Embodiment relates to the impact of the participants’ physical body-in-the-world, the
body’s responses to mental illness shared within the therapeutic groups, and focuses on how the participants experience and perceive their bodies. Heidegger (1927/1962) defines embodiment as the root of being and existence, a physical presence which impacts within the world. The participants appear to experience their physical body as simultaneously offering information and receiving cues from the lifeworld, so that an individual’s embodied presence in the world influences their experiences and how they are perceived.
Tania’s embodied presence in the world is beset by her voice hearing. Tania reflects on the different ways her group have supported her managing her voice hearing.
Tania: Sometimes I just try ignoring them and doing my artwork (317). Or
just have your headphones on, like before. I used to wear two headphones to listen to my music but one of the people in the group said ‘why don’t you put one there and just have one on?’ See if that helps, and yeah it does help
(318-20).
Tania experiences the impact of her voices as an intrusion on her concentration and she uses her group peers’ suggestion to modify her strategy to manage her voice hearing differently and focus her attention on her chosen activities.
Tania: Like if I’m on a bus, with screaming kids, I have to get off because the
voices get really worse and then I get so annoyed that I’ve got off the bus, because I’m late for an appointment, so I’m really angry by the time I get to the appointment, so I have to stand outside for five minutes and have a cigarette. Calm myself down before I go in (345-9).
Tania’s experiences of voice hearing suggest that in situations where she feels unable to control her voices she is prepared to remove herself from such unhelpful or invalidating environments. In her lifeworld it seems she is constantly monitoring her environment to moderate the impact of her voice hearing.
Georgina describes her experiences of constant bodily pain which appear to make it difficult for her to physically attend her group.
Georgina: With my headaches, the way to not have it thumping all day is to
go back to bed (153). I’ve got chronic fatigue as well. At the moment, I can hear it in my ears, I’ve got tinnitus. I can hear it whistling (156-7). It’s hard to get here, it really is but I’m trying (158). I’ve got a thing called fibromyalgia which is like chronic all-over body pain. It’s like in your muscles. I’ve also got arthritis. I’ve got lots of other things that go wrong (306-7).
Georgina seems to experience her struggle with pain and the limitations of her bodily movement as a conflict she constantly negotiates, in order to balance
physically attending her group against resting, which appears to keep her headaches in check.
Georgina describes her experience of depression, disengagement and dissociation, which seems to negatively influence her cognitions.
Georgina: Since I had my depression I don’t really get inspired or what do you call it? I can’t think of the words, no I can’t think. It’s like you don’t want to do things because there’s no exploration and stuff. Just, it’s like there’s nothing there, there’s no feeling in there (50-3). I feel distant because I can’t concentrate on stuff (57).
Along with her physical bodily pain, Georgina simultaneously describes her experience of being given a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, which she notices as a sense of withdrawal and detachment, perhaps disengaging her from creativity and discovery which might add enjoyment, variety and interest to her life. Georgina’s powerful imagery ‘nothing there’ seems to describe a kind of nihilism, an absence of embodied experience.
Georgina reflects on her experiences of attending her group.
Georgina: I never came until then. [Friend] has been coming for a while and
she said to me ‘why don’t you come’ so I came (394-5). My friend said I’m less stressed and I’m happier but I don’t know if that’s true or not (274).
Georgina appears to experience her group peers as supportive, encouraging her physical activity and group attendance. Georgina seems aware of her embodied limitations which she overcomes with her friend’s support to participate in her group. Mental health professionals could encourage existing group members to accompany new attendees to help them settle into groups. Georgina’s embodied pain appears chronic and it is unclear whether it could be a primary contributor to her depressive symptoms, or whether her depressive symptoms emerged first, perhaps influencing how Georgina regards her pain.
Andre reflects on his severe anxiety, which could prevent him from speaking within his group.
Andre: I used to go awake, I had this hot hot sweat, I know, and then lots of
clothes off. I couldn’t say anything (182-3). You had to use your mind to communicate, that’s one of the things I used to have difficulty in, talking amongst, talking about something amongst people in the same line (176-8).
Andre describes how physical anxiety in his group used to prevent him sharing his thoughts with his group peers. With their support, Andre has developed a strategy to communicate with his group by writing his contributions.
Andre: I wrote down a list of all the things. I wrote about the previous week,
about what I wanted to say that I couldn’t, I wasn’t in the right spirit at the time, but I actually wrote down and I, and I said to them ‘this is what my feelings are’ (348-50).
Andre reflects on overcoming his embodied constraints, and by acknowledging his difficulty he generates a strategy to resolve it. His successful group participation appears to motivate him further.
Florence reflects on her embodied experiences of voice hearing and how she used to swear at her voices in public and people might stare, which appears to have led her to avoid going out.
Florence: I find it difficult to socialise with people outside, and especially
when they find out that you’re mental health (64-5). I’ve always been a voice hearer yeah and I’ve learnt since I’ve been in the voice hearing how to cope with the voices, you know (18-9). Different strategies you can take when you do get the voices. Say for instance if you’re on the bus and you hear voices you want to answer back, and the best way to do it is to make out that you’re on your mobile, then you can answer back to the voices, and tell them to f**k off {laughs} (20-23). You get the sense that nobody is looking at you then,
because before that, before I learnt that strategy (28-9). I used to swear. But I don’t do that now (30). I had voices of suicide and I’ve learnt how to deal with that now (31-2).
Florence uses a strategy suggested by her voice hearing group to manage her voices. She notices her self-confidence appears to have improved, enabling her to use public transport. It seems that Florence regards her suicidal voices as being within her control since attending her group, thus improving her quality of life.
3.4.3.1 Summary of Embodiment
The participants appear to experience embodied pain, distress, anxiety and intrusion, where their body functions, looks or feels at odds with what they expect. The body-in-the-world continues to be the interface within which the participants perceive and process bodily cues and limitations, and is how they are seen by others in their groups as they try new approaches to manage their body-in-the- world. Tania and Florence describe socially hostile environments. The participants’ experiences focus on alleviating the intrusion and restriction of mental health symptoms within their bodies. Strategies shared within the group seem to enable the participants to perceive their embodied reactions from a different viewpoint, which they experience as liberating, improving their self-confidence and increasing opportunities for social interaction. This section now turns to consider the superordinate theme of Unveiling.