Dr. Diane Dutton and Dr. Carl Williams

Dr Diane Dutton

Diane Dutton received her PhD from the University of Liverpool and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Liverpool Hope University.  Her research interests include embodiment, the phenomenology of energy in healing and parapsychological experiences, and historical and cultural perspectives on the phenomenology of the body.

Dr. Carl Williams

Carl Williams received his PhD from University of Edinburgh.  He is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Liverpool Hope University.  His interests include the philosophy and psychology of science and especially the role of conceptual frameworks in constructing and explaining marginal phenomena, such as those in parapsychology and alternative healing practices such as Oriental medicine.

Excerpts of intercorporeality:  A phenomenological exploration of energy healing
Dr Carl Williams and Dr Diane Dutton, Psychology Department, Liverpool Hope University

Energy healing is largely seen from the received view of science as a dubious practice based upon premodern conceptions of the body and illness.  Often employing a synthesis of subtle energy concepts, models of ethnophysiology and narrative approaches, it is seen as a placebo at best and quackery at worst.  We present a different view of the healing process as hingeing upon intersubjectivity and intercorporeality, and suggest that this kind of healing process can involve effective strategies for changing a person’s lived experience of their illness.   This perspective also has something important to say about how mind/body experiences are co-constituted.  Using observational and interview data from a healing session we will explore the processes and interactions involved and delineate the strategies used by the healer to initiate change in the healee.  These changes are made through a gradual sense of co-proprioception (a developing joint awareness between healer and healee about the bodymind state of the healee) and a sense of inter-coherence (a movement towards a shared clear order of meaning which informs the bodymind in relation to an alternative stance on the problem that the healee is presenting with).