People in psychotherapy need an accepting relationship with their own emotions and felt senses if positive change is to happen. Therapists can facilitate an inner relationship with the person in treatment that allows for acceptance, curiosity, and exploration. But how does one do that when people are caught up in states of emotional overwhelm and/or dissociation?

Inner Relationship Focusing is a somatically-based process for emotional healing and positive growth, developed by Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin from the Focusing work of Eugene Gendlin. In this presentation, Ann will demonstrate how to use simple shifts in language and attention to help people in therapy move into the present moment and access a friendly, witnessing state with their own emotional material, becoming neither overwhelmed nor dissociated. These respectful interventions can be combined with any form of therapy for even greater effectiveness.

This web conference is intermediate instructional level. If you have any questions about this web conference, or would like more information, please contact us here.

How the Web Conference Works

In short, participants will have two options for participating in this event. Option one, listening to the event by calling into our teleconference center. Option two, listening to the event by calling into the teleconference and viewing the event online. Prior to the event all participants will be sent an email with instructions on how to log in to the teleconference and videoconference center. This event will include lecture, interaction, and question and answer periods.

Continuing Education (CE) Information

1.5 CE credits will be provided by GoodTherapy.org for attending this web conference in its entirety.

GoodTherapy.org is also an Approved Education Provider by NAADAC, The Association for Addiction Professionals (provider #135463). Of the eight counselor skill groups ascribed to by NAADAC, this course is classified within counseling services.

GoodTherapy.org, provider #1352, is approved as a provider for social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) www.aswb.org, through the Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. ASWB Approval Period: March 30, 2016 through March 30, 2019. Social workers should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval. Social workers participating in this course will receive two clinical continuing education clock hours. GoodTherapy.org maintains responsibility for this program and its content and is solely responsible for all aspects of the program.

GoodTherapy.org, SW CPE is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0395. 

Registration Information

This web conference is available at no cost to GoodTherapy.org members.

Event Reviews from Members

Meet the Presenter

Ann Weiser Cornell, PhD

Ann Weiser Cornell, PhD, is an internationally known author and seminar leader who has been working with the Focusing process since she learned it from its originator Eugene Gendlin in 1972. She is perhaps the best-known Focusing teacher in the world, having taught in eighteen countries around the world for the past twenty-five years. With her colleague Barbara McGavin she has been developing Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF) since 1992, and today there is a flourishing worldwide network of therapists and practitioners who use IRF.

Ann has given presentations and trainings in IRF at the Esalen Institute, the Psychotherapy Networker Conference, the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, the American Psychological Association, and at the Cape Cod Institute.

Ann was a Woodrow Wilson scholar at the University of Chicago, where she received a PhD in Linguistics in 1975. She puts her linguistics training to use with her fine attention to the language that facilitates inner process, which she calls “the art of facilitative language.”

Ann is the author of The Power of Focusing and The Radical Acceptance of Everything. She is the founder and CEO of Focusing Resources, which offers over 60 phone seminars on IRF every year. You can learn more about Focusing Resources here.