Felt sense and the body
The felt sense is often understood as an internal complex,
intricate, vague feeling that has precision in terms of symbolisation.The
internalness of this, is the sense felt in the body not necessarily of the body
as with sensations.
This of course presupposes what the body is and whilst in
Gendlins terms it is more than the skin envelope it is slightly difficult to
describe. It is the living process interaction with the environment, in some
sense the immanent sense of the EN2 interaction. It does also provide an
environment itself the skin for the capillaries, my gut for my desire for
slimness.
So coming back to felt sense this is the body side effect of
the whole of the interactions with the environments. It is the result of paying
attention to the interaction, and indeed on the body side.
In Gendlins thought there are not objects there are
interactions and process. So there isn’t a distinct body and distinct
environment, rather they interact. Indeed it’s more complicated than this
because there are a myriad of processes that are all interacting and the result
of everything interacting with everything else “creates” the situation that I
am in.
So as I look at the world in front of me, the desk and the
computer, this is part of an interaction with me. On one hand I can look
internally to see the felt sense of this, the all of this, and I can feel a
knotted feeling in my stomach, a stretching up around my shoulders amongst
other things. I also get a sense which
isn’t in my body, the flat blackness of the monitor, its slabness. The
variegate blue colour, the webcam, that has a sense of always monitored to
it. All of these things seem to have a
sense to them, although they don’t exist in my body.
I realise that where Gendlin started off his adventures in
focusing are after the studies that show that clients who pay attention to
their experience do better than clients who talk about the world. I also realise
that we construct the world to a certain degree, i.e. where we pay attention,
the meaning we give to it, what we imagine has happened, will happen, and
explain what has happened. So even though there is a received quality of the
world, a transcendent feel to it, I am very central to its creation.
So I wonder with caution if part of the felt sense is in the
world as much as it is in our bodies. The risk of taking this approach is to
not to have ownership of this sense, of seeing it as how the world is, and to
distance itself from you.
Merleau Ponty argues that the world of perception is our
embodied world of utility. As we perceive the world we see all of our beliefs,
and desires, history and future. The cup is to have tea in, the room is to keep
warm and protect from the boisterous world etc. Our world of perception moves
out spatially and temporally and in those movements then we can see more of
thoughts and desires.
If you take Merleau Pontys position then I am in the world,
which again could support the position of the felt sense being not just in the
body. Again I suppose the key criteria for felt sense would be a sense of
having it received, rather than created. So I can receive a thought, or
actively think a thought.
Whilst I have spoken to focusing teachers about this they
say turn inside when you look at the world and there can be the felt sense.
Maybe this offers something for me. Focussing is standardly
an eyes shut turn inwards. Maybe for me its an eyes open turn inwards.
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