Ann Weiser Cornell (born Ann Weiser on October 6, 1949) is an American author, educator, and worldwide authority on Focusing, the self-inquiry psychotherapeutic technique developed by

Eugene Gendlin Eugene Tovio Gendlin (born Eugen Gendelin; 25 December 1926 – 1 May 2017) was an American philosopher who developed ways of thinking about and working with living process, the bodily felt sense and the "philosophy of the implicit". Though he had ...

.Kirschner, Ellen
"FOCUS ON: Ann Weiser Cornell"

. May 2004. Gendlin, Eugene
Advance praise for ''The Radical Acceptance of Everything''
2005. "Ann Weiser Cornell has been teaching for many years in many countries and is well known worldwide. In her previous book and her manuals she has created new specific and accessible instructions for focusing as well as for the teachers of focusing. In person and through her students and writings she has given Focusing to far more people than any other single individual. She is a powerful force in making the world better. She has gone on to create different new processes in new dimensions ...." –

, author of ''Focusing''. She has written several definitive books on Focusing, including ''The Power of Focusing: A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing'', ''The Focusing Student's and Companion's Manual'', and ''Focusing in Clinical Practice''. Cornell has taught Focusing around the world since 1980, and has developed a system and technique called Inner Relationship Focusing. She is also a past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology.

Education and career

Ann Weiser Cornell received a PhD in Linguistics in 1975 at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, on a

Woodrow Wilson Fellowship The Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly known as the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation) is a nonpartisan, non-profit institution based in Princeton, New Jersey that says it aims to strengthen American democracy by "cultivating ...

from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

.Cornell, Ann Weiser and Barbara McGavin
''The Radical Acceptance of Everything: Living a Focusing Life''
Calluna Press, 2005. p. 270. She then taught Linguistics at

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

from 1975 to 1977. While still a graduate student at the University of Chicago, in 1972 she met psychologist

, and learned the psychotherapeutic technique he had discovered and developed, called Focusing. After leaving her post teaching linguistics at Purdue, she moved back to Chicago and reconnected with Gendlin, and in 1980 began collaborating with him in teaching his Focusing workshops. Using her capacity for linguistics, Cornell helped develop the concept of Focusing guiding, and in the early 1980s she offered the first seminars on Focusing guiding. In the early 1980s, Cornell also trained and worked as a

psychotherapist Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...

at the Chicago Counseling Center, a non-profit counseling service that grew out of the University Counseling Center operated by

Carl Rogers Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of humanistic psychology and was known especially for his person-centered psychotherapy. Rogers is widely considered one of the f ...

in the 1950s.Weiser, Ann Cornell
''Focusing in Clinical Practice: The Essence of Change''
W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. p. xxxi. In 1983 she moved to California – where she concentrated on training people to Focus, and on facilitating Focusing, rather than on practicing traditional psychotherapy. She began teaching her own Focusing workshops, and also experimented with how the Focusing process and theory could be expanded and refined. In 1984 she established the bi-monthly newsletter ''The Focusing Connection'', and in 1985 she founded Focusing Resources, an umbrella organization to offer materials, support, sessions, and trainings on Focusing. In the early 1990s Cornell wrote and published the first of her Focusing books, ''The Focusing Student's Manual'' and ''The Focusing Guide's Manual'', which were revised with Barbara McGavin in the 2000s and published as ''The Focusing Student's and Companion's Manual'' (2002). In the early 1990s Cornell also began developing and teaching processes that emphasized the radical acceptance and allowance of all aspects, however negative, of the personality – and the ability to be present with whatever negativity comes up during Focusing – in order to return to a place of wholeness. Together with Barbara McGavin, whom she met in 1991, she developed this into a system called Inner Relationship Focusing. In the early 2000s Cornell and McGavin also developed a theory and process called Treasure Maps to the Soul, an application of Focusing to difficult areas of life, which they detailed in the book ''The Radical Acceptance of Everything'' (2005) along with Inner Relationship Focusing.

Books and trainings

Cornell's books, including the best-selling ''The Power of Focusing'' (1996) which expanded and developed Gendlin's original Focusing processes further, ''The Focusing Student's and Companion's Manual'' (2002), ''The Radical Acceptance of Everything'' (2005), and ''Focusing in Clinical Practice'' (2013), have been translated into several languages. She has taught Focusing all over the world, and she is also one of the premier trainers of Focusing teachers. Through her organization, Focusing Resources, she offers teleseminars, workshops, Focusing sessions, audio and print materials including ''The Focusing Teacher's Manual'' (2008), and free resources on Focusing.

Personal life

Cornell lives in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

. Her partner is author and film historian Joseph McBride. She is the sister of computer scientist

Mark Weiser Mark D. Weiser (July 23, 1952 – April 27, 1999) was an American computer scientist and chief technology officer (CTO) at Xerox PARC. Weiser is widely considered to be the father of ubiquitous computing, a term he coined in 1988. Within S ...

(1952–1999)."Remembering Mark Weiser"
. ''The Mark Weiser Memorial Site''. SiliconBase,

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Selected bibliography

*''The Power of Focusing: A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing''.

New Harbinger Publications New Harbinger Publications, Inc. is an employee-owned, Oakland-based American publisher of self-help books. Overview This publisher of self-help books specializes in titles that offer step-by-step procedures for dealing with phobias, anxiety, an ...

, 1996. *''The Focusing Student's and Companion's Manual, Parts One and Two''. Calluna Press, 2002. (with Barbara McGavin) *''The Radical Acceptance of Everything: Living a Focusing Life''. Calluna Press, 2005. (with Barbara McGavin) *''Focusing in Clinical Practice: The Essence of Change''. W. W. Norton & Company, 2013.

Selected audio

*''Focusing, Psychotherapy and the Implicit'', a 5-week course on CDs with

and Ann Weiser Cornell *''Learning Focusing'', a two-CD set by Ann Weiser Cornell *''Releasing Blocks to Action'', a five-week course CD set by Ann Weiser Cornell

References

External links

Focusing Resources
– Ann Weiser Cornell's official site

at The Focusing Institute

by Ann Weiser Cornell {{DEFAULTSORT:Cornell, Ann Weiser American psychology writers American self-help writers Psychology educators University of Chicago alumni Writers from Illinois Writers from Berkeley, California 1949 births Living people