Existential Analysis 26.

2: July 2015

Daring to Listen to the Truth of the

Body: Existential-Phenomenology
Needs The Body’s Response
Presentation, 22 November, 2014
Society for Existential Analysis Annual Conference

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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explicit experience – words, ideas, or philosophical concepts.

As therapists, our way of being provides the evidence from which
we can examine this idea. I would encourage you, of course, not to just
believe me. To be consistent with this approach what I say must, in some
way, be found in your own experiencing otherwise it remains only
more conceptual conjecture.

Conceptual working with Clients

This is a private experience during which I will ask you to think about a
client you are working with. We will have some time at the end for us to
discuss what you discovered – and you can talk about what you experience
without telling us any life details of the client it refers to. It may be
helpful to have paper and pen to jot down notes for yourself.

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?

Perhaps make a note of anything that feels new or important to you. We

are protecting that thinking; we are not suggesting that it is wrong.

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Experiential/Phenomenological working with Clients

So for now, put to one side all that thinking for a moment and bring to
mind that same client, but this time I would like to guide you to reflect
in a different way.

1. Let yourself really remember what it feels like to be with that

client. That feeling might be partly there from thinking about him
or her already. Notice especially the middle part of your body,
throat, chest, stomach, abdomen. What feeling comes there as you
bring this client to mind? How does your body make itself?
2. Really welcome the feeling, let it come more strongly, no thinking
is required. Protect it from anything that would interrupt or doubt
it or analyse or explain it. Just let your attention come fully down
to the feeling itself.
3. Just staying with the feeling, ask yourself ‘What does this really
feel like to me?’ It might feel tight, scary, like I’m pulling away,
being pushed, or like there is a warm bond between us, or like we
care too much for each other, anything … Let words, memories,
images, gestures arise from this whole feeling of being with the
client, not from your thinking – you don’t need to understand what
comes to you… it doesn’t have to make any sense.
4. Really make a space for this feeling to come. See if you can sense
what is happening inside of you as you sit with this client, how
would you describe the feeling? Once you have some kind of
description, check it with the feeling, show it back to the body to
check if it really resonates.
5. Now I’d like to invite you to wonder, ‘what is this feeling really
about for me?’ It could even lead into your own life story in some
way… But ask the question directly into the body feel, not your
thinking. Nothing has to come, but something just might emerge
from the feeling itself as if in response.
6. Secondly, I’d like to invite you to really feel what it is like for the
two of you to be together, how does your body experience your
style of relating together? Can you sense, what is this really like?
What does the feeling show about what is really happening? Take
your time to really feel into this. You might also ask what does
this relational feeling need? What kind of interaction between you
would feel more right?
7. Lastly, I’d like to invite you to really feel into your client’s position,
really imagine being them, living their life as you know it, what
does it feel like to be that person in the world? How would your
body make itself if you were really to be them? From the feeling
of being them, can you sense how you would describe that? Perhaps

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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?

Possible conceptual elaborations:

1. I would say that in the therapy context, phenomenology is experiential.
Anything that is added from concepts must enter the experience
and its meaning then becomes unique to that situation, it does not
remain some general concept. Concepts or theory are used experientially
and refined by each new use.
2. The interaction between the existential and phenomenological takes
place in the body and is refined and corrected by the body. Nothing
remains reified in this approach to therapy.
3. Phenomenology reveals to us how relational, and personal, the
work of therapy is – in a bodily way our being and our client’s
being are not separate. The bodily response in the therapist helps
the client move beyond their problems, the way they are presently
constituted. If that is true, any new insight you have had today
should change your interaction with that client you were thinking
about next time you see them. We will see if that is true.
4. The crux of existentialism is that humans exist without defined
essence. Humans have as their being just their existence, which I
take to mean that alive felt sentience you are right now.
5. As practicing therapists, we know that intellectualisations have
limited value in sessions, and we wish our clients to do more than
construct conceptual analyses. Why, then, as therapists who are
also students of philosophy, should we keep our philosophy on a
merely intellectual level? Existentialism succeeds as a therapeutic
approach if we equate ‘existence’ with ‘experiencing.’ If it remains

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rooted in and always returning to phenomenology. Philosophy,

like experience, should always be carried further.
6. Existentialism contributes to psychotherapy. But, it is also true
that psychotherapy can contribute greatly to existential philosophy.
Felt concreteness is difficult to describe philosophically, whereas
in therapy we are continually working with it and familiar with it.
The work of therapists can elaborate the body of existential philosophy
and elucidate the thinking of existential philosophers.

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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experientially; it is meant to evoke not conclude. For the practice of therapy

this back and forth is the process of change.

Greg Madison PhD is an international lecturer and facilitator of Focusing

and Experiential-Existential therapy courses. He teaches the practice of
Focusing and the philosophy of Eugene Gendlin with a particular existential
emphasis on relational depth and respectful non-oppressive phenomenological
practice. He has recently formed the London Focusing Institute, a community
of people interested in Focusing and its various applications, including
existential therapy. He is a chartered psychologist, BPS Associate Fellow,
existential psychotherapist, co-editor of Existential Analysis, supervisor
and author, and maintains a small private practice in addition to his other
professional commitments. He has written and edited books including,
Theory and Practice of Focusing Oriented Psychotherapy. Beyond The
Talking Cure (2014), Emerging Practice in Focusing Oriented Psychotherapy
(2014), Existential Therapy: Legacy, Vibrancy & Diagogue (2011, Barnett,
L & Madison, G, co-editors.), The End of Belonging. Untold Stories of
Leaving Home and the Psychology of Globalization (2009).
Contact: www.londonfocusing.com, www.gregmadison.net
Email: info@gregmadison.net

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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