Embodiment.

The body and mind are not separate but continuously interact, with the body manifesting mental states and the mind shaping bodily experience. Mindfulness can alter perception of both inner and outer reality. The body also functions as a necessary delusion that anchors us in the physical world, yet openness to telepathy and communication beyond death suggests a possible transcendence of physicality. A psychoanalytic approach, similar to Buddhist meditation, reveals a constant flux of embodiment and disembodiment in each moment of being alive.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Groddeck, most interestingly, proposed that the body manifested the mind, and the mind the body. I consider his interactional viewpoint from several perspectives. First, I discuss how the entire body not only is minded by and minding of all that occurs within and without, but as well how the developable capacity for mindfulness affects the perception of reality, within and without. Secondly, I consider the body as delusion, a seemingly necessary anchor into the reality of the physical world, whereas Groddeck's and Ferenczi's openness to ideas of telepathy and communication beyond death flirts with a disembodied transcendence of physicality. And third, I propose that Groddeck's psychoanalytic approach, like Buddhist meditational techniques, reveals an experiential flux of embodiment and disembodiment in each re-embodied moment of being alive.