CONFERENCE
2000 in HUNGARY
“Children’s Inner &
Outer Peace”
Focusing an anchor to our self
Reinhard Stelter, Ph.D.,
The theory of meaning
Traditional objectivist theories of perception and understanding
assume that there is a reality out there in the world.
The non-objectivist approach
to human understanding
Understanding the world and ourselves can be described as giving
meaning to the situation.
Subject and the environment are understood as interrelated, or co-dependent.
(pic)
The lived body is the central point of reference
 | By embodying the world around us or by interiorizing the environment, things become meaningful |
| There is basically no difference between bodily and so-called "non-bodily" action |
| Therefore perceiving, thinking, running or talking just represent different modes of relating to the environment |
| Perception and understanding are part of the process of interpretation, a process where movement and action are always included |
The pre-reflective dimension in body experience
| When we talk about body experience we have to focus mainly on the more or less "quiet" dialogue between the subject and his/her environment. |
| Body experience is based on a pre-reflective form of internationality which represents the tacit dimension of our actions in relation to the context in which we live. |
| Every situation generates an experience or a pre-conceptual and pre-reflective understanding of the situation. This experiential dimension of the situation, also called the felt meaning or the felt sense (Gendlin, 1997), is an underlying stream in human behavior |
The focusing proces
| felt sense | images, metaphors, perceptions, feelings, thoughts | symbols/syntax (language) |
| "the implicit" | "the explicit" | morphemes - a number of morphemes make a sentence |
| pre-reflective
state "tacit knowledge" |
analogue mode of information | digital/semantic-syntactic mode of information |
The body self
| Develops from bodily perceptions of the world around us |
| Focusing helps to get in contact with these bodily perceptions |
The personal construction of the self
| Through the process of perception we create our personal reality respectively our subjective world |
| Body self and the self as a personal construction are one system. |
THE SELF AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION/SELF AS RELATIONAL
| Our personal constructions have to be defended and have to be intelligible in relation to the social context |
| Developing the self is a process of negotiation |
| One of the major strategies is the conversation with the people we are related to (friends, parents, colleagues, peers etc.) |
Conclusion
| Being anchored in Without the body the negotiation processes with our social environment will be weak |
| Therefore: focusing is the anchor to our self |
INT. FOCUSING INSTITUTE
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