Rationale
Inspired by Eugene Gendlin’s focusing theory, which asserts that slowing down to evoke the ‘felt sense’ fosters emotional healing, this mindful brewing programme promoted embodied awareness and facilitates emotional recovery for cancer patients and caregivers experienced significant psychological distress.
Methodology
Between 2021 and 2024, 24 Healing Coffee Workshops were conducted, each with 4 sessions involving cancer patients and caregivers. These workshops combined coffee brewing techniques with guided mindfulness practices emphasizing sensory awareness, deliberate pausing, and engagement with inner feelings, drawing on Gendlin’s focusing theory. A structured self-evaluation questionnaire was designed to assess the programme's effects on participants’ ability to enhance focus and awareness of inner needs, facilitate emotional understanding and coexistence, promote self-healing through coffee brewing, learn relaxation techniques and stress relief methods, foster awareness of bodily sensations and emotional states, and develop skills for emotional coexistence.
Results
A total of 24 workshops were conducted, collecting feedback from 102 patients and 40 caregivers, resulting in 123 respondents. Of these, 95.6% reported enhanced focus on emotions, 93.5% learned to tolerate their emotions, 93.4% of patients experienced the self-healing process. All caregivers indicated that they experienced stress relief. The majority of respondents noted that the brewing process was calming, grounding, and conducive to accessing inner peace and emotional regulation. Notably, caregivers emphasized the importance of stress awareness and valued the platform for sharing experiences, which helped them develop empathetic support strategies for their loved ones.
Conclusion
The Healing Coffee Workshops enhanced psychological well-being by embodying Gendlin’s principle that slowing down facilitates emotional healing and personal growth. This sensory-based approach offers a novel and accessible intervention for cancer patients and caregivers, highlighting the need for further investigation into long-term benefits and methodological refinement. Future studies should incorporate qualitative interviews and rigorously validate assessment tools to better clarify the mechanisms underlying these benefits.