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Upcoming FOAT Trainings, Workshops, and Events
Roots, Branches, and Wings Series
Monday, April 20, 2026 3:00 - 5:00pm PDT / 6:00 - 8:00pm EDT / View time zone converter
The Creative Wisdom Approach: Embodying a 5-step Intermodal Expressive Arts Process
Presented by Kathleen Horne, MA, LMHC, REACE, REAT & Tamara Knapp, MA, NCC, LMHC, REACE; Hosted by the FOAT Institute
Join the co-founders of Expressive Arts Florida Institute for an introduction to their Creative Wisdom Approach—a five-step process that draws on the natural world and the deep inner wisdom accessed through the arts. The presentation includes an overview of its theoretical foundations in nature-informed, intermodal expressive arts practice, as well as an experiential component. Through an intermodal sequence of checking in, nature witnessing, guided meditation, art-making, movement, sound, witnessing and sharing, your current inner landscape will be illuminated and expanded. Alongside this experiential process, you will learn the five steps of the Creative Wisdom Approach, as well as to how it can be implemented with clients, students, mentees, or workshop participants.
The Creative Wisdom Approach has evolved organically through Expressive Arts Florida Institute’s more than 15 years of training expressive arts therapists and facilitators, and leading workshops, trainings, and presentations. This presentation will include applications of the Creative Wisdom Approach within professional roles, including implementation across contexts such as therapy, facilitation, education, consulting, and coaching, as well as for personal practice.
Live presentation is eligible for 2 NBCC CE Hours (purchased separately)
Expressive Therapies Spring Virtual Summit (Mini-Summit Pacific)
Thursday, April 23, 2026 10:00am - 1:00pm PT
Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts: Cultivating Embodied Self-Compassion
Presented by Doreen Meister, MA, LMFT; Karen Quatsoe, BFA; and Lynn Pollock, MA, LMHC, REAT. Hosted by Expressive Therapies Summit.
Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®) is a mindfulness and somatic approach, developed by Laury Rappaport, that integrates the felt sense and the body's wisdom with the expressive arts. It is based on Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing method, an evidence-based mind-body approach that leads to growth and change. This didactic and experiential workshop provides an overview of Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®), including its history and development, foundational principles, how to access the body’s wisdom through the felt sense and express it through the arts, and learn one of the FOAT® Themed exercises designed to cultivating self-compassion. Experiential exercises will teach:
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The main concepts of Focusing: Focusing Attitude, felt sense, and handle/symbol
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A theme-directed FOAT® exercise, “Focusing Attitude for You”, that teaches how to access a felt sense of self-compassion: symbolize it as an image, gesture, sound, word, or phrase; and express it through the arts.
An intermodal writing process will deepen the experience of accessing the inner knowing and identifying next steps. This FOAT exercise can be applied as a self-care practice for practitioners, as well as a method for working with others. FOAT can be applied to all clinical contexts, as well as in nonclinical contexts (e.g education, coaching, health). Eligible for 3.0 Clock/Credit Hours: NBCC, ATCB, SWNYS, NY LMHC, NY LCAT, NY LMFT.
International Focusing Conference - Vienna 2026 In-person Event
June 3 - 7, 2026
Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®): 50 Years Unfolding Around the World
Panel: Laury Rappaport (US), Evelyn Ammon & Frances Ingouville (Guatemala), Elisa Wai Hing Cheng & Katherine Kwok (Hong Kong), and Yoshiko Kosaka (Japan). Hosted by The International Focusing Institute (TIFI).
The development of Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®) began in 1977, with the support of Gene and Mary— when Laury Rappaport had a felt sense that Focusing was a perfect match with expressive arts. In its 49 years carrying forward, FOAT® has become an established profession. This international panel will share highlights of how FOAT has unfolded in the U.S., Guatemala, Hong Kong, Japan, Myanmar, and the Philippines— applied in psychotherapy, children in hospice, a rural community in the Highlands of Guatemala, special education, parenting, and community wellness. It will also include FOAT® at universities and in research.
Expressive Therapies Summit Sedona (LIVE, in-person | Sedona, Arizona)
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 9:00am - 4:00pm MST
Cultivating Self-Compassion and Accessing the Body's Wisdom through Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®)
Presented by Laury Rappaport, Ph.D., LMFT, ATR-BC, REAT and Doreen Meister, MA, LMFT. Hosted by Expressive Therapies Summit.
Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®) is a mindfulness-based, somatic approach that integrates Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing with the expressive arts. Developed over more than 40 years, FOAT® has been applied with individuals, groups, couples, families, and organizations– and can be adapted to different populations. This Master Class is didactic and experiential– providing an introduction to FOAT® including its history and development, foundational principles, main approaches, and primary methods.
To understand FOAT®, it is essential to understand the underlying framework of Focusing. The Focusing concepts– Focusing Attitude, felt sense, and handle/symbol– will be presented with an experiential exercise on nature. Participants will learn the two main approaches: ARTS-Focusing, which emphasizes grounding and safety before inward listening, and FOCUSING-Arts, which supports expressing a felt sense through creative modalities. The training highlights:
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A Theme-Directed FOAT® approach for resourcing and resilience, including a self-compassion practice
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FOAT Check-In and Ask What It Needs: A foundational method for psychotherapy and counseling, as well as one’s own self-awareness, and self-care
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Carrying Forward: an exercise that helps to identify small, concrete steps that support growth and change
Includes clinical examples, along with intermodal application through dialogue, Gestalt, and felt sense.
Risk: FOAT® emphasizes safety first; The FOAT Check-in invites mindfully checking in with oneself, which poses a slight risk depending on how you are. To minimize risk, all experiential activities are optional, with guidance provided for self-care. Eligible for 5.5 Clock/Credit Hours: NBCC, ATCB, SWNYS, NY LMHC, NY LCAT, NY LMFT
Approved FOAT® Trainings
The following courses meet the content, ethical standards, and faculty level competency of FOAT® Training. These are administered by the Faculty offering that training (not the FOAT Institute). For questions, please contact the Faculty for the respective course.
Faculty: Lynn Pollock, Ma, LMHC, REAT; lynn@expressiveyou.me
March 4 - June 10, 2026
Level 1: Foundations and Approaches of Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®)
Lynn Pollock, MA, LMHC, REAT; through Expressive You
This training provides a solid foundation of Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®) with an emphasis on deepening one’s embodied knowing of the main FOAT approaches– Focusing Attitude, Theme-Directed FOAT®, Clearing a Space with Arts, FOAT® Check-in, Working on an Issue, Self-Focusing, and Compassionate Listening. Trainees will also expand their understanding of the core concepts, skills and philosophy of Focusing, developed by Eugene Gendlin– felt sense, symbol/handle, felt shift, and life forward direction.
Learning FOAT and Focusing in Level 1 emphasizes learning the exercises for oneself– in order to understand deeply how the felt sense, creativity, and the body’s wisdom interacts and unfolds, while also being grounded in FOAT theories. The FOAT Partnership and small group practices during Level 1 open the doorway to learn about others’ processes and also provides a foundation for facilitation skills that are continued in Level 2
Eligible for 22 NBCC CE Hours (purchased separately)
This training meets the requirements of REAT.
Click the button below to visit the course page to learn more!
