Presenter
Ton Coffeng (1943), M.D., is a retired psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He worked for many years at a mental health agency in the north of Holland. Prior to this, he was in charge of a leprosy control scheme in West Tanzania (1972-76). He currently has a therapy practice in Naarden (NL).
He is a learning therapist and supervisor of the Netherlands Association of Psychotherapy (NVP); trainer, learning therapist, and supervisor of the Netherlands Association of Person-Centered Experiential Psychotherapy (VPEP); member of the Netherlands Association of Group Psychotherapy (until 2013); trainer of the Pre-Therapy International Network; and a member of the International Focusing Institute (previously trainer and coordinator). He is also a member of WAPCEPC.
His orientation is Client-Centered and Focusing-Oriented Therapy, for which he attended workshops by Gendlin, Olsen, Iberg, and others, following his regular psychotherapy training. His primary interest is in grief, particularly the grief experienced by adults who suffered a loss in childhood. He has developed a therapy for these clients and created a video documenting the process.
Since 1990, Ton has been involved in the treatment of complex trauma and dissociation, for which he developed an experiential approach. He described the different phases of this treatment and created videos to demonstrate the approach. He also founded a network of trauma therapists.
In addition to his therapeutic work, he has taught focusing classes for clients and a focusing training course for therapists. From 2000 to 2010, he lectured on ‘Trauma and Dissociation’ at the University of Groningen. He has conducted workshops on grief and trauma in Vienna, Edinburgh, Turnhout (Belgium), and Amsterdam. He was an invited speaker at various conferences, including the ÖGwG conference in Vienna (1992), a person-centered therapists conference in Leuven (1999), a clinical psychology conference in Osaka, Japan (2006), and the PCE-2018 conference in Vienna.
Ton conducted a pilot study on Focusing in 1997. He initiated a committee to plan Focusing workshops in Holland and organized workshops and conferences on Pre-Therapy with Garry Prouty in 1994 and 1999.
His articles have been published in English and Dutch, with some translations into German, Russian, and Spanish. He has also produced therapy session videos.
