Schools of Psychotherapy

I'm taken now through both studying and being exposed to the students of various schools of psychotherapy.

It seems that the original author(s) of these schools had some original insight into the existence of humans. From their either directly or via metaphor they translated that into language then developed an integrated system a theory of everything from them, although the latter was based not on direct experience but on logical extrapolation.

From there students picked up the overall system and applied it by rote, not knowing about the difference between the original thought and the extrapolation. Indeed they defended the systems position against the students of other schools who had been through the same process.

It seems then that the art of psychotherapy is finding for each client what out of the various schools provides most for them and when some concept\technique\idiom emerges to use that but not to fall into the trap of proceeding from there around the rest of that pscyhological system.

Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception and its therapeutic application

Merleau-Ponty's
theory of perception
and
its therapeutic application

 
An original piece of work by Robert Thomson.
Contents
Abstract    5

Introduction    6

Rationale    6

Research Methods    8

Literature Search    8

Source Material    9

Strengths and weakness of Research Methods    10

Objective-World Position    10

Refutation of the Objective-World    11

Introduction    11

Perception    12

Sensation    12

Constancy theory    12

Split between idea and object    13

Time and Temporality    14

Internality of consciousness    15

Perceptual Ideas    15

Action    16

Thought    17

Emotion    18

Summary    19

Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception    19

Introduction    19

Motor-intentionality    19

Horizonality    20

Ambiguity and Indeterminacy    20

Embodied worldliness of consciousness    21

Summary    21

Merleau-Ponty's Context    22

Introduction    22

Philosophic\Psychological    22

Descartes    22

Heidegger    23

Gestalt    23

Psychotherapeutic    24

Therapeutic Application of Merleau-Ponty    25

Introduction    25

Horizonality    26

Construction of the horizon    28

Making the determinate indeterminate    29

Re-siting horizonality    30

Embodied worldliness of consciousness    30

Motor-intentionality    34

Conclusion    37

Bibliography    39


 

Abstract

In the Phenomenology of Perception Merleau-Ponty (2002) states his theory of perception, which criticises the primacy of rationality in human experience. This dissertation will use this theory and seek to derive psychotherapeutic applications from it. It will conclude by using Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception to see the nature of the psychotherapeutic relationship to be an artistic one, one that revels in ambiguity and creative possibility.

 
To achieve this I state the primacy of rationality in human experience in what will be called the Objective-World position Hammond (1991, p.131-2.). The key elements of this position are rationality, objectivity and the internality of consciousness. I will use Merleau-Ponty's theory to refute this position.

 
Having stated the Objective-World position and refuted it the ground is cleared to state Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception. To understand the richness of this theory and its clinical applicability I will detail the philosophical and psychotherapeutic contexts of the theory.

 
I then apply Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception in a clinical setting using a combination of clients and client groups that I have worked with.

Introduction

Rationale

I write on Merleau-Ponty as I was moved by three aspects of his theory of perception.

 

1. World as horizon(horizon hereafter)
   1. Merleau-Ponty sees the world as the indeterminate background which provides the meaningful context to enable figures, i.e. that which we focus on in perception.
2. Motor-Intentionality
   1. Intentionality means that an idea refers to something else. Motor means action based. Merleau-Ponty sees that motor-intentionality is the structure of perception. To perceive is to be engaged in an action relationship with the world.
3. Embodied worldliness of consciousness
   1. Merleau-Ponty sees that consciousness is not something that exists internally in my mind but rather exists in the world and body. Consciousness is an aspect of objects we perceive. Our perceptions are enabled by the body which itself has consciousness of objects.
   
    

The effect of these three aspects is an attack on the importance of rationality, objectivity and the internality of consciousness.

 
Rationality, I would argue, is attacked as Merleau-Ponty sees the primary mode of engagement with the world as perception, which is motor-intentional rather than reflective.

 
Reflection is the basis of rationality; we reflect, abstract from experience and construct theories which are applicable by anyone. An example of rationality is Newton's first law of motion [Newton 2010, p.83], which refers to objects that are not perceived by anyone. The construction of this theory, I would suggest is produced in the following manner:

1. Perceive objects
2. Reflect on this
3. Abstract everything subjective from this perception to make an objective description
4. Produce the law of motion from this objective description

 
Objectivity is attacked, I would argue, as if our perception is motor-intentional then what we perceive is derived from the capacity of the body which enables our motor-intentionality. The body has a constitutive role in what we perceive. I perceive the chair as my body knows how to sit down on it, how to move it, etc.

 
These aspects move me as to see perception not rationality as the primary mode of being in the world. This changes both the way I see the world and launches an attack on the way we do therapy as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT hereafter) and Psychodynamic therapies depend heavily on rationality, objectivity and the internality of consciousness. The effect of this attack means a move away from seeking causal explanations for client's distress, a move from explanation to description. The motor-intentional aspect of perception changes the emphasis in psychotherapy from conceptual to behavioural. The embodied nature of consciousness means we can use perception to further a client's understanding of themselves.

 
Finally the interest that I have in Merleau-Ponty has seen me write the following papers: (Thomson 2010a, 2010b and 2011).

 

Research Methods

Literature Search

The amount written on Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception and its relation to psychotherapy is limited which forced me to develop novel applications to psychotherapy. I found this strange when Heidegger's work had been the inspiration for the work of Boss and Binswanger why not then for Merleau-Ponty, who is conceivably more applicable than Heidegger? Welsh responded to this question saying:

"part of the reason is that Merleau-Ponty style of writing which, at times quite evocative, is often obscure.  But obviously this is the case for Heidegger to a larger degree.  Thus I assume that another part of the reason is the somewhat random way trends and schools are established in academic and clinical settings." [Welsh 2011].

 
The literature search involved:

1. Society for Existential Analysis Journal
2. PsychInfo
3. Google Scholar
   1. Search Terms:
      1. Merleau-Ponty and
         1. Psychotherapy
         2. Psychology
         3. Emotion
   
    

Source Material

The source material for this dissertation has been drawn from both the bibliography and the extensive reading I have undertaken for my undergraduate degree in philosophy and my postgraduate psychotherapeutic training, which this dissertation forms part of.

 
The main texts used in this work are

1. Merleau-Ponty, M., (2002). Phenomenology of Perception
   
2. Wyllie, M., (2010). Merleau-Ponty and Melancholia
   
   
    

I chose Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception" as this is his major statement of his theory of perception. Whilst this theory does change in later works (Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty 1968 where he introduces his notion of flesh), for the purposes of this dissertation his 2002 work was seen as sufficient.

 
I chose Wylie's "Merleau-Ponty and Melancholia", as this is one of the few publications that deals substantially with the application of Merleau-Ponty to emotions. Wylie's work was a phenomenal description of melancholia, which he drew primarily on Merleau-Ponty's ontology but he did also use aspects of Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception.

 
I used my clinical experience and training as the source material for the clinical application of Merleau-Ponty.

 

 

Strengths and weakness of Research Methods

The strengths of my research methods are that they result in a novel application of Merleau-Ponty to psychotherapy.
The weakness of my approach is that I have only had a few authors to learn from and to build on.

 

Objective-World Position

The Objective-World position, which represents in my opinion the commonly held metaphysical belief of the world and our engagement with it, is as follows:

 
There is a box of geometric points called space. A point described temporally is called the present and there is a succession of present moments; the moments that have gone are called the past, the moments that are not yet are called the future. Time is a transition of moments. In this box are subjects i.e. humans who have a psyche in their mind and objects such as cabbages and kings.

 
Perception works by light bouncing off objects (sensation) and creating images in the person's mind (ideas). The intentions of ideas are the objects outside the person's mind.

 
Knowledge abstracts anything subjective from perception so that you can start constructing theories for any place and time [Popper 1989]. The knowledge of a cabbage has no engagement with any subjective perception but rather is constituted by causal laws that state its interaction with other objects in the box.

 
It is this position of the Objective-World that Merleau-Ponty needs to refute.

 

 

Refutation of the Objective-World

Introduction

The Objective-World position has three central aspects, which Merleau-Ponty needs to refute.

1. Perception
   1. Sensation, i.e. as understood as the sole raw material for perception
   2. Constancy theory, i.e. a direct relation between sensation and perception
   3. The split between object and perception, i.e. that there is an idea of an object and the object itself
2. Time
   1. Time is a passing of present moments
3. Internality of Consciousness
   1. Consciousness exists within the psyche

Perception

Sensation

Sensation is the idea that as the light bounces of the object, the eye receives sensation from the external object and then the idea of the object is constructed. So how do the individual pieces of green sense data get produced into an apple rather than a frog? Any way that the Objective-Worlders attempt to do this will mean that they no longer have raw sensation creating perception; there must be something else to explain the theory.

 
Merleau-Ponty sees that we perceive things rather than have sensations which we construct into ideas,

"If I walk along a shore towards a ship which has run aground, and the funnel or masts merge into the forest bordering on the sand dune, there will be a moment when these details suddenly become part of the ship, and indissolubly fused with it. As I approached, I did not perceive resemblances or proximities which finally came together to form a continuous picture of the upper part of the ship. I merely felt that the look of the object was on the point of altering" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.20].

 

Constancy theory

The constancy theory says there is a one to one relation between the light from the object and the idea that it creates.

 
Merleau-Ponty (2002, p.6) shows the flaws in the constancy theory as when you look at the optical illusions of Muller-Lyer, the two straight lines don't appear equal due arrow heads pointing different ways. As the same thing, the straight line can appear to have two different properties of length, one longer one shorter, then you cannot have a direct relationship between the impression on the retina and the perception produced.

 
Objective-Worlders try to protect the constancy theory by saying that we judge sensations to be similar to previous experiences, however "the appeal to memory presupposes which it is supposed to explain" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.23].

 
However to understand an apple by prior knowledge of apples apart from being circular (how did we understand our first apple) reduces the vitality that an experience of apple, right here, right now. It's this-ness would be negated "It is never possible for two terms to be identified, perceived or understood as the same, for that would presuppose that their this-ness be overcome" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.17].

 

 

 

Split between idea and object

The Objective-Worlders cite perceptual errors, Dillon (1998 pp.24-5) as showing that there is an idea separate from the object, as the idea could be wrong about the object so must be different to it. For Merleau-Ponty the world is constituent of our perception, if we are misguided in our perception, the outline of a man from a distance turns out to be a shadow, then this ambiguity and indistinctness is part of the world, not an error on our part. There certainly is however, a position where you can get the best perceptual perspective: "For each object, as for each picture in an art gallery, there is an optimum distance from which it requires to be seen [...] at a shorter or greater distance we have merely a perception blurred through excess or deficiency" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.352] and to not get the best perspective can lead to perceptual error.

 

 

Time and Temporality

The Objective-World's view of time is that it is a succession of nows. The past is the now no longer, the present is now, and the future is the now not yet. There are two difficulties with this, firstly the relationship between these three dimensions of time. If time is three independent nows, then what enables the future to transition into the present and then the present to move into the past? "These instances of 'now' [...] have no temporal character and could not occur in sequence" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.479]. Somehow a unity of time needs to be given otherwise time is static which is not how it is experienced. Time needs to be temporal, and to be temporal means to reflect the lived sense of time.

 
Memory and anticipation are often used to justify the objective sense of time. However "in no case will this perception, which is present, be capable of pointing to a past event, unless I have some other viewpoint on my past enabling me to recognize it as a memory" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.480]. I need an independent understanding of time to get memory and anticipation to construct objective time.

 
Merleau-Ponty's understanding of time comes from a Husserlian concept of protention and retention, Husserl (1992). As we perceive any object then we have a sense where it has come from and where it might go. Retention is the awareness that the cup has come from the kitchen and protention is that it will end up in the dishwasher.

 
Protention and retention are progressive sequences getting potentially more indistinct and ambiguous, so the cup has a history of different moments as much as it has a conceivable future. The retentive chains may be static and dull where the past is as it has always been and the future is as it will always be. In this case time will drag. On the other side, the future is exciting, the past was fun, and then time will fly. This shows the temporal nature of time, its subjective as opposed to objective quality, where the experience of time differs dependent on context.

Internality of consciousness

The Objective-World has the dualities of mind and body. Mind and body are represented by mental and physical objects. Mental objects exist in an inner realm, which no one else can see or experience and they are detached from the world and do not exist in space. Physical objects exist in space.

 
There are several arguments that the Objective-Worlders use to justify their position, which I will use Merleau-Ponty to refute.

 

Perceptual Ideas

"Perception is not a science of the world, it is not even an act, a deliberate taking up of a position; it is the background from which all acts stand out, and is presupposed by them" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.xi].

 
The internal and external aspect of mind\body gets constructed as follow. When I perceive an object, say an apple, then I have an idea of the apple which refers to the actual apple. The idea of the apple is internal, the actual apple external.

 
However because we can talk about ideas as distinct from the object themselves does not mean that this is a metaphysical reality. Indeed we can never talk about ideas without them having intentional objects. No-one has ever seen an idea; it is a theoretical construct.

 
Consciousness is an aspect of our perception of objects; it is our perspective on objects "perception is precisely that kind of act in which there can be no question of setting the act itself apart from the end to which it is directed" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.435].

 
Merleau-Ponty sees that consciousness is not representational rather it is the structure of perception," perception is inseparable from the consciousness which it has, or rather is, of reaching the thing itself" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.435]. Perception of an apple is the consciousness orientation I have to the apple. If we have no ridded ourselves of the notion of idea, then what we are left with is the object of perception and we have no need for the internal\external split.

 

Action

Action supports the internality of consciousness as there is the notion that I have freewill that direct actions, a doctrine stated in On Liberty [Mill 2008]. I choose to have a cup of tea, I have that desire and this allows me to get a cup of tea, the choice and desire are seen as internal.

 
However with action whilst you may have a desire for tea as you go into the kitchen this is only articulated once. You don't repeat this as a mantra before getting a cup of tea. Your perceptual horizon of the kitchen is seen as the place where you make tea and you do.

 
It is possible to think to yourself, shall I have tea or coffee. Whilst you can, predominantly you don't, you see the kitchen, you can see where the coffee and the tea are and the choice you make is based on how you perceive the kitchen as the place to make tea or coffee.

 
Therefore we see primarily the notion of freewill being embedded within perception of the world and not an internal aspect.

 
"For the player in action the football field is not an 'object' [...] It is pervaded by lines of force [...] and articulated into sectors [...] which call for a certain mode of action"[Merleau-Ponty 1963, p.168].

 

Thought

Descartes' concept of res cogitans, [Descartes 2008] sees thought as being an internal aspect. Thoughts can be in images, that of the house that I grew up in, they can be propositional as I think of the capital of France or they can be fully fleshed out scenes replete with sensual data as I remember the smell and sound of the ocean on holiday.

 
As I think I speak to myself with words, I talk, sub-vocally and I listen, it is a conversation I have with myself. We think in words and images all of which are meaningful, there is no thought behind this signification,

"nor can thought seek expression, unless words are in themselves a comprehensible text, and unless speech possesses a power of significance entirely its own. The word and speech must somehow cease to be a way of designating things or thoughts and become the presence of that thought in the phenomenal world, and, moreover, not its clothing but its token or its body" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.211].

 

It is in the process of thinking that I realise what I think, it is in the process of speaking that I realise what I think "the orator does not think before speaking, nor even while speaking, speech is his thought" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.211] .

 
Thought is embedded consciousness within the world. It is a discussion of the current perceptual horizon with yourself, where you are speaker and listener. It is prompted by the current perception and affects the perceptual horizons to come.

 

Emotion

Emotions are held to be aspects of the inner private realm by Objective-Worlders. For instance an emotion such as anxiety, Freud saw as an internal reaction to a previous traumatic experience in the external world [Freud 1991, p.23].

 
Emotions are seen to be evinced by experiences within the world and are our private responses to them. They are put as the internalised outcome of a value system applied against external events. So to love someone and then for them to leave you for your best friend would apply certain values. Love is good, love is to trust and should be reciprocated therefore this act is abhorrent and will lead to a depression that holds the pain of the abuse of these values.

 
Behaviourists have long since attacked the internality of emotions and the notion of a mental substance that supports this. Ryle (2009) talked of there being no ghost in the machine rather emotions are just another way of describing actions.

 
Merleau-Ponty would be sympathetic to Ryle but he develops it in terms of motor-intentionality of perception. This is to say that an emotion, e.g. love will be an aspect that constitutes your motor-intentional perception of the world. When I am in love I walk in a fluid way, I see the beauty within my world and I am open, optimistic and friendly to those I meet "[love] is the way in which he establishes his relations with the world; it is an existential signification" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.444].

 
Emotions therefore are both our ways of behaving in the world and the way we perceive.

 

Summary

To dispute the internality of perception, action, thought and emotion, I believe refutes the notion of the internality of consciousness. For Merleau-Ponty
"Truth does not 'inhabit' only the inner man [..], there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.xii].

 

 

Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception

Introduction

We have stated the Objective-World position above and refuted its three central aspects using Merleau-Ponty's thought. Now the ground is cleared to state Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception.

Motor-intentionality

In any moment I am engaged in a situation. The situation is a motor-intentional one. From the indeterminate horizon I focus on an object. As I enter the kitchen it becomes the horizon where I can make a cup of tea. "We experience a perception and its horizon 'in action' [..] rather than by 'posing' them or explicitly 'knowing' them" [Merleau-Ponty 1964, p.12].

 
The situation is temporal such that there is the lived past. Time passes as one situation flows to another, the essay quickly finished such that I can play tennis, or the slow hours drag as I wait for the phone call from my love. This is the sense of lived intentional time, temporality, not clock time, "My world is carried forward by lines of intentionality which trace out in advance at least the style of what is to come" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.483].

Horizonality

In any situation we focus on objects, people or things, through a horizon
"the inner horizon of an object cannot become an object without the surrounding objects becoming horizons" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.78]. This horizon is a combination of the temporal chains of protention and retention (as detailed on p.14) as well as spatial chains. Spatial chains are where my desk is on the carpet, in the room, in the house in the street, in the town etc. The combination of spatial and temporal chains forms the horizon which enables the object we focus on.

 

Ambiguity and Indeterminacy

Ambiguity and indeterminacy are essential aspects of the horizon, which is a strong challenge to rationality which seeks the unambiguous and determinate.

 
The situation can hold many possibilities through its indeterminacy and ambiguity, my desire can see a wide range of possibility or it can seem static e.g. in every situation I see the loss of my mother and my situation is understood through a fixed lens "The world is not what I think, but what I live through. I am open to the world, I have no doubt that I am in communication with it, but I do not possess it; it is inexhaustible" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.xviii].

 
For every object of my present or my past and future, I can site them in different horizons. An object of attention's polysemic relations with their horizon leaves them indeterminate and ambiguous.

"Ambiguity is of the essence of human existence, and everything we live or think has always several meanings [...] Existence is indeterminate [..] by reason of its fundamental structure [...] whereby the hitherto meaningless becomes meaningful." [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.196].

 

Embodied worldliness of consciousness

We saw in the arguments on p.14 of this dissertation that consciousness does not live internally in the psyche. For Merleau-Ponty consciousness is the structure of perception, which as we saw above is motor-intentional. Perception itself is enabled by the body-schemas grip on the world, we perceive due to our bodies perspective and capacities, i.e. our sense organs, and those things, that our bodies treat as part of their body, for instance a tennis racquet in playing tennis to a seasoned player.

 
Consciousness therefore is both within the world and within our bodies "my existence as subjectivity is one with my existence as body and with the existence of the world and, finally because the subject which I am, taken concretely, is inseparable from this body and this world" [Merleau-Ponty 2000 p.408].

 
To see consciousness in the body, you could look at the touch typist, who knows how to touch type, but unless they have just learnt could not tell you which keys are where on the keyboard, but their body could.

 
To see consciousness in the world, you may be reminded of the examples above where the kitchen is the situation where the decision to make tea or coffee is embedded, or the sports field where the choices how to play the sport are made "it is through my relations to 'things' that I know myself" [Merleau-Ponty 2002 408].

 

Summary

Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception is radical. He disputes the primacy of rationality in our experience in the world, by showing it is motor-intentional perception with the world that is our initial engagement. In turn he disputes objectivity by showing how the world is indistinct, ambiguous and polysemic. Finally he shows how consciousness is not internal but rather embedded within the body and the world.

Merleau-Ponty's Context

Introduction

Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception is a refutation\extension of certain thinkers which in turn have spawned psychotherapeutic schools. In this section I will look at these thinkers, see how the refutation takes place and detail the psychotherapeutic applications. In this way we can see the psychotherapeutic space that Merleau-Ponty's work starts to take place in.

 

Philosophic\Psychological

Descartes

Merleau-Ponty's attack on rationality is in reaction to Descartes' dualism, which spawned the duality aspects in the Objective-World position Hammond (1991, p.131-2.). Descartes sought a logically indubitable position and established res cogitans, i.e. mind, then res existensa, i.e. body. He saw the criterion of clear and distinct, i.e. the type of certainty we get with simple mathematical proofs as that which could provide indubitable truth. Knowledge was therefore provided by rationality which enabled the clear and distinct criteria.

 
Descartes therefore has dualism and the primacy of rationality as his two central tenets Descartes (2008). Cartesian dualism is refuted by the internality of consciousness arguments above p11. The primacy of knowledge is called into question by Merleau-Ponty seeing that knowledge is only enabled by our primary engagement with the world which is perception. We perceive first then abstract from this to provide reflective knowledge. "The whole universe of science is built on the world as directly experienced" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.ix].

Heidegger

Merleau-Ponty's work on the externality of the psyche extends the Heideggerean notion of being-in-the-world [Heidegger 1988, pp. 78-86]. Being-in-the-world is the idea that the structure of human's experience is connected to the world and this is the basic unit; you can't conceptually isolate human's on one side and world on the other. "Being-in-the-world indicates in the very way we have coined it, a unitary phenomenon" [Heidegger 1988, p.78]. Whilst Heidegger challenged subject\object dualism through unifying them in the concept being-in-the-world, what he didn't do is to combine them, he still had the world and Dasein. Dasein was the conscious element of being-in-the-world and the world was the transcendent aspect. Merleau-Ponty saw consciousness as embodied, i.e. consciousness being literally of the world, and likewise the world as embodying our consciousness, subject and object are two sides of the same coin "the world is wholly inside and I am wholly outside myself" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.474].

 
Merleau-Ponty's work on motor-intentionality is an extension of the Heideggarean notion of ready-to-hand. [Heidegger 1988, p.109], which is where Heidegger sees the primary engagement we have with the world as one of doing rather than reflecting. The extension that Merleau-Ponty makes is to see it as the body as key in establishing motor-intentionality. He sees the skill of the typist being in their hands: "It [i.e. typing] is a knowledge in the hands, which is forthcoming only when bodily effort is made" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.166].

Gestalt

Merleau-Ponty's work on horizonality is an extension of the notion of ground in the figure\ground concept in Gestalt psychology. Fritz Perls, father of Gestalt, saw the figure\ground relationship in terms of a pre-existing world and a distinct organism or subject: "In the organism\environment situation it is [...] the relevance of environmental objects to the organism's needs which determine the figure ground" [Perls 2009, p.57]. Thus Gestalt psychology is a realist psychology that changes the atomistic thinking of perception in the Objective-Worlders' position to gestalts but leaves the rest of the infrastructure as detailed above the same.

 
Merleau-Ponty extends this by showing that the body schema constructs the meaningful figure/ground relationship. "Perception is just that act which creates at a stroke, along with the cluster of data, the meaning which unites them-indeed which not only discovers the meaning which they have, but moreover sees to it that they have a meaning" [Merleau-Ponty 2002, p.42]. The figure\horizon relationship is constructed by our body's engagement with the world. The horizon is constructed both by an objects spatio\temporal chains and the body's grip on the world which enables engagement with object. For Merleau-Ponty therefore the ground is a combination of the visible and the invisible, the spatio\temporal chains and the body.

 

Psychotherapeutic

There are psychotherapies that have a strong correlates to the philosophies of Descartes and Heidegger.

 
Any psychotherapy that trades with the subject\object distinction or the mechanism of science will be underpinned by Cartesian thinking; for instance CBT which understands the patient as having symptoms that can be removed through correcting their irrationality or their behaviour. The mind is constructed out of thoughts and emotions, the world is accessed via behaviour and the body is responded to as an object, this is the "hot cross bun" of CBT [Padesky 1990]. The hot cross bun is the relationships between the determinate and independent aspects of thought, emotion, behaviour, physical reaction and environment.

 
Heideggarian thought produced the psychotherapeutic practice of Daseinanalysis which seeks to ameliorate client distress through extending their possibilities. Daseinanalysis is the result of two major thinkers Medard Boss and Ludwig Binswanger, [Boss 1963] and [Binswanger 1942].

 
Heidegger has also greatly influenced the British School of Existentialists, notably Cohn (1997).

 

 

Therapeutic Application of Merleau-Ponty

Introduction

Philosophical ideas are used to support the axioms of psychotherapy as we saw how Cartesian dualism supports CBT. Philosophers can be directly appropriated into the work as Heidegger's is incorporated into Daseinanalysis.

 
Given that I have shown the radical nature of Merleau-Ponty's thought above I will now apply it as an initial application to psychotherapy. I will look at each of the three aspects of his theory of perception in turn with a section on horizonality, embodied worldliness of consciousness and motor-intentionality.

 
I will now apply the three aspects of Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception in a clinical setting, that is horizonality, embodied worldliness of consciousness and motor-intentionality.

 

Horizonality

A client may drink too much and be unhappy about it. How they engage with the world doesn't serve them. They have a rationale for drinking and a rationale for being unhappy about it. Their rationality doesn't serve them. Rationality is derivative of their situation, their figure/horizon relation. Therefore it is the construction of this relationship and an investigation of the horizon that should take place. "In a dialectical relationship with the world, the human being in choosing a particular project structures a meaningful world and effects the emergence of causes that act as a means towards a particular end" [Wyllie 2010, p.82]. We have projects and create situations which are the arena of rationality where we define cause and effect. It is the pre-reflective body schema engagement with the world that constructs our horizon that determines our rationality.

 
Whilst Wyllie points to how the horizon constitutes the arena for our action and rationality, how in therapy can we apply this? What the therapist needs to do is to make explicit the horizonal aspects, so the client can see how they are constructing their world and how events in their world have now moved to affect their being-in-the-world.

 
I am seeing a client, let us call her Jill who has loss as a theme of her life. Her father was a strong man to her and she was devastated when he died. She became distressed by this death in that someone who was so strong and she loved so much should die. She thought of killing herself and was staggered that she could contemplate this when she saw how much she valued the life of her father. She is now depressed, seeks control over her destiny and has obsessional rituals with objects. She is concerned by her social status and feels like a freak. She is gay and single and everyone else is in relationships. She defines herself by what she isn't and what she lacks, i.e. in relationship and 'normal'. Her outlook is pessimistic and expects known pessimistic outcome.

 
The loss of her father, the loss of her relationship has been used as a horizon for her being-in-the-world. Loss is used to define her in terms of what she isn't. She attempts to control her world through obsessional control over objects in an attempt to feel control and agency in the face of loss where she had none. She prefers known negative outcomes as this supports her sense of agency without the threat of loss as there is nothing to lose. Loss and control are two horizonal elements of her being-in-the-world.

 
Her depression speaks of a fixed past and a fixed future, those that I love will die or leave me and I don't understand this. Her future becomes a bleak repetition of this past, and her present is shut down to control against this. Her desire for pessimistic control over her destiny is an attempt to stop being hurt by losing those whom she loves. She has responded to the problematic of the unknown and its confusion by exerting control over her world. The effect of this is depression as she has closed down the vitality of the world making it static via the use of loss and control as her horizon.

 
The therapeutic work approach we took has three aspects whose central aim is to make the horizonal into a figure in her world. Firstly there is the aim to see how her experiences of loss have coalesced and provided a horizon for her engagement with the world. Secondly there is the movement to make the sense of her loss ambiguous and indeterminate and therefore fluid and dynamic. Thirdly there is the sense of re-siting loss and out of controlness within her world so that she has other possibilities. This is the move to take horizontal aspects and to make them figures within her horizon.

Construction of the horizon

Working with Jill we looked at deepening her understanding of the loss of her father, her romantic relationship and how there were thematic connections between the two. As this work continued she saw how she defined herself in terms of her relationships, how she felt anger that those she had loved had left her and how she felt so confused that strong people\relationships should become weak and die. As more connections between the events became articulated we then looked to see how these events were affecting her being-in-the-world.

 
Part of her identity was tied up in her relation with her father and her partner, now they were lost she defined herself in terms of this loss. She saw herself in terms of what she didn't have rather than what she did, as a freak.

 
We investigated how her attempts to control objects were a response to the lack of control and confusion she felt in face of her losses and how her desire for known negative outcomes sought to use control as recompense for the feelings of being out of control with her losses.

 
We also looked at how the sense of futility and hopelessness that came out of her loss was now informing how she saw the world and how she didn't want to engage with the world because she saw it as futile and hopeless. Her relationships were informed by loss; her projects were seen to be futile; her prior loss defined her current being-in-the-world.

 
To show that there was no necessity in this horizon we challenged this perspective by accessing times when she didn't perceive like this. We looked at present instances where she saw futility and hopelessness and looked to see other aspects of this engagement which showed some hope and optimism.

 
What we did was to both show how she constructed her horizon and how it was impermanent and therefore replaceable and how her horizon influenced her being-in-the-world.

Making the determinate indeterminate

In this work with Jill we looked to increase the level of meaning that she had to her father and to her romantic relationship such that what was a fixed determinate meaning became a dynamic indeterminate meaning.

 
Her determinate meanings for her father were that he was strong and that he died and therefore now lost to her. We looked at this sense of loss and found that he still informs her being and that she is still in relationship with him, for instance she feels guilty that she got a tattoo after he died as he would not have liked it. We looked at the notion of him being strong and whilst he was, he was also many other things too, weak, vulnerable and in need of her for his strength.

 
We worked to get a richer understanding of her romantic relationship and it turned out that her partner instead of being the idealised romantic figure was very controlling and sought to alter Jill's whole way of being. The sense of her losing a perfect relationship was challenged and she saw more aspects of it. Seeing more aspects of the relationship made it into a dynamic/indeterminate event not a static/determinate one.

 
We then looked at the notion of loss and how it is a precursor to new relationship and how the loss can still be present in a new relationship without being defining.
In articulating and developing the meanings that she attributes to death and loss they became available to be engaged with, available to be challenged and then they became incorporated into the rest of her beliefs. By moving this inarticulate feeling into her awareness, by moving from horizon to figure, it becomes assimilated in terms of one of her possibilities and not the possibility. Her past doesn't become a fixed determining entity but one of possibilities; she sees the dynamic aspect of her loss, its multiple possibilities.

Re-siting horizonality

My client's horizon was one of loss and this informed her being-in-the-world in terms of negation and she saw herself by what she wasn't i.e. a freak. The work we did here was to reframe her understanding of herself. We did this by asking if she really wanted the normality that she said she did and what were the benefits. The answer was that she added spice and variety to the world and that it would be a boring place if everyone was normal.

 
We also looked at her need to control objects and her destiny. This control was at the cost of sterility in her world. She found that when she was spontaneous and didn't seek to control she had better times.

 
What Merleau-Ponty offers us is that our engagement with the world is constructed via its horizon. To engage with this horizon, to make aspects determinate, will show you how you construct your world and provide you with options to change.

 

Embodied worldliness of consciousness

The standard model of therapy from psychodynamic, person centred and in some existentialists is, when exploring the client's problems and world, to look inside, to introspect, use memory and develop the latent but unexpressed current affective and conceptual states. There is some difficulty with this, the intangibility of the content matter and the almost mystical aspect of accessing the unconscious and the past.

 
For Merleau-Ponty the unexplored aspects of the psyche and the past are out there in the world and in your body.

 
As described above there are spatial and temporal horizons which enable our focus on a figure. The temporal chain is the retentive chain of the past, and the protentive chain of the future. The spatial chain is the related objects that construct the world surrounding your object, which are both absent but perceptually engaged with.

 
You are engaged with the totality of your being\world within perception. I walk along the sea, and the sea looks angry and dangerous and a memory comes to me of people I have known lost to the sea. My memories, part of the retentive chain change dependent on the way of perceiving. Tomorrow I walk along by the sea and it looks fresh and inviting and makes me think how much I want to go for a walk with my friends.

 
In every perception the whole of a person's life exists, all different perceptions provide is a different highlight, a different focus on the ambiguous and indistinct structure that appears before them. To expand and develop the temporal and spatial chains will explore this.

 
The body holds and acts the person's life. The clenched jaw holds the tension between the poles of the excess of things to be done and the little time to do things in.

 
The perceptual horizon is accessed in terms of an affective state. The horizon and the affective engagement enables a figure to be focussed on and action to take place in the world. This action takes place as the figure of focus is seen in motor-intentional terms. The body understands how to manipulate it, what it feels like, how it might be when the cup is drawn to the mouth. The man who enters the room can cause my body to tense up and to start sweating. My body holds this man in fear yet I do not know why.

 
Gendlin has addressed this with his focusing technique [Gendlin 2003], however his focus is on the body as an object and does not deal with the body as subject nor sites the body as the opening to the world. So whilst the clenched jaw can be engaged with and listened to as to what it wants to say, a further aspect is to understand how the clenched jaw operates as a perceptual horizon for our world, how the clenched jaw creates our world.

 
For the client to further understand and engage with their lives, then everything they need to know is right in front of them. Through exploring the spatio\temporal chains of perception, through exploring the grasp the body has on the world, then their being will become more articulated.

 
The effect of this is there is no such thing as trivial conversation: talking about an office for example holds everything the client needs. This investigation would take place quite literally on the physical\temporal plane, so

 
Client: I was looking at this building
Therapist: Tell me about it
C2: Well it looks like a place where people are working
T2: What sense do you make of these people?
C3: Oh they're rushing to get their jobs done so they can get back to their families
T3: Where are their families?
C4: Not far
T4: What are they doing?
C5: Oh you know, daily stuff, nothing important
T5: You mean unlike the people in the building?
C6: Yes
T6: So there's a sense then of the people in the building doing more important work, although they're rushing it because they want to get home, where they want to be, where maybe they think is more important. Is this something that resonates with you?

 
From a trivial example there emerges a clash of values where the client presents the office workers being more important than the family yet also seeing it the other way around.

 
There is indeterminacy and ambiguity, there are many aspects that the client can pick up on, you could repeat the process and come up with different aspects and what this describes is the combination of the distinct\vague\resolute and contradictory natures of people's engagement with the world.

 
What Merleau-Ponty gives us is that through investigating the client's spatio\temporal chains of any situation then their current being-in-the-world becomes manifest. If this situation is one whose spatio\temporal chains they are not privy to as with the above example then they will have to imagine them. If they are privy to them then the articulation would seek to show new aspects of these chains as opposed to relying on fixed interpretations.

 
What this approach does is to make articulate the inarticulate of the situation which is a combination of inarticulate desires, affects and concepts.

Motor-intentionality

As we perceive so we are drawn to action. To want a cup of tea is to enter the kitchen and be drawn by what you see to make a cup of tea. When you are depressed the chair you sit in holds you like glue; your movement is slow as the carpet drags against your feet. The room in which you dwell holds you in it and the thought of going outside to see a friend is beyond you.

 
In these two instances the way the world is perceived calls you to action which can be dynamic or static and this perception in turn will determine how you continue to perceive the world. This settles the freewill/determinism debate as they are both true. We are free to perceive, we are determined in our action, we are not responsible for the contents we are given to perceive.

 
This gives clients some power. There is often the sense that their behaviour is out of their control, I am addicted, and I can't help myself. Seeing the perceptual horizon as that which draws you to action, then there can be strength that can be derived from a change within this.

 
Every time my client walks up a road he sees his friends, they are stoned. Everything about that street reminds him of the heroin that he takes every day. If his friends aren't there, the seat is where they would usually sit. The pawnshop is where goods are exchanged for drugs money and the alleyway is where a hit can be taken. The aim then is to make the motor-intentional aspects of the world vivid, to look for different ways to be engaged with them. This can be done by finding similar perceptual aspects in different situations that call for different behaviour by the client.

 
The [mind] set/setting/substance triad researched by Zinberg, [Zinberg 1986] has long been seen to be the crucial aspect within the substance misuse field, where the set and setting are more important than the substance itself. However the setting for them is seen as pre-existing the client. Merleau-Ponty however sees the client as involved in creating the situation, as detailed above.

 
Part of the way a situation is created is via the body schema. To investigate this will show your agency in creating the situation. "Through enactment people may realise previously disavowed experiences and give voice to them: without incorporation of bodily factors such as posture, comportment and gesture people may never come to realise fundamental aspects of their being-in-the-world" [Langdridge 2005, p.95]. Langdridge aims to further client's understanding through an awareness of the body-subjects meaningful engagement with the world.

 
The client walks up the road and his whole scene leads him to taking drugs. The work we can do with him is as follows:

1. Establish the motor-intentionality of his problematic scene
2. Describe his embodied engagement with this problematic scene
   
    

My client walks up London road, he feels an empty yearning in his body and an excitement that relief is close at hand. He sees people who aren't his friends and is reminded of them, he sees the church where they have scored before, he can feel the pleasure of the hit, he is reminded of the number of times he has scored in this road, he can smell the burning of drugs; the whole scene informs him of his compulsion. Every aspect of his perception calls him to take drugs, his senses are engaged with drugs and his body posture is engaged with drugs.

 
As soon as the key constituents are shown in their motor-intentional aspect, the road, his absent friends, the number of times he has scored, his bodily engagement with the scene, we are at the start of enlarging his awareness and changing his behaviour. Now aware of how the scene calls him, he can challenge this. This can be done from the mental or physical perspective which Merleau-Ponty sees as two sides of the same coin as above. The mental challenges would come in the reframing the scene. As much as it is seen as the place where drugs are taken, it can be seen as the place to be moved through on his way to his work. In as much as he sees his drug taking friends as absent as he sees other people, he can start to be intrigued by the people that he sees and wonder about their lives.

 
The physical changes can take place either 'internally' or 'externally'. The external changes can take the form of doing something different walking up the road. Whereas his standard walk has a certain track, then he can change this track. Aware in the knowledge that this is changing his sedimented reaction to this scene then he will see how other aspects of his perception change. He is now taking a stand on the compulsion that this scene is to him; quite literally his compulsion is within this scene.

 
The internal changes that can take place will be his response to his interoceptive awareness. He smells the air that reminds him of drugs, his body feels the pleasure of the hit and his body feels an empty yearning. In these instances then he can expand on his awareness in these senses. As much as the air reminds him of the smell of burning drugs then he can sit with this and notice how it changes to the smell of an autumn day. Likewise the empty yearning can take him into a church to let his yearning be held in the vaulting roof. Sitting with the bodily felt pleasure of the hit again can dissolve into the terror of the absence of a hit.

 
What Merleau-Ponty offers us is that the embodied motor-intentionality of perception causes action. To change action means to firstly be aware of this and once it is explicit then the client has some space to change it. The effect of this is to put power back into the hands of the client, who may think he suffers because of the world but now see that he co-creates the world via his perception.

Conclusion

In this dissertation we have seen how Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception challenges rationality and how this opens up a new way of working with clients. The central themes then are that the client has agency in creating their world and that it is the body as subject that is involved in this creation. We have seen how the horizon which is never fully given is what constructs the world for the client and how moving things from horizon to figure enables change in the client's world.

 
We also saw that the nature of being-in-the-world is ambiguous and indistinct and that this provides a dynamic flexible approach. Distinct and unambiguous are useful and have their place but it is always in the horizon of the ambiguous\indistinct structure of the world.

 
As part of this conclusion, I would also like to see what happens next, what trajectory this dissertation seeks to be part of.

 
"Given a perceptually new and historical situation to control, the perceiving subject undergoes a continual birth; at each instant it is something new. Every incarnate subject is like an open notebook in which we do not know yet what will be written" [Merleau-Ponty 1964, p.6].

 
The arena for therapy is not the interrelation of the psyche and the unconscious, or the explanation of mental disease but rather the embodied motor-intentional beings that we are. We move from the talking cure of Freud which deals with concepts, from the medical model of psychiatry to the motor-intentional world of Merleau-Ponty, where being is externalised and action based.

 
Therapy should be in terms of poetry rather than science. Poetry looks to have polysemic meanings, where science looks to use singular explanations of causality. For Merleau-Ponty the nature of the relationship with the world is ambiguous, indeterminate and polysemic, thus working with a client in therapy, working with existence is working within this stage. For Merleau-Ponty then the work in therapy is art, to use wonder to extend meaning, to revel in ambiguity seeing it as a creative possibility.

 
As you combine poetry and externalised action, then the result is theatre. Thus this is a call to the work between client and therapist to be a two handed play where the ever extending plot is devised in the silent space between them.

 

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The Child's Relation with Others, Merleau-Ponty & Langdridge:

Contents
The Child's Relation with Others, Merleau-Ponty & Langdridge: Rob Thomson Lifespan presentation    1
What the papers says    1

Justification for our agency in perception    1

Childs relation with others    2

Relevance to existential-phenomenological therapists    3

Langridge    4

What it was like to read and present it    4

Discussion about the paper    4


 

What the papers says

MP sees the relation with others as being what constitutes our affective life. He sites our affective life as not being subordinate to that of understanding, i.e. causal, scientific thinking. Rather both arise on the basis of our pre-reflective embodied relation with the world, that constitutes our situation that enables our perception which in turn enables affect and perception. Thus it is central to MP's position to show how we create our environment our situation and how it is not objectively given in the way science would like us to believe.

Justification for our agency in perception

Tests were made on psychologically rigid people, i.e. people who think in black and white, e.g. someone is good or bad, there's a right and a wrong way to do something, and they showed that psychologically rigid people were also perceptually rigid. This was shown with a series of tests which implied a certain method of solving them, then a similar test to the previous ones which was best solved with a new method was shown. The rigid people always went to the previous method to solve this new test, as they were reluctant to see the newness of the situation. MP sees that the way we are open to the world is a factor in its construction, but it is one aspect amongst others. These others would the fact that perception has a received component and that we are born into a pre-existing world of language, society and custom. Thus there is a relation between self and environment, where the self takes a position on what is environmentally given, which both constitutes the environment and the self.
Our perception is heavily entwined with language, some would argue that language demarcates perception. When we perceive we have words for everything we perceive. MP shows that one of the factors of language acquisition is our affective relations with others. Thus if a child has no relation with language speakers during the first 2 years of their life they never fully acquire language. Likewise there is a strong correlation between the understanding of the imperfect tense and a child's experience of change. When a child experiences the birth of a new sibling their position in the family order changes. When this happens several things can be seen. Firstly a regression to previous modes of behaviour as the child identifies with the neonate. Secondly there can be the acquisition of the imperfect tense as the child starts to understand how the present changes into the past and what they were in absolute terms, the only child now changes into the eldest.

Childs relation with others

Classical psychology posits the psyche as private thing, only I can know my psyche and I have to infer the psyche of the others through comparing their behaviour, linguistic or motoric and mine to understand what is in their psyche.
A small child is sensitive to a smile, and responds to it as a benevolent feeling but how could they perform the complicated operation that classical psychology requires? Indeed a small child has an insignificant appreciation of their body as a visual object in comparison to the introceptive and cenasthesic experience of it.
Classical psychology can't explain a child's mimicry or his understanding of the behaviour of his care givers. MP sees consciousness as a way of comporting yourself towards the world, the actions of others have meaning because they represent possible ways of me to behave. Thus as an adult smile and is benevolent the child learns about benevolent behaviour. The child therefore doesn't separate between himself and that of the other. There are faces that do certain things and there is a link between his behaviour and the faces. Thus a child mimics as he sees his smile in the smile of the other.
MP sees that introceptive and extroceptive experiences are reciprocal experiences that form a meaningful system, what I experience internally is entwined with what I experience externally. Likewise the conduct that I have in the world forms a system with the behaviour of the other. In the early stages of life my possible conduct is learnt by the conduct of the other.
For MP then child development happens first by an original indistinction between self and others, an anonymous collective group life. The indistinction between self and others is known as syncretism, i.e. combination of different aspect and can be seen with infants, where one will cry another will cry. The idea being here that my intentions span the other, and the others intentions span me. So if there is crying in a room it is mine as well so I cry. It is only later that subjectivity and alterity develops. This happens through an objectification of the body, the difference with others and the mirror stage.
The child feels that he is in the others body as much as he is in the specular image. It is this syncretism between self and others that is the basis for projection and introjection. Thus there is a system which establishes itself within the child between their visual body, the other and their introceptive body. As adults you can still see the personal investment that we have in images, the painting of a person's face that moves us, our personal image, and the way in which if there is a picture of a face on the floor we would always move around it and not step on it, unless we are aggressively inclined then we might step on it.
As soon as the child learns to identify with the specular image he learns that a view can be taken on him. It is this that forms the basis of the collection of futural projections for the person, their ideality, their or shoulds and wants. It is also the basis of his view of what other people think of him, so his self-consciousness, his confidence, his nervousness.

 
In the moment that the specular image both enables and symbolises, then we get the split between the lived me and the imaginary me. It is the movement from subject to object. It is also the paradigm for our adult relations with others where we relate our objectified self to the other, i.e. to relate to them as the objectified other.
The living relation with others, its reciprocity is the support the stimulus for what we call intelligence. It is through others that we learn about our world and ourselves. It is through others that we learn to objectify, reflect that forms the basis of intelligence.

 

Relevance to existential-phenomenological therapists

If we accept MP's position that our primordial state is an indistinction with the other and that the difference that is subjectivity only develops later then several things can happen.
Firstly as existential therapists we are taught phenomenology and to bracket our own thoughts\feelings\values to allow the others to show. However there is the sense that I am my client are one, we form a system and in the room I see my intentions in them and they see their intentions in me. So I would wonder whether bracketing makes most sense as opposed to an articulation of this unity. Bracketing presupposes the absolute difference I have with the other, whereas MP suggest the original unity of me and the other.
How would this articulation work in practice? Well firstly there is the articulation of the emotions of the other. In psychoanalysis they call it transference when I feel the emotions of the other. MP might call this syncretic sociability, so when a client tells a story that makes me feel sad there is a sense that I am articulating the sadness of the other.
Secondly there is the articulation of the relationship. To make explicit the feelings that are going on between therapist and client. Thus if the client seems angry with the therapist then this should be named. Contrariwise, whilst I feel this is slightly dangerous territory as my feelings for the client my be precipitated by my feelings for other people and not just them, then the therapist should do likewise.
As the client talks about other people then they really are talking about themselves. If they talk about how their girlfriend is needy and they just cant stand it, then there is the projective sense that they are needy themselves they cant own this and it is projected into the other, thus there is a description that can be made of their own relation to neediness, how it functions in their life.
The final point in this space is that empathy is possible. The other is not a hidden psyche from me, but rather someone I emerged through. Thus the ability to feel the other is possible and shouldn't be shied away from. The ability for a true intimacy, a deep connection between client and therapist is possible as it is our primal state.
The other major thing for therapists that we should look at is the distinction between the felt life of the subject and the objective life of ideality. As soon as we talk about what we want to do, should do etc etc, then we are looking through the eyes of the other. There seems mileage to also describe what the life of the subject is like, the felt experience of being, the pre-reflective engagement with the world, where you are totally absorbed within your situation.

Langridge

Langridges paper sees MP's mimicry as the primal enabler as meaning that we can then use non linguistic ways of doing therapy. Whilst he doesn't want to encroach on the area of Gestalt, he sees role play as being a way to use the body schema and its mimicking ability as a useful way to get a client to understand themselves in a non-linguistic way.

What it was like to read and present it

The paper was inspiring to read but I struggled to know whether or not to put in all the stuff about child development and the mirror stage. I didn't but wonder if it is an omission. I felt slightly constrained to have to read 50 pages and pull out a precey of only 3 pages. Some of MP's justifications I didn't find conclusive, I'm still not sure on the primordial syncretic sociability, I want to believe it but don't fully feel justified. Indeed to put theory onto child development always feels slightly awkward as you can't fully test it in a way that I can do a phenomenological reduction on my own perception and feel safe in that knowledge as I can feel it, taste it and touch it

Discussion about the paper

• Do we really have an original indistinction with the other
• As adults should our primal connection with others be our prime understanding of the other, or do we treat the others as others, we after all learnt from our immediate society constructed our worldview, then take this with us when we meet the new other
• Is the subjective\objective self-justified, is our objective self-viewed through the eyes of the other
• Can the mimicry ability of neonates be justified by their intersubjectivity. For a child to imitate a smile how can that be when they must relate the lips on the position of the others face to their face which they cannot see
• Has role play a place in therapy

How can Nietzsche's understanding of values inform psychotherapy?

 
Contents
Introduction    1
Popular values    2

Nietzsche's values    2

Summary of Nietzschean critique of values    2

Nietzsche's understanding of Values    3

Will to Power    3

Transmission of Values    4

Freewill    4

Good/Bad Men    5

Nietzsche's value in psychotherapy    5

Freewill    5

Non-Universability of values\morality    6

Will to Power    6

Good/Bad Men    7

Conclusion    7

Bibliography    7


 

Introduction

In this paper I will first attempt a description of the popular understanding of values by way of placing a context for an exploration of Nietzsche's understanding of human agency, will to power and values. I will then look at the application of these ideas in the therapeutic context.
It must be noted that when I talk about Nietzsche's position, this must be taken as a short hand to say one of Nietzsche's position. Nietzsche is the great anti-systematist and there is no such as thing as what Nietzsche thinks if you are looking for a unitary idea within his thought. Nietzsche sees that the whole of logic is built on a fundamental error, that of identity as it is nonsensical to think that a=a, the same is true for his philosophy the law of identity doesn't hold. As Nietzsche says in some lost outpost of his oeuvre it is the sign of a noble spirit the more contradiction they can maintain inside themselves!

Popular values

To say that value is the worth of something is tautological and presupposes what the word 'worth' is. However what this does show is that value can be applied to the worth of many things.
The value that I want to concentrate on in this essay is related to human values which either are shown by intention or action or both. So I might value generosity and this means that I intend under certain circumstances to be generous. If I am generous then I will feel a warm glow of happiness as I achieved my value, and contrariwise I may feel bad if I am not generous. The values that I have of working hard and being polite appear to me to be nothing but values that have been handed down to me from my parents and from society. Indeed to work hard can be seen to be part of the value of the Protestants. At this point there can the relation of your own values to others. Some values you have, say not to kill, may well be attributed to others, so if they kill you're unhappy and contrariwise you may be happy if they don't kill. Some other values such as enjoying foods of certain types, you may less want to foist this value on other people, where if they don't eat the same food as you, you don't feel unhappiness, merely a certain weariness at their slovenly diet.
Thus values seem to form a spectrum from on one side things that you mildly value to those that you greatly do and this is co-extensive with how much affect you get on them being performed or not and how much you would apply these values to the actions of others.
On a societal level the strong values at the moral end of the scale transform the feelings of happiness and unhappiness at their presence or absence into punishment and reward. The robber who steals is punished, the man who works hard is rewarded. Thus there is a strong relation with value with the notions of free will\responsibility\punishment and reward.

Nietzsche's values

 

Summary of Nietzschean critique of values

Nietzsche attacks the standard understanding of value and morality for the following reasons

1. Freewill
   1. He sees the notion of free will as being nonsensical
   2. He sees the notion of will to be a complex activity which includes the consciousness but isn't dominated by it
2. Universality of value/morality
   1. What's good for one depends on their spatio/temporal context and cannot be applied to another
   2. Values are passed on through the generation but all you get is the emotional feeling given, not the rational justification that is required to make use of it
3. Will to power
   1. Values that affirm life are those that accord to the will to power, those that are degenerate deny life.
   2. The will to power is perpetual becoming, perpetual overcoming, thus is unique and transitory
4. Good/Bad men
   1. He sees morality as being originally those things that produced useful consequences, this then turned into the things in themselves being good, then in turn the person that did them being good.

 

Nietzsche's understanding of Values

Nietzsche's views on values are that they "represent the experiences of men of earlier times as to what they supposed useful and harmful" [D P18]. In other words what a man finds useful he makes a positive value something to be achieved and what is harmful something to be avoided. This value then is passed down from father to son. This still begs the question of what is valuable, what is harmful or useful. "A table of values hangs over every people. Behold it is the table of its overcomings [...] the voice of its will to power" [Z p223]. Thus what is deemed useful is when the will to power overcomes something. So what then is the will to power?

Will to Power

To explain then the will to power: It is the desire to overcome resistance that enhances the feeling of power to enhance future resistances. "Whatever I created and however much I love it-soon I have to oppose it and my love: thus my will have it" [Z2 Of Self Overcoming]. In other words whatever you create, whatever ideas you have at some point you will tire of them and seek to replace them with better ones.

What must be pointed out is this Will, is not the unitary Will of people who believe in freewill, it is the energic thrust of all being. Within the human there are many competing drives, all of which have Will. Hunger, sexuality, creation, destruction are all drives within humans that can compete and these are just at a low level, at a higher level, you have desires such as love, hate that have Will. Likewise in rationality ideas have Will such that they form part of a discourse that seeks to overcome, master competing theories. Maybe the creationists and the big bang theorists might be good exemplars of this. Likewise in the world ice competes against hot water for dominance as wind competes against the leaves that hang onto a tree.

Nietzsche sees the will-to-truth as closely linked with the will to power, where the will to truth seeks to exert its dominance of interpretation by trying to reify this interpretation into a concrete fact. "The real philosophers are commanders and lawgivers. They say 'It shall be so!' [..] Their knowing is creating, is lawgiving, and their Will-to-Truth is Will-to-Power"[BGE 211]. Thus whilst we talk about fact, what we are saying is that someone\some group has deemed it so. As all facts, well most facts are overthrown, we can see that all we are left with is a perspectivism, and truth is defined by the winning perspective.

For Nietzsche then there is no transcendent world, there are no transcendent values thus we create the world of our truths, our values.

Thus values are co-extensive with a human's overcomings, as I value generosity, I have overcome my needs for abundance so I can be superabundant, within the act of giving, I am affirmed in my superiority over the person who needs my help.

The will to power is a dynamic theory any overcoming must itself be overcome. Thus the set of values that exist for one person cannot be transferred to another.

Transmission of Values

The problem with values is that they "are transmitted in this way: children observe in adult's inclinations for and aversions to certain actions and, as born apes, imitate these" [D p25].

So all values start life in a person as introjects from their parents, however what is introjected is the feeling not the rationale for it "thoughts are not hereditary, only feelings" [D P23], so what a person does is when they are full of these introjects at some point establishes a rationale for them, which is not the true rationale for the moralities origin, which was the original will-to-power of the person who use that morality to overcome resistance.

Thus what the noble spirit should do is to both re-evaluate their existing values to establish if they are still beneficial to them, and to create their own values that support their life.

                                

Freewill

It must also be noted some irony in the above dictates to the noble spirit. For Nietzsche the will as has been said is not the unitary ego of Freud's consciousness as there is a "ridiculous overestimation and misunderstanding of consciousness" [GS 11] , "By far the greatest part of our spirits activity, remains unconscious and unfelt"[GS 333] . Again taking the primacy away from consciousness Nietzsche would see the sense of human's freewill as also affected. Thus when I go into my kitchen to make tea it happens and I think I willed it, but on closer inspection that didn't happen, I didn't command my legs to move to the kitchen, nor did I command my hands to find the cup, nor did I have to recall the memory of how to make tea, rather it just happened, and my feeling of power that was manifested in its success I then called my agency.                    
For Nietzsche freewill is a nonsensical idea as it depends on the concept causa-sui, i.e. self-caused, something which started life originally as a description of god! However if you think this idea through just a little it falls apart as it seeks to pull itself up by its bootstraps.
So I have freewill as I choose to drink this cup of coffee. I am self-caused, nothing caused me to want coffee, thus I had the idea, but did I choose to have that idea, then did I choose to have that choice, which goes on ad-nauseum. As Nietzsche has said a thought appears when it wants to not when we will it.
Nietzsche argues [BGE 19] that the will is a complex event, it is the sensation of going from one condition to another, it is the sense of commanding and being victorious over something else, and indeed it is only used when the outcome of the victory is certain, it also presuppose the synthetic unity of the I, which again is a fabrication.
For Nietzsche "Everything is necessity[..]Everything innocence and knowledge is the path to insight into this innocence" [HA 107]. As freewill is torn apart then the only other option is necessity, the same necessity that we see as the lighting strikes. His determinism is slightly more complex than standard determinism which would deem human agency, human will determined, as he has seen that Will is not a unitary thing, but rather the outcomes of human agency are determined by the inter play of the drives that constitute humans.

 

Good/Bad Men

"First of all, one calls individual actions good or bad [...] solely on account of their useful [...] consequences. Soon, however, one [...] believes that the quality [...] is inherent in the action [...] Then one consigns the being of good [...] to the motives [...]One goes further and accords the predicate [..] to the whole nature of man" [HA 39]
For Nietzsche the scope of value and morality has moved from where it should be. It started off as an indicator for actions which produce useful outcomes, then it fell back on the actions being good irrespective of their outcomes, then it became people who were good or bad.

 

Nietzsche's value in psychotherapy

Nietzsche's contribution to psychotherapy from ideas that are raised in this paper can be summarised as

Freewill

For Nietzsche there is no freewill rather the battle of different aspects of the will to power. In this manner consciousness is reduced in importance, where it is usually held as the locus of freewill.
In this manner then when working with clients then this can help with meta-emotions. By meta-emotions then I mean emotions about emotions, such that I am unhappy, then I become angry that I'm unhappy and then maybe depressed because I am unhappy and angry. Now I wouldn't want to go so far as to say that there is a primary emotion but rather that there certainly is a layering of emotions.
If we take consciousness as one factor amongst many that decide action and indeed some of these other factors are to in our consciousness then this will reduce the amount of meta-emotions. Whilst it is impossible to have a blanket statement about the cause of meta-emotions certainly one aspect is that they are the outcome of ego pain. The ego, the consciousness, the identity, the locus of freewill call it what you will is displaying a gap between how it should be and how it is. Thus if the first emotion was unhappiness as I didn't get the promotion at work, then I become depressed because I really want that promotion, I'm the sort of person that works as a manager rather than a nobody. There is a lot of hurt that is caused between the discrepancy between how you see yourself and how you are.
With the Nietzschean model things change. The 'I' is a synthetic totality that is actually the arena where a variety of drives, of which consciousness is one compete to result in action. Thus the therapist's job can become two fold, firstly to help the client to be more aware of the non-conscious aspects of an action and the therapist can also help the client meet themselves through their action.
Therapy then becomes something more of a clearing of conscious obstacles to the development of the will to power that emerges through the individual conscious. Therapy becomes something of a process of introducing the client to themselves and reducing maybe the sense that the conscious I will, is the sole determinant in action, but rather is a part of the process.
Whilst the weakening of the freewill will move towards it, the ultimate goal for the client\therapist relationship would be for the client to believe in determinism. To take this position would bring on a new found innocence in their world. If they were wronged, they would react to it with the standard sullen disdain they do when they get caught in the rain. I didn't like it, but its not my fault it rained, I don't feel bad about myself. Of course on the other side they may lose the feelings of pride when they win the race, or the promotion, but then they would get the same pleasure as when it was a sunny day.
I realise that to get a client to the position of determinism may well be a jump too far, but I think it is worth including here as a worthwhile goal of weakening notions of freewill.

Non-Universability of values\morality

For Nietzsche values are specific to an individual and represent their bookmark to themselves of their overcomings. We are given values through introjecting them from our parents whereby we introject the moral feeling, the guilt the pride and the like but not the rationale for them, nor can we as they aren't ours. Later we pull in our own justification for them.
So one of the techniques here for the therapeutic relationship is to make sure that the clients values work for them and to make them explicit. So when a client says, "well you know, that's what you should do ", the should holds a value for them, and indeed a hidden person who is saying it, so again there is work to be done in terms of opening up the clients value, and to try to cache them out in terms of do living by these values give you the good feeling you want, the life you want.

Will to Power

Nietzsche's will to power, is an un-owned, constitutive power that will see its development in Foucault's theory of power. As mentioned above in the section on freewill, then part of the therapeutic work in this space is clearing the way for the development of the will to power, moving the conscious obstacles and brakes out of the way.
In this way there is the sense of expanding the client's consciousness of who they are. This understanding can come from 'internal' and 'external splits' (apostrophes due to this is a false dichotomy). Internally then it's a question of taking more awareness of your bodies desires, the emotions and intelligence that are stored within their, to take in to fuller awareness your desires for your actions. Thus my client is beaming full of pride as he has just helped an old lady to her feet who had fallen down he revels in his altruism and big heart, thus useful interventions here would be to get him to open up his feelings as he stood their seeing the old lady lying in front of him, one of the less acceptable aspects of this may well come out that part of him feels entirely superior to this old woman, and his helping her is a way of showing this.
For 'external' things, then again it's a question of seeing the 'I' as the clearing where the battles rage, between the gym manufacturers and the doughnut manufacturers, between the capitalists and the communists, between the early birds and the night owls. Here client work can look to open up their inclusion in groups, their influence by various parties and to look at the calls upon them these are making and the other conflicting calls that are made on them. Often clients understand these 'external' battles as part of themselves again to locate these outside of themselves can free up their meta-emotions and also look at it from a different angle. So in my case, on one hand I have highly well-developed doughnut gluttony and a desire to get super fit down at the gym. Whilst this war rages inside me, this is part of a battle that exists at a simplistic level between the doughnut manufacturers and the gym manufacturers.
Within the will to power, there is a challenge to the sense of a transcendent world. There is no world to be found, rather there is only a world to be created. The desire for truth is rather to demarcate the world in a way that suits you. As such then the call here is to create the world that suits you, there are effectively no requirements on you by notions of truth to conform to the world in any way that displeases you, indeed the notion of truth is just the call of the other to behave in a certain way. This then leads onto to an encouragement to the client to whenever they are ready to re-evaluate their values, to continually see if they work for them. Values are unique and temporary aspects that should only be held if they support the client in their life.

Good/Bad Men

Many clients think badly of themselves, I'm useless, I'm a failure. Taking Nietzsche's ideas this would be a fundamental error as they have morphed the outcome of an action onto themselves. Whilst its classic CBT the approach here would be to move from the rigid phrase I'm a failure as I've just failed an exam, to sometimes I can succeed sometimes I can fail but neither of these defines me.

Conclusion

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Quotes needed

1. The I is an untenable synthesis