The Living Process Episode 26 with host Greg Madison 

Guest Rob Parker

Paradigm Leaping

Welcome back to The Living Process. In this episode, Rob talks about his interests in philosophy, especially existentialism, from an early age and it was this interest, combined with his desire to help other young kids like himself, that led him to Gendlin. Rob’s first experience of the Focusing world was a 3-day Thinking at the Edge workshop with Gendlin at Stony Point. Unusually his interest in philosophy was his way into Focusing. We talk about Rob’s interest in ‘meaning’, his journey from the ideas of Gregory Bateson to Maurice Marleau-Ponty and Thomas Kuhn, and how these thinkers brought him to Gendlin and a unique opportunity to drop everything and learn from this new philosopher. In our conversation, we touched on how learning Focusing affected Rob’s therapy practice. He also talks about learning from Mary Hendricks Gendlin how to slow down and work with the felt sense in sessions and we touched upon the political and social implications of The Process Model. Rob mentioned his modification of the EXP scale and his use of Zen and Focusing to work with The Inner Critic.  

Rob Parker is well-known in the Focusing world and beyond as a clear thinker representing Gendlin’s A Process Model and Gendlin’s other philosophies to a lay audience. He has a longterm interest in Zen, spirituality, and science. For years Rob was a practicing psychologist, originally in the existential tradition, specialising in psychological trauma. In 2000 Rob found the philosophy of Eugene Gendlin, which he dedicated himself to understanding by meeting Gendlin every week until Gendlin died in 2017.  

For information on Rob, his workshops, and his writing on Gendlin’s philosophy, see:

www.lifeforward.org

Episode 26, The Living Process with guest Rob Parker: https://youtu.be/oAZh5uCe_Yo

The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links:

https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/

Greg’s YouTube video channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC0TgN6iVu3n9d9q2l43z1xBMYY3p9FQL

The Living Process on the FOT Youtube Channel:

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