Sarah's Response

[Website Services Admin]

#700

“But calling it ‘unconscious’ does not explain this kind of experience. It is only a mysterious name, just as ‘hunch,’ ‘intuition,’ and ‘instinct’ are mysterious names for it.”

I was happy to have intuition addressed by Gendlin in this week’s reading. Prior to reading him, and after our class discussion about the “unconscious,” I came to the conclusion that words like “intuition” don’t really mean anything, but that we can only give them meaning based on individual experience. I guess definitions are incredibly important with words like these because they are so subjective. For me, intuition, hunch, instinct and unconscious are all slightly different, but also more or less the same. Also, I would guess that how I interact with my intuition is different from how someone else does. I think I feel my intuition in a very bodily sense which I’ve always thought makes me more prone to stress. Often when making a decision, I won’t make a list of pros and cons but will go with how my body feels and what it tells me, which truthfully, doesn’t always provide the best outcome. Something about making decisions this way always makes things seem more urgent, almost as if my well-being depends on it.

Gendlin’s examples were helpful in thinking about where felt sense comes from and what it relates to. Thinking about dreams or people you see on the street that you know you know from somewhere. I can’t tell if he is lumping hunch and intuition etc into one category or if he is saying they are all different things. In any case, I am definitely starting to see how this relates to writing. I have been trying to become quieter and more “aware” of what I’m writing, something I honestly haven’t been able to do in years.

[Sondra Perl]

#707

Very nice connections, especially about composing and becoming quieter — which, in the end, is our agenda as writers and writing teachers (more than defining such words as intuition or hunch).

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