For example, I was researching an entirely unrelated post which began with a reference to the Litany of Gendlin, and from that learned who Eugene Gendlin was, found and read his book on therapy, which seems like it might be as useful for dealing with akrasia as it is for other problems.

It is. As it turns out, the thing I thought I invented called RMI is basically the same as Gendlin's Focusing; I'd just never heard of it and came up with a version of my own. Nowadays, I recommend that book to my new students if they have trouble learning the method from my materials. (Like Gendlin, I've noticed that some people seem to just already know how to do it, or pick it up almost immediately; the rest need varying amounts of practice and training to do it successfully.)

In and of itself, I do not consider "focusing" (boy is that the wrong name for the process) to be a panacea or even much of a cure for anything, let alone everything. It'd be like saying that a screwdriver is a cure for your television set not working. All it really does is let you open up the access panel and have a look in... or in Gendlin's case, provide an opportunity for the therapist to have a look in and offer some suggestions of what to tweak in there. If you're going to do more with it than poke around randomly, it helps to have some schematics and assembly diagrams of what you're working on.

(Btw, the reason I say "focusing" is the wrong name for the process, is because what most people would think of as a mental act of "focusing" would lead them to do almost the exact opposite of what is required to succeed at it. I wish he'd called it, I don't know... searching? grasping? contemplating? I suppose those wouldn't have sold a book as well, but then, it's not a book for people who need to focus, either, so, go figure!)