Life-enhancing anxiety
This is a private, password-protected page for people who are taking the The Mindful & Proactive Edge of FOT course. It gives you materials to prepare for Session 6 of the course.
Required materials
Kirk Schneider talks about life-enhancing anxiety
This session is based on Kirk Schneider’s perspective.
Kirk is not a Focuser. As an existential-humanistic psychologist, he is a cousin of sorts: Carl Rogers was a founder of Humanistic psychology.
I find Kirk’s approach very consistent with the spirit of Focusing, and I value his insights into the human condition and therapeutic change.
See video: Kirk Schneider: Life-enhancing anxiety.
Questions for self-coaching
How would you describe the difference between life-destroying anxiety and life-enhancing anxiety?
What are some of the deeper questions that can lurk behind symptomatic anxiety?
Do you see a role for spirituality in therapy? If so, how would it manifest? If not, why not?
Optional materials
Kirk Schneider’s book (Life-enhancing anxiety) is great.
You may want to read Ernest Becker’s book, The Denial Of Death.
If you don’t have time to read the book, you may get a sense of what it says through the following lecture by Glenn Hughes: The denial of death and the practice of dying.
Class Recording (July 9)
In conclusion
A 6-minute video to put this last class into a larger perspective:
Next
As I said at the end of the class, I encourage you to keep in touch with each other and continue to have Focusing partnerships.
My next FOT class starts October 8: The embodied & relational edge of FOT.
Something else I strongly suggest as a complement to the FOT courses, starting at the end of this month: Develop embodied presence to meet life’s challenges. There is a free version, which has all the class materials, so I encourage you to take advantage of it.