6 Benefits of Deepening the Focusing in your EFT practice

Inner Relationship Focusing for EFT Level 1

Elmar Kruithoff

Dipl.-Psych., Aut. Psykolog, Focusing Coordinator and Teacher with 25+ years of experience

6 Thursday (18-20 CET) – starting 21. August, 4. & 11 September, 30. October, 6 & 13 November 2025

What happens when Focusing grows from an often-obscure task into a quiet center shaping the therapeutic process? In this masterclass, built on years of Focusing training with EFT therapists in Denmark and Germany, we’ll explore six key benefits that emerge when Focusing deepens — and how you can cultivate them in your own practice. We’ll explore Focusing through live demonstrations, examples, discussion, and supported practice. This allows you to experience the effects of Focusing directly — and you can take time between meetings to try things out at your own pace. This seminar includes findings from a forthcoming article co-authored with Ann Weiser Cornell, founder of Inner Relationship Focusing, in Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies.

In this 12 hour online EFT-Masterclass over 6 days you will learn using Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF) in partnership with a fellow EFT-therapist. Inner Relationship Focusing by it self is method for experiential learning, personal theraoy, therapist self care and personal growth work which fills a gap in many EFT trainings. Psychotherapist also need time to take care of their emotional well-being and tend to their continues growth. Focusing offers a great opportunity to do just that. Inner Relationship Focusing with a partner will also inform you EFT practice through experiential learning from your own focusing.

The advantages of using Inner Relationship Focusing Partnerships for EFT Therapist Self-Care

• Easy to do
• Compliant with EFT
• Supports therapist self-care & personal growth work
• Reconnect to experience and bring your process forward
• Training Focusing Skills
• Inform EFT practice from embodied implicit experiential learning
• Building trust in the power of person-centered empathic following
• Build trust in the actualising tendency and client as active self-healer

The benefits of focusing partnerships

In the Masterclass you will learn how to use IRF in partnership with one or more colleagues. We believe that using focusing in partnership, helping each other as focuser and companion has some advantages compared to individual focusing. When addressing therapist self-care, these benefits become even more important and helpful.

• You will experience the empathic presence from another
• Your verbally expressed symbolisations to another helps the quality and depth of your experience
• Focusing with another supports the motivation to keep focusing and supporting your self-care

How to do it?

It’s very easy when you have learned the steps and follow the clear instructions you will learn

• You and your partner can focus in person, online or phone
• It takes only 1 hour every 1-4 week
• Your take 2 rounds of 20 minutes as focuser & companion
• There is also time to greet, evaluate, small talk & make new appointment

What do you learn?

You will learn self-instruction focusing steps and experiencing as focuser. You will learn how to support the focuser as a companion. We will work (at least) with 4 foundations of focusing:

1) Presence. How can I meet myself in difficult situations in such a way that my attitude itself becomes a resource? How do I create the conditions for all my parts to be welcome – whether they are pleasant, empowering or exhausted and hurt? How can I use language in such a way that it becomes easier to physically feel feelings and thoughts, to meet them without bias and to be able to explore them?

2) Felt Sense. How can I support my experiencing processes in such a way that they feel accepted and respected – rather than me talking “about” them, trying to intervene, fix, or turning away. How can I get out of intense, stuck feelings? How can I turn to vague and unclear feelings and understand them better? How do I come to a clarifying self-regulation that is anchored in the body and in feeling?

3) Inner relationship. What concrete steps are there to initiate, deepen and maintain a good contact and accepting encounter with my experience and with myself over a longer period of time? What model can I follow when feelings are intense or unclear – or when I get stuck in difficult feelings?

4) Working together. How can we as colleagues best support each other in Focusing and learn from each other? How do we use Focusing partnerships to clarify issues from therapeutic practice? How does a Focusing partnership become so secure that trust can develop and the processes gain depth?

Ongoing focusing partnerships

The masterclass will support participants in forming ongoing focusing partnerships in order to support the participants self-care after the masterclass. Our vision is that focusing partnership is going to be one of the ways EFT therapist support them selves.

Effect on your EFT practice

Even though this masterclass is not specifically directed towards training focusing for your EFT practice, you can expect that it will inform your practice as an EFT therapist during and after the workshop. Experiencing focusing and inner relationships more deeply in the workshop will enhance your empathic identification of the felt sense, parts and self-presence in your clients. Masterclasses on integrating Inner Relationship Focusing into your practice are offered by IEFT.

Practical information

Presenter: Elmar Kruithoff, psychologist, Inner Relationsship Focuing Teacher, Focuisng Coordinator from The International Focuing Institute.

Time: 6 Thursday (18-20 CET) – starting 21. August, 4. & 11 September, 30. October, 6 & 13 November 2025

Length: 12 hours

Place: Zoom

Language: English

Preconditions: Prior EFT training

Price:

• Regular: 3200 Dkr. (equivalent to 425 €)

Low income countries discount:

• 50% discount only for the category: one and two from low-income countries.
• 30% discount only for the category: three from low-income countries.

Bank: 84110004083983 // IBAN: DK3084110004083983

Binding: Registration is final after registration and payment. The registration is binding 3 weeks before start

Deadline for registration: 14. August 2025

More information: Head of Institute Niels Bagge, mail@ieft.dk

Presenter

Elmar Kruithoff is psychologist (Dipl.-Psychologe), Inner Relationsship Focuing Teacher & Focuisng Coordinator from The International Focuing Institute. He studied psychology at Hamburg University in Germany and was a research assistant in the Department for Medical Psychology at Hamburg University Hospital. He trained and taught with Ann Weiser-Cornell and Barbara McGavin in Inner Relatonship Focusing for several years before founding focusing-center.com and teaching Focusing based on Eugene T. Gendlin’s and Ann Weiser Cornell’s work. Today he teaches advanced Focusing tutorials, trains Focusing teachers, teaches Focusing in leadership and organizes international seminars for students across Europe. He is author of the Focusing Cards, an innovative tool for building Focusing skills. He has spoken at various conferences and has published articles and contributed chapters to books on Focusing. Elmar speaks English, Danish and German and lives with his wife and son in Roskilde, Denmark

Host

Niels Bagge (1964) cand. psych. from University of Copenhagen (1994), licensed psychologist (1997), specialist and supervisor in psychotherapy, Danish Psychological Association (2003/2014). Certified therapist, supervisor and teacher (2008/2014/2018) in individual Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) by the International Society for Emotion Focused Therapy (ISEFT), certified Focusing Teacher (TIFI) (2023), certified Mindfulness Teacher from Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) (2022), certified Holotropic Breathwork Facilitator from Grof Transpersonal Training (GTT) (1997), certified State Differentiated Psychotherapist by psychologist Jørn Toustrup (1996).
Niels is head of the Institute for Emotion Focused Therapy since 2011, where he has continuously taught, supervised and lectured in EFT. He also runs a private psychology practice in Roskilde with a health insurance agreement, where he provides EFT individually and to couples on a daily basis. Since 2021, chairman of the Danish Society for Person-Centered and Experience-Oriented Psychotherapy (DSPOP) and in the steering committee of the Danish Carl Rogers Forum since 2002. International positions of trust in PCE-World, PCE-Europe and PCE-Literature. Niels has authored book chapters, articles and conference presentations on EFT, Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and placebo. He lives in Hvidovre with his wife and has 2 children living away from home.

Presentation from ISEFT Trainer Meeting 2023 in Porto

EFT Therapists Self-Care with Focusing Partnerships was presented at the International Society for Emotion-Focused Therapy Trainers Meeting in Porto in 2023. You can see the slides from the presentation here: