Intersensory and intersubjective attunement: Philosophical approach to a central element of dance movement psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper focuses on the connection of intersensory and intersubjective capacity of movement, which has basic importance in Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP). This relationship has become a central theme of several contemporary theories, such as phenomenological philosophy or the psychological model of self-development created by Daniel Stern. Nevertheless, thinking about this intertwining has a large tradition in the history of culture. Aristotle also connected these dimensions, unfolding the theme of ‘sixth sense’, or ‘sensus communis’, which unites not only the five senses, but creates a primordial sympathy connecting us to other people and to the whole universe. Excessive rationalization since the seventeenth century has simplified this Aristotelian tradition and isolated human senses and human persons. So the recent return of phenomenology and psychology to the sensus communis encourages both dance therapists and philosophers to cope with the alienations of modern thinking and to interpret our world and ourselves in new ways.

Keywords:

• intersensory and intersubjective attunement
• ‘sensus communis’ and Aristotle
• Merleau-Ponty and phenomenology
• Stern
• Dance and Movement Psychotherapy