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Coaching approaches

Focusing-oriented coaching

Focusing-oriented coaching asks you to attend to a felt sense, the bodily awareness of a situation that is not yet in words, and to let a fitting word or image come from it. It grows from Eugene Gendlin's work on focusing, which he described in a 1969 article in Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice. Research on focusing is small. A 2024 pilot of focusing (Gomes et al., 2024) had three participants. Wider research on how deeply people engage their feelings in therapy links that process to outcome, but it does not test focusing directly.

What it is

In a focusing-oriented session you are invited to pause and sense the whole of a situation in your body before trying to explain it. The coach helps you stay with that unclear sense rather than rushing to a conclusion, and waits for a word, phrase or image that fits it.

Gendlin treated the felt sense as a source of information that can shift when it is attended to. Hendricks describes focusing-oriented work as a form of experiential psychotherapy (Hendricks, 2002). The version on this page is a coaching adaptation of that practice, and little research has tested the coaching form.

Where it comes from

Gendlin set out the core idea in a 1969 article titled "Focusing" in Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice.

A chapter on the approach appears in a handbook of research on humanistic psychotherapies (Hendricks, 2002).

The principles underneath

The felt sense

A felt sense is a bodily, unclear awareness of a whole situation. It holds more than you can say at first.

Attend before explaining

The approach asks you to stay with the felt sense rather than analysing it straight away, because it can shift when it is attended to.

Let words come from the sense

A word, phrase or image is offered and checked against the body. A fit is often felt as a shift or as relief.

Depth of experiencing matters

How deeply a person engages their own experience can be rated. One study suggests that this depth is associated with outcome in school-based counselling for young people (Geyer et al., 2024).

How a session runs

  1. Say in a sentence or two what you want to think through.
  2. Pause and turn your attention inward to notice how the whole situation feels in your body. Do not rush to a conclusion.
  3. Wait for a vague sense to form. The coach may ask a question that invites it, but you decide what it is.
  4. Offer a word, phrase or image that might fit, and check it against the body: does it fit, or does something tighten or shift?
  5. When something shifts, stay with the new sense for a moment and name what has changed.
  6. End by noticing what you now want to do, and what you would like to look at next time.

When it tends to fit

  • You know something about a decision is off, but you cannot yet say what it is.
  • You keep explaining a situation in the same words, and none of them feel right.
  • You want to slow an internal argument down and let something unclear become clearer.

What the research shows

Evidence: Practitioner tradition — little or no outcome research

Research on focusing itself is small. A 2024 pilot offered a two-session online group focusing intervention to three people with colorectal cancer. The authors report greater self-awareness, self-reflection and a sense of relief, and describe the protocol as potentially useful (Gomes et al., 2024). Two studies whose titles concern the effects of focusing are also cited: one on focusing on a problem (Kantor & Zimring, 1976) and one on focusing and defensiveness (Summers, 1980). This page does not summarise their findings, because only their titles were checked. Nearby, a 2024 study of 60 young people in school-based humanistic counselling found that depth of emotional experiencing accounted for 11.6% of the variance in change in outcome scores, and that the working alliance did not predict benefit in the same model (Geyer et al., 2024).

Where the evidence is thin: None of these studies tests focusing-oriented coaching. The 2024 pilot had three participants, and its abstract does not describe a comparison group. The Geyer study concerns therapy in general, measured by how deeply people engage their feelings, not focusing as a method. The older studies and the handbook chapter were checked at title level only, so claims about them are limited to what their titles say.

Sources

  1. Gomes, M., Silva, E. R., & Salgado, J. (2024). Focusing with colorectal cancer patients: a pilot study of a brief online group intervention. Frontiers in Psychology, 15.
  2. Geyer, D., Lam, V., Gilbert, H., & Cooper, M. (2024). Depth of emotional experiencing and outcome in therapy with young people. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 98(2), 308–321.
  3. Kantor, S., & Zimring, F. (1976). The effects of focusing on a problem. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 13(3), 255–258.
  4. Summers, F. (1980). Focusing and defensiveness: An empirical study. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 17(1), 74–78.
  5. Gendlin, E. (1969). Focusing. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 6(1), 4–15.
  6. Hendricks, M. (2002). Focusing-oriented/experiential psychotherapy. In Humanistic psychotherapies: Handbook of research and practice.

Where it stops

Focusing asks you to attend to bodily sensations, which can bring up strong feelings, including about past trauma. If that happens, stop and work with a qualified clinician.

The approach relies on a vague sense finding words over time. People who want quick, concrete answers may find it slow, and it is not a plan for practical problems.

Research on the coaching form is very limited. For depression, anxiety or grief that is not easing, a qualified professional is better placed to help.

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