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2: July 2015
Greg Madison
Abstract
This paper is based upon a workshop offered at the Society for Existential
Analysis 2014 Conference ‘Truth or Dare’, held in London. The workshop
introduces, through experiential exploration, the idea that existential-
phenomenological therapy needs to be based upon some form of experiential
awareness in order to be either existential or phenomenological. This idea
is based upon Eugene Gendlin’s ‘philosophy of implicit experiencing’ and
utilises ‘Focusing’, the therapeutic practice that arises from Gendlin’s philosophy.
Key words
Phenomenological therapy, experiential-existential psychotherapy, Gendlin,
hermeneutics
Introduction
‘When we formulate experience, that is by no means the first time experience
and language have met! Experience is the living process in the cultural
world. Although experiential organization is much broader than that of
language, linguistic sequences are part of – and the means of – many
distinctions of inter-human situations and interactions. Therefore, they
are also part of our bodily feelings, and can re-emerge from them’ (Eugene
Gendlin, 1982).
First of all I will present the workshop more or less as delivered at the
conference, incorporating a followup question from one of the participants.
Then I will offer a bit more background than was possible during the
conference. I am hopeful that I can point to what I see as the fundamental
experiential nature of existential-phenomenological therapy while also
naming some of the assumptions of this model.
The workshop is based upon the philosophy of implicit experiencing
described by the philosopher Eugene Gendlin (1982) and an associated
model of therapy I call experiential-existential, or palpable existentialism.
I would like us to experiment with working phenomenologically with
implicit experience, the body, and compare it with our usual working with
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1. If you think of all the clients you are working with, notice if one
seems to stand out as if that person or that work needs some special
attention right now. Perhaps something about the work feels unsettling
for you, or there is something you can’t quite grasp about what’s
happening in the room, or something uncomfortable in the relationship
between you and your client.
2. So, choose one client to reflect upon for the next few minutes. Sit
back and think about what’s happening. Using what you know of
existential philosophy or psychotherapeutic theory, how would
you understand or conceptualise this client’s situation? Remember
this is private so you can be honest with yourself. You don’t have
to censor in any way, be honest about all the ideas and theories
and techniques that support your work with this client.
3. Notice what links you are making between the client and their
past, patterns you see in the client’s behaviour or relationships,
how do you understand them at present?
4. Notice also if you are thinking in terms of their meaning in life,
their attachment styles, diagnoses or labels that are guiding or
influencing you… ideas from philosophy or theories from other
therapeutic approaches…
5. Is there something happening between you that you would call
transference, countertransference, co-transference, boundary or
frame violations…
6. So, putting together all that analysis and formulating, do you have
a ‘best guess’ about what is happening with this client? What would
feel like the right direction for you to take in the next session?
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Daring to Listen to the Truth of the Body: Existential-Phenomenology Needs The Body’s Response
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Greg Madison
you can feel, from the client’s perspective, ‘what is their greatest
fear?’ Perhaps you can even sense what they are really hoping
might be possible here in the therapy, or what does your client
most need from you, their therapist?
OK, so in a minute we will stop. Feel free to jot down any notes about
what came to you, just for yourself, and let yourself begin to expand back
into your whole being…
Guiding questions:
1. Was there anything different from the first way of exploring with
concepts and the second way of exploring with the bodily feeling
of the situation? What was different? Where would you place the
terms ‘existential’ or ‘phenomenological’ in your explorations?
2. Did anything new arise for you and if so did it come in the first
or the second exploration? Was this new ‘insight’ something you
could imagine informing your next session with this client?
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Daring to Listen to the Truth of the Body: Existential-Phenomenology Needs The Body’s Response
Discussion
To work phenomenologically we work with the nature of experiencing;
that is, that experiencing changes itself. Experience is a verb, always in
process – it does not need a therapist to coax it along, push it, guide it,
bring theory to it … it guides itself, from its own knowing. Another aspect
of our experiencing is that it reveals how we are open interaction with
the environment, including other people, and so we are always responding
freshly as the worldly interaction we are. As Gendlin says, ‘a living person
is always unfinished’ (1982).
The person of the therapist is a living environment for the client to
respond to, and vice versa. The relationship between client and therapist
is the difference in how each is ‘made’ in the presence of the other. The
roles are not the same, though, in that the therapist is present in order to
support the way the client bodies-forth and to avoid getting in the way of
this forward momentum when it is happening. It is from this experiential
ground that theory arises. To remain useful, theory must continually be
used phenomenologically, or experientially, i.e., theory, like any explicit
symbolising, must be brought back to its original ground, the body, to see
if or when it still resonates.
Many of these points are influenced or informed by Gendlin’s paper,
Two Phenomenologists do not Disagree (1982). It was delivered at the
Heidegger Circle meeting in Chicago in 1976. Gendlin refers to Heidegger’s
warning: ‘Each originally drawn phenomenological conception and sentence,
as a communicated assertion, stands in the possibility of degeneracy. It is
passed on in an empty understanding, loses it groundedness, and becomes
free-floating thesis.’ (Heidegger, SZ: p 36, C.f. Gendlin, 1982)
For a sentence to be phenomenological, the phenomenon shows itself
as a result of the sentence. The sentence is not meant to become ‘free-
floating’, generating more and more concepts but no longer linked to, or
pointing toward, human experiencing at all. If the statement remains
‘experiential’, then the phenomenological experiencing continues to ‘speak
back’ to the statement, further refining it. This back and forth between
what arises explicitly and its implicit experiencing is an example of how
‘existential theory’ can remain phenomenologically alive and can be used
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Greg Madison
References
Gendlin, E.T. (1982). Two phenomenologists do not disagree. In R. Bruzina
& B. Wilshire (Eds.), Phenomenology. Dialogues and Bridges, pp.
321-335. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. From http://
www.focusing.org/gendlin/docs/gol_2044.html (accessed 19/09/2014).
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