Mar 10, 2024 The Living Process. Practices in Experience and Existence
This is Part 1 of Episode 13.

Donata Schoeller and I are doing a series of these shorter episodes on specific topics in embodied thinking and experiential practice. Part one explores the kinds of thinking usually associated with philosophy and especially how we can welcome more embodied critical thinking into philosophy. Part two, which follows, is entitled 'What do we find when we Focus?' and explores questions of subjectivity and 'inside/outside'.

In this episode Donata introduces Embodied critical thinking, and how to include more of our experiences into all that we are thinking. We learn positions, arguments, and texts, but it is harder to integrate into thinking what we are experiencing from our own living. We discuss how Focusing and TAE are revolutionary methods to enter into the experiential ground from which our thinking grows. But that move is considered to be private, subjective, or therapeutic. The philosophical culture does not readily allow this feeling of thinking. How can philosophy open up to the felt experience without being accused of becoming therapy? How do we soften the boundaries between the disciplines of philosophy and psychotherapy? Donata names three competencies for this embodied critical thinking. We need a kind of reflective care and experiential listening rather than critical thinking to process our deep thinking.

Dr Donata Schoeller is a philosopher who teaches internationally at various universities and is the academic director of the program "Training in Embodied Critical Thinking. In addition to her work on Gendlin’s philosophy, Donata has also worked in depth on Meister Eckhart. She has published extensively on Gendlin’s philosophy and was involved in translating Gendlin’s text A Process Model into German. She teaches Thinking at the Edge and is a Focusing trainer offering courses in Switzerland. She lives with her family in Switzerland and Germany. See Donata's website to keep up to date with her publications and courses: https://www.donataschoeller.com