There is a level of experience that talk therapy often can't reach and bodywork alone can't unlock - the implicit, bodily felt sense that shapes emotion, meaning, and behavior. When You Let the Body Lead presents Contemporary Focusing-Oriented Therapy, a fully updated re-visioning of Eugene Gendlin's foundational work, integrating it with current neuroscience, trauma theory, and relational and emotion-focused approaches.
Through detailed case examples and moment-to-moment clinical guidance, Letich and Brenner show how to help clients contact the "unclear edge" of experience, stay with it safely, and follow the body's natural movement toward resolution. The book offers clinicians a reliable method for working with trauma, complex PTSD, dissociation, attachment wounds, stuckness, and overwhelming affect - while deepening therapeutic presence and attunement.
Drawing on decades of clinical experience and shaped by the authors' direct training with Gendlin and Ann Weiser Cornell, When You Let the Body Lead speaks to therapists across modalities - including those trained in Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, AEDP, EFT, IFS, and EMDR - offering a unifying framework grounded in the body's own intelligence. Contemporary Focusing-Oriented Therapy stands alongside these established somatic approaches while offering a distinct emphasis on the felt sense and the body's forward-moving process of change.
Written in a warm, jargon-free voice and featuring a foreword by Ann Weiser Cornell, this book provides a practical, compassionate pathway into the heart of experiential change. Whether you are an experienced somatic practitioner or a therapist seeking a more embodied way to work, When You Let the Body Lead offers a clinically grounded, deeply human approach to the work of psychological healing.
Brenner, Helene G.: - Helene G. Brenner, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with over 35 years of experience and a Certifying Coordinator in Focusing-Oriented Therapy through The International Focusing Institute. She is the author of I Know I'm In There Somewhere: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner Voice and Living a Life of Authenticity (Penguin/Avery, 2003). She trained directly with Eugene Gendlin and Ann Weiser Cornell, and her work integrates Focusing with AEDP, EMDR, and attachment-based approaches. She has taught at Omega Institute and Kripalu Center, and was a featured presenter at the 3rd Annual International Focusing-Oriented Therapy Conference. Her writing appears on Psychology Today's blog "The Art of Feeling". She co-directs the Center for Contemporary Focusing-Oriented Therapy with Laurence Letich.
Letich, Laurence: - Laurence Letich, LCSW, has fifty years of experience exploring the human emotional landscape and relationships. A licensed clinical social worker for twenty-five years, he is a Certifying Coordinator for The International Focusing Institute (TIFI), and is Certified in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT). His specialties include men's issues, anxiety, relationships, Adult ADHD, and trauma. A longtime freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Utne Reader, and Attention Magazine, and was the former editor of the research colum for Psychotherapy Networker. He co-authors the Psychology Today blog "The Art of Feeling" with Helene G. Brenner.
