Attunement Through The Body

Preparatory to restoring humaneness,Attunement Through the Body offers an innovative, philosophical model for overcoming mind-body dualism and its negative consequences through a systematic elucidation of the concept and the phenomenon of attunement. It invites readers to re-evaluate an undue emphasis placed on the cognitive, intellectual knowledge in the West. The book examines the concept of the lived body and then articulates the transformative dimension of our everyday mode of living our bodies vis-a-vis Yuasa Yasuo's concept of body-scheme, demonstrating that the unity disclosed can be brought to a higher degree. The book further describes the transformative dimension of our bodies in theoretical and practical aspects through the concept of the body emerging in the course of meditational self-cultivation that was practiced by Dogen Kigen, a medieval Japanese Zen master. It then develops an original philosophical theory that differs from various Western theories such as Idealism, Empiricism, and Materialism. This theory articulates modes of attunement reflecting degrees of somatic knowledge. The theory implies a lifestyle appropriate for the coming century.

This book explores mind-body philosophy from an Asian perspective. It sheds new light on a problem central in modern Western thought. Yuasa shows that Eastern philosophy has generally formulated its view of mind-body unity as an achievement a state to be acquired—rather than as essential or innate. Depending on the individual's own developmental state, the mind-body connection can vary from near dissociation to almost perfect integration. Whereas Western mind-body theories have typically asked what the mind-body is, Yuasa asks how the mind-body relation varies on a spectrum from the psychotic to the yogi, from the debilitated to the athletic, from the awkward novice to the master musician. Yuasa first examines various Asian texts dealing with Buddhist meditation, kundalini yoga, acupuncture, ethics, and epistemology, developing a concept of the "dark consciousness" (not identical with the psychoanalytic unconscious) as a vehicle for explaining their basic view. He shows that the mind-body image found in those texts has a striking correlation to themes in contemporary French phenomenology, Jungian psychoanalysis, psychomatic medicine, and neurophysiology. The book clears the ground for a provocative meeting between East and West, establishing a philosophical region on which science and religion can be mutually illuminating.

This new second edition of Attunement in Expressive Arts Therapy: Toward an Understanding of Embodied Empathy has been extensively revised. The book addresses how the arts can be applied therapeutically for mental, emotional and spiritual health. The therapeutic practices offer expanded ways of being attuned to emotional states and life conditions with individuals, relationships, groups, and communities. Specific topics include: the contexts of attunement in the arts and therapy, tuning in to embodied creative intelligence, attunement and improvisation, rhythm and resonance, and the sense of balance achieved through affective sensory states. Each chapter clearly articulates how to utilize the arts to tune in to self, other, and a larger sacred presence. The poignant stories from the author's 35 years as an artist and therapist allows the reader to experience how the arts have been used throughout history to maintain healthy physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Spontaneity, heightened sensitivity to inner states, deep connectivity to self and other, and an awareness of energetic and embodied shifts in consciousness are explored. It will be an excellent resource for those interested in learning how to engage with individuals and communities in order to address complex life challenges.

Although listening is central to human interaction, its importance is often ignored. In the rush to speak and be heard, it is easy to neglect listening and disregard its significance as a way of being with others and the world. Drawing upon insights from phenomenology, linguistics, philosophy of communication, and ethics, Listening, Thinking, Being is both an invitation and an intervention meant to turn much of what readers know, or think they know, about language, communication, and listening inside out. It is not about how to be a good listener or the numerous pitfalls that stem from the failure to listen. Rather, the purpose of the book is, first, to make readers aware of the value and importance of listening as a fundamental human ability inextricably connected with language and thought; second, to alert readers to the complexity of listening from personal, cultural, and philosophical perspectives; and third, to offer readers a way to think of listening as a mode of communicative action by which humans create and abide in the world. Lisbeth Lipari brings together historical, literary, intercultural, scientific, musical, and philosophical perspectives, as well as a range of her own personal experiences, to produce this highly readable analysis of how “the human experience of being as an ethical relation with others . . . is enacted by means of listening.”

How architecture can move beyond the contemporary enthusiasms for the technically sustainable and the formally dazzling to enhance our human values and capacities. Architecture remains in crisis, its social relevance lost between the two poles of formal innovation and technical sustainability. In Attunement, Alberto Pérez-Gómez calls for an architecture that can enhance our human values and capacities, an architecture that is connected—attuned—to its location and its inhabitants. Architecture, Pérez-Gómez explains, operates as a communicative setting for societies; its beauty and its meaning lie in its connection to human health and self-understanding. Our physical places are of utmost importance for our well-being. Drawing on recent work in embodied cognition, Pérez-Gómez argues that the environment, including the built environment, matters not only as a material ecology but because it is nothing less than a constituent part of our consciousness. To be fully self-aware, we need an external environment replete with meanings and emotions. Pérez-Gómez views architecture through the lens of mood and atmosphere, linking these ideas to the key German concept of Stimmung—attunement—and its roots in Pythagorean harmony and Vitruvian temperance or proportion. He considers the primacy of place over space; the linguistic aspect of architecture—the voices of architecture and the voice of the architect; architecture as a multisensory (not pictorial) experience, with Piranesi, Ledoux, and Hejduk as examples of metaphorical modeling; and how Stimmung might be put to work today to realize the contemporary possibilities of attunement.

Techniques for bringing mindfulness to psychotherapeutic work with clients.

For five decades, negative body image has been a major focus of study due to its association with psychological and social morbidity, including eating disorders. However, more recently the body image construct has broadened to include positive ways of living in the body, enabling greater understanding of embodied well-being, as well as protective factors and interventions to guide the prevention and treatment of eating disorders. Handbook of Positive Body Image and Embodiment is the first comprehensive, research-based resource to address the breadth of innovative theoretical concepts and related practices concerning positive ways of living in the body, including positive body image and embodiment. Presenting 37 chapters by world-renowned experts in body image and eating behaviors, this state-of-the-art collection delineates constructs of positive body image and embodiment, as well as social environments (such as families, peers, schools, media, and the Internet) and therapeutic processes that can enhance them. Constructs examined include positive embodiment, body appreciation, body functionality, body image flexibility, broad conceptualization of beauty, intuitive eating, and attuned sexuality. Also discussed are protective factors, such as environments that promote body acceptance, personal safety, diversity, and activism, and a resistant stance towards objectification, media images, and restrictive feminine ideals. The handbook also explores how therapeutic interventions (including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Dissonance, and many more) and public health and policy initiatives can inform scholarly, clinical, and prevention-based work in the field of eating disorders.