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Sophia Arik: 
Dance-and movement therapy as an extension of process thought
an extended abstract for theWhitehead Metaphysical Society's 9th Whitehead ConferenceProcess Education - from School to LifeKatowice – Panevniki, Poland2012 May 11-12The whiteheadian process philosophy is forming a base to it's therapeuticalextension, however Whitehead himself never mentioned it directly or wrote a certain book about. He has his books on education, cosmology, aesthetics, metaphysics touching all theimportant phenomenas and forming a huge and complex system of thought, but stillseeking for practical adaptations.Whitehead himself defined his own philosophy as an open system to it's criticalfuture developments and adaptations
1
,so we don't commit a crime, but making his wish tocome true with adapting his original notions in the field of psychology and healing.„E‘a process of integral adaptation of humans to their environment(s)'. ‘Processeducation’ can be understood in the spirit of Whitehead’s organic philosophy.‘Environment’ can be understood narrowly or in a broader sense that would include inner,natural and spiritual environments.”Every healing based on to harmonise and re-establish the primordial connection between the center and the perifery, the self and the other, the inside and the outside.Is it possible to make such a process of adaptation integral? What does ‘
integral 
’really mean? athese questions we need to understand
congruence
and
integrity
,
concrescence
and
isolation
, the
 self-definitionidentity
which is formed by the decision-making process called
evaluation
.My paper aims to deal with these fundamental problems and their possiblesolutions.Th e
 self 
or 
identity
is nothing else, but a continous flow of events. The
 self 
as a„seed” or „sacred center of the concrescence” grasps and holds everything, which is similar or acceptable and grows to that direction or expansion. That expands the actual entity assuch. But on the other hand the actual entities are refusing and denying other certain factorsof the universe. And that negativity is the triumph of mentality, that refusal creates andhardens the outside surface and makes a border fo the self . That defines the actual entity assuch. In that respect the self- definition is made or built up by the decision-making process,which is called
evaluation
.In that evaluational process we re-create the values with applying them to barefacts and we also evaluate oursel ves with accepting or refusing a certain value, and thatmakes us as a personal identity or a self, which holds us as a seed or grounding factor throughout our personal creative advance. That gives us a continuity, as a flow or rather 
1
A.N.Whitehead:Process and Reality (The Free Press, New York, 1985): Preface xiv: „
The importanceof philosophy lies in its sustained effort to make such schemes explicit, and thereby capable of criticismand improvement”
 
that's the content of this continuity. We built up by our energies and intensities, our basiceffort and subjective aim, and certain desires to long for our very special future, to whichwe transform ourselves and through which we also conform ourselves to the rest of theuniverse as an environment, as a background or broadest network we arose from.Thanks to God - and not just literally, but in His real metaphysical function – weexperience ourselves as a concrescence of flow, which holds the atomically distinct time-and space- units together. Thanks to that grounding there is permanence, there is identity,there is a permanent content in the flow, which is still very special in each and every case,acccording to every personal valuation, means every single fact's connection with a certainvalue in the level of concretion and abstraction.In this process thinking we can 't talk about self or identity as a static or stabil factor of the universe, since we can't talk about substance or permanence without moving or change. That identity or self is a flexible and open factor, which is woven around a center,is brightened from inside with a subjective aim and with all it's emotions and desirestowards a better future and a better self.That identity is a flow.
Congruence
here means a single unity in the same way as A is identical with A inthe formula A=A. That identity is far from a natural outcome or a simple tautology. That isa complex and continous work for the self of the actual entity to create itself as a permanent factor, or rather to re-create itself in every second to maintain it's flow in thecreative advance. That congruence means a real unity with ourselves in every moment,means our 
 presence
in our place and in our time, means urselvesas such That congruence
�
 means something like being authentic, being one with ourselves, not many, being in thecentre. Outside that congruence there is inauthenticity
2
, there is duality, chaos and disorder,everything is falling apart and perishing - and that's a waste..Creative advance means a continous effort to built up a certain maintenance, a permanent flow, which stays as an „identity” throughout the flow, the flow of events,thoughts and emotions inside -outside. That's forming a center, a „seed” around which therest is woven, that's the heart of the identity. At the heart of that heart is an eternal object or a network of eternal objects in the form of the subjective aim, forming a desire, containsimaginations to special directions and energy for moving and self-creating.That energy is ashaped or directed light, information and emotion, forming a desire, forming a future, but afuture, which is in every moment present and connected to it's past and future since it's acontinous, ongoing flow.I think „
in-tegral 
” means to take something in, we need to create its whiteheadiancontrast, sounding like „
out-tegral 
”.That's all about accepting and refusing, about
con-crescence
and
isolation
, forming our inside-outside borders with valuation, decision-making and self-defining.Every living cell of the entire cosmos repeating that self-creating process in a veryspecial way. The self-creating process means to seek permanence and maintenance in perishing.That's a communication with the enviroment, which since it's also organic, meansliving entities and living networks of entities who are in communication within itself 
3
.Every healing based on to harmonise and re-establish the primordial connection between the center and the perifery, the self and the other, the inside and the outside.
2
See also Heidegger and Schelling about authentical and inauthentical existence
3
See also: G.W.Leibniz: Monadology : pg.: 66-68:
 
Further on in the ultimate synthesis all these borders will vanish, the completedinside content expands itself to the outside realm, and all the outside content focuses andintegrates itself with it's fully content inside the very special new unity.The
 superject nature
of the self is that „third phase”, is the transformed one, which possibly just means the one who is in relation, who is arose from the connection betweenand who is never outside that relation. That
 superject nature
, that transformed unity is still
congruent 
with itself and identical with its unity, past, present and future components, butcontains something more, as well. Contains the possibility of the very next phase whichis just coming. Contains the freshness and oppenness towards a new, which is identicalwith the „fourth creational phase”, turns to be a new possibility to become a component ina new unity.How this all is connected with dance - and movement therapy??Process philosophy means change, flow, flux, motion, means also dance, means aritual, an ongoing self-and universe-creation processs of the cosmos and of every livingentity within.That cosmic dance has it 's indian mythological analogy in the dance of Shiva.Shiva is the creator, but also the one, who vanishes and collapses all, making catastrophes,disorder and chaos, but also making place for the new creation. In that Shiva dance Shiva isthe Lord of creation, the Lord of maintenance and also the great Lord of Transformation.Trans- formation means re-formation.That 's image tells us enough about the dance of creation and re-creation, the dancefor trans-formation. That's the dance of the entire cosmos, creating, vanishing andtransforming itself.Process philosophy is an organic philosophy, which means, we see ourselves, andall the enti ties in the cosmos around us as a living entity. The relation is more important,than the subject and object, these are nothing else, but the two banks of the same river.In dance - and movement therapy we try to discover our own body through motion, because the nonverbal intelligence is closer to our deepest conscious, closer to our verycenter. Our body is a sense organ, our body is a holy temple of the sacred soul. Our body isa living organism, and also an entire cosmos itself for all the living cells which forms the body as their complex unity and network.When we try to understand ourselves through our body and motions, we find out,that mo tions and e-motions are the same.O ur body means a natural border, a natural surface of our soul, but as a factor which is in relation with the enviroment, with the partner and with the entire cosmos insideand outside, that body as a surface expands and vanishes as a sharp, ended border in dance.We find ourselves in the realm of emotions, touch and space which is not void at all, whichis full of emotions, desires, informations, breath and living, cosmic energy.When we use that special space around fpr healing, we directly heal ourselves withcontacting the rest of the universe: recieving and getting energies, filtering and expandingemotions, desires and information.That re-action is a re-creation, and a trans-formation of ourself as a body, as a self and as a soul.In dance - and movement therapy we find the other as a part of us, we discover theother body as our own expansion, not as an object but as a subject, and through that healingspace we create our own self: being in relation being trans-formed, being re-born through
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