Neither flesh nor fleshless : an object-relational study of the experience of Philophonetics-Counselling

Abstract

Philophonetics-Counselling is a specific form of a bodily-oriented expressive therapeutic approach, defined for the purposes of this study as an approach that uses the non-verbal bodily modalities of movement, gesture, visualisation, and sound, as well as forms of artistic expression, as elements of a process, which furthers the physical and psychic integration of an individual. In view of the recent rise in bodily-oriented therapeutic processes, this study intends to describe and explore the role of especially bodily representation, but also mental representation in the phenomenon of the transformation and representation of sensory-emotional experience in the developing psyche. This is achieved by exploring the essence of described ‘lived experience’ of Philophonetics-Counselling, which is a means not only to elicit this phenomenon of transformation, but also to gain access particularly to bodily representation and bodily knowing. This exploration is guided primarily by a dialogue with object relations theory, exploring conceptualisations provided by Bollas, Ogden, Winnicott, Bion, and Klein. This dialogue is also, however, informed by contemporary bodily-oriented theorists, including Merleau-Ponty, Gendlin, and Shapiro. . The essence of this experience is explicated from qualitative material according to the Duquesne Phenomenological Research Method, which requires of the researcher to allow the inherent constituents and dynamic process to emerge such that the phenomenon can present itself to his/her awareness as it is in itself. Following this, by engaging with psychological theory in an attempt to understand this explicated structure, specific attention is given to the manner in which bodily representation and bodily knowing, particularly as applied or encouraged in therapeutic process, is intimately involved with thetransformation and representation of sensory-emotional experience. This research process reveals a means to rework and explore perhaps more directly the representations of self and other. Furthermore, through the open-ended and playful engagement with both the theory and the material, this descriptive-dialogical study concludes with the notion that although linked to the phenomenon of transformation and representation, consciousness, understood in terms of psychic truth, seems to extend beyond the seemingly differing mentalities of both mind and body, as perhaps dwelling in (the) neither flesh nor fleshless…