Notes on Free-Associative Listening: “I Am Also a Stranger Here”

The unique conditions and characteristics of listening in psychoanalysis are introduced in relation to an effort to define how psychoanalysis proceeds “beyond psychotherapy.” Using an example from Freud's self-analysis, the author explores the tenet that every psychoanalytic session is to be treated like a dream. Freud's prescriptions for the method of listening psychoanalytically are critically discussed and the idea of “listening-to-listen” is introduced, as contrasted with listening in order to hear, listening-to-understand or in order to interpret. It is argued that free-associative listening is distinctive as a processive momentum that deconstructively interrogates the practitioner's own mechanisms of suppression and repression. This process fosters an awareness of that which is otherwise than representation, that which cannot be captured within the purview of reflective consciousness. In this sense, healing is not only transformative, but also transmutative, and the psychoanalyst is one for whom nothing is alien and everything is strange.

Nietzsche’s Epiphenomenalism about RConsciousness

This chapter argues for an epiphenomenal reading of Nietzsche’s view of reflective consciousness. The position ascribed to Nietzsche is that no reflectively conscious state is among the causally efficacious antecedents of token actions. This reading is defended by showing it is compellingly supported by textual evidence. The chapter also argues that reflective consciousness’s proper function is in the realm of social coordination. More precisely, Rconscious states play a crucial role in the acquisition of social norms. That role, however, is not sufficient for the relevant norm to become behaviourally efficacious and, thus, cause our actions. For only internalized norms are behaviourally efficacious in that sense. In turn, though Rconscious states are often the channel through which we are presented with social norms, it depends on the arrangement of our drives and affects whether we internalize them or not. The chapter ends by surveying and rebutting a range of objections to epiphenomenal readings of Nietzsche.

More (Kinds of) Consciousness

This chapter argues that Nietzsche allows for other forms of consciousness besides reflective consciousness. In order to demonstrate this thesis, it introduces and discusses Nietzsche’s claim that reflective consciousness involves ‘falsification’. It identifies perceptual consciousness as a second kind of consciousness which is language-independent and characterized by pictorial content, and qualitative consciousness as a third kind of consciousness which Nietzsche only ascribes to pure sensations and raw feelings. It is argued that qualitative consciousness is the only kind of consciousness that does not involve ‘falsification’. It is further argued that affects are always conscious at least in the qualitative and, arguably, also in the perceptual sense, while drives—qua dispositions—are typically strictly unconscious.

The Surface Revealed

This chapter works out some of the key features of the notion of consciousness usually discussed by Nietzsche (most notably, in aphorism 354 of The Gay Science). Given such features (which include reflexivity, dependence on language and communication, and higher-order nature), it is argued that this notion of consciousness corresponds to reflective consciousness, i.e. the capacity for verbally articulated thought, the emergence of which is ultimately explained as a by-product of linguistic communication. The chapter shows how Nietzsche’s picture of reflective consciousness develops from Daybreak to Gay Science. Finally, it explores the link that Nietzsche draws between the emergence of consciousness and that of mind-reading capacities.

The Transactional Horizons of Greta Thunberg

The paper aims at developing new understandings of agency, or capacity to make a difference, which is a central issue in childhood studies. Sixteen speeches delivered by climate activist Greta Thunberg between 2018 and 2019 are analyzed. The findings reveal 5 core reflexive operations (objectification, personification, sanctification, unification and diversification) underpinning the speeches. This is conducive to the hypothesis that Greta’s audience and the replications of demonstrations for climate justice are bound to 5 transactional horizons (activities, relations, values, images of self and motivations) identified as the symbolic landscapes channeling the social interactions in climate activism. Transactional horizons form a structure of intelligible categories linked to sensatory experience. These vectors of agency twist perceptual consciousness into a hierarchized reflective consciousness. The dominant perspective of agency within structure is challenged by this emerging paradigm of agency through structure, whereby the two terms are seen as fluid and sedimented states. Future directions are identified for interdisciplinary research, contributing to heightened awareness of recursive processes that may impact climate policies.

Participatory Sense-Making in Therapeutic Interventions

Given the holistic and phenomenological character of Gestalt therapy, the body has a primordial role in enhancing the here and now experience of the client. In order to examine the role of embodiment in therapeutic interventions more closely, this article applies Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of corporeality and its development in the embodied and enactive cognitive sciences to the study of therapeutic interventions. Taking Merleau-Ponty’s theory of Fundierung as starting point, the article describes the enactive idea of sense-making as the movement from prereflective to reflective consciousness, a movement that is driven by the primordial valence of affectivity and e-motion. As a process of participatory sense-making, mutual regulation between therapist and client can happen at different levels of consciousness. Here, in addition to the well-known declarative (reflective level) and resonance-based (prereflective level) interventions, I will focus on interventions that operate between levels which constitute a genuine modality of embodied therapeutic interventions. I introduce the notion of cross-salience as the prefigurative participation of the therapist’s reflective consciousness in the client’s sense-making process. I will illustrate this idea by the analysis of an intervention extracted from Fritz Perls’ work Gestalt Therapy Verbatim.

Gestalt-Terapia e Daniel Stern: Dialogando sobre a Relevância da Corporeidade e da Dimensão Afetiva na Psicoterapia

This paper discusses the importance of the corporal and implicit dimension of the experience for the theory and practice of Gestalt-Therapy psychotherapy. We believe in a model of clinical practice that leans on this affective dimension. We start with a brief exploration of the notion of self as a process of contact, emphasizing the pre-contact and the id function of the self as the moment of the common dimension of the experience we share with the world and with the other. As we understand it, the id function is predominantly sensory, based on corporeality, being configured as a fundamental support for the experience of the difference and the novelty. From this, we propose a dialogue with Daniel Stern, exploring his concepts of vitality affect and affective attunement to affirm that our communication with the other is established not only by the way of speech, by formal thought, explicit and reflective, but also by an affective and vital dimension. From these notions, we discuss the concept of Gestalt-Therapy's awareness, differentiating it from the notion of reflective consciousness and considering it a kind of "bodily knowledge" and implicit experience, apprehended when relating to otherness. Finally, we conclude that psychotherapeutic work and dialogue constitute a relationship of coaffectation that generates deviations, "dis-centerment", and transformations. Palavras-chave : Gestalt-Therapy; Corporeity; Id Function; Awareness; Psychotherapy.

Epilogue

The future will most likely bring machines with artificial conscious minds, that at some point will be more intelligent than we are. But their minds will be also different than ours. Will we be able to understand them? Will they understand us? A sense of consciousness is a simple, direct feeling, so it is a quale! This is a subjective, first-person experience. We will never be able to describe it in a strictly symbolic language and even less so in formal one such as mathematics, geometry, or logic. Reflecting on how we can understand our own consciousness, we must consider the foundation for understanding. A sense of understanding requires the compatibility of a stimulant signal with activated cognitive memory fields. The feeling of consciousness is related to every act of recognition and the attribute of reflective consciousness is to realize that we are conscious. The essence of consciousness is to build a model of reality, to define/understand its place in this reality, and to feel emotion and satisfaction arising from that fact. The mind understands what can be “good” for it in the shorter and longer term. The formulation of the long-term goal of existence constitutes a sense of self-existence and, consequently, the meaning of the world as a tool for fulfilling one's mission in this world. It is astonishing that if we ask about the purpose and meaning of the matter, we must admit that no such purpose exists, if there is no consciousness for which we could formulate such a purpose. Thus, the meaning and purpose of the existence of matter is the emergence of consciousness. This sense arises at the moment when consciousness arises. The presented model of a motivated emotional mind explains the main features of the human psyche. It explains how reflective and phenomenal consciousness are created, how the mind formulates the meaning and purpose of a person's existence and the meaning of the world around him, how he obtains his free will, and how he can effectively act for his own good. It explains how the need for understanding, harmony, and beauty can create art, ethics, and goodness, how emotions directing the mind can unleash feelings of empathy and love. It also explains that to fulfill these functions, to learn everything that is good and noble but also what is evil and immoral, it is necessary to have a body able to influence the environment and the mind to reflect on it.

On the Grounds of a Person’s Dignity

What does it mean to say that a person has dignity, and what explains her dignity? Linda Zagzebski argues that personal dignity entails both infinite and irreplaceable value. Initially she grounds the former claim in the power of rationality and the latter in the uniqueness of one’s subjective lived experience. Later she grounds both in the power of rationality, understood in terms of reflective consciousness. I argue that the latter account is an improvement upon the former but that needless problems arise from both accounts because (1) she conflates properties considered in the abstract with properties instantiated in concrete persons and (2) she fails to recognize an ambiguity in the notion of incommunicability or uniqueness. I also argue that the more fundamental account of rationality should be given not in terms of reflective consciousness but in terms of the ability to understand particulars in light of universals.