Philosophy as therapy: Eugene Gendlin on transformative experience

Abstract

This article examines Eugene Gendlin’s contributions to philosophy and psychotherapeutic practice as interrelated instruments for existential transformation. It centres on Gendlin’s concept of the felt sense — an embodied, pre-​­ reflective source of meaning — and foregrounds the pivotal roles of authenticity and reinterpretation in processes of personal change. Drawing upon phenomenological influences (Heidegger, Merleau-​­ Ponty) as well as existential and pragmatic traditions (Dewey, James), the article underscores Gendlin’s endeavour to chart a “third way” beyond the polarities of modernism and postmodernism. Gendlin advances a dynamic, process-​­ oriented conception of experience in which philosophical inquiry and therapeutic practice operate in reciprocal reinforcement. The article puts Gendlin’s psychotherapeutic method of Focusing into dialogue with other therapeutic models, particularly Carl Rogers’ client-​­ centred approach, and elaborates the transformative perspective through the interpretive framework of the “transformative triad” comprising experience, narrative, and action. Reinterpretation, construed as a retrospective and retroactive re-​­ engagement with lived experience, serves as a catalyst for profound existential change. Gendlin’s philosophy thus emerges as a multidimensional praxis wherein conceptual reflection and embodied responsiveness converge to reconfigure fundamental modes of being-​­ in-​­ the-​­ world.