Gendlin TAE Response

[Anonymous]

#730

I like the idea that something that is “new” is something that hasn’t been said, but something that is already known, or at least felt. And that the way of saying that thing is also what can be new, because of the way context works.

I also really liked the idea that “There is no way to say ‘all’ of it…no sentence which will simply ‘represent’ what is sensed. But what can happen is better than a perfect copy.” This is the way poetry works, the way art works. We start with a feeling and use language as a vehicle to get away from language and back to the feeling. It may not be accurate, but it’s evocative, and that’s better than right/wrong.

Why don’t we hear people say that every picture has always been painted? Not that visual art can’t be repetitive, but it’s not widely believed that it’s impossible to create something your eyes can see that you’ve never seen before. So why do we always feel like everything has already been said? Neoliberals don’t say that every product or market has already been created. They just make new ones. Not that we should emulate them, but why is it harder for writers to tap into what we want, and express it externally?

Finally, Gendlin’s ideas of humans AS interactions (not having interactions) is very similar to Alva Noe’s ideas of consciousness as not just happening inside an organism, but only as the interaction between an organism and the environment. I think it could be a potentially generative concept to think through our bodies as interactions, instead of thinking that language is the only way our bodies interact.

[Sondra Perl]

#737

Yana,
What makes most sense to me here is the idea of never exhausting the felt sense as in ‘having said it all’ — which is never true. There is always ‘more.’ And you last idea about humans AS interactions. These seem apt to me.

But I think we are deep enough into Gendlin to make the following distinction. He is not talking about feelings that generate language. He is inviting us to consider something that is prior to feelings (and language) which he refers to as felt sense. And he is not asking us to get away from language.

So this sentence: “We start with a feeling and use language as a vehicle to get away from language and back to the feeling. It may not be accurate, but it’s evocative, and that’s better than right/wrong,” is not, in my understanding, an accurate restatement of Gene’s thinking or experiential process as we have been pursuing it. Rather than restate here, I’d ask you to read Peter Elbow’s intro to Felt Sense and the first and third chapters again.
🙂

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