A deep sense of honor and a clear feeling of humility and shyness arise in me as I share this interview. I can clearly feel the responsibility of talking about the work I do on “Focusing and how to work experientially with issues of violence” (“Focusing and how to work experientially with violence”), as the English title of the conversation says. It is an important topic for me (I work a lot on it through Spiral Consulting Children, the consultancy specialized in Child Protection of which I am a founding partner), and trying to convey all the nuances is always a challenge.

International Focusing Institute (The International Focusing Institute, the organization that coordinates at an international level the activities related to training and dissemination of Focusing) promotes “Conversations” (English) with Focusing professionals from around the world. Serge Prengel, a Focusing Trainer and Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapist whom I met at the International Focusing Conference 2016 Cambridge (United Kingdom), acts as host, and he does it in a very Focusing way - with an empathic reflex, with pauses, allowing new ideas to emerge and unfold at their own pace–.

In this “Conversation” you will find that we discuss topics such as the following:

• Violence as a stopped process (“Something would have to have happened to move the situation forward, but it didn't happen, so that the process is blocked”).
• Damage defines violence, and the damage is experienced from the body.
• Find a “handle” (“handle”) for violence (identify her) is the first step to get out of it: For this, it is necessary to become aware of the cultural patterns that make us normalize violence.
• The role of power in violence.
• Affection coupled with care as a way to avoid violence –and the bodily dimension that can be achieved through Focusing–.
• Detection and intervention in cases of violence in Child Protection.
• A message of hope regarding the possibilities of healing and transforming violence, and Focusing as a magnificent tool to do it.

And if you want to experience how to transform the experience of violence from the body through Focusing, I am available for specific sessions the for psychotherapy in Madrid.

I hope you can find some ideas that inspire your own experiential work on violence, and I would love to hear your reactions to it.

F. Javier Romeo-Biedma

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