Foundational Focusing and FOAT® prinicples (Eugene Gendlin, Laury Rappaport) are the main principles here, along with Empathic Curiosity for Differences (Christiane Geiser) and Aesthetic Empathy (Friedl Dicker-Brandeis)

Processing artistically at the edge of sensual awareness is leading to a More of  (Eugene Gendlin). This is the place where the Experiential Third (Freda Blob) is going to emerge. The Experiential Third is a space offering unpredictable shifts in body, arts and meaning. Those shifts are actualized through the living body interacting with all the components of the situation as a whole

Activities of ExAF continuing education are embedded in the space of the Experiential Third

The experiential process is forwarded by empathic art making. Art making itself is a carrying forward: 'Any action or interaction is a carrying forward of the body' (Eugene Gendlin, The Process Model)

Forwarding goes hand in hand with pausing (The Revolutionary Pause, Mary Hendricks), a one minute wait for the body to carry forward experiencing with precision. Practicing the Revolutionary Pause in ExAF ways, experiential listening and repetitive art activities may occur simultaneously. For example: Holding on to autonomous bilateral drawing movements from the Whole Body (without using art materials or expressing content) is sometimes just the time the body needs to find its next right step

ExAF activities are facilitated by the professional but start from the body sense of the practitioner. Practitioners are experts of their own processing and direction of development. They are co-creative partners in finding out what practices are most inducive for their body's forwarding movement

This working model is highly experiential and person-centred, and functions best with a wide range of methods being offered to match individual needs

• Embodied Doodling: Energizing the body through spontaneous repetitive art activities, releasing stress,  getting grounded

• Felt Art Journaling: Processing difficult emotions, themes or intentions through multiple layers of artistic expression from the body sense

• Experiential Museum Art-Based Engagement/Receptive Art Therapy: Receptive-active art activities, responding to fine arts from the art sense (Paolo Bianchi), getting hold of aesthetic connections and deeper meaning

• Experiential Collaging (Akira Ikemi), Phototherapy (Kathrin Seifert): Finding and exploring meaning through action-oriented art expression using inside-out and outside-in felt sensing

• Experiential Dynamic Shape Drawing (DSD): Getting focused through drawing rhythmical moving and swinging lines along breathing rhythm using lombard braid patterns (anthroposophical art therapy)
  

• Bilateral Body Mapping/Guided Drawing®: Releasing intense body feelings, emotions and trauma (Sensorimotor Art Therapy®)