Feelings from a dialogical perspective: Ontology and clinical applications.

Abstract

Consideration is given to our cognitive, volitional, and emotive functions as they are experienced in the I-It and I-Thou realms of our existence, focusing on our emotive function. Feelings in the I-It realm are limited to the physical and psychical parts of ourselves. They are defensive and motivate our survival in the world. In the I-Thou realm, they permeate our whole being, including that part of ourselves that is beyond phenomenological manifestation that lies at the ground of our being as potential awaiting actualization. Our ontology necessitates the experience of our primary feelings in our struggle to become what we are uniquely "created" to be. Dialogical psychotherapists consider this as crucial to our therapeutic endeavors. This paper is motivated by feelings that were first aroused in a youngster on a small farm located south of Lubbock and norm of Lamesa in Dawson County, Texas. There was plenty of time to ponder the meaning of one's existence-time to think about such things as What does it all mean? Why am I here? What is my part? I have since learned mat the answers to such inquiries are not found in our solitary pondering but in our interactions with the world of others. "All real living is meeting" (Buber, 1958b, p. 11).In this paper, I use "other" to mean that which exists independent and apart from ourselves and mat cannot be coerced into something to be grasped in our intellectual pondering. I have focused primarily on the person