Research Article Psychopathology The Interactive Phenomenal Field and the Life Space: A Sketch of an Ecological Concept of Psychotherapy Thomas Fuchs Klinik für Allgemeine Psychiatrie, Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany Received: January 11, 2019 Accepted after revision: July 12, 2019 Published online: August 8, 2019 Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Fuchs Klinik für Allgemeine Psychiatrie, Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg Vossstrasse 4 DE–69115 Heidelberg (Germany) E-Mail thomas.fuchs @med.uni-heidelberg.de © 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel E-Mail karger@karger.com www.karger.com/psp DOI: 10.1159/000502098 Keywords Phenomenal field · Life space · Intercorporeality · Body memory · Ecology Abstract Based on the phenomenology of the body and ecological psychology, this paper introduces a series of concepts that enable us to overcome the still prevailing idea of an inner psyche and a corresponding individualistic view of psycho- pathology. These concepts are the phenomenal field, lived space, intercorporeality, and body memory; they correspond to an embodied, enactive, and ecological view of the mind. On their basis, psychiatric illnesses may be conceived as re- lational disorders resulting in various restrictions and impair- ments of the patient’s lived space. The main tasks of psycho- therapy, then, are to use the interactive phenomenal field as a means of restructuring the patient’s relational patterns and to support his or her capacity to engage in more beneficial interactions with others. In this way, phenomenology can valuably contribute to a deeper understanding of the intri- cate processes of the psychotherapeutic encounter. © 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel Introduction A phenomenological approach to psychotherapy is confronted with a fundamental conceptual challenge. The very notion of the “psyche,” like all terms derived from it, implies the idea of a disembodied and nonspatial inner world, be it conscious or unconscious, which is lo- cated inside of the individual, usually in the brain. Re- gardless of whether we presuppose the drives, introjects, or inner objects of psychoanalysis, whether we believe in the memory storages, “theory of mind” or “self-modules” of cognitive science, or whether we take the brain centers and nuclei of a phrenological neurobiology to be the real substrate of the psyche – in any case the dominant scien- tific paradigms are still characterized by the fundamental separation of the subject from the living body, from his or her relations to the environment and from his or her con- nections to others in the shared life world. However, such a view seems inadequate to grasp what is happening in the psychotherapeutic encounter. Phenomenology is in principle opposed to any intro- jection of psychic life into a disembodied inner space. It regards the person not as a separate monad which repre- sents the world inside but rather as an embodied being Downloaded by: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg 147.142.122.210 - 8/9/2019 10:56:00 AM