Thinking at the Edge

1. Introduction

Version followed: Eugene T. Gendlin & Mary Hendricks, "Thinking At the Edge (TAE) Steps" (dated 10 May 2004, The Folio 2000–2004, 14 steps). Step numbering is cross-checked against the Focusing Institute's "TAE Steps Short Form". The Japanese worksheet version (Tokumaru 2010), used for therapist self-research (Suetake 2013), is described as a variant. Clinical applications with clients are marked [synthesis].

What it is. Thinking At the Edge (TAE) is not a psychotherapy. Gendlin developed it from his Philosophy of the Implicit as "a second practice, alongside Focusing". It is a systematic way to put into new words something a person knows from experience but cannot yet say. It grew out of Gendlin's University of Chicago course "Theory Construction". The 14 steps were formulated over a five-year project with Mary Hendricks(-Gendlin), Kye Nelson, Teresa Dawson and Nada Lou. Mary Hendricks introduced the 14-step form on a 2002 video. [source: focusing.org/tae; Gendlin 2004 "Introduction to TAE"] Practitioners use it in three ways: (a) to articulate their own practice knowledge ("therapist TAE", Suetake 2013); (b) as a qualitative-research method; (c) possibly, in adapted form, with clients who have a felt knowing they cannot put into words. Use (c) is not described in the primary sources [synthesis].

How change happens. A felt sense is a bodily, unclear but meaning-laden sense of a situation, and Gendlin holds it is never "nothing". A statement can speak from the felt sense without representing it. A fitting statement "carries the body forward": the felt sense moves, opens and develops further. Standard public words and the "unit model" (things are either separate or identical) hide experiential intricacy. TAE therefore sets public meanings aside. It lets fresh, odd phrases come from the felt sense and draws patterns from actual instances. It can then give the new terms logical relations. The result is a small theory that can be used both logically and experientially. [source: Gendlin 2004 Introduction; Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]

2. Framework

Phases (Gendlin & Hendricks 2004):

• Optional endpoint. According to the steps, TAE's first purpose (articulating an implicit knowing so it can be communicated) has already been achieved before Phase III. Building a formal theory is optional. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Format in the originating tradition. The original training was a four-day course. Participants work in Focusing partnerships with roughly two-hour turns. For about half the time the listener attends only to the speaker, says little, writes down the speaker's exact words and reads them back on request. [source: Gendlin 2004 Introduction] The Focusing Institute's current online course has one individual session, then six 2-hour sessions in a group of three with rotating roles, with partnerships between classes. One institute page says it reaches step 12 and another says step 13 [uncertain]. [source: TIFI course pages]
• Session count. No fixed number is given. The crux sentence needs no long deliberation. Step 12 is repeated "as many times as necessary". Step 14 may continue for years. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Prerequisite. Familiarity with Focusing. Gendlin wrote that TAE is only possible with Focusing (TIFI-hosted PDF, not machine-readable when opened [uncertain on its wording]). [source: Gendlin 2004 Introduction; focusing.org/tae]
• Step-boundary note. The long and short forms divide early and middle steps slightly differently. The long form puts the dictionary definitions and the second and third words in Step 2, and the recognition that no word fits in Step 3. The short form puts the word substitution in Step 3. In the opened summary, choosing the A/B/C terms appeared in both Step 9 and Step 10. This guide follows the short form (Step 9 = free writing; Step 10 = choose and link terms) [uncertain].
• Clinical delivery formats [synthesis]: (a) therapist alone or with a TAE partner, 6–12 sessions of 1.5–2 h, to articulate a piece of practice knowledge (cf. Suetake 2013); (b) with a client, Phase I only (Steps 1–5, sometimes 6–8), woven into Focusing-oriented sessions over 2–6 sessions. Phase III (logic and substitution) is rarely clinically indicated. Proceed only with explicit client interest and a stable Focusing capacity.

3. Guiding principles

[source: Gendlin 2004 Introduction; Gendlin & Hendricks 2004, unless marked]

• Start from something you know, not from a question. Choose a field or situation you know well from experience, where something seems to want to be said. In practice, do not ask the client to solve a problem. Ask what they know but cannot yet say.
• The felt sense is the constant reference. Return to it at every step. In practice, after every word or sentence, pause and check it against the bodily sense.
• Speak from it; don't represent it. No statement is identical to the felt sense. A good one moves it. In practice, judge a phrase by whether it opens something further, not by whether it is "correct".
• Public meanings are set aside. "No word fits. None should, if this is new." (Gendlin & Hendricks 2004). In practice, treat a word's failure to fit as information, not as failure.
• Keep what is more than logical. The illogical or paradoxical part may be the most valuable. In practice, never tidy away a contradiction in the client's or your own sentence.
• Specific instances over generalities. Facets are actual events with real internal structure, not general ideas or metaphors. In practice, ask "when did this actually happen?" before "what does it mean?"
• Protect the inchoate sense. Early on, avoid "we" statements and "mine is like yours" comparisons, because shared phrasing hides each person's own intricacy. In practice, the therapist does not offer their own formulation during Phase I.
• Listener discipline. Follow silently. Speak only to check understanding or when you cannot follow. Add none of your own ideas. Record exact words and read them back when asked. In practice, the therapist is a scribe and a mirror.
• Articulate individually first, then cross. Crossing with others' terms comes after one's own terms exist, and it does not require merging theories. In practice, bring in theory (including the therapist's) only after the client's own phrasing has stabilised.
• Fresh language, odd grammar welcome. Linguistically unusual sentences are expected. In practice, do not correct grammar.
• Inherent, not obvious, links. Connections between terms must come from what each term is, not from public facts. In practice, reject the first commonsense answer and ask again.
• Double check by logic and by felt sense. If a logically valid inference is rejected by the felt sense, make a further distinction rather than forcing it. In practice, neither logic nor feeling overrides the other.
• Keep terms identical. The logical power depends on using the same term every time it appears. In practice, during Phase III do not paraphrase the client's terms.
• The function of a theory is social. Precise speaking from the felt sense builds it into shared language. In practice, the endpoint is communicable understanding, which may lead to action.
• The method stays open. Gendlin wanted TAE open to different presentations, steps or phases (per Kye Nelson). In practice, adapting the steps is legitimate if you say so. [source: focusing.org/tae]
• Focusing is required. In practice, teach Focusing first and use TAE only with people who can find and hold a felt sense.
• Clinical framing [synthesis]: use it only on the client's agenda and with informed consent; it is a supplementary practice, not a stand-alone treatment.

4. Intervention inventory

The inventory covers the 14 TAE steps in order, followed by the supporting procedures and variants. Step content is paraphrased from Gendlin & Hendricks (2004) and the TIFI short form [source]. Wording for a client and the bullets on how to know it is working are [synthesis] unless cited. "Thinker" means whoever is doing TAE: the therapist on their own practice, or a client in adapted use.

TAE listening partnership (supporting procedure)

• Purpose: to hold the space in which the thinker can stay with the felt sense. It is used throughout, and it is the default format. [source: Gendlin 2004 Introduction]
• Steps: (1) Agree on the turn length (originally about 2 h each way). (2) The listener attends only to the thinker, follows silently and speaks only to check understanding or when they cannot follow. (3) The listener writes down the thinker's exact words, especially fresh phrases. (4) On request, the listener reads phrases back verbatim. (5) Early on, the listener offers no ideas, comparisons or "we" phrasing. (6) Exception: in Step 10 the partner may propose linking sentences, which the thinker then corrects from the felt sense. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative): "Let me read back what you said: '…'. Is that it?" / "I lost you after '…'. Can you say that part again?"
• Watch for: a listener who paraphrases into public words, interprets, or shows enthusiasm for one phrase over another. It is working when the thinker pauses, checks inwardly and corrects your read-back.

Step 1: Let a felt sense form

• Purpose: to establish a grounded starting point, something known but not yet sayable. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Steps: (a) Choose something you know well from experience that seems to want to be said. (b) Let it come as a felt sense, and keep returning to it. (c) Write a few rough paragraphs from it. (d) Write the crux as one short sentence containing a single key word or phrase. The sentence need not say it fully. (e) Underline the key word. (f) Write one specific instance: an actual event or time. Test for the key word: would a whole theory be about this word? It can help to find the instance first.
• Example language (illustrative): "What in this do you most want to put into words? What is the live point for you?" (the second question paraphrases the source's check). "Now one short sentence, even if it doesn't quite say it. Which word in it carries the most?"
• Watch for: the person choosing a question or a problem instead of a knowing; abstract topics with no instance. It is working when there is a bodily-felt "this" the person can return to, and an actual event.

Step 2: Find what is more than logical

• Purpose: to locate the part of the knowing that ordinary language and logic cannot hold.
• Steps: (a) Notice what does not make usual logical sense, and write a not-quite-logical sentence. If this is hard, write a paradox of the form "x and also not x". (b) Write the dictionary meaning of the underlined word and notice that it is not what you mean. (c) Remove the word, leaving a blank in the sentence. (d) Return to the felt sense and let a second word come, one that differs in meaning and is not a synonym. Write its dictionary meaning. (e) Let a third word come and do the same. (f) Accept that no established word exists for this. In the short form, (b)–(f) fall under Step 3. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004; short form]
• Example language (illustrative): "Is there something here that doesn't add up logically, yet you know it's so? Write it as it is, contradiction included." / "Leave the gap empty. What other word wants to come into the gap?"
• Watch for: the thinker dropping the illogical part (the source warns it may be the most valuable); synonyms offered as "new" words. It is working when each new word pulls a different aspect.

Step 3: Notice that you don't mean the standard definitions

• Purpose: to confirm that what is being reached for is new.
• Steps: For each of the three words, recognise explicitly that its public meaning does not say what you mean. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative): "Read the dictionary meaning aloud, then check inside: is that what you meant?"
• Watch for: discouragement ("I can't say it"). Reframe it with the source's point that if this is new, no word should fit. It is working when there is a clear inner "that's not what I meant" for each word.

Step 4: Write a fresh phrase for each word

• Purpose: to start expressing the meaning in language that comes from the felt sense, not the dictionary.
• Steps: (a) Put word 1 back in the blank. Write what you wanted it to mean: what it pulls from the felt sense that the other two do not. (b) Do the same with word 2. (c) Do the same with word 3. Replace any large public words with fresh phrases, even if others would not understand them. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004; short form]
• Example language (illustrative): "With this word in the gap, what does it pull out that the others don't? Say it in your own way. It doesn't have to make sense to me."
• Watch for: reverting to jargon or textbook terms. It is working when the phrases are specific, a little odd, and the person recognises them.

Step 5: Expand meanings through odd sentences, then write the "string"

• Purpose: to let precise, unusual language emerge and to carry the felt sense along with it.
• Steps: (a) Using the Step 4 words and phrases, write one or two somewhat odd sentences expanding each. (b) Underline what is new and important. (c) Wait until the whole sentence feels as though it speaks from the felt sense. (d) Replace any remaining public words. (e) Write the string: the three original words and the main fresh phrases strung into the Step 1 blank, ending in "…". (f) Play with grammar and order, and cut words until you have a sentence you like. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative): "Put all of them into the gap one after another, and end with dots. Read it slowly. What happens inside?"
• Watch for: polishing too early into a neat sentence that has lost the felt sense. It is working when reading the string produces a felt shift or a sense of "yes, that".

Step 6: Collect facets

• Purpose: to ground the knowing in actual events whose detail holds real structure.
• Steps: (a) Ask what has ever actually happened that has to do with this. Include odd, private or unexplained incidents. Exclude general ideas and metaphors. (b) Choose three facets and write each with its relevant details. Underline specifics worth keeping. (c) Add the Step 1 instance, giving four facets. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative): "Not what it's like in general. When did something actually happen that belongs to this? Tell me the details."
• Watch for: the person giving summaries ("it always happens when…") instead of one event. Clinically, also watch for traumatic memories coming up as facets (see section 5) [synthesis].

Step 7: Let the facets contribute structure

• Purpose: to draw a generalisable pattern out of each facet.
• Steps: For each facet: (a) notice the intricate relations among its details and find one that is relevant to the felt sense; (b) try that relation in an entirely different kind of situation; (c) restate it in general terms as a pattern that could fit many situations; (d) write a sentence capturing the pattern. The source's example: a dentist talks politics with his thumb in the patient's mouth. Children, employees and prisoners also cannot talk back. Pattern: speaking to someone who cannot talk back can be intrusive. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative): "In that moment, how did the parts relate to each other? Where else, somewhere completely different, does that same relation happen?"
• Watch for: patterns imported from theory instead of read off the facet. It is working when each facet yields at least one pattern that was not available before.

Step 8: Cross the facets

• Purpose: to reveal structure that no single facet shows.
• Steps: (a) View facet 1 as an instance of facet 2's pattern. (b) Then view facet 2 as an instance of facet 1's pattern. (c) Ask what new aspect becomes visible. (d) If no single facet contains the whole central thing, look for it through crossing. Write down any new pattern sentence. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004; short form "view one instance through another"]
• Example language (illustrative): "Look at the hospital visit through what you found in the argument with your brother. What do you see now that you didn't before?"
• Watch for: mechanical pairing with no felt-sense check. It is working when a crossing produces a surprise. Note that the source says you may already have done this in Step 7.

Step 9: Write freely

• Purpose: a bridge from patterns to theory. It shows what has been reached and gathers candidate terms.
• Steps: (a) Write freely, without editing, about where you have got to, what you now understand and what excites you. (b) Review the words, phrases and patterns from Steps 1–8 and list candidates for main terms. [source: short form; Gendlin & Hendricks 2004. Where (b) belongs, Step 9 or 10, is uncertain]
• Example language (illustrative): "Take some time just to write where this has got to, with no editing. Then we'll go back over everything and mark the phrases that feel central."
• Watch for: relief that the knowing is now sayable. This can be a natural stopping point, since TAE's first purpose is now met [source]. Clinically, this is usually the endpoint [synthesis].

Step 10: Choose terms and link them

• Purpose: to move the material into a small set of connected terms.
• Steps: (a) Choose three main terms, A, B and C, that feel most important and form a "triangle" holding most of the territory and the crux. Other ideas can come in at Step 12. (b) Write "A IS B" and "A IS C". Treat "IS" as a placeholder for a relation still to emerge. Do not fill it with familiar relations, and keep the crux intact. (c) Play freely: split, combine or coin terms, and focus on whichever "IS" most centrally expresses the felt sense. (d) If a sentence is untrue, keep "is" and change the grammar minimally (e.g. "A is something which produces B", "A is one kind of B"). A partner may propose linking sentences for the thinker to correct. A term is a phrase, not a full sentence. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative, partner offering a link): "Try this: 'waiting IS a kind of letting-grow.' Check it. What's wrong with it?"
• Watch for: an offered link being accepted out of deference. It is working when sentences are grammatical, true and speak from the felt sense [source check].

Step 11: Ask into the inherent relations

• Purpose: to find why A must be B and C, from the nature of each term. This produces new linking terms.
• Steps: (a) Write "A IS inherently B" and "A IS inherently C". (b) Ask what A is such that it is inherently B. Ask "What is A?" and "What is B?" Look for a respect in which your meaning of A is already part of your meaning of B, or for a shared X that links them. (c) Name the connection; the name becomes a new term. (d) Repeat for A and C. Source example: the ability to wait is inherently something which allows new growth, and the link found was "gift of attention". [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004; short form]
• Example language (illustrative): "Not the obvious reason. What is it about this kind of waiting, in your sense of it, that already is growth?"
• Watch for: public-fact links (in the source's example, that both waiting and growth take time). Equating terms is informative because each keeps its experiential intricacy; it is not like writing 1 = 1.

Step 12: Choose permanent terms and interlock them

• Purpose: to define each term by the others, building the crux into every term so that logical inference becomes possible.
• Steps: (a) Restate the crux using the Step 11 terms and links, so that one main term IS a combination of the others. (b) Rotate: rewrite so that the next term IS a combination of all the others, then the third. (c) Test each one: is this really a sensible definition of that term? Add link terms where needed and build them back into the other definitions. (d) Settle on three or four core terms. Expected forms: "A IS B which IS C", "B is A which IS C", and so on. Keep every term worded identically. If you add D to C, check that A and B still fit. The short form also places the Step 2 illogical crux into the A term. Repeat as needed. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004; short form]
• Example language (illustrative): "Read the definition of B made only from the other terms. Is that really what you mean by B?"
• Watch for: drifting synonyms that break the logic. Watch for interlocking that defines the crux only between terms instead of into each.

Derive and substitute (Step 12 procedure)

• Purpose: to bring the remaining phrases into the system and let logic generate new statements.
• Steps: (1) Add leftover phrases one by one, deriving each from an existing term by stating the inherent relation. Group unused words under the term they most nearly equal. (2) Substitute: if F = A and A = B, then F = B. If F = A, which includes G, then F = B, which includes G. (3) If a conclusion is unacceptable to the felt sense, return to it and make a further distinction. (4) If a substitution seems wild or false, find what seems wrong and change it without losing what was new. Rethinking the nature of the term may reveal something true. [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative): "By the logic, this now says 'F is B.' Does that strike you as false, or as surprisingly true?"
• Watch for: forcing the felt sense to accept logic, or abandoning logic as soon as it surprises.

Step 13: Apply your theory outside your field (intermission)

• Purpose: to test and enrich the pattern by using it as a model elsewhere.
• Steps: (a) Apply only the pattern, without its original content, to large areas (art, religion, education, metaphor) or small events. (b) Use the template "Something about ___ is like ___ (your pattern)". Wait for what makes it true, then write an explanation. (c) Check the result against logic and the felt sense. If the felt sense rejects a tight inference, make a small change or add a term. If that fails, reopen the system; otherwise keep it closed so it can work. (d) Ask what the pattern says about human nature, society, groups, relationships, ethics, language and similar areas. Source example: the dentist pattern applied to education gives "non-intrusive education requires an active role for students". [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative): "Fill this in and wait: 'Something about supervision is like ___.'"
• Watch for: decorative analogies with no surprise. It is working when an application yields a non-obvious, checkable claim.

Step 14: Expand and apply your theory in your field

• Purpose: the serious development of the theory, which may take years.
• Steps: (a) Ask what next question arises and what closely related factors are not yet covered. (b) Add inherent links so new terms are derived, not asserted, then substitute to see what the other terms say about them. (c) Apply the theory to observations in your field. Find where it makes an important difference, and define those aspects in its terms. (d) If it implies something you don't mean, find the further distinction that corrects it; recalling a specific instance helps. (e) Let the theory generate distinctions: ask "What is this?" (f) Respect its refusals, because they have reasons you can find. (g) Allow a "reversal": a specific insight may require restructuring the wider field. Warning: resist assuming the new theory "must be" what an older theory "really means". [source: Gendlin & Hendricks 2004]
• Example language (illustrative, therapist on own theory): "Where in my actual sessions does this distinction change what I would do next?"
• Watch for: absorbing the new theory back into familiar models.

Crossing with other people's terms (after individual articulation)

• Purpose: to let other people's insights become implicit in your own terms, and to build shared understanding, without merging into one system. [source: Gendlin 2004 Introduction]
• Steps: (1) Do this only once your own terms exist. (2) Take another person's (or theory's) term and ask what it shows in your terms, and what your terms show in it. (3) Keep both sets distinct, and link them by the different places each opens up in the shared world. (4) Collaborate on joint products only after this.
• Example language (illustrative): "Now that your phrase is stable, let's look at it through the idea of 'emotional schemes'. What does each show in the other?"
• Watch for: your terms being swallowed by an established theory (see the Step 14 warning).

Therapist TAE: articulating practice knowledge (variant)

• Purpose: to articulate and theorise what a clinician knows implicitly from their own casework. This variant is used by person-centred / focusing-oriented therapists in Japan. [source: Suetake 2013]
• Steps (as Suetake reports them): (1) Assemble material from your own practice, such as session notes and reflections, under ethical constraints on records and privacy. Suetake grouped 25 cases by outcome (successful, partly successful, long-term, time-limited, dropout, other). (2) Optionally pre-identify themes per case first; Suetake used IPA. (3) Part I (TAE Steps 1–5): hold a theme as a felt sense, write phrases, underline key words, condense into a short "my sentence", make a fill-in-the-blank version, contrast the ordinary and felt-sense meanings of the key words, and refine. (4) Part II (Steps 6–7): return to the case material, choose instances relevant to the question, and articulate their patterns. (5) Part III (Steps 8–11 in his scheme): cross patterns systematically (e.g. 10 patterns gave 90 crossings), choose provisional terms, then final terms. He did the work alone, without a guide; a partner is the default in the originating tradition.
• Example language (illustrative, self-prompt): "What do I know about clients who drop out that I've never managed to say?"
• Watch for: (Suetake's own cautions) bias and memory gaps from one therapist's first-person view; blurring the process as it should happen with the process as it actually happens; untested generalisability; the workload. Suetake's resulting terms are tentative.

Tokumaru worksheet version (Japanese variant)

• Purpose: a structured written form of TAE (Tokumaru 2010). Suetake used three of its worksheets: a "my-sentence sheet" for Steps 1–5, a "pattern sheet" for facets and patterns, and a "crossing sheet". [source: Suetake 2013. Tokumaru's book is not drawn on, so step mapping and other sheets are uncertain]
• Steps: Follow the Part I/II/III sequence above, recording each sub-step on the matching sheet. Do not reproduce Tokumaru's sheets; build your own simple layout. One column per word for the meaning work, one row per facet for the pattern work, and a facet × facet grid for crossings [synthesis].
• Watch for: filling in forms without contact with the felt sense.

Client-facing adapted TAE (Phase I) [synthesis]

• Purpose: for a client who has an emerging knowing they cannot put into words, for example a value, a life direction, or a sense of what was wrong in a relationship. It turns this into their own precise language, which can support decisions or action. No primary source describes TAE as a client treatment. The nearest documented example is non-clinical: Mayhew (2020) used TAE over about seven weekly classes to move from climate-related helplessness to a crux about "growing a garden", followed by community action.
• Steps: (1) Check that the client can Focus: can they find and hold a felt sense? If not, teach Focusing first. (2) Explain the procedure and obtain consent. Frame it as an optional thinking practice, not a treatment for the presenting problem. (3) Use Steps 1–5 across sessions, with the therapist as TAE listener-scribe. (4) Optionally add Steps 6–8 with non-traumatic facets. (5) End with Step 9 free writing and ask what action or decision, if any, follows. (6) Give the client the written string and phrases to keep.
• Example language (illustrative): "You've said several times there's something you know about this that nobody around you is saying. Would you like to try a structured way of finding words for it? I'll write down your exact words as we go."
• Watch for: see section 5. It is working when the client's own odd phrases recur in later sessions as reference points and bring felt shifts.

5. Handling problems

Items marked [source] come from Gendlin & Hendricks (2004), Gendlin (2004) or Suetake (2013). Everything else is [synthesis]: the primary sources do not address clinical difficulties.

Method-internal difficulties (from the sources)

• The person drops the illogical part or tidies the paradox [source]. Bring back the Step 2 sentence and ask what the tidy version lost. Treat the contradiction as the most valuable material.
• Synonyms instead of new words; jargon creeping back [source]. Ask, "Does this word pull something different from the felt sense, or the same thing?" Then: "Say that without the big word."
• "Nothing fits, I can't do this" [source + synthesis]. Normalise it: no word fits, and none should if this is new. Slow down and read back their own last phrase.
• General statements instead of facets [source]. Ask for one actual time, with who, where and what happened.
• Obvious public links in Step 11 [source]. Name the obvious answer, set it aside and ask again from the felt sense.
• Logic yields a conclusion the felt sense rejects [source]. Make a further distinction, or rethink the nature of the term, instead of forcing or abandoning the system. Reopen the system only if small changes fail.
• The theory implies something unintended [source]. Recall a specific instance and find the missing distinction.
• Absorbing the new theory into an old one ("this is really just X") [source]. Use the Step 14 warning: ask what precisely the new terms let you see that X does not.
• Shared phrasing flattens individual intricacy [source]. Avoid "we" and "mine is like yours" until individual terms exist. In groups, each person works their own crux.
• Single-practitioner bias in therapist TAE [source: Suetake 2013]. Add client perspectives, colleagues' crossings and explicit term definitions. Keep "should happen" separate from "did happen".

Clinical difficulties [synthesis]

• Stuck: no felt sense forms. Stop TAE. Teach Focusing first (clearing a space, inviting a felt sense of a whole situation). Resume only when the client can reliably return to a felt sense.
• Stuck: intellectualising. The person writes clever sentences with no bodily reference. Ask after each sentence, "Read it back to yourself. What happens inside?" If nothing happens, return to Step 1. Phase III can feed intellectualising, so keep clinical use to Phase I–II.
• Overwhelm, or trauma surfacing as facets. Facets invite vivid actual events. Pre-agree that facets will be events the client can recall without being flooded. If arousal rises, stop the step, ground, and use Focusing distance ("put it at a comfortable distance"). If needed, move to trauma-appropriate treatment, since TAE is not a trauma-processing method. Do not continue crossing traumatic material.
• Suicidal or crisis presentations. TAE is contraindicated during acute crisis; follow standard risk assessment and safety planning first. Do not frame helplessness or despair work (cf. Mayhew's non-clinical use) as TAE before stabilisation.
• Resistance or reluctance. The structure may feel academic or alien. Offer only Step 1 as an experiment, and drop the step language. If the client declines, ordinary focusing-oriented listening keeps the same stance.
• Non-adherence with writing between sessions. Do the writing in session, with the therapist as scribe (as the source's listener role does). Hand over the written phrases at the end, so homework becomes optional rereading.
• Ruptures from therapist suggestions. The Step 10 partner suggestions, or a read-back in the therapist's words, can feel like being corrected or captured. Repair: "I put my words on it. Tell me what's wrong with it." Reinstate verbatim read-back and invite disagreement explicitly.
• Compliance or deference. The client accepts the therapist's linking sentence or crux too readily. Check by asking the client to say what is not quite right about it. Agreement without any correction is a warning sign.
• Dependence on the therapist as theory-builder. Keep authorship with the client: their words, their underlines, their copy of the papers.
• Using TAE to avoid feeling. A client works on "my theory of relationships" while avoiding grief. Name the pattern gently and offer to Focus on what the theory is about.
• Confidentiality in therapist TAE. Case material used for theorising must follow record-retention and consent rules. Remove identifiers before sharing with a TAE partner or group. Suetake's sample was limited by such rules, and he excluded cases where clients might resume therapy.
• Time and fatigue. The steps are long and each turn may be about 2 h. Split the steps across sessions, end each session by reading back the current string, and start the next with it.
• Therapist competence. Learn TAE first on your own crux, ideally in a TIFI course or partnership, before guiding clients. The steps are subtle, and the source's checks are easy to skip.

Sources

Sources

• Gendlin, E.T. & Hendricks, M. (2004). Thinking At the Edge (TAE) Steps. The Folio 2000–2004 (TIFI legacy PDF): primary text, all 14 steps
• TAE Steps Short Form (TIFI, unattributed)
• Gendlin, E.T. (2004). Introduction to Thinking At the Edge. The Folio 19(1)
• The International Focusing Institute: TAE resource page
• TIFI: Thinking At the Edge (TAE)
• TIFI: TAE 3-person online course
• Suetake, Y. (2013). Attempt to theorise processes in person-centred/focusing-oriented therapy: qualitative analysis using TAE. Gendai Fukushi Kenkyū 13, 23–45 (Japanese)
• Mayhew, M. (2020). Thinking At the Edge: From helplessness to hope and clarity (TIFI blog)
• Boukydis, Z. & Kántor, Á. (2015). Understanding Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: opened; it does not cover TAE

Opened but not machine-readable (content not used) [uncertain]: TAE 14 steps, Folio vol. 19 PDF; Krycka (2006/2007) TAE article; Gendlin: TAE only possible with Focusing.

Books and works cited (not drawn on)

• Gendlin, E.T. (1978/1981). Focusing. New York: Everest House / Bantam.
• Gendlin, E.T. (1997/2018). A Process Model. (Cited on focusing.org as the exemplar of a theory that is both logical and experiential.)
• Tokumaru, S. (2010). TAE による文章表現ワークブック [TAE writing workbook]. Tokyo. (Cited via Suetake 2013; title as commonly given [uncertain].)
• Lou, N. Thinking at the Edge: Grassroots Introduction to TAE Manual, Book One. Focusing Institute store.
• Schoeller, D. (2022). TAE and embodied critical thinking. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (not drawn on).
• Krycka, K. (2006). Thinking At the Edge: Where theory and practice meet to create fresh understandings.