Embodied interpretation: a novel way of evocatively re-presenting meanings in phenomenological research

Abstract

This article contributes to a growing trend in articulating an aesthetic phenomenology that exercises more evocative and poetic forms of writing. Our task is to give ontological weight to our common humanity, thereby facilitating experiences of recognition and `homecoming'. This developing trend could benefit from Gendlin's philosophy of the body and his practice of `focusing', which finds words that carry forward the textural dimensions of experience. We apply this practice of embodied interpretation to research about caring for a lifelong partner with Alzheimer's disease. We conclude that the value of embodied interpretation is that it serves the kind of knowledge that is particularly important in human sciences — it provides understandings that live in ways that touch both `head' and `heart'.