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ABOUT FREDA

Freda Blob ©Photo Studio Gudrun Th. de Maddalena

Freda Blob is the Founding Director of FOCUSZART The Focusing Studio and an art therapist with a background in design and 30 years of experience as a focuser, educator and clinician

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Freda is a Certifying Coordinator of the International Focusing Institute TIFI and a Focusing Oriented Therapist with Specialization in FOAT-TIFI being trained in various approaches of the Creative and Expressive Arts

Freda is also a european certified Person-centered and Experiential Creative Arts Psychotherapist, Counselor and Art Therapist

She works in private practice and at her art studio, and at community art centers and institutions of continuing education

Freda teaches Focusing with the arts nationally and internationally both online and in person. She is a senior teacher of the German-Swiss Focusing Network FN, having served the network leading team for more than two decades (2001 - 2023). She teaches Focusing certification training progams at all levels with the German Focusing Association DFG, volonteering for the DFG since 2019

Freda graduated in Psychology (BA, MA), Adult Education (MA) with undergraduate studies of Design Techniques, and Art Therapy (Diploma of Advanced Studies DAS)

Our Story

When we were ready to dive into the arts, we were in the midst of certifying as a FWB practitioner (Focusing with the Whole Body). A dream depicted that we were taking the wrong direction train. The call of hour was immediate change of direction

We enrolled in the 2017 FOAT® training program with Dr. Laury Rappaport (FOAT®: Focusing Oriented Expressive Arts), took additional trainings in trauma-informed Expressive Arts and Person-centred Creative Arts, and suscribed to a university art therapy program and practical art couses. This comprehensive training bundle turned out to set us on the right track

 

We had been visiting the Saintbury Center (art gallery and museum) at the campus of University of East Anglia UEA/UK during the UEA Focusing and Philosophy Conference in 2011

The center's art shop layed out a picture depicting a full circle in four parts waiting to be put together. Finding this picture it hit us on a sudden: Our efforts of bringing our Focusing profession to completion were still in a puzzle state. A PhD at UEA looked the perfect match to come to professional completion, and we prepared for a PhD with Judy Moore and Campbell Purton as UEA supervisors

Our Phd thesis was to be on models of intermodal experiential learning. We had witnessed how intermodal teaching of Focusing was fading away in the German Focusing community. Experimenting with intermodal didactics had been natural to our Focusing teachers of the pioneer generation. A new generation of Focusing teachers wanted to teach in more standardized ways, and we were unwilling to follow this trend

Unexpectedly, life turned into other direction than expected. Living in the UK as a European PhD student was no longer an option. As we could not find the missing piece of our professional puzzle in a doctorate program in Germany (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz 2014-2016), we left the German program with unfinished PhD work

The missing piece seemed to be found outside of our linguistic culture only

 

The art training bundle we compiled years later was revealing that the outside culture place was to be found in the aesthetics. Our professional completion was linked to non-native vocabulary. It was bloming in experiential felt arts languages

Through trial and error we could identify the missing piece. It was experimenting practically along circular loops of experiential slow art (artmaking containing the one move of creating and aesthetically re-experiencing what we just had been creating)

We found that experiential artmaking calls on all the senses to serve the body's next right step, and studied the theory of polyaesthetics

We discovered that artmaking in itself is not a safe place (the setting of art fascilitation is the safe place)

We did not expect artmaking being risky (but it was) and were surprized by its energizing power once risks were taken

We realized that arts are using a language of deconstruction and reconstruction that leads to no right nor wrong

We learned that art is culture-bound and found out that artmaking can bypass cultural structure-boundness the moment we get connected to our creative instincts

What we found in experiential Felt Arts as essence were new grounds for living a sensual Focusing life to the full

Credentials

Art Therapist AT (Diploma of Advanced Studies DAS) | Advanced Person-Centred Creative Arts Practitioner | Guided Drawing® Practitioner | Focusing Oriented Expressive Arts FOAT® Practitioner

TIFI Certifying Coordinator | TIFI Focusing Oriented Therapist FOT | TIFI Focusing Trainer | TIFI Focusing Professional FOAT®

Person-centred and Experiential Psychotherapist/Counselor PCT with Diploma in Existential Wellbeing Counseling

Clinical Psychologist CP (GRAD) (BA, MA) | Registered non-medical Practitioner for Psychotherapy

Adult Educator Ed (GRAD) (MA) with undergraduate degree in Design Techniques


Freda is co-founder of the Focusing teachers group of the European Focusing Association EFA (2018)

In 2016 she hosted the European Focusing Association's meeting in Tübingen offering a forum for Community Wellness Focusing with special focus on refugee aid

©Nikolaos Kypriotakis

Voices from EFA Tübingen

Teresa
We worked through a quite tough topic list and yet there was plenty of warm hearted and joyful friendship time

Pavlos
Our meeting in Tübingen was for me, once again, a unique experience. That which I valued most was the quality of this meeting. Somehow we managed to create a warm, open, respectful and accepting atmosphere, in which everyone could find his/her place, his/her time, his/her rhythm; everyone could be him/herself. ( ... ... ) And of course there was the friendly, kind, caring, unforgettable quality of presence of Freda

Fiona

We all had a chance to settle into the body felt sense, and we listened and related from our body felt sense. It deepened the quality of our relationships. Together, we created a deep open listening space where each person could be held

Heidrun

I liked the easiness of collaborating and our trust in the group process. Having been at quite some meetings before I will recall this time for sure, especially some of the incidential things that make such a difference and make experiencing complete

Akmal and Annika

It is always inspiring and enriching meeting with Focusing community friends! (... ...) Thank you Freda, thank you everyone for providing such a home atmosphere

Ria

I sensed a warm appreciation for all the preparations done by Friedgard to get us together in beautiful Tübingen in Germany. I experienced very positively the cultural history the European Focusing community is based upon and how it is growing forward

MAKE SPACE FOR ARTS. CREATE YOUR WORLD