Before we are anything else, we are feeling bodies. In fact, feelings are an important part of every experience we ever have. This book explains what feelings are, describes their relationship with other psychological phenomena, and shows how their analysis transforms understandings of some key topics related to health and illness.

Before we are anything else, we are feeling bodies. In fact, feelings are an important part of every experience we ever have. This book explains what feelings are, describes their relationship with other psychological phenomena, and shows how their analysis transforms understandings of some key topics related to health and illness.

Before we are anything else, we are feeling bodies. In fact, feelings are an important part of every experience we ever have. This book explains what feelings are, describes their relationship with other psychological phenomena, and shows how their analysis transforms understandings of some key topics related to health and illness.

“A grand accomplishment.” —Dr. Peter Levine, developer of Somatic Experiencing® and author of Waking the Tiger and In an Unspoken Voice A body-based, science-backed method for regulating behavior, thoughts, and feelings and improving well-being--shown to shorten therapy time and improve emotional outcomes. In the first book on Integral Somatic Psychology™ (ISP), clinical psychologist Dr. Raja Selvam offers a new, complementary approach for building more capacity to tolerate emotions using the body--especially emotions that are difficult or unpleasant. The ISP model shows readers how to expand and regulate emotional experiences in the body to improve different therapeutic outcomes--cognitive, emotional, behavioral, physical, energetic, relational, and even spiritual--in life and in all types of therapies, including other body psychotherapy and somatic psychology approaches. You will learn the physiology of emotions in the brain and body and how to: Access different types of emotions quickly Facilitate embodiment and regulation of feelings Process and heal different traumas and attachment wounds A go-to guide for emotional integration, The Practice of Embodying Emotions is of value in the treatment of a wide range of clinical problems involving difficult emotions--from ordinary life events to psychosomatic or psychophysiological disorders, developmental trauma, prenatal and perinatal trauma, attachment disorders, borderline personality disorder, complex PTSD, collective trauma, and intergenerational trauma--and in improving outcomes and shortening treatment time in different therapies including psychoanalysis, Jungian psychology, and CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).

A proposal that extends the enactive approach developed in cognitive science and philosophy of mind to issues in affective science. In The Feeling Body, Giovanna Colombetti takes ideas from the enactive approach developed over the last twenty years in cognitive science and philosophy of mind and applies them for the first time to affective science—the study of emotions, moods, and feelings. She argues that enactivism entails a view of cognition as not just embodied but also intrinsically affective, and she elaborates on the implications of this claim for the study of emotion in psychology and neuroscience. In the course of her discussion, Colombetti focuses on long-debated issues in affective science, including the notion of basic emotions, the nature of appraisal and its relationship to bodily arousal, the place of bodily feelings in emotion experience, the neurophysiological study of emotion experience, and the bodily nature of our encounters with others. Drawing on enactivist tools such as dynamical systems theory, the notion of the lived body, neurophenomenology, and phenomenological accounts of empathy, Colombetti advances a novel approach to these traditional issues that does justice to their complexity. Doing so, she also expands the enactive approach into a further domain of inquiry, one that has more generally been neglected by the embodied-embedded approach in the philosophy of cognitive science.

This comprehensive volume explores the set of theoretical, methodological, ethical and analytical issues that shape the ways in which visual qualitative research is conducted in psychology. Using visual data such as film making, social media analyses, photography and model making, the book uniquely uses visual qualitative methods to broaden our understanding of experience and subjectivity. In recent years, visual research has seen a growing emphasis on the importance of culture in experience-based qualitative methods. Featuring contributors from diverse research backgrounds including narrative psychology, personal construct theory and psychoanalysis, the book examines the potential for visual methods in psychology. In each chapter of the book, the contributors explore and address how a visual approach has contributed to existing social and psychological theory in their line of research. The book provides up-to-date insights into combining methods to create new multi-modal methodologies, and analyses these with psychology-specific questions in mind. It covers topics such as sexuality, identity, group processes, child development, forensic psychology, race and gender, and would be the ideal companion for those studying or undertaking research in disciplines like psychology, sociology and gender studies.

This groundbreaking new textbook takes a different perspective on social psychology, focused on the social and cultural worlds we inhabit, and encompassing a wide range of core social psychology topics – from the self to relationships, gender to health, racism to mental distress. Taking a critical approach, this book explores how qualitative methods and interpretational analyses can be used to examine human behaviour and what it is like living in today’s media-led world. It explicitly challenges all forms of Othering, taking a fresh look at human values, embodiment, agency, communication, thinking and feeling. It goes beyond the individualising scientific approach taken by traditional psychology, instead concentrating on the psychology of what makes us human – qualities like empathy and compassion, courage and dignity, kindness and sympathy – and how we can nurture them. Offering a fascinating alternative to existing resources and enhanced by carefully chosen full-colour illustrations, the book and associated companion website include original pedagogical features such as reflective exercises, further resources and a glossary, offering opportunities for readers to customise their learning experience. Featuring a course mapping section that sets out how the text can be used in relation to psychology curriculum requirements and common course structures, this interdisciplinary resource provides accessible and engaging reading for students studying psychology and other disciplines, including sociology, cultural studies, politics and media studies, as well as applied areas such as nursing, policing and management. It is also for anyone who is interested in what psychology can tell us about our lives and place in the world.