Transformative Phenomenology: Implications for Embodied Interpretation An overview

1. Transformative Phenomenology:  Implications for Embodied InterpretationAn overview Luann Drolc Fortune, PhD Faculty, College of Mind-Body Medicine, Saybrook University Fellow, Institute of Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University lfortune@email.fielding.edu

2. Preface • Transformative Phenomenology, represented in a book of the same name, represents the contributions of Valerie Bentz and David Rehorick and a host of supporting cast • Fielding Graduate University-Model for Adult Advanced Degree Learning - Distributed learning graduate institute - Multidisciplinary studies: Human & Organizational Develoment - Practical scholarship: social research & practice should define each other - Overview – Indepth – Applied • Intentions: To further discourse around our approach

3. Level 1: Overview of Transformative Phenomenology • Rehorick and Bentz (2008) define phenomenology as encompassing studies of consciousness and its objects as viewed from a full spectrum of lived experience. • Theoretical foundations from classic phenomenology and the influence of Alfred Schutz for applied social research • Applied in setting of midlife professionals seeking to inform their practice with formal knowledge: Scholar-practitioners • An approach and a phenomenon: Hermeneutic phenomenology applied to elucidate the tactic in practice

4. Applied Gadamerian Hermeneutics

5. Four Essential Characteristics • An inner spaciousness: Husserl’s “transcendental ego” pure consciousness that serves as the basis for all thought, perception, and meaning • Collaboration: Lifeworlds are cocreated within a network of relationships • Consciousness of typifications as applied in lifeworld: Social and mental constructs that simplify shared understandings of people, behavior and settings • Embodied awareness: Experience in our preconscious corporeal bodies, how that aspect of self is interconnected to cognition, and how we interrelate with other bodies in groups and environments

6. Dimensions of Embodiment

7. Basic research techniques: Hermeneutic • Scholar-Practitioners Welcome!: praxis platform for research is the preferred path to new knowledge • Gadamerian self-reflective, hermeneutic perspective • Combine Husserlian mandates for eidetic transcendence with Schutzianlifeworld social research • Relies on second-generation strategists: Moustakas, van Manen • Emphasizes three principle research tactics: bracketing, imaginative variations, and horizontalization

8. Applied Transformative Phenomenology Tactics Landmarks Immersion in the subject matter Clearing the space: continual levels of bracketing Writing or collecting a series of descriptions Exploring the experience Identifying lifeworld based typifications Determining the overarching meaning Creating text to convey interpretation • bracketing: identify and set aside specific ideas and concepts • imaginative variations: identify structure by applying creative possibilities and reversals to collected data • horizontalization: the utility that normalizes all possible factors to open new understandings and provide over-arching meaning

9. What is “Transformative” • Based on Bentz & Rehorick’s anecdotal reports, the inquirer is also changed in the research process • Inevitable, given the requisite heightened self and environmental awareness • One meaning is for the explorer to own the sense of wonderment (Lewin, 2010) • The other is to recognize the power and meaning of the process itself and how it will manifest in the explorer’s next turn, a sort of double-loop learning in the midst of transformation.

10. Level 2: Bentz and Rehorick Scholar-Practitioners • Formally trained as sociologists • Extensive teaching and research practices • Followers of Alfred Schutz • Subsequently adopted phenomenenology • Conventional university posts for decades • Collaborated over Human Development: Multidisciplinarity at Fielding University (with Jeremy Shapiro) • Musicians • Bentz is also a psychotherapist, massage therapist, and yoga instructor

11. Level 2: Bentz and Rehorick Amongst Scholars • Classical Foundations • Husserl: Back to the things themselves • Heidegger: Manifestations of being, temporality and changing natures, and platform for applied research • Merleau-Ponty: Embodied awareness and mind-body connectiveness From Sociology: Schutz: typifications, relevance, multiple realities, contextualization, and possibilizing (Rehorick) Bentz: Mead’s symbolic interaction theory, concept of self Rehorick: Talcott Parsons (Rehorick, 1974), Berger and Luckmann (1966), and Helmut Wagner (1983)

12. Level 3: How this Author Joined the Herd • Three touch points: • Legitimized my topic and practitioner-based knowledge • Offering practical solutions for body-based inquiry • Shaped my role as advocate • Critical concepts for my development: • Authenticity (Heidegger, 1953/1996) conveys to horizonitalization • Importance of place and one’s environment • Role of the practitioner’s intimate topic knowledge & phronesis • Somatics as scholarship and beacon • Values and directives for my scholar-practitioner self

13. Expectations of a Scholar-Practitioner-Advocate • Added element implicit in Transformative Phenomenology: A call to action and promoting transformational growth through applied phenomenology • Bentz defined me in our work together • Conferences reinforced my call to be a voice of change in scholarship • Practice experience fortified my resolve to conduct exploratory, indepth research • Activism, e.g. regulatory reform • Mission: to promote better understanding of all alternate wellness practices and translational knowledge

14. Reflectivity, Reflexivity, Entrainment, and Synchronicity • Resonating episodes appeared to accelerate, both in their factual reality and my recognition • Awareness, recognition and coconstruction of reality: synchronicity • My experience of the continuing spiral is one of personal transformation • Predisposed to personal reflection • My reading phenomenology: a sequence of bizarrely coincidental events • Through writing and conversation, extended circumspection, engendering reflexivity • Through interaction, people subsequently and dynamically recreate our understanding of lifeworld • Mutual volleying of ideas, plus an energetic and transpersonal alignment, resulted in a state of entrainment (subliminal)

15. In summary, Transformative Phenomenology... • Brings to applied phenomenology a posture. • Borrowing from Schutz and Gadamerian hermeneutics, its application is inherently embodied in its lifeworld. • Four essential elements: collaboration, spaciousness, embodiment, and creating typifications provide guidance. • Invoking the precepts mindfully and strategically enriches the research process, findings, and the researcher’s development. • Offers tenets for the scholar-practitioner to convey to practice.  • To the extent that the lifeworld is constructed by its members, the resulting state is authentically transformative.

16. The wind horse. A translation from the Tibetan lungta, it refers to the experience of raising a wind of delight and power, and then channeling that force to good fortune.

17. References • Berger, P. L. & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. New York, NY: Anchor Books. • Bentz, V. M. & Shapiro, J. (1998). Mindful inquiry in social research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. • Lewin, P. M. (2010). Problems and mysteries: Book Review of Rehorick and Bentz (eds.) Transformative Phenomenology. Human Studies, 33, 333-338. • Moustakas, C. (1996). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. • Rehorick, D. A. & Bentz, V. M. (2008). (Eds.), Transformative phenomenology: Changing ourselves, lifeworlds and professional practice. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.] • Rehorick, D. A., & Bentz, V. M. (2012). Re-envisioning Schutz: Retrospective reflections & prospective hopes. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Society for Phenomenology and Human Sciences (SPHS). Rochester, NY, October 27 - 29, 2012. • Wagner, H. R. (1983). Phenomenology of consciousness and sociology of the Life-World: An introductory study. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: University of Alberta Press • van Manen, M. (1997).  Researching lived experience:  Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy.  2nd edition, London, Ontario:  The Althouse Press.