The Embodied Self in a dis-Embodied Society

In the first, theoretical part of this presentation, I relate the notion of embodied self to the pattern theory of self. According to the latter, specific embodied experiences and skills are aspects of a larger pattern that constitutes the self. The larger pattern includes cognitive, narrative, and social factors, but embodied experiences of ownership and agency are basic aspects of the so-called “minimal” self. In the second part of the presentation I’ll relate the notion of the embodied self to therapeutic contexts, especially in relation to anxiety and problems in the experience of identity following neural-based therapies such as Deep Brain Stimulation. I’ll argue for a concept of holistic therapy in contrast to a “narrow” therapy that targets just one aspect of the self.

Body Psychotherapy (BP) derives much of its worldview from philosophy. Because philosophy seeks to understand the nature of the body and consciousness, emotion, and humanness, etc., our ability as clinicians to articulate where we stand and move with our philosophy of embodied experience can be fruitful. Shaun Gallagher is one of a few 21st century philosophers who validate what we do through his enquiry into how the moving, sensing, feeling human navigates their world. Gallagher asserts that sensorimotor and affective processes shape the way we think, perceive, and interact with others, calling this ‘enactive cognition.’ How do we understand enactive cognition in BP? One way is to understand Gallagher’s views on how learning occurs through embodiment, and see BP as a type of learning. If we also invoke attachment theory, we can see BP as conscious movement processing that enables a shift in the stance of the self towards experience. How we make ‘sense’ of our experiences shifts because we move them differently, moving being both physical enactment and healthier ‘sense-making.’
Drawing from BP traditions and the concept of the mobility gradient, we can expand the notion of embodied cognition into Psychotherapy. The mobility gradient uses phylogeny/ontogeny to categorize movement along a continuum from immobility to full mobility. Understanding where clients lie along this continuum may be more useful than standard treatment models. Movement may be our unifying field – whether it is arbitrarily categorized as mental, emotional, or physical – it all forms an interwoven whole. BP then not only helps to functionalize movement on a local level (the ability to reach out or push away) but also functionalizes the relationship between different types of motion (the movement of thought as consonant with the movement of feeling). This phenomenological and clinical frame may be useful for envisioning new possibilities.