Eugene Gendlin

Philosophy

Gendlin regarded himself first and foremost as a philosopher and he brought a rigorous philosophical perspective to psychology, presented in his early book Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning and later developed into a comprehensive theory of the deep nature of life processes, articulated in his masterwork A Process Model. From 1968 to 1995 he taught in both the philosophy and psychology departments at the University of Chicago. There he taught a course on theory-building that later gave rise to a new practice called “Thinking at the Edge,” a fourteen-step method for drawing on one’s non-conceptual, experiential knowing about any topic to create novel theory and concepts. Gendlin asserts that an organism's living interaction with its environment is prior (temporally and philosophically) to abstract knowledge about its environment. Living is an intricate, ordered interaction with the environment, and as such, is a kind of knowing. Abstract knowledge is a development of this more basic knowing.

For example, when a pen falls off a desk, that seems to be proof that gravity exists, because gravity made it fall. But what is "gravity"? In 1500, "gravity" was the pen's desire to go to the center of the earth; in 1700 "gravity" was a force that acted at a distance according to mathematical laws; in the 1900s "gravity" was an effect of curved space-time; and today physicists theorize that "gravity" may be a force carried by subatomic particles called "gravitons". Gendlin views "gravity" as a concept and points out that concepts can't make anything fall. Instead of saying that gravity causes things to fall, it would be more accurate to say that things falling cause [the different concepts of] gravity. Interaction with the world is prior to concepts about the world.

The fact that concepts change does not mean that they are arbitrary; concepts can be formulated in many diverse and incompatible ways, but to the extent that they are rooted in experience, each formulation has its own precise relationship to experience. Thus Gendlin's philosophy goes beyond relativism and postmodernism. He agrees with postmodernists that culture and language are always already implicit in experiencing and in concepts. Empirical testing is crucial, but it does not keep science from changing every few years. No assertions are simply "objective".

Gendlin points out that the universe (and everything in it) is implicitly more intricate than concepts, because a) it includes them, and b) all concepts and logical units are generated in a wider, more than conceptual process (which Gendlin calls implicit intricacy). This wider process is more than logical, in a way that has a number of characteristic regularities. Gendlin has shown that it is possible to refer directly to this process in the context of a given problem or situation and systematically generate new concepts and more precise logical units.

Because human beings are in an ongoing interaction with the world (they breathe, eat, and interact with others in every context and in any field in which they work), their bodies are a "knowing" which is more than conceptual and which implies further steps. Thus, it is possible for one to drive a car while carrying on an animated conversation; and it is possible for Einstein to say that he had a "feel" for his theory years before he could formulate it.

Human beings' ongoing interaction with the world provides ongoing validity. Each move, from pumping blood to discussing philosophy, implies a next step, an organic carrying forward. Humans feel this carrying forward both in the move itself and in the feedback it generates: at each moment, it is possible to feel how things are moving and what is implied next. With specific training, one can learn to attend to this feeling more deeply, so that a holistic felt sense of the whole situation can form.

A felt sense is quite different from "feeling" in the sense of emotions; it is one's bodily awareness of the ongoing life process. Because a felt sense is a living interaction in the world, it is not relative in the way that concepts are. A felt sense is more ordered than concepts and has its own properties, different from those of logic; for example, it is very precise, more intricate, and can be conceptualized in a variety of non-arbitrary ways. Much of Gendlin's philosophy is concerned with showing how this implicit bodily knowing functions in relation to logic. For example, Gendlin has found that when the felt sense is allowed to function in relation to concepts, each carries the other forward, through steps of deeper feel and new formulation.

Gendlin underlines that one can (and often does) "progress" in their understanding, and that this involves transitions in which existing conceptual models are disrupted, but that one can "feel" when a carrying forward in insight is (or is not) occurring. One can "feel" this because human logical conceptions are dependent on a more intricate order, which is living-in-the-world. Useful concepts derive from and are relative to this sense more than logical, intricate order, not the other way round.

Gendlin's two major philosophical works are Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning, which develops explicit ways of approaching the implicit; and A Process Model, which demonstrates this method by developing a body of consistent concepts for thinking about organic processes, with implications for thinking about space, time, science, genetics, ethology, consciousness, language, and spirituality.

Focusing

Focusing emerged from Gendlin's collaboration with psychologist Carl Rogers. Gendlin developed a way of measuring the extent to which an individual refers to a felt sense; and he found in a series of studies that therapy clients who have positive outcomes do much more of this. He then developed a way to teach people to refer to their felt sense, so clients could do better in therapy. This training is called 'Focusing'. Further research showed that Focusing can be used outside of therapy to address a variety of issues. It is described in Gendlin's book, Focusing, which has sold over 400,000 copies and is printed in twelve languages. One of his most beloved quotations is from his book Focusing:“When I use the word "body," I mean more than the physical machine. Not only do you physically live the circumstances around you but also those you only think of in your mind. Your physically felt body is in fact part of a gigantic system of here and other places, now and other times, you and other people–in fact, the whole universe. This sense of being bodily alive in a vast system is the body as it is felt from inside.”

In 1970, Gendlin was the first person to receive the "Distinguished Professional Award in Psychology and Psychotherapy" from the Psychotherapy Division (Division 29) of the American Psychological Association. In 2000, Gendlin also received, along with The Focusing Institute, the Charlotte and Karl Bühler Award from the Society of Humanistic Psychology (Division 32 of the American Psychological Association). In 2007, he was a recipient of the Viktor Frankl Award of the City of Vienna for outstanding achievements in the field of meaning-oriented humanistic psychotherapy.

The worldwide dissemination of Focusing has been facilitated by The International Focusing Institute [1] . This nonprofit organization defines itself as "an international, cross-cultural organization dedicated to supporting individuals and groups world-wide who are practicing, teaching and developing Focusing and its underlying philosophy." Their 2010 Membership Directory listed about 2,000 members in over 40 countries. Its website houses the Gendlin Online Library.

Thinking at the Edge

Thinking at the Edge (TAE), a practice initially developed by Mary N. Hendricks on the basis of Eugene Gendlin's philosophy of the implicit, is a way of developing one's implicit knowing into an articulated theory. For example, a professional might have had an inchoate felt sense for a problem for many years. Using TAE, it is possible to develop concepts that explicate the felt sense very precisely so that what was implicit knowledge can generate an explicit theory that can contribute to the field.

Personal life

Gendlin was born in Vienna, Austria on December 25, 1926. He lived with his parents in the 9th district of Vienna, a very Jewish district at that time. His mother was Sylvia Gendelin-Tobell. His father, Leonid Gendelin had earned a doctoral degree in chemistry from the University of Graz. Dr. Gendelin had a business as a dry cleaner in Vienna. The family left Austria due to the rise of the Nazi party and the danger to Jewish families such as his. They first fled to Holland and later emigrated to the United States on the SS Paris (1916) on its last voyage to New York, arriving January 11, 1939. The family changed their name to Gendlin upon their arrival in the United States, and in English it is pronounced JEHND-lin (not with the hard "g" as in German pronunciation). Gendlin went on to serve in the United States Navy and to become a U.S. citizen.

Gendlin lived in New York state until his death. He had three children: Gerry and Judith from his first marriage with wife Fran; and a daughter, Elissa, with his second wife, Mary Hendricks-Gendlin. Gerry Gendlin is an expert on Russia and serves as an Associate Professor in the department of History, Politics, Languages and Cultures at Edinboro University in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. Mary worked closely with Gendlin and served for many years as the Director of The Focusing Institute. Mary Hendricks-Gendlin died in 2015.

Awards

1970: "Distinguished Professional Award in Psychology and Psychotherapy," from Division 29 of the American Psychological Association (Division of Psychotherapy)

2000: "Charlotte and Karl Bühler Award" (given jointly to Gendlin and The Focusing Institute), from Division 32 of the American Psychological Association (the Society for Humanistic Psychology)

2007: "Viktor Frankl Award of the City of Vienna for outstanding achievements in the field of meaning-oriented humanistic psychotherapy," from the Viktor Frankl Foundation

2011: "Distinguished Theoretical and Philosophical Contributions to Psychology," from Division 24 of the American Psychological Association (The Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology)

2016: "Lifetime Achievement," from the World Association for Person Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling

2016: "Lifetime Achievement," from the US Association for Body Psychotherapy