Cranial Osteopathic Palpation and Felt Sense
by Dr Mandy Banton | 2022
PhOst | Article 2 · Cranial Osteopathic Palpation and Felt Sense
Through my attempts to explore and articulate how cranial osteopaths palpate, and encountering the philosophy and method of phenomenology, I came across the concept of the ‘felt sense’. This phrase is commonly used within a number of professional disciplines eg. psychology, dance, design and architecture - to describe implicit and embodied forms of understanding. It is also used within some forms of therapeutic bodywork, such as Somatic Experiencing (Payne et al, 2015), and it seems to me a useful addition to the osteopathic lexicon.
The concept of felt sense originated in the work of Eugene Gendlin (1926-2017), a phenomenologist and psychotherapist who worked alongside Carl Rogers (Ikemi, 2005). Gendlin was interested in the understanding his psychotherapy clients generated through paying attention to their bodily feelings (sensations, emotions, affect) (Levin, 1994). He learned that these feelings generated truthful meaning to the client, whether or not the meaning rose into cognitive consciousness. Just focussing on these bodily feelings seemed to allow a therapeutic change to occur. Gendlin postulated that, through the ‘felt sense’ of what mattered to his clients, they were creating and processing symbolic meaning at a level that did not require words. At the time, this was a revolutionary proposal, as western theories of cognition, language and psychology were based on the post-Enlightenment dualistic division between mind and body, and it seemed quite inconceivable that intelligence could reside within the corporeal realm.
Gendlin’s work was not celebrated at the time, possibly because he viewed himself as a phenomenologist at a time when phenomenology had lost its currency; but during the later stages of his life, and since his death, his work has become more widely known. It informs the phenomenological research methods of Focusing (https://focusing.org/) and Thinking at the Edge (Schoeller & Dunaetz, 2018). Core to these processes is the original concept sparked by Gendlin’s insight that humans create meaning through their embodied, lived experience first and foremost. He proposed that the articulated, linguistic expression of meaning was a secondary process that occurred through post-hoc translation of meaning into thought, and then of thought into words.
The philosopher Susan Stuart, however, who became interested in the phenomenology of cranial osteopathic palpation – describing it as ‘enkinaesthetic entanglement’ – does refer to Gendlin and elaborates his concept of felt sense in order to explain how osteopaths are able to attune with and experience what their patients are feeling (Stuart, 2016). Stuart is interested in the aesthetic (felt) layers of lived experience, and proposes the interoceptive sense of movement, kinaesthesia, as the main instrument of embodied sense-making. She uses this term as short-hand for the multi-sensory (and synaesthetic) ways we make sense of our world, its objects and other people.
In order to illustrate the concept of ‘enkinaesthetic entanglement’, Stuart examines cranial osteopathic palpation, after encountering the work of philosopher, Jean-Claude Gens, and osteopath, Emmanuelle Roche (2014), who describe osteopathic palpation as “a singular experience: that of a sense or a feeling not only of the bodily life of the patient by the osteopath, but also of the relationship between their corporeities” (Gens and Roche, 2014, p. 4). Stuart (2016) portrays this form of sensory engagement as a “synaesthetic listening-feeling process, the gentle touch – and even non-touch – of palpation listening for rhythms and arhythms”, characterised by non-striving receptivity and “an openness to what presents itself” (ibid., p. 27).
In this account, cranial osteopathic palpation can be expressed as a receptive and intelligent interaction in which the felt sense of the osteopath and the felt sense of the patient exchange an understanding of meaning – without the need for this meaning to emerge into conscious thought or be articulated verbally. A ‘Felt Sense’ model of cranial osteopathic palpation may lead us into productive communication with other osteopaths and also with our patients.
A version of this article was first published in the Sutherland Cranial College of Osteopathy’s Magazine (Summer 2022)
References
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Gens, J.-C. and Roche, E. (2014) ‘Emergence of feeling in osteopathic manual listening’, British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, UK 5 September, pp. 1-6. Copy of transcript of paper kindly supplied by E. Roche, D.O. (2019). Email to Mandy Banton, 8 January.
Ikemi, A. (2005). Carl Rogers and Eugene Gendlin on the Bodily Felt Sense: What they share and where they differ / Carl Rogers und Eugene Gendlin über den körperlichen Felt Sense: Was ihnen gemeinsam ist und wo sie sich unterscheiden / Carl Rogers y Eugene Gendlin sobre la sensación sentida en el cuerpo: qué comparten y en dónde difieren.
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Stuart, S. (2016). The Articulation of Enkinaesthetic Entanglement. In Dem Körper eingeschrieben (pp. 19–35). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
