Gendlin’s “focaling” and Dilthey’s “purposiveness”

In “A Process Model (APM)” (Gendlin, 2018), the term “focaling” is often used, which is similar in spelling to “Focusing” but has a different meaning. The term was already used in the early 1970s in Gendlin’s earlier work. Furthermore, although the term was not used, the prototype of the idea can be found in his master’s thesis on Dilthey (Gendlin, 1950).

Uses of “focal” preceding APM

In “Thinking beyond Patterns” in the early 1990s, the phrase “focal implying” was used:

To see that a picture hangs crookedly implies its straightening. ... To sense a problem is the focal implying of a step toward solving it. We can sense something "wrong," only because an implicit rightness has already functioned. (Gendlin, 1991b, p. 146)

The characteristic of “focal implying” as described above was already discussed as “not this, and not that” in “Experiential Psychotherapy” in the early 1970s:

... the preconceptual implying and indicating of the bodily felt sense is quite definite, not this, and not that, and not the other act or speech will do, nothing will do except a way that does carry forward and has the bodily releasing character. (Gendlin, 1973, p. 326)

This passage is discussed in the section “Focaling (Value)”. This section is the first time “focal” is discussed in detail:

Experiencing is purposive, valuative, focal. Experiencing has direction. Just some and no other further steps will “carry forward.” Anything else is an abrupt change or stasis. (Gendlin, 1973, p. 326)

Thus, the term “focal” is often used in conjunction with the words “purposive” and “valuative”. To understand the meaning of the word “purposive” here, the following passage from Dilthey’s work, which was the most significant influence on Gendlin during his life, may be helpful:

Psychic structure is purposive because it possesses the tendency to produce, to preserve, and to augment life-values and to exclude whatever is indifferent or inimical. (Dilthey, 1927, p. 330; 2002, p. 350)

Based on the meaning of “purposive” in Dilthey, it may be easier to see Gendlin’s considerations since then in a consistent manner.

Despite a great complexity of implicit aspects, there is a focus, a specific direction, which can be felt, and which is manifest in the fact that not just any step carries forward. (Gendlin, 1973, p. 326)

Many “purposes” and many possible actions are focaled into one. Only one action occurs next. Our concept of “focaling” develops from this relation of many into one. (Gendlin, 2018, p. 46)

The purpose is not something added on

In the section “f) Focaling” in Chapter IV-A of APM, the term “purpose” is often used, such as “The purpose is not something added on” (Gendlin, 2018, p. 45). This is not to say there is a pre-separation between fact-neutral perception and purpose-oriented valuing. For example, in another paper from the early 1990s, “On Emotion in Therapy,” it is argued as follows:

Bodily sentience is an implying of next moves. You don't first feel hot, and then, after that, feel a desire to be cooler. The sense of “hot” is the wanting to be cooler, and moves to cool off are implicit. (Gendlin, 1991a, p. 259)

The body's sentience is not a mere perception of how things are, as if what to do about it were a different question. It is not like a committee report, which has a first section on the facts, and a second on recommendations. (Gendlin, 1991a, p. 258)

The discussion of heat can also be traced back to the “Experiential Psychotherapy” in the 1970s:

To be cooler is not a value separately added onto some neutral experience of temperature. (Gendlin, 1973, p. 326)

Furthermore, the inseparability of neutral experience from valuing has already been written about in his master’s thesis:

Data about man are not given purely as disconnected items of observation, nor as neutral sense perception. (Gendlin, 1950, p. 4)

It is against this background that it is argued in APM that “To render purpose as a separate, added thing is artificial” (Gendlin, 2018, p. 46). The consideration of “purpose,” which originated with Dilthey and was originally intended only for humans, has come to APM, where it is probably applied to considerations of living processes in general, such as “The plant doesn’t need a separate purpose to turn to the sun” (Gendlin, 2018, p. 46).

Appendix: Gendlin’s reference to Dilthey

The section “f) Focaling” is the only place in the text of APM where Gendlin specifically refers to Dilthey:

For example, in human events what we call “purpose” already inheres in what a given action is. Or, as Dilthey argued, every experiencing is already inherently also an understanding (Dilthey 1927). (Gendlin, 2018, pp. 45-6)

As far as I know, I do not find the argument “every experiencing is already inherently also an understanding” in Dilthey’s work. In that sense, the validity of Gendlin’s reference is questionable. However, there is no doubt that the idea of “focaling” is much inspired by Dilthey’s philosophy, which he examined in his master’s thesis (Gendlin, 1950), and that he developed it in his way. Strictly saying, the sentence above “‘purpose’ already inheres in what a given action is” would correspond to the following passage in the thesis:

Actions always have relevance to a purpose, therefore to something inner. The actions contains its purpose within it. (Gendlin, 1950, p. 34)

Therefore, it would be most valid to quote the following passages from Dilthey’s writings:

Apart from the elucidation of how a situation, a purpose, means, and a life-nexus intersect in an action, it allows no inclusive determination of the inner life from which it arose. (Dilthey, 1927, p. 206; 2002, p. 227)

... in accordance with the relation in which an action stands to a purpose, this is given in it. (Dilthey, 1927, p. 206; 2002, p. 227)

References

Dilthey, W. (2002). The formation of the historical world in the human sciences (edited by R. A. Makkreel, & F. Rodi) (Selected works / Wilhelm Dilthey, Vol. 3). Princeton University Press. Originally published as Dilthey, W. (1927). Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7). B.G.Teubner.

Gendlin, E. T. (1950). Wilhelm Dilthey and the problem of comprehending human significance in the science of man. MA Thesis, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago.

Gendlin, E.T. (1973). Experiential psychotherapy. In R. Corsini (Ed.), Current psychotherapies (pp. 317-52). Peacock.

Gendlin, E.T. (1991a). On emotion in therapy. In J.D. Safran & L.S. Greenberg (Eds.), Emotion, psychotherapy and change (pp. 255-79). Guilford.

Gendlin, E.T. (1991b). Thinking beyond patterns: body, language and situations. In B. den Ouden & M. Moen (Eds.), The presence of feeling in thought (pp. 25-151). Peter Lang.

Gendlin, E. T. (2018). A process model. Northwestern University Press.