The ecological-enactive approach to embodiment in humanistic psychotherapy

This article describes how central elements from two major approaches to embodied cognition—ecological psychology and enactivism—can be drawn together to clarify the phenomenological foundations of humanistic psychotherapy. Ecological psychology (Gibson, 1979) distinguishes the physical world from the environment, while enactivism suggests the environment be further subdivided into habitat and umwelt (Baggs & Chemero, 2019). Extending this suggestion across three Lebenswelt levels (i.e., umwelt, mitwelt, eigenwelt) and three habitat levels (i.e., physical, social, personal), it is proposed that such a habitat– Lebenswelt distinction lends insight into the phenomenological basis of humanistic psychotherapy in practice. Following a detailed review of the habitat– Lebenswelt distinction, the authors provide two levels of descriptive examples and a clinical transcription to demonstrate arguments set forth. Fundamentally, the phenomenological character of modern process-based and relationally guided humanistic therapies may be elevated for the purposes of interdisciplinary discourse vis a vis the habitat– Lebenswelt distinction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)