Todres, L. . Embodied inquiry

Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, Fall, 2008 by Steen Hailing

Todres, L. (2007). Embodied inquiry;: Phenomenological touchstones for research, psychotherapy and spirituality. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 224 pp., ISBN 978-0-230-51775-7, $ 74.95 (hardcover).

Reviewed by Steen Hailing, Professor of Psychology, Seattle University

In this innovative and readable exploration of research, psychotherapy, and spirituality, Professor Les Todres helps us to appreciate anew our fundamental embodied connection with the world in which we live. Moreover, he gives us principles and methods for drawing more deeply upon this connection. Following in the tradition of the philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin, Todres makes it plain that concepts such as mind and body and language and experience should be thought of in relational and dialectical rather than oppositional terms. At one point he writes, "Sometimes, the bodily depth of what one has lived through is 'more than words can say.' Yet, such experience 'looks' for words." This brief statement goes to the heart of what his book is about. It speaks profoundly to the depth of our embodied experience. The author presents a cleat vision, but in congruence with his emphasis on open-endedness and openness, it is presented in a non-dogmatic way. The tone is very much one of, "this is something you may want to consider."

Les Todres is a teacher, scholar, phenomenological researcher, and a psychotherapist in the United Kingdom. Embodied Enquiry is a scholarly book that draws upon the contributions of philosophers, such as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, and psychologists and psychiatrists, such as Hillman, Giorgi, Jung, Welwood, and van den Berg. But it is not, 1 am happy to say, a publication that is preoccupied with textual analysis as an end in itself. Rather, it is a book that addresses us as embodied beings who seek a deeper understanding of our existence.

In his consideration of research methodology, Todres calls for an emphasis on qualitative research that "seeks to show and evoke the presence of a lived experience through words." His recommendations for how to accomplish such a goal are relevant to practitioners and students alike. Attention to embodied experience (or what Gendlin calls felt sense), Todres argues, is relevant for interviewing, analyzing data, and for how one presents findings to one's audience. His proposals in regard to these issues are "ecumenical" in that they are congruent with the various approaches to phenomenological research, as well as some approaches within qualitative research that are not specifically phenomenological (e.g., narrative psychology and ethnomethodology). Todres, following Gendlin, provides a critique of the readiness of many postmodern thinkers to dismiss as untenable any notion of 'truth.' Moreover, he provides a constructive understanding of truth that avoids the dichotomy of objectivism versus arbitrariness.

Similarly, his discussion of the process of psychotherapy and various therapeutic modes of being is simultaneously clarifying and open-ended. That is, while providing a useful and thoughtfully constructed map of the psychotherapy process, Todres never loses sight of how psychotherapy, at its core, involves a relationship between two people and thus cannot be reduced to categories or concepts. Healing, he suggests, involves the development of a sense of personal truth, self-forgiveness, and hope. As is the case in other sections of his book, Todres provides concrete examples that engage the reader and clarify the more general points that he makes.

In the last section of his book Todres turns to the arena of spirituality, an arena to which psychologists have given more attention in recent years. There is little in the field of psychology per se, that prepares scholars or practitioners for addressing spirituality. Yet a number of psychologists have "rushed in where angels fear to tread." Accordingly, I started out reading this section with something of a skeptical attitude. However, I soon came to the conclusion that Todres' treatment of this topic is rooted in careful and thoughtful consideration of various spiritual traditions as well as personal experience. He asserts that "human existence has its essence in its transcendence" and rejects the notion that the transpersonal is a stage in our development rather than a dimension of human life that is always already present. This position is supported by major religious Traditions as well as the evidence of everyday life. Abraham Masiow (1962), for instance, had initially thought that only those who were psychologically "mature" were capable of having peak or mystical experiences. As he continued to study this issue, he realized that this was not true (Masiow, 1969).

The author's discussion of spirituality and its relationship to vulnerability deserves careful study and cannot be readily summarized. Key aspects of it include a fundamental openness to experiencing, a readiness and a willingness to engage and be affected by others and by the suffering and joy that life brings us. He writes that "the treasure of the wound of longing is the taste of the beauty and poignancy of human participation; the essence of relationship, the 'we-feeling' in mutual vulnerability."