Gendlin, E.T. (2003). Beyond Postmodernism: From Concepts to Experiencing. In Roger Frie (Ed.), Understanding Experience: Psychotherapy and Postmodernism, pp.100-115, Routledge.

Translation: Koichiro Asega

Beyond Postmodernism: From Concepts to Experiencing
Eugene T. Gendlin

The relationship between experience and concepts occupies a central position in the theory and practice of psychotherapy. Philosophy can help us understand this relationship. Unfortunately, however, almost no one attempts to combine psychotherapy and philosophy, even though both possess what the other needs most. Psychotherapists can be extremely sensitive practitioners, but they usually have not developed conceptual thinking. This is because they rarely utilize the concepts they learned or the concepts at hand in their work. In contrast, philosophy provides a critique of the types of concepts psychology uses. By relying on philosophy, we can sharpen our conceptual thinking. Without a background in philosophy, discussions about types of concepts might seem complex. One must become proficient in the methods of discussing concepts—the methods that philosophers have practiced since the Greek era. If we can see through the assumptions inherent in the concepts we usually use, we can construct new concepts. This chapter argues that psychotherapy can develop theoretical concepts directly from experience.

On the other hand, philosophers desperately need to discover how direct access to what can be called "experience" is possible in the first place. In a long tradition, most philosophers have always interpreted "experience" as something organized by concepts. While this is true, experience also transcends the concepts implicitly contained within it. A hundred years after Freud, philosophers involved in psychology still rely mainly on Freudian concepts rather than the empirical achievements of the entire twentieth century. The tendency of philosophy to interpret "experience" only through concepts has been greatly reinforced by Freudian thought. Philosophy needs to discover that a direct relationship can be established between thought and experience. The discovery of direct experience opens up a vast and complex philosophical domain.

It is impossible to grasp the relationship between experience and concepts using only concepts. Experience cannot be replicated, captured, or represented. Concepts can only point to our experience. Therefore, we need to form a special kind of concept that encompasses experience itself—that is, the act of pointing that concepts perform. We must proceed while carrying experience with us. Experience never becomes a concept. Because experience cannot be represented, concepts can only show various relationships between experience and conceptual patterns. Here, I present a few such concepts.

Recently, a huge gap called "postmodernism" has emerged between experience and concepts. I want to not only examine the nature of this gap but also attempt to go beyond it. Of course, there are many currents in postmodernism. The most well-known is the denial that any truth exists, or that any claim can be rooted in experience. Postmodernism is correct in that we cannot claim to reproduce or imitate experience. However, this does not mean that our statements are unrelated to experience—that no truth exists and that every statement is arbitrary. In contrast to postmodernism, I show that we can access experience directly through the body (Gendlin 1992). I argue that bodily experience cannot be reduced to language or culture. A bodily sense of a situation is a concretely felt interaction process that always transcends culture, history, and language.

Not just perception

What is this experience we can directly access, and where is it? Merleau-Ponty (1945) explored this direction through his theory of the body, but we need to go further. The body is not merely a philosophical premise for perception. Merleau-Ponty rescued the body from the state of being treated as merely something perceived, like other objects of perception (which is still the case in physiology). For him, the body is perception itself, the center that faces both inside and outside of perception, not merely something that is perceived, but something that perceives. However, perception cannot be the starting point for understanding the self and the body.

A philosophy that starts from perception makes it appear as if living creatures are in contact with reality only through perception. But plants are also in contact with reality. They are interactions themselves without perception. Our living body is also an interaction with the environment, and it is not lost just because it possesses perception. The animal body—including our own—senses itself, and through this, we become aware that we are interactive creatures. In the process of sensing itself, the body senses the physical environment and the situations of human relationships.

It is clear that a situation does not consist only of the perception of colors, smells, and sounds. Even the simplest situation cannot be grasped by the five senses alone. Every situation involves other people and the complex relationships in which they are intertwined. This cannot be understood through colors or smells.

Our bodies sense themselves by living within a situation. Our bodies live our lives. Our bodies are the interactions themselves in the environment, and we interact as bodies, not merely through the five senses. We are not hiding behind a partition equipped with five peepholes.

The living body consists of interactions with others in the world. "Perception" appears only before the body or in relation to the body. But the body is an interaction not only in the sense of feeling the coldness of the air, but also in the sense of breathing. It takes in food. It does not just see and smell food. It grows and sweats. It walks. It does not just feel the hard resistance of the ground. And walking is not movement between two points in empty space, but heading somewhere. The body senses the entire situation, and it suggests, prompts, and implicitly shapes the next action. The body makes itself sense that it is living the entire situation as a context.

In every situation, we do not act based only on colors, smells (not even in a state where the five senses are intertwined), or movements in geometric space. Rather, we act from a bodily sense of each situation. Without a bodily sense of a situation, we would not even know where we are or what we are doing.

Not just language

It is not the body of perception that is structured by language. Nor is the interaction of the body structured only by culture and language. Rather, it is the body of the interactive life itself in the environment. The interaction of the body is always more complex than language. It is behind language, with language, and is always newly progressing, reconstructing this situation into the present. Language refines the way the body implies a situation and implies the next action.

We sense the body not as refined perception, but as a bodily sense of a situation—that is, as an interactive, whole-body sense that bears the orientation and recognition of action. In the process of sensing itself, the body functions as a sensory organ for each situation. It is a huge omission to overlook the role of the body's self-perception and try to construct the world from the perception of the five senses.

Higher animals practice much of human existence and action. For example, Jane Goodall reported that a chimpanzee mother of a young child suffering from polio carefully adjusted its dangling limbs. When an adult male chimpanzee was injured, a young brother carefully pressed together the lips of the open wound.

Experience involving human symbolization is not essential for differentiated communication. Animals groom each other and pick fleas even when there are no fleas. They do it simply to keep each other company. This is also known from dogs, cats, and horses. When my cat is particularly happy to sit next to me, he "grooms the hair" on my hand with his tongue, even while sensing that there is no hair there. This kind of communication occurs between them and also between us.

It is easy to refute those who think that we cannot speak of things before language. If language exists, cultural differences naturally arise. We are not concerned with a body that lacks language. When we realize that the body is currently functioning in ways that are always far more extensive than language, the superiority and priority of the body become clear. The body functions in a decisive way, and in a way that transcends history. It is not the five senses that carry language and history, but the sensory bodily interaction, and it always transcends them. I will demonstrate this.

The bodily felt sense of a situation

Merleau-Ponty (1945) states that we perceive the space behind us. I want you to recognize this fact for even a moment. You can sense the space behind you. Can this still be called "perception"? It is not visual, auditory, or tactile, nor is it an integration of the five senses. Rather, it is a direct bodily sense that we constantly possess and use.

It is not just space that you sense behind you. It is not just the visible objects that fill the space. You sense the people behind you. The people who might turn around and speak to you. They are part of your situation in this very moment, and you sense them as part of your sense of the situation you are in. If you were to decide right now to turn around and say something out loud, you could feel how your current calm bodily sense would change. Even the choice not to do so is contained within this sense of the situation of the present moment??in a bodily way.

For example, suppose you are walking home on a dark road and sense that you are being followed by a group of men. You do not merely recognize them. You do not just hear their presence in the space behind you. Your bodily sense instantly encompasses the hope that perhaps you are not being followed. It includes vigilance, countless past experiences??so many memories that they cannot be separated??and the necessity of taking some action. Whether to quicken your pace, change your route, run into a house, prepare to fight, run, or scream (...).

My (...) represents the fact that a bodily sense contains more elements than can be listed, exceeding the range that can be processed one by one by thought. And it is not just what is there. It also implies the next move to deal with the situation. But this implication of the next move remains (...) as long as the actual action has not yet occurred.

Because it contains all of these, (...) is not merely perception. Although it certainly includes much perception. Then is it a "feeling"? It is certainly felt, but "feeling" usually implies emotion. (...) includes emotion, but it also encompasses many more elements. Then is it a "mysterious and unknown thing"? No, we always have this bodily sense of our situation. You have it at this very moment. Otherwise, you would be confused about where you are and what you are doing.

Is it not strange that our language does not yet have words or phrases to express this? "Kinesthesia" refers only to movement, and "proprioception" relates to muscles. "Sensation" is ambiguous. In other words, there is no common word to express this extremely familiar bodily sense that accompanies the complexity of the situation we are in, and the sense that instantly weighs so many options that they cannot be considered individually.

We call this a "felt sense."

This expression can describe (...), but it can only do so if it is accompanied by (...), becomes part of what we mean, and allows us to advance our thinking from there. If we do that, in any aspect of any subject, if we allow the sense felt in that aspect, we can advance our thinking from a specific (...).

Note that (...) is implicitly complex. It goes beyond what has already been formed and distinguished. In my example, it includes many alternative movements, but that is not all: (...) implies the next move??the body is something that implies the next move??but behind everything it contains, and together with them, that move has not yet been formed.

A (...) is an interaction. It is the way the body lives its own situation. Your situation and you are not two things. As if only external things constitute the situation without you. Also, a bodily sense is not merely internal. It is certainly an emotional reaction to danger, but more than that, it encompasses the complexity of your situation, parts of which you cannot grasp through vision or thought. Your body's (...) is your situation. It is not a perceived object in front of or behind you. The situation is not something out there, nor is it something inside you. The complex involvement with others is neither inside nor outside you, and therefore not a collection of both. The bodily sense is the situation. It is essentially an interaction, not a mixture of two things.

The living body is a continuous interaction with the environment. Therefore, naturally, environmental information is included. A bodily (...) implies a next step, but it may be at a stage where execution or discourse is not yet possible.

To understand how a living body can contain information (or be information itself) and imply the next life, we need to conceive of the living body in a new way.

This is not the usual usage of the word "body." As we have seen so far, the body is not merely a center for the direction of perception or a center for movement, but also a center for action and verbalization in a situation.

The bodily felt sense of a situation is also related to Heidegger's (1927) concept of "being-in-the-world." The early Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty argued powerfully about what is essentially implicit and pre-thematic.

In Being and Time (1927), Heidegger developed an interesting analysis of "being-in-the-world," which always includes sensing, understanding, articulation, and language.

He reinterpreted these, showing that they are "equally fundamental" to each other and are always mutually inherent.

Heidegger argued that in our sensible understanding, we know the reasons for our actions "beyond the reach of cognition."

According to Heidegger's hyphenated concept of "being-in-the-world," the human mode of existence is essentially "being-in." It is being in a situation with others.

However, Heidegger stopped here, and unfortunately, did not understand this in a bodily sense.

We can go further. "Being in a situation with others" applies to humans who have bodies and have senses.

A person is an interaction itself, and this includes the body. This can be observed in various ways.

For example, an infant appears while breathing and searches for a breast. Conversely, the breast must be milked if the infant is not there.

In other words, we are essentially interactional beings. This does not mean, as postmodernists claim, that 'there is no person, only dialogue'.

The current trend of dialogue is an overreaction to the traditional view that assumed humans were internal structures isolated from interaction.

In fact, human self-response occurs within the context of interaction and is strongly influenced by this context. However, interpersonal relationships also occur within the context of self-response and are strongly influenced by it. Both can transcend each other.

Therefore, we attempt to provide maximum personal intimacy while minimizing the intervention of content. We call this 'Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy' (Gendlin 1996).

You know that someone exists within you.

And when another person looks at you, you know that they recognize your existence.

Sartre (1943) understood this point well. In 'Being and Nothingness', he called this the 'gaze'.

In our theoretical concepts, a person's concrete existence—and your own existence—must be felt and referred to as such.

Concepts, structures, content, experience—none of these look at you. Sartre was also correct in stating that 'existence precedes essence'.

This is a slogan suggesting that what is sitting in the chair looking at me is more fundamental and precedes any words we might try to say about it.

However, if we incorporate this (...) into our thinking, we can say much about it.

Truth and Value

My fellow postmodernist philosophers believe that there is no such thing as truth.

But the fact that there is no single truth does not mean that truth itself does not exist.

It indicates that truth is diverse and that there are various very important meanings to truth.

There are now ways to objectively measure the extent to which people's verbalizations reflect implicit experience that has not yet been formed.

There is a kind of truth that applies when our statements have a specific relationship or effect on experience. Our statements and practical choices are not merely arbitrary and unrelated to what we are concretely experiencing.

Currently, people view choices as arbitrary.

There is a disillusionment with the concept of 'authenticity.' It now seems to mean nothing more than a moment of purely arbitrary decision.

When reality is considered to be value-neutral 'facts' or 'objects,' value judgments appear arbitrary.

However, we now know that apart from arbitrarily deciding what to do, our experience is something else—something more complex, consisting of more implicit elements, yet felt as a single whole.

A small step that arises from this is, for example, 'Oh, I am not yet together enough to make this decision.'

Such an initial step might seem useless, but it causes a change in how the entire body holds the situation.

Furthermore, in a characteristically strange and unexpected way, small steps that go beyond the clichés of everyday language follow. There is no arbitrariness in the process leading to a decision; there can be a much more delicate process that moves in the direction of life's forward movement.

I support truth that moves forward and develops.

However, I do not like to view any truth as the one and only. It is not a problem that multiple truths exist.

If that were the case, the world would be much poorer.

But postmodernists keep saying, 'There is no such thing as truth.' It is as if everyone has decided that 'truth is either a single form or it does not exist at all.'

In fact, we always stand within a vast, open possibility. If we dig deeper into almost any phenomenon captured experientially, it reveals a much more complex aspect.

If truth only existed in a single form, it would be truly boring. Who would want that?

Conclusion

First, psychologists and their general readers have discovered experience, but they do not fully recognize the role of culture, history, and language in shaping our experience. Sophisticated intellectuals understand this, yet they run to the extreme postmodern position, claiming that everything originates from culture, history, and language.

Philosophically, we need to take a step further. That step is to recognize what is with language and yet beyond language. The body always exists within a new situational interaction that transcends culture, history, and language.

Second, some thinkers are currently exploring 'emergent' concepts and knowledge. To discover this, we need to find direct access to ongoing bodily experience.

This direct access transcends general expression. However, language is inherent in all human experience. New aspects of experience can reorganize implicit language and generate new sentences.

These are not imitations, but rather they move experience forward.

Naive observers believe they can 'match' experience with their own words. Many postmodernists know that it is impossible to 'represent,' capture, or replicate experience, but they interpret this to mean that 'everything is left to arbitrary interpretation.'

If we realize that we can speak from direct access to experience, a philosophical advancement is brought about. We can recognize the difference between when we are speaking from direct access and when we are not.

Third, speaking from direct access to experience leads to a zigzag process between the act of speaking and the access.

In this process, experience changes, but it is not arbitrary. This occurs as a chain of subtly felt bodily changes.

Fourth, the living body has an overall direction of life-forwarding. This is usually called 'adaptive,' as if it were merely conforming itself to external demands. However, in reality, the living system creates new and more complex meanings and actions.

The process of experience I have described has its own integrity. It took a long time for me to be convinced that continuous bodily experience has inherent implications for life-forwarding. The small steps that occur at the edge are creative and imaginative, and always carry some positive direction.

The life process is self-organizing, but its complexity far exceeds our conceptualization. A great, indivisible diversity is always at work. Higher animals live extremely complex lives without culture. Culture does not create; it elaborates.

And we live creatively with culture and beyond culture. If we directly sense the continuous experience of the body, the view that we are products of culture cannot be maintained.

Compared to what we find directly, culture is crude and inhuman. The complexity you are living right now far exceeds what cultural forms have given you.

By focusing, we realize that we are far more organized from the inside out. Direct access to this complexity allows for thinking that is far richer than ordinary concepts and assumptions.

Excerpted from Roger Frie (Ed.), Understanding Experience: Psychotherapy and Postmodernism, pp.100-115 (Routledge, 2003)

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The original text is available at The International Focusing Institute online library

https://focusing.org/gendlin/docs/gol_2164.html

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