Ethics and body politics: interdisciplinary possibilities for embodied psychotherapeutic practice and research

Abstract

Ethical approaches to practice and research in counselling and arts/psychotherapies demand an urgent attention to body politics. Bodies are not neutral; gender, sexuality, ethnicity and class are socio-political aspects that shape our mental, emotional and physical selves and inform our ethical values. Drawing from the author's embodied practice as interdisciplinary practitioner-researcher, the aim of this paper is to examine the inseparability of ethics and bodies and explore how autobiographical, relational and political aspects of our selves-in-motion give rise to and build upon ‘ethically important moments’. The paper concludes with expanding possibilities; that highlighting ethical tensions within the lived experiences of bodies-in-motion allows for politically progressive approaches to practice that reflect the emerging paradigm shift of a post-Cartesian and interdisciplinary age.

Keywords:

• ethics
• bodies
• feminism
• body politics
• dance movement/psychotherapy
• autobiography
• intersubjectivity
• power

Acknowledgements

Heartfelt thanks to Neil Max Emmanuel for his insightful illustrations (http://www.neilemmanuel.com). My gratitude also extends to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback and guidance.

Notes

1. I draw specifically from Judith Butler's (feminist) concept of ‘otherwise’ in her reworking of Emmanuel Levinas's contribution on ethics and responsibility to the Other, in Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence (1974/1999).

2. bell hooks uses unconventional lowercase for her name.