The role of embodiment and intersubjectivity in clinical reasoning

Authors

Shaun Gallagher, University of Wollongong
Helen G. Payne, University of Hertfordshire

RIS ID

96265

Publication Details

Gallagher, S. A. and Payne, H. (2015). The role of embodiment and intersubjectivity in clinical reasoning. Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 10 (1), 68-78.

Abstract

Embodied approaches to cognition have been recently challenging standard views in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. We propose that these embodied cognition views hold implications for clinical reasoning. This article examines the role of embodiment and intersubjective interactions between patient and therapist in clinical reasoning in psychotherapy. It offers a phenomenologically informed enactive conception of clinical reasoning and characterises it as an ongoing embodied, embedded and intersubjective process, rather than a strictly mental process ‘in the head’ of the therapist.