Association of Danish Physiotherapists

Olesen, J. (2003). Examination and interpretation in a phenomenological and hermeneutical biopsychosocial holistic perspective. Nordisk Psykologi, 55, 235–264. This article takes off in the spanish phenomenologist Ortega y Gasset's, Nietzsche and Heidegger, inspired views that man is to be understood primarily as an expectation and therefore man's actions should be interpreted hermeneutically. Phenomenology is described; not the “classic” phenomenology of the early Husserl or Sartre's phenomenology of the person who distances himself in loneliness. The article attempts mainly through Gadamer and partly through May to show how hermeneutics and phenomenology are intertwined, intimately connected and presupposing each other and moves on to describe the phenomenology and antropological view of man by the french philosopher and psychologist Merleau-Ponty, where the person and the world is seen as one dynamic intersubjective entity. Dreyfuss and Csikzentmihalyi's notions of flow are presented trying to describe how the body and the world becomes one interrelated flesh when man is acting in existential balance, as Merleau-Ponty probably would put it. LeDoux, Porges, Levine, Ochberg and Ogden's thoughts about neurotransmitters, amygdala and the vagus nerve playing a crucial role in social engagement, emotions and adaptation seems compatible with Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. The article attempts to clarify Schilder and Merleau-Ponty conceptions of body-scheme and body-image and demonstrates that Gallagher's interpretation of body-scheme and body-image are probably dualistic because they only relate to man's bodily motion; where as Merleau-Ponty as Porges, Levine, Ochberg and Ogden as I read them, views motion and emotion as one bodily unity relating and adapting to the biopsychosocial intersubjective situation.