconnectedness and complementary nature of these methods.
Thank you Dr Cornell for sharing this new (for me) therapeutic approach and examples from sessions.
The idea of “felt sense” and the Focusing method is not a groundbreaking innovation but rather a rebranding of processes already embedded in evidence-based therapies. Approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) have long trained clients to cultivate awareness of bodily sensations as part of present-moment focus and emotional processing. Exercises like the Body Scan explicitly develop the same interoceptive skills. Neuroscience has for decades clearly described that emotions originate in subcortical systems and manifest in the body before reaching conscious awareness. All emotional experiences are first bodily sensations; the only difference among individuals is how much attention they consciously direct toward this sensory feedback. Focusing repackages this natural biological process under a new label, which risks creating confusion by presenting well-understood mechanisms as novel discoveries. It’s attentional retraining more than it’s some discovery of a new psychological mechanism.
As much as I know therapists were trained in Focusing in Sweden in the early 1980s
Well sure, nothing is completely new. But Gendlin’s Focusing book was published in 1978, and ACT for example didn’t really emerge until later in the 80’s.
I sense something in me full of joy and good energy after listening to Dr. Ann Weiser Cornell 🙂
Excellent presentation of Gendlin`s Focusing. Thank you!
Beautiful and nicely presented. I was honored to have met Gendlin when I was an undergrad in Chicago.
Thank you, Ms. Cornell! Your presentation highlighted the concept of the felt sense. I will pay more attention to it during my sessions.
Thankyou for the presentation breakdown, very clear, direct and informative
This is so important. I have been in therapy for most of my adult life, so more than 50 years, experienced many different modalities, and I can vouch for this. I have been experiencing this process but not understanding that and now I know. Now I can do it with intention to live a more alive life. Thank you so much Ann for this wonderful life affirming and inspiring presentation.
forgot to say i am listening to you from Sydney Australia
Or is it simply that the client does not have the vocabulary to express what they know they are feeling? Akin to an expressive ataxia for emotions?
Very helpful supplentation / complementation.
Thank you very much for amplifying Gendlin’s work via yours focusing on Self-in-Presence,
tho am still not quite clear on Empathetic Prompts.
This was a very informative and helpful presentation. I would love to cultivate the calm, grounded presence of self that Dr Cornell modeled for us. Thank you for your work and sharing it with us.
Thank you Anne
As a therapist myself I found your focussing nuggets so helpful.
I am a big advocate of Eugene Gendlin.
Bless you
U
Loved her application oriented presentation. Learned on the spot how to access my own inner experience and witness it . Thank you
Thank you for this fantastic presentation. So well structured, delivered and informative. I’ve learned a very valuable skill that I will implement in my practice.
Thank you, Ann!
Your presentation was thorough and clear. I appreciate the organization of detail you share.
Warm regards!
Jane Umanoff
Excellent presentation, clear, good timing to let us experience what you are saying to sense-feel it. Shows Anne ‘s long and deep experience in Focusing. It is a master class. Thanks
I took Ann’s presentation as information that can be applied to my Internal Family Systems practice. In that way I found her presentation helpful in underscoring the importance of letting felt sense express itself as a part that is trying to tell us something. When working with these parts I need to do so slowly and without adding anything or asking questions. In this way the part can feel seen and understood. I like that she communicated the importance of using empathy rather than intellectualization when there are these felt senses arising.
Thank you for translating concept into practical application, something that is often missing when learning new theories and ideas. I now have a clearer understanding of what I’ve been doing instinctively and will be a better therapist for it. Something that might be helpful, too, is applying this to telehealth. I’m doing more of that in order to reach clients in rural areas of my state, where these services are missing or lacking this type of expertise. I know I can be better at this service, I’m just not sure how.
Wow, this really makes me eager to finish up my master’s thesis and start working with clients. Thank you for an interesting and very hands-on presentation!