EUGENE GENDLIN

Email address: gend@ccp.uchicago.edu

An instrument applicable to verbatim material, the EXP Scale, predicts successful outcomes of psychotherapy, and in one study also life review of the aged. The Scale measures the extent to which the verbal material indicates attention focused on directly sensed, internally felt referents.

A series of eight such process/outcome studies would now profit from further statistical analysis. Since the EXP Scale predicts outcomes already from early interviews, a teaching of this success-predicted mode of attention was developed. Called "focusing", it consists of small-step instructions, the results of which can be separately studied. One recently completed study goes beyond mere correlation: Failure-predicted clients referred by therapists, when taught focusing by us here, become successful with their therapists. Cancer patients are being taught these steps in brief teaching sessions. A study measuring the effects is nearly complete. Differential responses of other patient groups are beginning to be studied. The measure and its teaching have been widely applied in dream-interpretation, creative writing, stress-reduction, and other settings (including public schools) in which research is planned. (Methodology)

Publications:

1. Focusing . Bantam Books, New York: 1981.

2. Let your Body Interpret Your Dreams . Wilmette, Chiron, 1986.

3. What comes after traditional psychotherapy research? American Psychologist, Feb. 1987.