Talk:Eugene Gendlin

Untitled
Corrected a reference to Gendlin's "Focusing" practice coming from psychoanalysis. It came from research into success in psychotherapy - where 'success' included 'success' from both a client and a therapist perspective. This work was, I believe, across multiple therapy traditions. His core affilitation was with Carl Rogers and Rogers' client centered therapy. [See the references in the footnotes to Carl Roger's 'On Being a Person' for Gendlin's influence on Rogers.] This research program had strong roots in Gendlin's philosophical work in phenomenology, so he descibes "Focusing" as coming from his philosophical work - which he now calls 'The Philosophy of the Implicit'. Greg Walkerden, 8 July 2005.

Two basic objections: These point to larger problems. It does not appear that any of the information that appears in this article has been independently checked. Taking the article verbatim from elsewhere would appear to be a copyright violation, and lack of fact checking would appear to be a violation of the Check_your_facts recommendation. The immediate inclusion on the list of twentieth century philosophers for lack of this is potential soapboxing, and the included link may be taking as link spamming, given that it also serves a commercial purpose. As this appears to be your first article, I don't want to discourage you, but please consult these policies (and the general list of policies and procedures) and promptly revise the article. Buffyg 01:20, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) almost the entirety of the article appears to be taken verbatim from www.focusing.org
 * 2) Gendlin is not a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago at this time. He appears as an emeritus professor in the university catalog and not at all on the department's home pages. This should be clarified




 * 69.143.80.200 02:49, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

- I've expanded the discussion of Gendlin's philosophy, correcting the error about Gendlin being in the Psychology Dept at U of C. There are no copyright violations and I've checked all facts. I think reference to the Focusing Institute is justified by the amount of information available there. Rob Parker, 9-26-05

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I (and I would assume others) would be interested in what sort of criticisms other philosophers would direct at Gendlin. The theoretical framework and many of the concepts are very exciting and interesting, but I'm wary of the one-sidedness of this page, as well as of the implicit (no pun intended) correlations to new-age mythologies, etc. The self-help component also casts concern, though on the other hand, why shouldn't philosophy be made more accessible to the average person? All in all, would just appreciate the critical input of someone with a more potent philosophical background that I have.

--- Made some revisions to the text and added references. Rob Parker 10-12-09. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rob Parker (talk • contribs) 22:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Someone claimed in 2008 that the article "uses first-person or second-person inappropriately or excessively." I would like to fix this, but the article doesn't contain the words "I" or "you". Could the person who made the complaint please explain what they meant? Rob Parker (talk) 23:08, 12 October 2009 (UTC) I eliminated the use of "our", which may have been the problem. 71.183.170.7 (talk) 18:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the main problems (absence of references, overuse of 2nd person) are fixed, so have removed banners at top of article. In future, I'll try to add a section on criticism of Gendlin's work by other philosophers Rob Parker (talk) 01:19, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

General problems with the article
Added a cleanup tag.

The article reads like it is proselytizing Gendlin's ideas. The most obvious problem is that there is no criticism cited, but there are also problems with the general tone. (For example, do we really care how many people purchased his book?) The article should instead be about Gendlin as a person, i.e. his life and career. If there is this much to say about specific ideas like focusing, it should be spun off into articles that are about the ideas specifically.

The article on Einstein might serve as a good guide. It gives a brief description of his many contributions to physics, but it keeps most its discussion of those contributions centered around the circumstances of their discovery, particularly as they relate to Einstein himself. Each theory of course has its own article, and those are linked to at the top of the appropriate sections.

Oconnor663 (talk) 08:38, 6 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Einstein's theories are found amply but this former professor of mine who I contributed significantly to in sharing his 'focusing' was actually referred to in our society as "hemming and hawing" prior to him using the single ING word I am sad to see having passed tonight.
 * He was reluctant to give me back my class notes, I liked to enjoy the Spring weather looking at the back covers of new books in front ofme onthe table and let my mind digest freely his words, as there scope was great and eventually people complained about him saying Hemming and HAWING far too much.
 * He looks so old... before he died he did get old i guess.
 * Booth, Kass's wife, even soon Kass I suppose, all my mentors predecease me as they should.. but...Uchicago needs to clean up articles on it's deceased for sure. I will get my Alum to set that up somehow. We need more talk on this talk page about doing greater justice to his life of teaching and unlike other 'talker' popular books are measured by there sales.  To suggest massive income and numbers of copies is not relevant to the person is absurd.  Professor Bloom explained that he had to choose press's who knew how to handle such demand.  It's not accidental when it occurs.
 * Needed are links to his websites etc. I did get back my class notes.  I was sad he didn't get them, didn't understand why I wanted them back.
 * He compared to Strotbeck (social psych) and others was a relatively simple man I think. Wimsatt's son I was thrilled to see became an advocate an author etc.
 * A link to his obituary is missing.
 * Christmass to Mayday is the tale of this white guy's life and I hope someone uses that title with my blessing gratis! 198.245.188.65 (talk) 02:23, 8 February 2023 (UTC)