Narrative and psychotherapy--the phenomenology of healing

In part I, I presented some results of empirical research on mind/body relationship: writing about traumatic experiences brings about improved psychological and physiological health. One important factor of healing in psychotherapy is thereby isolated empirically. In part II, it was shown that the cognitive science explanation of these findings, however, is based on categories deriving from common sense and is insufficient. Phenomenological method can serve as a form of criticism of the assumptions shared by most contemporary approaches to the human mind and brain in psychology, psychiatry, and medicine (e. g. cognitive, psychodynamic, behavioral, and biological). In part III, I presented research and concepts developed in the phenomenological tradition that have bearing on the problem of the healing factor in narrative acts (in writing and speech), including the "talking cure" of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. I described the problem of the unconscious in narrative acts from the phenomenological point of view and provide an alternative explanation for their healing effects. In short, the way we overcome painful and traumatic experiences is not seen in terms of the cognitive theory in which a painful feeling is "translated" into a cognitive or linguistic representation that organizes it. Such a theory objectifies the human subject. Healing through narration and "opening up," involves an existential act of self-transcendence of an embodied person who organizes his/her experience in time.