dealing with an Oedipal issue may be growth promoting, bringing out many personal meanings, exis tential and self actualizing issues. Instead of contents, we might say that it is the process of referencing that characterizes human istic approaches.Humanistic psychologists may become nonhumanistic if they impose humanistic concepts onto the clients experiences. The fol lowing sample therapist statements make no difference.1. Well I see that your problem comes from a growth issue, you know, theres some part of you that isnt growing or self actualizing.2. Well, I see that your problem comes from an oral dependent posi tion, you know, theres some part of you that continues to need your mother.Both of these interpretations are imposing concepts onto the cli ents experience. (For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see Gendlins 1977 critique of Medard Boss.) Instead of contents, humanistic psychologists would attend to the process with which contents arise out of experience.The process in which contents arise out of experience is the pro cess of referring to the direct referent (felt sense). However, as pre sented in this article, it may be said that this process is not really the clients process. Referring to the direct referent is already an interaction. The interaction occurs not only inside oneself but also between the person and the otherthe therapist. Moreover, the interaction also involves the therapists inner interactions. There is a complex matrix of interactions around the felt sense that client and therapist are trying to articulate. We call this mutual interac tion the process of referencing.Therapists cannot expect the clients to get in touch with feelings and talk from those feelings without attending to their own feel ings. Self disclosure, genuine responses, and sharing on the part of the therapist are tips of the icebergs. Underneath these apparent responses is the continuous attending to the clients feelings as well as to the therapists own feelings. Underneath there is a respect for whatever contents that emerge from the experiences of the client and of the therapist. Through this process of referencing, persons emerge newly, and client and therapist become congruent or genuine.Interestingly, two recent books on focusing written in Japanese (Ito & Asega, 2001; Kira, 2002) deal with focusing for therapists. Both of these books show how deeply interactions with clients are affected when the therapist attends to his or her felt sense about the client. Moreover, in the United States and Japan, interest in interactive focusing(Klein, 2001) is rising. Focusing, in particu lar, and humanistic psychology, in general, would benefit from thinking about therapy concepts from an interaction first perspective.REFERENCES Doi, A. (2001). Imano Shigoto ga jibun ni awanai to uttae te raidan shito ss sai dansei tono mensetsu katei [A case with a 25 year old male: The job is not right for me]. Shinn Soudan Kenlaju, 2, 47 55. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Kobe College, Kobe, Japan.Gendlin, E. T. (1962). Experiencing and the creation of meaning: A philo sophical and psychological approach to the subjective. Glencoe, NY: Free Press of Glencoe. Gendlin, E. T. (1964). A theory of