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Intuitive inquiry: An epistemology of the heart for scientific inquiry

Article  in  The Humanistic Psychologist · September 2004

DOI: 10.1080/08873267.2004.9961758

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Intuitive Inquiry: An Epistemology of the Heart
for Scientific Inquiry

Rosemarie Anderson
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know.

-Blake Pascal, philosopher

ABSTRACT: Intuitive inquiry is a hermeneutical research

method that joins intuitionp to intellectual precision. Intuitive
researchers explore topics that claim their enthusiasm and in-
vite the inquiry to transform both their understanding of the
topic and their lives. As a method, intuitive inquiry seeks to
both describe what is and envision new possibilities for the fu-
ture through an in-depth, reflection process of interpretation.
Five types of intuition are identified, namely (a) unconscious
or symbolic processes, (b) psychic or parapsychological ex-
periences, (c) sensory modes, (d) empathetic identification, and
(e) the illuminating presence of wounds in the personality. Five
iterative cycles of interpretation are explicated: Cycle 1, Clari-
fying the Research Topic; Cycle 2, Identifying Preliminary
Lenses, Cycle 3, Collecting Original Data and Preparing Sum-
mary Reports; Cycle 4, Transforming and Refining Lenses;
and Cycle 5, Integration of Findings and Literature Review.
Each cycle is illustrated with examples fiom current research.
As a new research method, there are many challenges to doing
intuitive inquiry well, including (a) being rigorously aware of
one's internal processes or perspective, (b) avoiding circular-
ity, (c) telling the truth, (d) auspicious bewilderment, (e) writ-
ing in one's own voice, ( f ) imagining the possible, and (g) risk-
ing personal transformation. In conclusion, Resonance and Ef-
308 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
ficacy Validity are introduced as new ways to evaluate the va-
lidity of postmodern research.
Intuitive inquiry is an epistemology of the heart that joins intui-
tion to intellectual precision in a hermeneutical process of in-
terpretation. From the start, intuitive researchers explore topics
that claim their enthusiasm, honor their own life experiences as
sources of inspiration, and invite the research process to trans-
form not only their understanding of the topic but their lives.
Long claimed as essential to wisdom in indigenous and spiri-
tual traditions worldwide, the subtle ways of the heart nourish
and balance analytic ways of knowing. In a series of iterative
cycles of interpretation, the researcher refines and challenges
their initial understandings through personal and in-depth re-
flection on the stories and accounts of others, always seeking
new and renewed understanding.
In pursuing matters of the heart, intuitive inquiry is also a
creative process that seeks to bridge the gap between art and
science. I encourage my doctoral students to find research top-
ics that seem to be chasing them, pursuing them. Often, what a
researcher feels "called" to study may be a call from the cul-
ture at large for change. A universal need is often disclosed by
the particular and the personal (Anderson, 1998, 2000). For
both the artist and the intuitive researcher, expression of art
and science is found in the "in between"-ot me, or it, but
between my inspiration and the data and research participants
in what Ken Wilber (2000) refers to as the intersubjective in
his integral vision of human consciousness. Here in the depths
of between me and other is what spiritual traditions usually re-
fer to as Spirit+hat unfathomable mystery that forms the mix
of creativity. In so doing, intuitive inquiry focuses not only on
the present but also on the future, seeking to inspire, invite
change, and reveal what the present reveals of future possibili-
ties. Put more pointedly, intuitive inquiry is a search of new
understandings through the focused attention of one re-
Rosemarie Anderson 309
searcher's passion and compassion for themselves, others, and
the world.
Clearly, intuitive inquiry is not for every researcher or
every topic. Not every researcher is willing or able to explore
the spontaneous and startling nature of the psyche, as so often
happens in the course of an intuitive inquiry. Many topics in
psychology, and the human sciences generally, do not even
require such an in-depth, reflective process. Therefore, while
certain aspects of intuitive inquiry can be used in any scientific
inquiry and blended with other methods; as a hermeneutical
process of interpretation, intuitive inquiry is intended for the
study of complex human topics. I developed intuitive inquiry
pragmatically to support my doctoral students' research on
complex topics often characteristic of psycho-spiritual devel-
opment, such as "right" body size for women (Coleman, 2000),
the healing.presence of a"i>sychotherapist(Phelon, 2001), grief
and other deep emotions in response to nature (Dufiechou,
2002), true joy in union with God in mystical Christianity
(Carlock, 2003), storytelling and compassionate connection
(Hoffman, 2003), and the dialectics of embodiment among
contemporary female mystics (Esbjorn, 2003) among others.
Such topics are more likely to be found in the fields of human-
istic, transpersonal, and positive psychology, and their com-
plementary forms in other human sciences.
Initially, I developed intuitive inquiry as a general qualita-
tive approach that incorporated intuitive and compassionate
ways of knowings in selection of a research topic, data analy-
sis, and presentation of findings (Anderson, 1998). Later, I de-
veloped a hermeneutical structure of iterative cycles of inter-
pretation to give more form and clarity to the intuitive process
(Anderson, 2000). In its initial development, intuitive inquiry
was informed by feminist theory and research (e.g., Nielsen,
1990; Reinharz; 1992), heuristic inquiry (Moustakas, 1990),
and Focusing (Gendlin, 1978) and liberation social movements
(e.g., Boff, 1993; Gutierrez, 1990) and later by hermeneutics
(e.g., Bruns, 1992; Husserl, 1989; Packer & Addison, 1989;
Romanyshyn, 1991). More recently, the phenomenology of the
3 10 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
lived body (e.g., Abram, 1996; Cevin, 1985; Merleau-Ponty,
1962, 1968; and Gendlin's (1991, 1992, 1997) "thinking be-
yond patterns" have influenced my understanding of intuitive
inquiry. This overview updates the hermeneutical structure of
intuitive inquiry with what I have learned from my doctoral
students who have used the method in their dissertations' and
is intended as a primer for researchers wanting to use intuitive
inquiry.
What is intuition?
Carl Jung (1933) thought intuition irrational because it often
eludes our attempts to rationally understand its character. We
may witness our intuitions and discern their triggers. We can
describe how intuitive insights assist or confound life deci-
sions. But, the nature of intuition seems more akin to how we
play a musical instrument or touch a lover. Spanish poet,
Frederico Garcia Lorca (1992) describes music, dance, and
spoken poetry as arts particularly mysterious and grand "be-
cause they require a living body for interpretation and because
they are forms that perpetually live and die, their contours are
raised upon an exact presence" @. 165). In one moment, intui-
tion seems vibrant and breathtaking to behold-and then it dis-
appears.
"
Five types of intuition
Roberto Assagioli (1990), Arthur Diekrnan (1982), Peter
Goldberg (1983), Carl Jung (1933), Arthur Koestler (1990),
and Frances Vaughan (1979) have explored the dynamic nature
of intuition. The typology of intuition presented below is prac-
tical in nature, describing how intuition manifests in the crea-
tive process based on my own observations in research, re-
search supervision, and life. Of course, behaviors typical to one
type often blend with other types in everyday experience2.
Rosemarie Anderson
1) Unconscious and Symbolic Processes.
Unconscious and symbolic processes have been explored in
psychoanalytic theory and archetypal psychology and even a
summary is beyond the scope of this article.
2) Psychic or Parapsychological Experiences.
Conventionally, psychic and parapsychological phenomena are
unacknowledged in hrthering the insights of scientific re-
search, despite their common occurrence. Such direct and un-
mediated experiences would include telepathy, clairvoyance, or
precognitive experiences that take place at a distance. Re-
cently, Braud (2003) detailed a full range of such experiences
that have been the subject of experimental research. Since such
experiences are typically encouraged by our heart-felt feelings
of connection with others, a researcher's personal connection
to a topic and to their research participants is likely to encour-
age such experiences.
3) Sensory Modes of Intuition
Ln addition to the five special senses of sight, sound, smell,
taste, and touch; proprioception (inner body senses) and kines-
thesia (sense of movement) serve as intuitive channels, con-
veying subtle forms of information typically unavailable to the
thinking mind. Typically, information from preceptors in
joints, ligaments, muscles, and viscera are subliminal to
awareness (Olsen, 2002). Yet brought to awareness, the same
body senses that signal danger, beauty, and novelty in every-
day life can be finely tuned to serve intuition and imagination.
Awareness of proprioceptive and kinesthetic signals can be en-
hanced through attention and specialized training, such as
techniques such as Focusing developed by psychologist
Eugene Gendlin (1978, 1991, 1992, 1997), Authentic Move-
ment developed body practitioners Mary Whitehouse, Janet
Adler, and Joan Chodorow (Adler, 2002; Pallaro, 1999). In my
own work, I have sought to cultivate enhanced body awareness
 3 12 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
through Embodied Writing, a res-earch technique that records
the finely textured nuances of lived experience, awakening the
senses in the writer and inviting a kindred resonance in readers
(Anderson, 200 1, 2002a, 2002b).
4) Empathetic Identijication.
Through empathetic identification or compassionate knowing
(Anderson, 1998, 2000), writers, actors, psychotherapists, or
scientists inhabit the lived world of another person or object of
study. Via a seamless display of gesture and temper of voice,
an actor convinces an audience that Macbeth is present. Psy-
chotherapists attend to the life world of their clients, seeing the
world through the clients' eyes, helping them see possibilities
they cannot see for themselves alone. Similarly, biochemist
Jonas Salk (1983) trained himself with what he called an "in-
verted perspective." He would imagine himself as a virus or
cancer cell and ask how he would act if he were a virus or can-
cer cell3.
Intrinsically, empathetic identification intrinsically invites
a full spectrum of sensory awareness, especially the more un-
conscious processes of proprioception and kinesthesia. It seems
that we need only to remind ourselves of what we did naturally
as children. During the initial stages of identifying a research
topic, Cycle 1, I often lead meditations designed to facilitate
the researcher's empathic identification with an object strongly
associated with the research focus. In one such meditation, a
student who is studying the effects of long-distance hiking
chose to identify with her own well-used hiking boots and dis-
covered physical and emotional properties of long-distance
hiking that she had not consciously identified before.
5) Through Our Wounds.
Having conducted and supervised research for many years, I
am poignantly aware that an individual's intuitive style tends
to settle along the fault lines or wounds in the personality in a
Rosemarie Anderson 313
manner akin to the concept of the wounded healer described by
Catholic priest and contemplative Henri Nouwen (1979). For
Nouwen, our human wounds are sites both of suffering and
hospitality to the divine.
From a spiritual perspective, wounds are also openings to
the world. Explorations along the fault lines of the personality
invite change and transformation. The topics my students
choose to explore in research are often the aspects of their per-
sonalities that seek healing either within themselves or with the
culture at large, or both. The topics often seem to mark places
in their psyches where they burn brightly. In turn, the findings
tend to illuminate this realm of human struggle for us all. In-
deed, the ways of intuition can also be so personal that it is
dam right embarrassing. Some researchers are distressed to
find that the very aspect oS their personal history that they have
been avoiding for years is a prime source of insight and dis-
covery. Others regress to childhood behaviors, bringing them
slowly into the light of awareness in a manner not unlike the
course of psychotherapy. Sometimes these processes and in-
sights are strictly personal and sometimes they shed light di-
rectly on the topic of inquiry, or both. As a research supervisor,
I help new researchers to distinguish the difference between
personal and research insights and sometimes suggest that they
seek outside professional assistance.
Five cycles of hermeneutical interpretation
Intuitive inquiry is a hermeneutical research process requiring
at least five successive cycles of interpretation. In Cycle 1, the
researcher clarifies the research topic via a creative process
described below. In Cycle 2, intuitive researchers reflects upon
their own understanding of the topic in light of a set of texts
found in extant literature about the topic and prepares a list of
preliminary interpretative lenses. These Cycle 2 lenses describe
the researcher's understanding of the research topic prior to
collecting original data. In Cycle 3, the researcher collects
original data and prepares summaries, content analyses, or por-
traits of research participants. In Cycle 4, the researcher pre-
 3 14 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
sents a final set of interpretative lenses that have been trans-
formed in light of personal engagement with the original data
gathered in Cycle 3. In cycle 5, the researcher integrates Cycle
4 lenses with empirical and theoretical literature reviewed at
the start of the study, as is customary in the Discussion section
of any research report.
By convention in hermeneutics, the hermeneutical circle
of interpretation involves a forward and return arc (e.g., Packer
& Addison, 1989). Cycles 1 and 2 of intuitive inquiry represent
the forward arc in a process of identifying the topic and clarify-
ing pre-understandings. Cycles 3, 4, and 5 represent the return
arc in a process of transforming pre-understanding via the un-
derstandings of others. The number of interpretative cycles
may increase if the researcher wishes to supplement the re-
search endeavor with resonance panels, as described later in
this article. Each iterative cycle changes, refines, and amplifies
the researcher's interpretation of the experience studied. Both
internal data known only to the researcher and externally veri-
fiable data accompanies each cycle.
For readers familiar with my first presentation of intuitive
inquiry as a hermeneutical process of inquiry (Anderson,
2000), I have made three significant changes to the sequence
and contents of the iterative cycles. First, I have discovered
that many researchers need to prepare a summary of the data
prior to preparing their final set of interpretative lenses in order
to (a) help to organize the huge amount of data before them
and (b) honor the individual voices of the research participants
prior to interpretation. This presentation tries to remain as de-
scriptive and non-interpretative as is possible and reasonable.
The second major change moves the presentation of the re-
searcher's final interpretative lenses from what was formerly
called Cycle 3 to Cycle 4, as a logical consequence of adding a
conventional presentation of data. The third change adds an
additional cycle, Cycle 5, a formal presentation that integrates
the Cycle 4 lenses in light of the Literature Review, as sug-
gested my colleague William Braud some years ago. I have
added it to emphasize the importance of integrating research
Rosemarie Anderson 315
findings and prior research and theory, even though doing so is
conventional for the Discussion section.
Given the spiraling acts of interpretation in intuitive in-
quiry, it is not always clear where to present the iterative cycles
of intuitive inquiry in a conventional research report. My stu-
dents and I have made different choices over the years. Gener-
ally speaking, though, the clearest presentation is to place Cy-
cle 1 and a clear statement of the research topic at the end of
the Methods section and relay Cycles 2 and Cycle 3 as two
separate Results sections. The best placement of the results of
Cycle 4 and 5 is in the Discussion section, thereby honoring
the clearly interpretative nature of Cycles 4 and 5. The articles
illustrating the use of intuitive inquiry in this issue of The Hu-
manistic Psychologist by Cortney Phelon (2004), Jay Dufre-
chou (2004), Sharon Hoffjnan (2004), and Vipassana EsbjGrn-
Hargens (2004) offer a simplified report-writing style for intui-
tive inquiry. Wherever the cycles are placed in the research
report, researchers should label each cycle with headers nam-
ing the interpretative cycles so they can be clearly identified by
readers unfamiliar with the requirements of intuitive inquiry.
Research proposals should include a presentation of Cycle 1
and a clear statement of the research topic in the Methods sec-
tion. Some researcher may wish to include Cycle 2 in research
proposals as well.
Examples from the dissertation research of Becky Cole-
man (2000) and Susan Carlock (2003) illustrate the five inter-
pretative cycles described below. The nomenclature used in
these articles for identifying the iterative cycles has been re-
vised in light of the changes to cycles noted above.
Cycle I :ClarifLing the Research Topic
In conventional research, a researcher typically chooses a re-
search topic based on current research in our areas of academic
specialization and scholarly interest. In intuitive inquiry, how-
ever, the researcher begins by selecting a text or image that re-
peatedly attracts or claims the intuitive researcher's attention
 3 16 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
and relates to his area of interest in a general and often obscure
and unconscious way.
When teaching intuitive inquiry, I begin the first class by
leading a meditation that helps doctoral students,to find a text
or image that invites their attention around their research inter-
ests Students are often surprised by what appears during these
meditations. For example, ih a study of the true joy among
Christian mystics, Susan Carlock (2003) was surprised to find
a visual image of the Pieta by Michelangelo appearing in her
imagination for Cycle 1. Later in her study, she discovered the
element of suffering was essential to understanding true joy
among Christian mystics. In intuitive inquiry, text and images
are broadly defined. Cycle 1 texts and images have included a
photograph, painting, symbol, sculpture, songs, recordings,
poem, sacred text or scripture, interview transcript, recorded
dreams, or record of a meaningful transformative experience
directly related to the topic of study.
Once the text or image is identified, the intuitive re-
searcher enters Cycle 1 interpretation by engaging with the text
or image daily and recording both data that can be externally
verified and data based on the researcher's internal processes
and perception. Researchers spend at least half an hour a day
(or approximately an hour every other day) reading, listening,
or viewing the identified text. Thoughts, ideas, daydreams,
conversations, impressions, visions, and intuitions occurring
during sessions, immediately after sessions, and at other times
as pertinent are recorded in a noninvasive manner, so to least
disrupt the stream of consciousness typically accompanying
intuitive insight. Notebooks, hand-held tape recorders, and art
supplies should be readily available to support recording of
thoughts, images, and impressions. This process of engagement
with the text or image should be continued until the creative
tension between the intuitive researcher and the text or image
feels resolved and complete.
By repeatedly engaging with a potential text in a process
of observation, inward reflection, dialogue, and perhaps medi-
Rosemarie Anderson
tation, impressions and insights converge into a focused re-
search topic. A suitable topic for intuitive inquiry is:
Com~elling. For a research topic to sustain the re-
1)
searcher's interest and energy, it should inspire the motiva-
tions and intellektual passions of the researcher.
2) Manageable. If the researcher is a dissertation student, the
topic should be potentially "do-able" in one or two years
for fulltime doctoral students, including time for rest and
relaxation, once the research proposal is complete. Of
course, personal life events and research logistics can
complicate and delay any research endeavor as most re-
searchers know only too well.
3) Clear. Good research topics can be expressed easily in one
sentence. The more a researcher understands a research
topic the simpler the basic statement of intent becomes.
4) Focused. A simple and focused topic with significant im-
plications for human experience is preferable to large, am-
biguously defined topics.
5) Concrete. The research topic should be directly related to
specific behaviors, experiences, or phenomena.
6) Researchable. Some topics are too grand or do not (yet)
lend themselves to scientific inquiry.
7 ) Promising. A topic is promising when it signifies an ex-
perience of something that is still unknown or appears to
beg understanding. Since the topics pursued in intuitive
inquiry fend to be at the growing tip of cultural under-
stand, it is often the case the only intuitive researcher can
evaluate the potential importance of a given topic at the
start of the inquiry.
 3 18 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Cycle 2: Developing the Preliminary Lenses
Cycle 2 requires the researcher to lay bare personal values and
assumptions about the research topic as preliminary lenses
prior to collecting original data. In identifying preliminary
lenses, the researcher and eventually the reader of the final re-
search report can evaluate the course of change and transfor-
mation that follows in Cycles 3, 4, and 5. Time after time, re-
searchers who personally contact me about intuitive inquiry
(presumably because they like it) exclaim with a note of incre-
dulity that "It's so honest!"
In order to disclose and identify the researcher's values
and assumptions about the topic, the researcher re-engages the
research topic through a set of theoretical, research, literary, or
historical texts describing the topic. By engaging in a dialectic
and reflective process with the selected texts, the researcher
clarifies her values and assumptions about the topic and articu-
lates them as stated preliminary lenses. Lenses are both a way
of viewing a topic and what is seen. We all "wear" lenses all
the time, albeit usually unconsciously so, interpreting our lives
through our personality histories and habits. The articulation of
lenses is not intended to identify and bracket assumptions from
influencing the research process, so as to set them aside.
Rather, intuitive inquiry is boldly hermeneutical and personal
in nature. ln articulating preliminary lenses, the intuitive re-
searcher consciously places preliminary lenses in full scrutiny
and invites their transformation, revision, removal, amplifica-
tion, and refinement as cycles of interpretation proceed. Cycle
2 usually takes place at the same time as the researcher is writ-
ing a review of the theoretical and research literature on the
topic.
After a period of intense engagement with the selected
texts, the initial phase of developing the interpretative lenses is
usually easy and fast, more analogous to brainstorming than a
formal process. At a certain point, the researcher has read and
pondered enough and prepares a list of possible lenses quickly.
The initial list is often long because it tends to include every-
Rosemarie Anderson 319
thing the researcher feels and thinks about the topic without
any attempt to prioritize. After brainstorming the initial list, the
researcher re-engages with the selected texts on a daily basis in
order to note consistent patterns or clusters of ideas in her un-
derstanding of the topic. Through a process of combining, re-
organizing, and identifying emerging patterns, the list typically
shortens to less than a dozen.
An example will help to clarify the process of Cycle 2. In
Susan Carlock's (2003) study of true joy among Christian mys-
tics, Carlock reviewed the writings and lives of four Christian
mystics to study in depth in order to identify her Cycle 2
lenses. She chose to study texts written by Christian mystics
whose lives overflowed with joy and who wrote about their
experience of joy. The four mystics chosen for Cycle 2 were
Francis of Assisi, Clare of Assisi, Mechthild of Magdeburg,
and Brother Lawrence. ~ f t e ar period of reflection and con-
templation on the texts, Carlock brainstormed 33 initial lenses.
After a period of resting and withdrawal from focused attention
on the writings, Carlock synthesized the list of 33 lenses to 6
for her final Cycle 2 lenses: (a) inward poverty in the giving up
of pleasures of the world, (b) imitation of the life and character
of C h s t , (c) willing surrender of the self to God, (d) the love
of God for sake of God alone, (e) desire for the direct presence
of God, and (f) openness to God's love even amid God's ap-
parent absence.
Cycle 3: Collecting Data and Preparing Summary Reports
In this phase, the researcher collects textual data bearing on the
topic and prepares summary reports in as descriptive a manner
as possible. This data may be collected via interviews from re-
search participants or extant texts that meet specific criteria.
First, the researcher identifies the target population or texts,
and creates procedures for recruiting a sample of participants
from that defined population or texts from a defined body of
literature. Second, the researcher defines criteria for selecting
participants or texts that speak directly and articulately to the
research topic and dismisses participants or texts that detract
 320 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
from a clear understanding of the topic. After data collection,
the researcher organizes or summarizes research data using
conventional thematic content analysis, descriptive summaries,
or portraits (Moustakas, 1990). These summary reports allow
the researcher to review and organize the data prior to interpre-
tation in Cycle 4 and allow readers to review the data in a de-
scriptive form.
Often, interviews generate stories. Sometimes stories must
remain as a unit and not subjected to analysis because analysis
breaks up the integnty of the story. If a researcher wishes to
use intuitive inquiry, the written portraits or stories in outline
form should be presented intact in Cycle 3 without analyses.
Cycles 4 and 5 follow as described below. For example, Susan
Carlock (2003) chose another group of mystical texts for Cycle
3 in the study described above. Cycle 3 summaries included a
portrait of the mystics' understanding of true joy set in histori-
cal context.
In a study of "right" body size for women, Becky Cole-
man (2000) chose to study the process of healing obesity in 6
large women, including herself as both researcher and partici-
pant. All the women viewed their issues with food and weight
as walking "the fine line between sustaining unconditional
positive regard for themselves and honoring their own healthy
need for change" (p. 2). Her criteria for selecting the women in
her study included women who: (a) had been obese at least one
time in their life if not at the time of the study, (b) reported tak-
ing care of her body as essential to psycho-spiritual growth,
and (c) had reached out to friends, family members, associates,
and therapists for emotional support in their process of healing.
Instead of studying women's weight as a problem to be stigma-
tized as abnormal or fixed by weight-control regimens or spe-
cial diets, Coleman asked the women to share their experiences
and insights about body size, food, eating, and personal growth
during an 8-day rebeat and day-long 1-year follow-up. Cole-
man's feminist and collaborative style invited the women to be
the experts on an issue that was both extremely important to
them and about which they had insider's knowledge Cycle-3
Rosemarie Anderson 32 1
data summaries included summary findings of videotapes, each
woman's story, a report of brainstorming sessions, photo-
graphs, and creative expressions.
Cycle 4: Transforming and Refining Lenses
Utilizing the hermeneutical lenses developed in Cycle 2, the
researcher then interprets data in order to modify, refute, re-
move, reorganize, and expand his understanding of the re-
search topic. This cycle invites researchers to expand and re-
fine their pre-understandings by incorporating the experiences
of others and represent the researchers summary of findings
based on his interpretation of Cycle 3 data. By comparing Cy-
cle 2 and Cycle 4 lenses, the reader of an intuitive inquiry can
evaluate the changes and refinements in the researcher's under-
standing of the research topic:
Throughout intuitive inquiry, the most important feature
of interpreting data is intuitive breakthroughs, those illuminat-
ing moments when the data begin to shape themselves before
the researcher. Patterns seem to reveal themselves with each
fresh set of information. I usually work with a paper and pen-
cil, drawing small and large circles-representing themes or
stray ideas-and shifting the patterns and modifying the rela-
tionships and size of the circles, rather like a mobile Venn dia-
gram. I know other researchers who work more verbally-
bringing together ideas in an array of interrelated themes, nar-
ratives, sequences, or irreducible features of the experience
studied. This interpretative process may go on for several days
or weeks with rest or incubation periods between work ses-
sions.
Coleman's final interpretation of the women's stories and
discussions revealed 6 lenses that characterized the women's
relationship to weight and embodiment. A quote from one of
the participants or a description by Coleman accompanies each
lens:
I) Motivation to chanm. "I'm taking the time that it takes to
take care of myself. . . . The idea is not to lose weight, it's
 322 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fa22 2004
to get my body healthy and let it find its own particular
weight in its own time (p. 155)"
2) Wisdom of space. "Tara's story included [symbols and
images] about using her big 'taking up space' energy to
keep herself safe in some very threatening situation as a
child." (p. 189).
3) Learning and knowing. In discovering a "right" body size
for themselves, the women in this study incorporated their
own unique ways of knowing, including owning their obe-
sity expertise, a sympathy with the culture's "mind-body
split in girls and women", acknowledgment of "right body
size" congruent with each women's knowledge of her own
needs, and collaborative knowing @. 195,221-228).
4) Love as power. "What's real important to me .. . is that [a
commercial diet plan] comes from the masculine rules,
and it's external, outside of me. When I have the limit set-
ting from inside myself, it's the heart thing" (p. 233).
5) Call to differentiate and accept the tensions of personal
growth. "I went through my own process of being judg-
mental about [other women's weight loss methods] . . . be-
fore . . . I understood that we all have our own ways. @.
257)
6) .- "[Marion Woodman] was one of the
fint writers that I read who didn't see weight as a matter
of calories, counting calories kind of stuff.." (p. 277).
Because it is so important to clearly identify the degree of
change in the researcher's perspective between the lenses of
Cycle 2 and Cycle 4, Esbjorn (2003; Esbjom-Hargens, 2004)
developed three categories for the presentation of her Cycle 4
lenses: new, change, and seed lenses. New lenses signify
breakthroughs in understanding that were entirely new and un-
expected, change lenses signify a significant progression of
Rosemarie Anderson 323
change from lenses presented in Cycle 2, and seed lenses sig-
nify lenses that were nascent in the lenses of Cycle 2 but
greatly nuanced and developed in the course of the intuitive
inquiry. I would recommend that future intuitive researcher use
this tri-part formulation for the presentation of Cycle 4 lenses
to spare readers the time and effort necessary to make the in-
depth comparisons between the lenses in Cycle 2 and Cycle 4
themselves: An overview of intuitive inquiry with Esbjom's
(2003) study used as a case example can be found in Esbjm-
Hargens and Anderson (in press).
Cycle 5: Integration ofFindings and Literature Review
In Cycle 5, the intuitive researcher stands back fiom the entire
research process to date and takes into consideration all aspects
of the study anew, as thoGgh drawing a larger hermeneutical
circle around the hermeneutical circle prescribed by the for-
ward and return arcs of the study. In a conventional empirical
study, the researcher always returns to the literature review
conducted prior to data collection and reevaluates that theoreti-
cal and empirical literature in light of the results. The final in-
tegrative arc of intuitive inquiry is more demanding still. Not
only must the researcher reevaluate the literature in light of the
results of the study, but review the elements of the forward and
return arc in order to evaluate both the efficacy of the herme-
neutical process used and the topic of inquiry in light of that
determined efficacy. In other words, the researcher must de-
termine what is valuable about the study and what is not, sort-
ing through the assets and liability of the forward and return
arcs and their own understanding of the research topic. In Cy-
cle 5, intuitive researchers must honestly evaluate and tell what
they have learned and what they feel is still undisclosed about
the topic. In intuitive inquiry, the researcher's final opinion
matters.
 324 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Challenges and Characteristics of Intuitive Inquiry
Intuitive inquiry is not easy to do well. Aside from demands of
its in-depth scrutiny, intuitive inquiry requires a process-
oriented perspective not easily achieved in the context of the
positivistic sensibilities still widespread in the human sciences.
Intuitive researchers must think independently and creatively.
The hermeneutic basis and procedures of intuitive inquiry aver
a world reality in flux and mutable and, therefore, challenge
conventional notions of a static worldview that is separate and
distinguishable from the knower. Intuitive inquiry encourages
new visions of the future and makes them possible. Rather than
merely describing what is apparent in the present, as virtually
all research does, intuitive inquiry attempts to grasp what is
implicit in the present of the future as well.
I am sometimes asked, "Is what you do really science?" l
answer yes knowing full well that the responsibility of demon-
strating the value and efficacy of an intuitive inquiry belongs to
the intuitive researcher herself.
The challenges and characteristics of intuitive inquiry are
one in the same, as follows:
Being Ri~orouslySubiective. Scrupulous documentation
1)
marks the difference between everyday problem solving
and scientific inquiry. Everyday, we conjecture about rela-
tionships between one thing and another and watch the
workings of the world to surmise whether we are right or
wrong. In science, though, we keep records of what hap-
pens and the surrounding conditions and, if we are not
sure whether something is relevant, we record it anyway.
Since intuitive inquiry uses intuitions as data and insight
for interpretation, intuitions also need to be recorded along
with specifics of the context and manner of expression.
Ofien, the inchoate nature of intuition tends resists re-
cord keeping, requiring patience, skill, and sometimes
sheer force of will to keep records of intuitive impressions
and their context. It is not easy to blend the left-brained
Rosemarie Anderson 325
skills of documentation with the more right-brained skills
typical of intuition. My first formal attempt to encourage
such documentation was to propose that researchers use a
Process Grid (Anderson, 2000). The Process Grid has not
been popular among my students. Therefore, my best sug-
gestion is based on the insights of Sharon H o f k a n (2003,
2004). She was unable to use the Process Grid for docu-
mentation, finding that it disrupted her intuitive process.
Instead, she set an intention for witnessing and remember-
ing the intuitive process after it had taken place and re-
corded the insights, the context, expression, and process
a/er the event. 1 suspect that documentation is somewhat
inimical to the intuition process generally and every intui-
tive researcher is going to have to find a distinctive solu-
tion that both allows for documentation and cultivation of
intuition.
Telling the Truth No Matter What. An important aspect of
rigorous documentation in intuitive inquiry is telling the
entire truth about the course of the research endeavor, in-
cluding (a) mistakes made, (b) procedures and plans that
did not work, (c) the researcher's apprehensions and puz-
zlements, (d) the process and content of intuitive interpre-
tation, and (e) what remains unresolved or problematic
about the topic or the method. Given the degree of uncon-
scious processing of information there is no way to know
ahead o f time what will be relevant to interpretation.
There are many famous "accidents" in science and so-
called mistakes can be venue for important discoveries.
Record and report them.
An intuitive inquiry is also not considered successful
unless the reader of the research report understands the re-
searcher's style of intuitive processing and the matter in
which intuitions manifested in the course of the interpreta-
tive cycles, including the twists, slow downs, and dead
ends, and flow of the unconscious journey. See the valid-
ity section below for more pointers about writing style in
 326 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004 Rosemarie Anderson 327

intuitive inquiry. The most straightfornard way to reveal

the intuitive process is to give an extended example, as touch. Pookas gleefully take us for a rowdy ride-an aus-
Vipassana Esbjom-Hargens (2004) has done in this issue picious bewilderment!
Auspicious bewilderment often signals renewed under-
of The Humanistic Psychologist.
standing. Contradictory stories and examples move us
deeper into the intricacies of any topic of inquiry. Nuances
3) Avoiding Circularity. The intuitive process itself tends to
that do not fit generate new insights. Confusion takes us in
carry an unfortunate air of certainty. Believing that intui-
an unanticipated direction. Paradox challenges our as-
tion is more accurate or cogent than other sources of in-
sumptions and so on. Methodologically, the nature of in-
formation is seductive and inopportune. Therefore, intui-
tuitive inquiry sets the stage for new ideas to happen. They
tive researchers must be particularly alert to seeking data
often do. The research project will take longer, require
likely to contradict their values and assumptions and
more work, and probably cost more money, and it will
openly welcome anomalies in the data. Feelings of confu-
also be more complete and useful in the end. Weeks, even
sion and bewilderment are usually good signs that intui-
months, of feeling auspiciously bewildered-a very dif-
tive researchers are encountering what they do not know
ferent experience than depression, by the way-is not un-
and yet seek to understand.
usual for an intuitive researcher. While bewildered, keep
There is no point in doing research if researchers are
records and stay with the process as it is. If it gets to be
merely circling around their initial ideology. In intuitive
too much, rest, sleep, take a break, or gently put the re-
inquiry, the articulation of the interpretative lenses in Cy-
search project on the "back burner" for a while. Return to
cle 2 and again in Cycle 4 exposes the presence, absence,
the project again when refreshed.
or degree of circularity in the findings to any careful More dangerous to intuitive inquiry is thinking we
reader. The degree of change between Cycle 2 and Cycle
know what we are doing, being confident that we are on
4 lenses is at least some measure of the intuitive re-
top of it, or having fixed ideas about the findings before
searcher's willingness to change. Some changes are likely
we have finished collecting, analyzing, and interpreting
to be major, others minor. The new, change, and seed
the full complement of data. The nature of transformative
lenses proposed by Esbjorn (2003) provides a reader-
experience often demands periods of confusion to be more
friendly way to make substantive and subtle changes ob-
fully understood. If we go for long time periods of not be-
vious to the reader in Cycle 4.
ing surprised, beware. Something might be wrong. Is the
topic so well understood that there is nothing new to say?
4) Tncksterinp and Auspicious Bewilderment. In indigenous
What is happening to contradictory information? Is the re-
cultures worldwide, tricksters open gateways of awareness
searcher bored? Exhausted? Otherwise preoccupied? In
and insight. Tricksters are playful, mischievous, and
denial? Avoiding the inevitable move to the heart of the
sometimes outrageous. Particular to culture, coyotes, ra- topic? If so, do not panic. Rest and come back when feel-
vens, fairies, leprechauns, and pookas (a Irish goblin) gift
ing refreshed and unwilling to spend energy going in the
humans with insight, usually in the context of making us
wrong direction.
feel rather foolish. Coyotes play tricks. Ravens steal and
turn the stolen goods into something else. Fairies appear
as lovers. Leprechauns give us gold that vanishes on 5) Maintainin. a Process-Oriented and Inclusive Perspective.
Intuitive inquiry is a process-oriented and culturally inclu-
 328 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
sive method. Conventional reality is not objectively pre-
sent but rather constructed by the ever-changing biologi-
cal, cognitive, and cultural structures and habits we inhabit
(e.g., Johnson, 1987; Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991).
Reality does not exist apart from the embodied participa-
tion of being a specific human being with a particular
physiology, history, personality, and culture but is inter-
pretative and inter-subjective in the way Ken Wilber
(2000) is defining intersubjective in his four-quadrant
model of human knowing. Acknowledging what is fully
present in the moment, human subjectivity is a source of
knowing not just solipsistic expression or opinion.
Western researchers are often so intent on separating the
personal from scientific inquiry that they often fail to ren-
der candid opinions even at the conclusion of research re-
ports. In intuitive inquiry, however, researchers are re-
quired to interpret data, basing their interpretations on
what they feel are important and inspiring about their find-
ings and speculating about the possibilities and visions of
the fkture to which their findings point. Student research-
ers often need lots of support from supervisors to maintain
the interpretive perspective required by intuitive inquiry
because a postmodem perspective counters the culture of
conventional science (and some dissertation committee
members).
6) Writing in Your Own Voice. Scientific reports are easier
to read, more interesting and persuasive, and findings in-
terpretable when researchers write in their in their own
distinctive writedy voice. I was trained as an experimental
social psychologist in the 1970s. Scientific reports were
not only expected to be exact but emotionally flat in style,
resulting in an excruciating sameness from report to report
at least for me. These days are gone especially in qualita-
tive research reports.
In intuitive -inquiry researchers are also expected to
write compassionately and well. Research reports should
Rosemarie Anderson 329
convey the distinctive feelings and experiences that the re-
searcher brought to the topic and to present findings in a
matter that allows for sympathetic resonance (Anderson,
1998, 2000) in the reader as they read. The nature and
process of intuitive inquiry begs authenticity. If the au-
thentic voice of the mind, body, and spirit of the inquiry is
not revealed in the report, the study is not interpretable
and, therefore, not valid as an intuitive inquiry. See the va-
lidity section below for more information about the rela-
tionship of sympathetic resonance to validity.
7) Favoring the Particular and the Personal. As has already
been said, intuitive inquiry values the researcher's unique
experience and interpretations over common patterns that
might be observed externally in the experiences of others.
Knowledge is always personal be it individually or cultur-
ally wrought. In 1890, William James (1950) put the mat-
ter like so:
Why, from Plato and Aristotle downwards, phi-
losophers should have vied with each other in scorn
of the knowledge of the particular, and in adoration of
that of the general, is hard to understand, seeing that
the more adorable knowledge ought to be that of the
more adorable things, and that the "things" of worth
are all concretes and singulars. The only value of uni-
versal characters is that they help us, by reasoning, to
know new truths about individual things. The restric-
tion of one's meaning, moreover, to an individual
thing, probably requires even more complicated
brain-processes than its extension to all the instances
of a kind; and the mere mystery, as such, of the
knowledge, is equally great, whether generals or sin-
gulars of the things known. In sum, therefore the tra-
ditional Universal-worship can only be called a bit of
perverse sentimentalism, a philosophic 'idol of the
cave.' (pp. 479-480)
 330 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fail 2004
8) Imagining the Possible. Intuitive inquiry seeks to find tra-
jectories for new ways of being human in the world. Like
all qualitative methods, it provides thick descriptions that
carefully detail the time, place, context, and culture of
findings. However, intuitive inquiry also seeks to specu-
late about the possibilities implicit in the data, especially
of subtle and complex human phenomena. Implicit in in-
tuitive inquiry is a sense of hope that researchers are
called to explore topics that require attention by the cul-
ture at large and that the intuitive researcher's personal
exploration of the topic will see, imagine, or fashion hu-
man experience Geshly. In this sense, intuitive inquiry is
both practical and visionary, allowing that research find-
ings can provide new options for the world that is chang-
ing and manifesting anew in every moment.
9) Risking Personal Change and Transformation. Doing in-
tuitive inquiry can be a whirlwind and overwhelming ex-
perience for some. Hermeneutics, generally, and intuitive
inquiry, specifically, is rather like chasing a moving target.
If you are doing intuitive inquiry well, you are likely to
wonder if you are changing or if data are changing before
your eyes. From a hermeneutical perspective, both are
changing because insight changes what can be seen. Intui-
tive researchers are often changed through each cycle,
thereby bringing a fresh perspective to the next cycle of
interpretation.
Validity in Intuitive Inquiry
In recent years, a number of researchers (e.g., Guba & Lincoln,
1989; Mertens, 1998) have proposed different types of validity
relevant toqualitative research. All of their concerns have di-
rectly influenced the manner in which I have discussed the
challenges and characteristics of intuitive inquiry above, par-
ticularly in the sections headed (a) Being Rigorously Subjec-
tive, (b) Telling the Truth No Matter What, (c) Avoiding Cir-
Rosemarie Anderson 33 1
cularity, and (d) Writing in Your Own Voice. Intuitive inquiry
requires researchers to report high levels of detail. Such detail
allows readers to evaluate for themselves whether or not the
researcher has made reasonable conclusions based on the data
collected and if the procedures are adequate to support the con-
clusions reported, considerations appropriate to internal valid-
ity.
In intuitive inquiry and other methods aspiring to a post-
modem perspective, external validity concerns the value of the
reported findings to the receiving audiences, over and above
whether findings demonstrate generalizability to other situa-
tions in the conventional sense. Intended and unexpected audi-
ences or readers may include (a) other researchers, (b) client
populations, (c) the general public, (d) unique ethnic or minor-
ity groups, or (e) professional groups aligned with the human
sciences, such as nurses, physicians, therapists, and social
workers. Traditionally, findings are considered most valuable
if they contribute to understanding a topic and related theory.
However, the value of an intuitive inquiry-and perhaps any
study-may rest more in its capacity to help readers ask good
questions of their own lives or of experiences they wish to un-
derstand. Therefore, I propose two new bases to determine ex-
ternal validity for qualitative research, namely Resonance and
Efficacy Validity.
Resonance Validity
Resonance Validity refers to the capacity of a study and its
findings to produce sympathetic resonance in its readers. As a
principle, sympathetic resonance is best introduced with an
analogy. If I pluck a sting on a cello on one side a room, a
string of a cello on the opposite side will begin to vibrate, too.
Striking a tuning fork will vibrate another tuning fork some
distance away. Resonance communicates and connects directly
and immediately without intermediaries, except for the con-
duits of air and space. The principle of sympathetic resonance
suggests that research can function more like poetry in its ca-
 332 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
pacity for immediate apprehension and recognition of an ex-
perience spoken by another and yet be true for oneself, as well.
Using the principle of sympathetic resonance, research
procedures can evaluate the generalizability or transferability
of findings by noting consonance, dissonance, or neutrality in
response to Cycle 4 lenses across groups and subgroups. Using
resonance panels composed of representatives from different
groups or subgroups, a kind of mapping of the generalizability
or transferability of a research finding is created. A modified
sociogram, constructed with concentric circles of resonance,
designates subgroups wherein the research findings are imme-
diately apprehended and recognized or reacted to with disso-
nance or neutrality. Resonance panels can be progressive, each
resonance panel increasing the number of iterative cycles by
one. Regardless of the number of iterative cycles in an intuitive
inquiry, the final cycle integrates the final set of interpretive
lenses with prior theory and empirical research relevant to the
topic of inquiry.
Several researchers have used resonance panels to evalu-
ate findings in this way, employing group interview procedures
like those used in>Focus Group research (e.g., Krueger, 1988;
Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990). In a study on betrayal by a
spiritual teacher in the Zen Buddhist tradition, Caryl Gopfert
(1999) asked a resonance panel of Zen Buddhist teachers and
students who had not experienced betrayal from teachers to
respond to the unique features she had identified in the stories
told by her research participants. Her results then allowed for
clarity in portraying the resonant and non-resonant features of
betrayal by a spiritual teacher across two independent selected
groups. Similarly, in a study on the healing presence of a psy-
chotherapist, Cortney Phelon (200 1, 2004) presented her find-
ings to mature psychotherapists in small groups and in individ-
ual interviews. In so doing, she was able to evaluate the gener-
alizability of her penultimate lenses, refine them further, and
create a theoretical model for future investigation.
Rosemarie Anderson
Efficacy Validity
Efficacy Validity refers to the capacity of a study and its report
as a whole to give more value to one's own life. Convention-
ally, a study is considered important to understanding and the-
ory if it can be replicated in other situations, especially similar
situations. However, in the human sciences, I believe that most
researchers value a study if they resonate with the reported
findings and the findings give their own lives more meaning,
value, and understanding. Specifically, when 1 read a study, 1
am both researcher and ordinary person trylng to make sense of
my life. Sometimes, a terrific study merely gets me thinlung in
new ways, asking questions of life that 1 never asked before.
Much of good research, especially ground-breaking research, is
more about the creative jumps and insights than about con-
structing theory upon anotheitheory one building block upon
another. Therefore, research that inspires, delights, and prods
us to insight and action is at least as valuable to the scientific
enterprise as more technical reports that will inevitably follow.
Efficacy Validity supports the notion that a reader of a re-
search report will change as a result of encountering the find-
ings. The same could be equally said of the researcher and re-
search participants, as I have said above. Therefore, a study is
high in Efficacy Validity if it answers affirmatively to such
questions as:
1) Was the researcher transformed in the course of conduct-
ing the study? is the reader, as he reads?
2) Did the researcher gain more compassion and depth of un-
derstanding in the course of the study?
3) In reading the report, do readers gain compassion and
depth of understanding about themselves, the topic, or the
world?
 334 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fa11 2004
4) Is the research report written with such clarity and authen-
ticity that readers feel that they know the researcher per-
sonally?
5) Does the study provide a new vision for the future?
6) Are readers inspired by the findings and the vision pro-
vided by the study?
7) Are readers moved toward action and service in the
world?
Future Directions for Intuitive Inquiry
I created intuitive inquiry in order to "carve" new space or ca-
pacity within the scientific enterprise to employ intuitive proc-
esses. The formative stage of developing intuitive inquiry is
complete and I feel rather like a parent watching a child gradu-
ate from high school. It is time for me to let go, watch how the
method is used and shaped by others, and listen to the voices of
researchers new to intuitive inquiry. While intuitive inquiry is
only eight years in development, the seeds for intuitive inquiry
were sown over 50 years ago when I was gymnast and learned
that a net and a spotter helped me to risk. I was a better gym-
nast for the help of the net and spotters that caught me. In like
manner, the five interpretative cycles of intuitive inquiry repre-
sent the supportive structure that guide and hold the creative
research process of intuitive inquiry. The cycles invite re-
searchers and research participants-and eventually users of
the research findings-to confidently inhabit their intuitive
ways of knowing and to interpret for themselves the visionary
perspectives suggested by the data. Within a positivistic para-
digm of current science, doing so is risky business and re-
searchers need support and encouragement. I developed intui-
tive inquiry to help fill that need. Each interpretative cycle has
a unique purpose and I hope that future intuitive researchers do
nor skip any of the cycles in interests of time and expedience.
That said, I trust that intuitive researchers will adapt the
Rosemarie Anderson 335
method and procedures idiosyncratically to optimize their own
intuitive styles, blend the procedures with both qualitative and
quantitative methods, expand procedures to new applications,
and evolve it farther than I have taken intuitive inquiry so far.
In many ways, the development of intuitive inquiry has
been an intuitive inquiry in its own right, cycling in and out of
my own research entanglements and those of my supervisees-
and it is been great, good fin. It has been fill of spontaneity,
serendipity, and auspicious bewilderment. 1 never quite knew
what would come next-and, frankly, I did not care. Similarly,
the spaciousness and permission given by intuitive inquiry in-
vites a discourse in science that positions researchers, together
with others, at the leading edge of that which is visionary, in-
spiring, and new in the realms of ideas and theory.
Specifically, a promising aspect of intuitive inquiry is its
capacity to synthesize prior theory and research on a topic and
render theoretical integrations in Cycles 4 and 5. It is not pos-
sible to do intuitive inquiry well without maintaining a big-
picture perspective throughout the research process. Therefore,
intuitive inquiry encourages theory building because the
method does not allow for a reductive perspective. The insis-
tence of the interpretative cycles to stay close to intuitive
promptings is not an easy path to travel, as Euro-American cul-
ture tend to suppress intuitive processes and body-based know-
i n g ~such as proprioception and kinesthesia. Nonetheless, be
brave! This deep listening and witnessing to intuition in re-
search has the capacity to unfold into new ways of theorizing
and envisioning that are closer to lived experience than do the
rationalistic styles that dominate much of world culture and
scientific discourse. The iterative cycles of deep listening and
witnessing expand into theoretical formulations over time in a
manner akin to Eugene Gendlin's (1991, 1992, 1997) descrip-
tions of "thinking beyond patterns."
In the late 1960s, Abraham Maslow (1968, 1971) recom-
mended that we explore the farther reaches of human experi-
ence by studying those individuals who had self-actualized
their potential the most. Similarly, intuitive inquiry encourages
336 The Humanistic Psychologis!, 32, Fall 2004
the actualization of the researchers' capacity to envision crea-
tive possibilities that are nascent in what they are gleaning
from their research participants and their own impressions. The
intuitive researcher is both a scientist and an artist.
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' I gratefully acknowledge and thank the students, faculty, and
staff at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology who have
provided the ongoing collegial support for developing intuitive
Rosemarie Anderson 34 1
inquiry. Special thanks go to Jay Dufrechou, Vipassana
Esbjorn-Hargens, Constance Fischer, Aurora Hill, Sharon
Hoffman, Genie Palmer, and Cortney Phelon who provided
valuable suggestions to earlier drafts of this article.
My colleague William Braud and I have often discussed the
nature of intuition in research and I wish to acknowledge and
thank him for his contribution to my understanding of the na-
ture of intuition.
An extensive discussion of empathizing as used by great art-
ists and scientists can be found in Root-Bemstein and Root-
Bemstein (1999).
Author Note
Rosemarie Anderson, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at the
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Her current interests
include psycho-spiritual development fiom the perspective of
the body, measuring body awareness and body image sche-
mata, and research practices that cultivate the epistemologies
of the heart. She is author of Celtic Oracles and m-author,
with William Braud, of Transpersonal Research Methods for
the Social Sciences: Honoring Human Experience. Rose-
marie lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Please send comments and copies of intuitive inquiries to
randenon@itp.edu or the Institute of Transpersonal Psychol-
ogy, 1069 East Meadows Dr., Palo Alto, CA 94303.

Healing Presence in the Psychotherapist
ABSTRACT: Throughout graduate school I felt compelled
to become a fine psychotherapist. Implicit in that motivation
was my curiosity about what makes a psychotherapist effec-
tive. My curiosity was inspired by my experience with one
therapist who helped me activate profound transformation.
After identifying intuitive inquiry (Anderson, 1998, 2000,
2004) as my research method, I explored that experience
through meditation, (reading, and conversation and eventu-
ally identified her healing presence as the core quality that
differentiated her from other therapists I had known.
Though technique and experience are important, 1 sensed
that it was her healing presence that allowed her to use
technique and experience skillfully. Throughout Cycle I of
intuitive inquiry, the "text" that claimed me was my per-
sonal experience of her healing presence, her ability to be
present, to connect with me, to see me, and even, to love
me. Through intuitive inquiry, I was able to expand my un-
derstanding of the healing presence of a psychotherapist to
incorporate the experiences of many others.
Cycle 1 : The Claim of the Text
In Cycle 1, I explored my own experience of healing pres-
ence by meditating, writing, and reading written accounts of
presence by psychotherapists and healers (Breggin, 1997;
Gilje 1993; Jung, 1933; May, 1939; Monkhem, 1992;
Rogers, 1961). I attended to and documented inner sensa-
tions of resonance and dissonance with the accounts of oth-
Cortney R. PheZon 343
ers. As I read, it became clear to me that the body of litera-
ture on presence would benefit from a focused and distilled
version of the many writings on healing presence. This re-
alization fit Anderson's criteria for a "focused research
topic" (2000, p. 36), and was the outcome of Cycle 1. The
research goal of the study was to identify the qualities of
healing presence in psychotherapists, and how those quali-
ties are expressed in the context of psychotherapy.
Cycle 2: Initial Lenses and Model of Healing Presence
In Cycle 2, 1 completed the traditional review of literature
and, in addition, extracted resonant and dissonant quotes
about presence as an effort to document my pre-
understandings of the topic.
In the literature review I traced presence through multiple
traditions. Existential philosophers Martin Heidegger (1972,
1996) and Maulice Merleau-Ponty (1948, 1962) were read
for perspectives on Being and Existence. Spiritual teachers
in Dzogchen (Norbu, 1996) and Zen Buddhism (Nhat Hanh,
1995; Suzuki, 1993) were reviewed for practices and per-
spectives on developing presence. Clinical writings on pres-
ence in psychotherapy included perspectives and techniques
for developing and using presence as part of treatment
(Breggin, 1997; Bugental, 1965, 1978, 1987; Freud,
199111912; Gendlin, 1964, 1981, 1991, 1996; Jung, 1933;
May, 1939, 1958, 1973; von Franz, 1993; Welwood, 1996).
Empirical research on presence in psychotherapy lent addi-
tional accounts of presence in action (Fraelich, 1989;
Pemberton, 1976). Innovative researchers in nursing docu-
mented dimensions of presence in the care of patients
(Gilje, 1992, 1993; Monkhem, 1992; Parker, 1992). Bruce
Hardy explored presence in pastoral counseling as an exten-
sion of one's connection to God (1992). Throughout these
varied sources, I found remarkable similarity among ac-
counts of presence.
 344 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
When I began this project I wondered whether there would
be enough literature on the topic of presence and soon dis-
covered an abundance of sources. It was not possible to re-
view them all in depth for Cycle 2, so I developed three
procedural lenses for selecting among available texts. Texts
identified for careful examination in Cycle 2 were those that
offered a I) novel perspective, 2) communicated presence
clearly, and 3) variety. The lens of novel perspective al-
lowed me to include texts written by psychotherapy clients
and therapists, nurses and patients, teachers and students. In
other words, I sought understanding fiom many voices. The
lens of clear communication served to screen out unclear or
incomplete accounts of presence. The lens of variety
screened for a balance between texts that were empirical,
experiential, or theoretical. This helped to contain the study
and ensure that asample of texts represented a wide variety
of perspectives. The total number of texts read for Cycle 2
was 55.
As I read texts for descriptions that were resonant or disso-
nant in relation to my own experience of presence I kept a
table of excerpted quotes--quotes that affirmed my experi-
ence, expanded my understanding, or challenged my per-
ception of presence. I read texts and extracted quotes until
the data were saturated, that is, until no new themes, either
resonant or dissonant, occurred in reading three previously
selected texts. Once data gathering was complete, I explored
the quotes for common, minor, and unique themes, and then
experimented with creating a theoretical structure that
helped explain the connection between various aspects of
presence. I spent time with paper and colored pencils, cod-
ing and diagramming the information contained in the
quotes. What resulted was a very thorough documentation
of my pre-understandings, in fact, an early model of healing
presence. Cycle 2 lenses are presented in the following ta-
ble.
Cortney R. Phelon
Table 1. Cycle 2 Lenses
Layer One: Foundations of P r e s e n c e A blend of psycho-
logical and spiritual maturity and ongoing growth
undergirds the creation of a healing presence. The
authentic
~.~ self of the therapist becomes a central re-
source and empathic "sensor" of what is occumng
within the self of the client and in the relationship.
Major Theme: Selfof the Therapist
Elements: (a) Sense of Integration and Maturity. (b) Confi-
A ~ n r ein
. Therapwtic Process, (c) Belief in Client-
Therapist ~ e i a t i o n s h i ~as a Healing Agent,
(d) Committed to Flow of Potential Sparked by Hu-
man Relationships, (e) Spiritual Practice and Belief:
and (n Acquired Competence as a Therapist and
Committed to Professional Growth.
Layer Two: Full Meditative Presence-The strength of this
level is determined by those items listed as founda-
tional to presence. These abilities are strongly con-
nected to the spiritual practice of meditation, al-
though not exclusive to that method.
Major Theme: Attentional Qualities
Elements: (a) Able to be Fully Present, (b) Sew-Aware,
(c) Commitment to Sev-Knowledge, (d) Present-
Centered, (e) Places No Conditions on Kho the Cli-
ent Is, and (n SelfAccepting. and SeFLoving,
Layer Three: Channeled into Connection-The self of the
therapist and the power of her or his attentional
presence is focused or directed into connection with
the client. This includes situations that call for the
therapist to be a very light or open presence, as op-
posed to a focused presence.
 346 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Table 1. Continued
Major Theme: Alignmenr with Client-relates to the client
as one human being to another with a fundamental ..- - -- -
-
equality or symmetry.
Elements: (a) Open o r Receptive (b) Able to Respond, and
(c) Appropriately Expressive.
Layer Four: individual Qualities-Therapists have a set of
unique skills of traits, including (a) interested,
(b) committed, (c) spirit of quietness, (d) transpar-
ent, (e) truthful, (f) wise, (g) attentive, (h) comfort-
able with silence, (i) listens, (j) desire to help,
(k) genuine, (I) affinity for client, (m) invitation.
.,
(n) unobtrusively warm, (0) exudes cornpassion, and
(p) nurturing.
Cycle 3: Resonance Panels of Exemplar Psychothera-
pists
My interest was not only in reading about presence, but in
discussing the topic of healing presence with exemplar psy-
chotherapists themselves. I used a networking procedure to
locate therapists who understood presence in their own
work and had experienced healing presence in their own
psychotherapy. Potential participants were briefly inter-
viewed to determine whether they were conversant about
their experience of the presence of the psychotherapist.
All participants were European-American, senior clinicians
who reported that they had, as clients, experienced the pres-
ence of a therapist. Most bad also experienced therapists
without presence. As a group, they were advanced clinician-
client exemplars ranging in age from 48 to 70 years of age,
who had practiced for more than 15 years. All participants
had also been clients in psychotherapy anywhere from 3 to
45 years.
Cortney R. Phelon
Us~ngthe procedures for Resonance Panels and resonators
developed by Anderson (1998, 2000, 2004), 1 then inter-
viewed two Resonance Panels of four therapists each and
~nterviewedfour individual therapists in their offices. 1gave
them copies of my Cycle-2 lenses (above) and asked them
for feedback about the adequacy of the Cycle-2 lenses in
characterizing the nature of healing presence based on their
own experience. Using conventional thematic content I
analysls ta review and organize transcript data, Cycle-2 I
lenses were revised according to the level of interest gener-
1
ated by resonators and with the language suggested by reso-
nators. What follows is a presentation of revised lenses,
wlth an explanation following in the next section.
I
I
Table 2. Revised Lenses
Alignment with the Client-The therapist's alignment and ,
halance
- - - with his or her self is extended to the client
as a fundamental equality or symmetry and can be
1
demonstrated through the recognition of common
human experience, understanding rather than inter-
pretation, and by learning to work within the client's
lexicon.
"There for met'-The therapist is able to be "there for the
client" in a way that transcends the assumption of a
professional role, or the application of a technique.
The therapist is able to "hold" the client; to stay with
the client's pace.
Integration and Congruence-The therapist aligns and co-
ordinates disparate aspects of self in order to pro-
mote
---
- ~a harmonious whole self. The therapist's inter-
nal experience and external expression match.
 348 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Table 2. Continued
Inner Awareness-The therapist has an awareness of her or
his internal experience and is able to attend to and be
informed by his or her own "resonance and resis-
tance" in the session. The therapist's inner awareness
also facilitates the process of differentiating between
inner experience and an intuitive experience of the
client.
Spiritual Practice and Belief-Integrated spiritual practice
and belief may help provide a supportive context in
which the therapist cultivates healing presence.
Attentional A b i l i p T h e therapist has the ability to be fully
present, to give full attention to the client, and has
found a personal method (curiosity, metaphor) to
monitor fluctuations in attentional presence and
thereby enhance or regain attention when necessary.
Commitment to Personal Growth-The therapist has a life-
long commitment to personal growth. Individual and
group therapy, supervision, and close personal rela-
tionships can help the therapist "become a better in-
strument" f i t the therapeutic work.
Kinesthetic Aspects of Presence-The therapist may have a
bodily awareness (kinesthetic intuition) of the cli-
ent's experience, and may use his or her body to re-
ceive, contain, reflect, or channel client emotions.
R e c e ~ t i v i G ~ htherapist
e is able to receive the client's
presence and all that he or she brings which involves
an inner sense of quietness, stillness, and the ability
to "not do."
Seasoning-The therapist's way of being changes over time
in response to shaping influences such as life expen-
ence, professional experience, therapy, and spiritual
work, that refine individual qualities of presence.
Cortney R. Phelon 349
Cycles 4 And 5: A Theoretical Model for Healing Pres-
ence
There were many changes to Cycle-2 lenses and what
emerged was a refined and streamlined version of the model
I had envisioned earlier. I was surprised to find that resona-
tors had focused on processes rather than qualities of heal-
ing presence. At the outset of the study, I had envisioned
my results as a static definition of presence, but the exem-
plar psychotherapists clearly described presence as proc-
esses within themselves and their lives not as a list of quali-
ties.
In keeping with language developed by Vipassana
Esbjom (2003, 2004), changes from Cycle-2 lenses to Cy-
cle-4 lenses are identified in this article as new, change, or
seed lenses. Two entirely new lenses emerged in dialog with
resonators. "There for me" emerged as resonators recalled
their own experience of working with a therapist with pres-
ence. Kinesthetic Aspects of Presence emerged as resona-
tors described how strongly they rely on their own kines-
thetic intuition to guide the work they do with clients.
Change lenses were numerous with significad progressions
oocumng in the following lenses: Alignment with the Cli-
ent, Integration and Congruence, Inner Awareness, Spiritual
Practice and Belief, Attentional Ability, and Receptivity.
Resonators made changes in language to simplify and ex-
pand upon my original conceptions of these lenses. Seed
lenses, those embedded in original lenses but nuanced by
resonators were: Commitment to Personal Growth and Sea-
soning.
Once final lenses were revised I began the work of un-
derstanding how they related to the original model pre-
sented in Cycle 2 and how they integrated with the existing
literature on presence. The advanced clinicians who served
as resonators significantly changed the language I had
originally chosen and had added some new concepts as
 350 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
well. The descriptions of the lenses themselves felt fuller
and more accurate.
As I sat with the revised lenses I noticed that resonators
had endorsed, with their attention, about three lenses from
each layer in my original model. I wondered if the revised
lenses might somehow fit into a similar model. Realizing
that the original layer names no longer applied, I expen-
mented with organizing the revised lenses info groupings, as
they related to onginal groupings. For example, I grouped
together Seasoning, Commitment to Personal Growth, Inte-
gration, and Congruence, and Spiritual Practice and Belief
because they had all originated in the Layer One lenses
from Cycle 2. These four lenses all gave me a sense of the
development and growth of the therapist as a person and so
I chose to place them together and name them Development
and Growth. I followed the same procedure for the remain-
ing revised lenses, grouping them as they related to the
onginal model fomulated in Cycle 2. These groupings are
presented in the following table.
Table 3. Theoretical Model for Healing Presence
Development and Growth
Seasoning-The therapist's way of being changes over time
in response to shaping influences such as life experi-
ence, professional experience, therapy, and spiritual
work, that refine individual qualities of presence.
Commitment to Personal Growth-The therapist has a life-
long commitment to personal growth. Individual and
group therapy, supervision, and close personal rela-
tionships can help the therapist "become a better in-
strument" for the therapeutic work.
Integration and Congruence-The therapist aligns and co-
ordinates disparate aspects of self in order to pro-
mote a harmonious whole self. The therapist's inter-
nal experience and external expression match.
Cortney R. Phelon
Table 3. Continued
Spiritual Practice and Belief-Integrated spiritual practice
and belief may help provide a supportive context in
which the therapist cultivates healing presence.
Qualities of Awareness
Attentional A b i l i p T h e therapist has the ability to be fully
aresent.
r 2
to -give full attention to the client, and has
found a personal method (curiosity, metaphor) to
monitor fluctuations in attentional presence and
thereby enhance attention or regain attention when
necessary.
Inner Awareness-The therapist has an awareness of her or
his internal experienceand is able to attend to and be
informed by his or her own "resonance and resis-
tance" in the session. The therapist's inner awareness
also facilitates the process of differentiating between
inner experience and an intuitive experience of the
client.
Kinesthetic Aspects of Presence-The therapist may have a
bodily awareness (kinesthetic intuition) of the cli-
ent's experience, and may use his or her body to re-
ceive, contain, reflect, or channel client emotions.
Therapeutic Alliance
Alignment with the Client-The therapist's alignment and
I
\i
balance with his or her self is extended to the client [
as a fundamental equality or symmetry and can be
! il
It
demonstrated through the recognition of common I ',
; .!
human experience, understanding rather than inter- !j
pretation, and by learning to work within the client's
lexicon. I.]
ReceptiviwThe therapist is able to receive the client's
10
I:/
presence and all that he or she brings which involves i!
an inner sense of quietness, stillness, and the ability
to "not do."
 352 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Implications for Training Clinicians
The exemplar clinicians in this study affirmed the recom-
mendation made by both Freud (191211991) and Jung
(1933), that the psychotherapist commit to a course of psy-
chotherapy as part of his or her training. They also endorsed
a commitment to personal growth as an aspect of cultivating
a Healing Presence. Inner Awareness is the ability to attend
to one's own internal experience and to work with inner re-
actions and resonance within a session. Exemplar clinicians
identified Inner Awareness as an essential element of Heal-
ing Presence. Supervision was envisioned as a way for cli-
nicians to offer Healing Presence to each other; to teach and
learn by example, identifying supervision as a place where
deeper levels of self-work can occur. They identified an "in-
tegrated" spiritual practice as supportive of Healing Pres-
ence and an "un-integrated" spiritual practice as detrimental
to the cultivation of Healing Presence. They warned that
Healing Presence could be cultivated without spiritual prac-
tice and not to include that as any requirement for the culti-
vation of Healing Presence. The overarching message from
exemplar clinicians in this study was "to never stop working
on yourself."
Implications for Theory Building with Intuitive Inquiry
Intuitive inquiry supports theory building with its ever-
widening circles of contact and dialog, paired with cycles of
integration. My own fledgling intuitions about presence
were brought into dialog with other authors who had written
about presence. My intuitions and experience came into
deep dialog with those who had felt compelled to explore
this topic before me. The meeting of those two entities iden-
tified my pre-understandings about presence (Cycle-2
lenses), which then moved into dialog with living exem-
Cortney R. Phelon
plars. The exemplar psychotherapists in my study radically
pruned and redirected my understanding of presence. They
focused on how they live with presence before they can
have presence as a psychotherapist. My next movement was
into a new level of integration, this time between the proc-
ess orientation of exemplars and my work in Cycles 1 and 2.
As I write now, I recall how demanding it was for me to ex-
pand with each new set of information and how satisfying it
was to feel closer and closer to an encompassing theory of
healing presence. Anderson (2000) describes my experience
when she writes that intuitive inquiry activates transforma-
tion:
In the best of circumstances, the hermeneutical process
avers the transformative.-nature of engaging with an experi-
ence that claims and compels the researcher to know and
appreciate the experience studied in increasingly subtle and
yet expanded ways as the inquiry continues. Often the re-
searcher is greatly changed and transformed by this iterative
hermeneutical endeavor; it can feel like an act of deep re-
membrance. (p.38).
References
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Author Note
Cortney Phelon, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist specializing in
work with children and families. Her work is centered in the
symbolic modes of art, play, and sandtray therapy. She has
a sustained interest in presence as a healing aspect of the
therapeutic relationship. Cortney can be reached at:
3717 Glenrock Circle, Raleigh, NC 27613. Email: cphe-
lon@mfire.com.
Emotions in Response to Nature as a Path To-
ward Wholeness
Jay P. Dufrechou
Montana Workers' Compensation Court
Global Program of the Institute of
Transpersonal Psychology
ABSTRACT: Using his own experience of grief in nature
as a starting point, the researcher conducted an intuitive in-
quiry (Anderson, 2004) into experiences of grief, weeping,
and other deep emotions in response to the natural world.
Written stories of 40 people, told in the style of embodied
writing (Anderson, 2001), were gathered and studied. The
primary interpretation framed by the researcher was that
experiences of grief, weeping, and other deep emotions in
response to nature represent moments in a process of psy-
cho-spiritual transformation capable of healing the splits
between mind and body, and between humanity and nature,
that are prevalent in contemporary industrial and post-
industrial societies. Additional interpretations, focusing on
the role of the body and embodiment, grief and weeping,
and nature and spirituality, are offered. Interpretations are
fleshed out with excerpts from participants' stories.
Subjective researchers often feel we do not choose the re-
search topics that are most meaningful to us: they choose
us. (Anderson, 2000). This research did not begin with a
consciously chosen question, but with an experience.
Early one morning several years ago, I sit to meditate.
It happened to be raining. As I direct attention to my breath
 358 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004 Sharon Hoffman

and try to quiet the chatter in my mind, I begin to hear the

ing the topic. Unlike some more traditional research meth-
rain in a new way. I can feel thousands of raindrops contact-
ods, intuitive inquiry suggested that I move ever more h l l y
ing the wood shingles above me. As I notice this, I began to
into those experiences, that I allow them to unfold and re-
weep. The weeping feels like an easing open, an accessing,
veal themselves ever more fully. In this sense, intuitive in-
even a remembering. As I begin to think about what is hap-
pening, I lose the experience, and return to what feels like quiry fosters a blending or simultaneity of the researcher's
life, the subject of research, and the very process of re-
thoughts in my head. A few moments later, I ease out of my
search: all of us part of an emergent, transformative process
thoughts and back into the rain, and the weeping returns,
whereby experience arises from the inside out and works
now with more force, with a sense of grief, longing and
itself toward conscious, verbal, analytical understandings.
loss. I later describe this experience as over-determined, full
From the beginning, I knew the study would involve
of many different strands of emotion and thought, some
the stories of other people who had experienced grief, weep-
relatively distinct, most feeling inter-connected. My desire
ing or other deep emotions in response to nature. Consistent
to understand this experience in all its aspects and more im-
with my hermeneutic of embodiment, I intended to solicit
portantly to follow the experience becomes my research.
embodied descriptions of experiences in nature. Part of my
Intuitive inquiry (Anderson, 1998, 2000) was the natu-
work with Rosemarie Anderson (2001, 2002a, 2002b) had
ral method for the research. Having studied with Rosemarie
involved the development of embodied writing as a means
Anderson in various contexts at the Institute of Transper-
to invite resonance with lived experience. As Anderson ex-
sonal Psychology, I understood intuitive inquiry as a means
to pursue knowledge emerging from the body, where the plains, embodied writing speaks from the perspective of the
body, entwining in words our senses with the senses of the
origin was not within the realm of words or concepts, but
world. In relaying human experience from the inside out
inside sensations, emotions, intuition. Because I wanted to
and attuned to nuance and detail, it acknowledges human
follow the experience personally as well as study it aca-
life as embedded in and of the world in which we live
demically, I was drawn to intuitive inquiry as a body-
(Anderson, 2001, p. 83). Developed as an alternative to sci-
centered, creative, potentiating process that seemed psycho-
entific and professional writing that seems parched of the
logically ahd spiritually transformative while it was also a
body's lived experience, embodied writing attempts to pres-
disciplined means to better understand particular topics. In-
ence' the embodied experience of the writer for readers as
deed, without understanding that a research method existed
they read (Anderson, 2002a, p. 40). The goal of embodied
to investigate not-well-understood human experiences, I am
writing is to allow the reader to lean into the experiences
not sure I would have recognized my inchoate experience in
described, even if those experiences are unfamiliar, to per-
the rain as a viable research topic. The topic I eventually
mit knowledge based in embodied experience rather than
recognized was: how does one understand experiences of
simply cognitive understanding.
grief, weeping and other deep emotions felt in response to
The following reports what I learned through cycles of
connection with the natural world?
intuitive inquiry. The first cycle involved my rumination on
With intuitive inquiry, I was not only permitted, but
the depths, meanings, and ramifications of my own experi-
also required, to proceed through my own subjective ex-
ences of grief in response to nature. The second cycle in-
perience, which allowed me to prioritize my embodied,
lived experience as the primary hermeneutic for understand- volved contact with literature I deemed relevant to the in-
quiry, culminating in the draft of interpretive lenses. In Cy-
 360 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
cle 3, I gathered and interpreted other people's stories. I
found my participants (30 women and 10 men, residing in
17 of the United States and four other countries) through
networking, particularly Internet networking with members
of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, based on the question:
Have you ever felt really connected with nature and found
yourself weeping, or feeling grief, loss or other deep emo-
tions welling up in your body? In retrospect, I feel astound-
ingly fortunate to have found 40 people who even knew
what I was talking about. Cycle 4 reports stories and inter-
pretive lenses, while Cycle 5 returns briefly to the literature.
Cycle 1 : What Ciaimed Me
As Anderson (2000, 2004) explains, the first cycle of intui-
tive inquiry involves the claim of the text, in my case my
own initial experience. When I began the research as such,
my understandings were general and in most ways amor-
phous. In retrospect, an honest way to frame my initial un-
derstandings and I would recommend this to other intuitive
researchers was in terms of what interests me about this
topic, or why am I doing this, or what is it that I think I al-
ready know in relation to want to know? In Anderson's
phrasing, these questions suggest why the topic claimed me.
From ihe outset, I understood five areas or pulls of the re-
search. These can be considered my initial lenses into the
topic:
1. The experience of grief and weeping in response to na-
ture seems to be part of a compelling and ongoing
process that seems transformative and healing; such
experiences seem to be pulling me somewhere that
would help me psycholog~cally,~spir~ally, and physi-
cally.
2. The experiences contain an intriguing jumble of possi-
bly inter-related, possibly distinct, not-well-understood,
emotions, yearnings, causes, and meanings; not under-
Sharon Hoffman 36 1
standing the distinctions and relationships is intellectu-
ally puzzling, slightly disconcerting, and pulls me to-
ward figuring out the relationships and deeper mean-
ings within the experience.
3. While these experiences are personal, they also seem
global; the experiences seem at least partially the result
of my fast-paced, predominantly urban-suburban, life-
style, which is also the dominant lifestyle of our cul-
ture, probably also spreading around the planet.
4. The experience is visceral, of the body, and not imme-
diately well-mediated by thought, yet I wanted to un-
derstand it analytically.
5. The experience feels spiritual.
Cycle 2: Reviewing the Literature and Stating Lenses
In the framework of intuitive inquiry, the second cycle be-
gins when the researcher re-engages the research topic
through a different text (or set of texts) to identify the struc-
ture and accompanying values the researcher brings to the
topic (Anderson, 2000, p. 36). The texts used at this stage
might include literature relevant to the topic, such as theo-
retical writings or peer reviewed psychological literature,
allowing this cycle to correspond in some ways to the litera-
ture review undertaken in many studies. In my study, I be-
gan gathering and considering academic literature and draft-
ing the literature review section for my dissertation pro-
posal. The scope of the present article permits only very
brief reference to the literature impacting my understand-
ings: that of the philosophical phenomenologists, whose un-
derstandings allowed me to conceptualize the body (and its
sensations and emotions) (Merleau-Ponty, 1964) as the seat
of preconcephlal experience (Husserl, 193611970) and trans-
formative, transpersonal potential (Levin, 1988), offering
resurrection of sensory and emotional participation with na-
 362 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
ture (Abram, 1996); that of psychologists pointing toward
embodiment theory, in which recovery of conscious pres-
ence in one's physicality, with fluid access to sensations and
emotions, and a sense of being in the world through one's
physicality (Toombs, 1993), both facilitates and evidences
psychological and spiritual growth; that of the eco-
psychological and deep ecology movements, which under-
stand alienation from nature to contribute to human suffer-
ing or grief (Glenndinning, 1994; Macy, 1983), and return
to nature as facilitating well-being, wholeness, and spiritual-
ity (Clinebell, 1996; DeMares & Krycka, 1998; Dowdall,
1998; Ruffing, 1997); that portraying grief as a multi-
layered, body-based process involving loss of the libido in
relation to a cherished object, perhaps layered over an origi-
nal loss of unconditional caretaking (Klein, 1940) or unme-
diated presence (Milloff, 1997); and that suggesting people
weep, cry, or shed tears for myriad reasons, some under-
stood as cathartic (Breuer & Freud, 189511955, spiritual
(Van ~ e u k e l e m ,1979), wonder-full (Braud, 200 1) or sacred
(Anderson, 1996).
AAer beginning consideration of the literature, I wrote
'
interpretive lenses as part of my research proposal. Con-
densed for present purposes, they are as follows:
1. The experience of grief in response to nature is pro-
duced by sensory connection with a specific manifesta-
tion of nature (e.g., a tree, a deer).
2. The experience is of the body, beginning with physical
sensations, such as warmth in the heart or weeping, and
heightening connection with one's physicality.
3. People who weep in response to nature feel part of an
inter-related web of nature.
4. Cognitive awareness of loss of connection with nature
can be involved.
Sharon Hoflman 363
5. Crying in response to nature is a relief, feeling like re-
lease from physiological tension.
6. Weeping in response to nature feels like coming home
to a lost (and better) way of experiencing the world.
7. The experience includes feelings of reverence, love,
awe, comfort, and being held, feelings associated with
spiritual or religious experience.
8. While weeping in response to nature starts with physi-
cal sensations, insight follows, that is, new cognitive
understanding or meaning.
9. Cognitive understanding of the experience feels famil-
iar and restorative of connections between mind, body,
and spirit.
10. Cogninve understanding of the experience candeepen
or extend the experience.
11. With reflection, the experience can produce shifts in
understanding of one's role on earth.
12. With reflection, the experience can produce an ordered
sense of relationship to what is beyond oneself, perhaps
yielding an earth-based theology.
13. Among some people, the experience of grief in re-
sponse to nature leads to changes in life circumstances,
for example, a move closer to nature, or a change in po-
litical views.
14. The experience may deconstruct previously held under-
standings or habits.
 364 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
15. Examination of the experience may yield insight into
the relationship of sensations, emotions, and thought in
a process of human change.
16. The experience may be understood through resonance
with descriptions of similar experiences.
17. Understanding of the experience is facilitated by focus
on sensory and emotional aspects and on individual and
personal details.
18. Meditation, quiet reflection time, andlor writing about
the experience, enhances understanding and continua-
tion of the experience.
Cycle 3: Gathering Stories
In the third cycle of intuitive inquiry, which corresponds to
the data-gathering stage of more traditional research pro-
jects, the researcher collects original texts bearing on the
topic (Anderson, 2000, 2004). While many cycle 3 texts
arise from interviews with research participants, mine were
the forty written stories (ranging from a few sentences to
' like a snapshot taken fiom a particular angle and focus. I
several pages) contributed by participants, most involving
some back and forth with me in which I encouraged writing
rich with sensation, emotions, setting, lived experience.
Reading the stories was a deeply moving, transformative
experience for me. Some stories highlighted or deepened
particular aspects of my own experience, while others re-
flected experiences that initially seemed new and different,
though almost always reverberated with my own experi-
ence.
From one perspective, I came to understand the stories,
including my own, as representing a range of distinguish-
able, but related experiences. In order to provide some
structure to the overwhelming amount of data, I grouped the
stories into the following thematic categories: ecological
grief; healing; feelings of insignificance; sustenance; long-
Sharon Hoffman 365
ing for deep sensory connection or harmony with nature;
experience of God through deep sensory connection with
nature; awareness of brokenness or loss of source; and re-
turn to experiencing oneself as part of nature. This was
never completely satisfying as most of the stories contained
elements suggesting their inclusion under multiple thematic
headings. More importantly, intuitive inquiry called for un-
derstandings, not simply thematic categorization.
Over time, I came to understand very deeply, in an em-
bodied sense, that there is a fundamental unity among the
experiences gathered for this project. The stories all speak
that we are one. In this sense, while I could separate experi-
ences of grief, weeping or other deep emotions in response
to nature into different forms of experience, illustrative of
various themes or understandings, the more deeply I under-
stood these experiences, the more they seemed to reflect a
unified whole.
From the outset of the study, I intended the stories to
become part of the research results, conveying a lived, em-
bodied sense of the topic. As I moved through various itera-
tions of interpretive lenses, I realized that each of my inter-
pretations simply represented one viewpoint into the whole,
realized that the stories themselves seemed better able to
suggest the whole, perhaps because they speak directly to
the reader's sensory, emotional, transformational self, which
grasps wholeness better than the separation-oriented ana-
lytical mind. On the other hand, I also realized that interpre-
tations facilitated conscious grasping of meaning, including
relationships among parts and between parts and the whole.
Recognizing both these truths, what I offer as results of
this research are interpretative statements, fleshed out with
story segments. While I wish I could give you all of the sto-
ries, the scope of this article requires me to choose and to
edit. While story segments are offered after particular inter-
pretations, please notice the ways in which most stories re-
verberate with other interpretations, suggesting a whole.
366 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Cycle 4: Interpretive Lenses, Fleshed With Stories
1. Experiences of gnef, weeping, and other deep emotions
in response to nature represent moments in a process of
psycho-spiritual transformation capable of healing the splits
between mind and body, and between humanity and nature,
that are prevalent in contemporary industrial and post-
industrial societies.
And now there I stood, gazing into the face of a young
deer, many years and defensive walls separating me
from the barefoot child I had been. I hoped this quite
beautiful creature wouldn't dash away. m e n it con-
tinued to calmly look at me with interest and with no
fear, I began to sob. In the minute I spent in tears, I
recognized how far removed I was from who I was
supposed to be ...I felt lostf far away from some right-
ful home. As my crying lessened, I tried to take in the
beauty and peacefulness. My body felt lighter, as
though a release of some sort had occurred.
--- Dana, New Jersey
Walking due west on a cold winter's day in London,
along the street where I live, the sight of a winterflow-
ering cherry hit me in the chest. The sudden awareness
of the pale pearl-like blooms against the black bark of
the trunk came as a physical blow to my body, for the
sheer perfect beauty of the tree revealed itselfto me not
as a mental experience but one of the body. A physical
experience. For a single moment, the tree and I shared
in its creation. --- Jenny P. Lee, London
2. Deep resonance with nature facilitates healing of per-
sonal emotional suffering or wounds, affording an experi-
ence of unconditional love and belonging.
Sharon Hoflman 367
There is a small trail that cuts along the side of a
mountain and leads into a forest thick with pines and
firs. Before me is an outstretch of seeming wilderness.
When I am sad, afraid or at a loss for what to do, plod-
ding my feet on the raw earth helps me to hold onto or
figure out a next step. I walk for awhile and then the
tears come. The woods are a good place to cry. I think
what allows me to touch my sadness so deeply is that
within this environment, I feel unconditionally loved
and accepted; I feel that I belong. Somehow I realize
that I am of this same immense mystery as the trees, the
rocks, the grasses, the flying ones and the four-leggeds.
-- Jeannette, Helena, Montana
3. Some people gneve, and sometimes cry, in response to
awareness of human degradation of nature; these feelings
may include pain, sorrow or anger and may point toward
action.
During the early 80s, I made a regular practice of run-
ning in the green rolling hills of northwestern New Jer-
sey. Around that time, I had been reading some par-
ticularly alarming reports of environmental devasta-
tion. One gorgeous, sunny, blue sky day, I was running
across the golf course, surrounded by lush green trees
waving hypnotically in the breeze. Halfivay down an
open fairway, the grief hit me suddenly. I wept as I ran,
not only for the environmental and animal devastation,
but also for humanityk immense spiritual vacuum, ig-
norance and stupidity, which allows the devastation to
occur. I kept running as I began feeling more and more
released from the repressed sorrow, tears streaming
down my face. --- Ralph Litwin, New Jersey
4. Experiences of grief, weeping, and other deep emotions
in response to nature may involve a deep sense of bodily
longing to live in greater resonance with nature, which may
lead to changes in life circumstances (moving into nature)
368 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
and transformation in experience of self; this may be simul-
taneously felt as a pull toward God or spirit.
'2 we began the ascent up the green hills of Highway
92, I was in awe of the simple beauty previously un-
known to me. It was a sunny afternoon, with light play-
ing through the branches of the eucalyptus and cedar
trees. I felt that I could breathe for the first time in
memory. As my lungs expanded, I felt my body as less
cumbersome, as zf I were filled with light and air rather
than some dense, impermeable material. Then I felt my
throat tighten with unexpressible emotion and a sweet
longing for something unnameable. Weeks later, I sat
in the office of my spiritual director, looking out the
window at the sun on the leaves, watching the incessant
Santa Clara Valley traffic. I cried as I told him of my
deep longing for contact with God. I said I could only
find God by the ocean. Months later, we moved into a
home by the sea." --- Grace, California Seacoast
5. Deep sensory or emotional connection with nature is
sometimes experienced as connection with the wholeness of
life, spirit, or God, experienced in the body.
When I was about seven or eight, I had a magical ex-
perience that led to an even deeper connection with na-
ture. It was a late summer morning and the sun was
rising. The shade from the swaying trees in our
neighborhood tall pines, oaks, and a lovely sugar ma-
ple cast a lazy chill that spilled onto the yard and into
the street. All of my senses were enticed the air smelled
deliciously of morning dew and fresh cut grass. The
blue sky pierced through the green canopy. The birds -
robins, sparrows, bluebirds, cardinals, blackbirds all
sang hymns in the delicate branches of the trees. A
propellor plane moved through the sky with a soft hum.
I looked up, closed my eyes, and breathed the day into
my soul. I was aware for the very first time that I was
Sharon Hoffman 369
alive. I was filled with bittersweet joy and a sort of re-
membrance of the connectedness of everything. The
moment was new, and yet ancient. I felt a birth of gen-
tleness inside me. I believe that moment shifted my en-
tire perception of life: my heart broke wide open that
day, for that was the day I was introduced to God. ---
Jaene Leonard, New York City
6. Nature reminds some people of the imperfection of
earthly life or the loss of wholeness and unconditional love
associated with God, sometimes triggering tears.
December 29, 2000. I am sitting at White Rock Lakeit
is a wonderfully bright day, the kind of bright that
seems to happen when the air is crisp and cool and the
sky is that crystalline-jightest blue color with only the
occasional billowy cloud passing by and the winter sun
shines and everything is just a little bit brighter and
more clear. There' is a slight breeze, my hands are
cold, axd I am crying. I think because on days like to-
day, sitting in nature, I can almost feel G o d h presence
and thefeeling overwhelms me. A mixture of conflicting
emotions seem to rise to the surface all at once won-
derment and joy tinged with great sadness and the
tears.start flowing. I think, for me, the feeling of GodLb
presence in nature leads to tears because in sensing
Gods absolute love and perfection, I am more acutely
aware of my failures and imperfections. It is that oppo-
sites thing again in being aware of one part, I am, at
the same time, more aware of its opposite. -- Lisa
GraifJ: Texas
One summer I was walking frequently in a metro park
near my home. I often noticed a huge old maple tree
near the path and would silently greet the grand old
beauty with a Namaste as Ipassed by. One day, I felt
compelled to stand with my back against the wide
trunk. I stood there for a time, feeling such peace, con-
370 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
tentment and stillness. When I walked away, I felt over-
come with tears and a feeling that I can only describe
as pure love. The tears were of joy that one only sheds
in a divine connection, but I was also experiencing sad-
ness and overwhelming grief: I believe the grief was the
feeling of loss one has when one becomes separated
from the Divine. -- Elaine Gallovic, Ohio
7. A strong sense of gratitude for life may arises through
deep connection with nature; this may or may not be experi-
enced as gratitude toward God.
"Sitting on a clzflin southern central Missouri, I began
to cry. These were not tears of sorrow, nor joy, really.
As I sat there alone, what was one moment just some
trees, pastures, and a small river came together and
revealed itselffor what it truly is. I was taken aback.
The first instant was realization, the second was a
complete assessment of everything I had ever done in
all my life, which only took the time of one inhalation
of breath. After that, the only thing I could feel was
gratitude. All my thanks, my tears full to the brimming
with the love, fear, anger, sadness, joy, and pain, and
with gratitude for all of my life, and the lives of those
who made it all possible, from beginning to end fall to
the ground. Those seemingly insignificant drops of wa-
ter then sink into the soil, disappearing from sight, re-
joining Nature, that which made it all possible. -- Ryan.
Missouri
8. Deep sensory or emotional connection with nature may
ease fears of death, perhaps because onens individual life
begins to feel, viscerally, indistinguishable from wholeness
of all earthly life.
My husband and I were driving south along Flathead
Lake. It was the time of evening when the sky is light
and all other things are black. Our kids were asleep in
Sharon Hoffman 37 1
the back of the station wagon. We had been listening to
classical music on the radio and enjoying the evening. I
was not thinking about anything in particular when I
looked out the window and saw a V of ducks, perfect
silhouettes against a silver sky. I instantly felt that
when I die I will fly with the ducks and, somehow, know
all that I need to know. That memory has been a great
comfort to me during tough times. It has greatly re-
duced my fear of death. -- Susan Gray, Montana
I have often thought, and said, that I want to die out-
doors. Put me under a tree in the sunshine or under the
night sky, buut get me outside. When ih in Nature, I
feel secure, at home, because I feel how many living
things are all around me. Small in nature, most of
them, nevertheless, they have LIFE coursing through
them. Therefore, we are related; we are the same; I am
not alone. I am surrounded by LIFE. ... GOD is there in
all that life and I am safe because of it.... --- Linda
Carroll Hasler, Tennessee
9. Cognition or analysis during an experience of deep emo-
tional connection with nature may halt the experience, but
developing meaning and understanding of the process
seems part of its natural flow.
I drove in the mountains, being adventurous. I saw a
mountain covered in a golden veil and slammed on the
brakes. I knelt at the presence of the mountain. Hum-
bled, truly humbled. Awe. Just stared. Then, emotion-
ally, a lot of turmoil again. Unworthy. What have I
missed all my life? Angry that I have always been so
busy doing instead of enjoying. Sad for all those cars
that were rushing by me. I never cried so much in my
l f e...I mourned for myself throughout the day.... I was
thankjiul I did not let the analytical Laura kick in.
Later, at my oflce, Ijournaled it. Oh my gosh. Oh my
372 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
gosh. You've got it, now run with it and don't look back.
--- Laura Huber, Illinois
10. If we use experiences of deep emotions in response to
nature to lead us back to our bodies and to nature, and in so
doing lift our repressions against experiencing wholeness,
unity and connection, we may recover a humanity capable
of preserving rather than destroying the earth and its inhabi-
tants, including ourselves. Such recovery could foster return
to a nature-based spirituality, seeping up from the earth
through the body, not down through culture, and thus re-
turning through us, to culture, the restorative, balancing,
equilibriums of nature.
Although the tears are more quiet now, there were
times in my life when seeing God in nature produced a
torrent of emotion. The sobbing could last for many
minutes and seemed to impact me for weeks. This felt
like a remembering of God and a remembering that I
could live in harmony with G o d h work, the planet.
This memory became a feeling in my body, an orienta-
tion that movedfrom the inside out into the world. It
has changed the way I live my life and the way I under-
stand all that happens around me, including the present
violence so prevalent in the world."-- Author
Cycle 5: Return to the Literature
The fifth cycle of intuitive inquiry asks the researcher to
reevaluate the theoretical and empirical literature in light of
the research (Anderson, 2004). Consistent with my under-
standing that "we are one," I now see the various literatures
that I considered to reflect different aspects of one trajectory
that is available to humans: returning to experiential whole-
ness within the matrix of nature through following one's
emotional responses to nature, including grief--perhaps the
most direct bodily recognition of lost wholeness. The study
gives life to the transpersonal framework best articulated by
Sharon Hoffman 373
Levin (1988), through which a preconceptual experiencing
subject allows movement toward transpersonal experience,
including. "experiences of integration into the natural ele-
ments or strong identification with them," leading to "bodily
belonging to the earth" (p. 301, 302). Also illustrated are
the ways in which some people suffer for lack of connection
with nature (Glenndinning, 1994) and the sense of well-
being and wholeness offered by experiential participation in
nature offers (e.g., Clinebell). The process of embodiment
as felt-sense of presence through physicality (Toombs,
1993) is suggested. Finally, the study illustrates the idea of
Milloff (1997) that all grief reverberates around the experi-
ential "loss of access to an immediacy of experience or be-
ing, free from psychological constructs" (p. 5). Experiential
access to nature, our original matrix, helps restore that es-
sential immediacy of being.
Contributions And Challenges Of Intuitive Inquiry
Conducting a research project with intuitive inquiry feels
both extremely honest and extremely risky. The risk in-
volves the honesty. Because this is subjective research, the
main thing I have offered is my own projection into the sub-
ject. While projection in this fashion risks not being useful
fhr much more than a case study of the researcher, it offers
the possibility of renewing the range of human experience
from the ground (body, earth) upwards. There are many im-
portant areas of human experience about which we, in cer-
tain traditions (such as academic psychology, even the hu-
manistic varieties), do not have much collective conscious-
ness. Perhaps we have merely forgotten. An intuitive in-
quiry allows us to start anew, from within ourselves, from
those sensations, emotions, intuitions, and instincts lying
beneath enculturation. Particularly in ages when encultur-
ation is so powerful, intuition may be our thread to our past,
from which we can weave our future. Regarding this par-
ticular study, intuitive inquiry allowed me to reinvent, fiom
the inside out, a way of experiencing ourselves as part of the
374 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
earth, not dominant over it. I happen to believe this may be
the single best way out of many, if not most, current world
problems: and the solution is more a felt sense from which
action naturally emerges than any form of analytical resolu-
tion to specific problems as such.
As I worked on this project, I sometimes asked myself
if I could have achieved the same results with a method that
attempted to remove the subjective. Even assuming it is
possible to remove subjectivity, I believe I could not have
ventured so far into what I needed to learn without the free-
dom to intuit. Many of my understandings were formed be-
tween the cracks of the stories and the literature. It was as if
the texts brought into play an unformed field, introduced me
to it, gave me tastes and textures and angles, but my own
particular humanity was required to convey the wholeness
suggested, rather than the pieces. Objectivity, perhaps, is
better suited to pulling things apart, with subjectivity
needed to restore connection and wholeness.
While I have enjoyed this subjective endeavor, the
process of subjectivity was often difficult. Like many in the
United States in the last century, I grew up in the context of
presumed objective truth, where claims of reality must be
justified with evidence, typically rational analysis that tends
to reduce and separate. Countless times I found myself
looking for themes in a way that reduced reality to separate,
supposedly objective statements, supported in the data but
which omitted the tendency to wholeness that emerges if we
free our body-based, intuitive subjectivity that is unique to
each of us, yet our common birthnght. The subjective proc-
ess is one that I am learning little by little and tentatively,
perhaps because of the breathtaking, and somewhat fright-
ening, nature of personal and spiritual freedom.
In the realm of intuitive inquiry, the personal and aca-
demic are both fueled by our human capacity for unfolding,
for transformation toward wholeness if we get out of our
own way. Through an intuitive inquiry, your life just might
change. In my case, what I learned combined with various
Sharon Hoffman 375
other life events and contributed to a move from Silicon
Valley, California, to the mountains of Montana. While
each of our paths are different, I hope you let your questions
rise up of their own accord and let them push you toward
those places you want to go. Most importantly, I hope you
go after things you don't understand, but that you know,
deep down, even dimly and with no assurance, just might
heal some part of you. Anderson (2004) notes that our
wounds can occasion new vision. As I followed my own
grief in response to nature, I came upon ways of being in
the world that transformed how and where I live my life.
And now, having finished this article, and with the warm
summer evening beckoning, I'm going out to hang with my
horses.
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Sharon Hoflman 377
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Author's Note
Jay Dufrechou, Ph.D., J.D. works as a mediator for the
Montana Workers' Compensation Court and faculty mentor
for the Global Program of the Institute of Transpersonal
Psychology. His academic interests focus on the role of em-
bodiment and nature in psycho-spiritual experience and
growth. He is also interested in transpersonal-
378 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004

developmental approaches to the study of organizations,

history, international relations, and globalization. He can be Living Stories: Modern Storytelling as a Call for
reached at P.O. Box 1066, Helena, Montana 59624- 1066. Connection

Sharon Hoffman

ABSTRACT: This article presents an intuitive inquiry into

storytelling using creative arts and media within the context
of modern culture. Taken from a relational and transper-
sonal perspective, the Living Stories style of personal story-
telling is explored and developed in response to the need for
connection expressed in t$e culture-at-large and to create
opportunities for transformation. The research question
asks, What makes storytelling elicit compassionate connec-
tion? The researcher engages in a creative and collaborative
storytelling process with 1 storyteller who shares her breast
cancer experience over the course of several years. The re-
sulting story is presented to 95 participants via an interac-
tive mixed media gallery exhibition featuring photography,
poetry, and music, and stations where feedback is invited.
Data includes questionnaire and creative expression re-
sponses from participants and researcher observation. Key
findings include (a) participant reports of participatory
knowing and transpersonal phenomena, including the ex-
perience of interconnection; (b) emotional narrative as an
essential storytelling feature; (c) photography as a visual
anchor; and (d) the story as inseparable from the act of sto-
rytelling. Study findings expand the storytelling definition
to include modern forms whereby the storyteller is not pre-
sent and suggest applications in television, film, digital sto-
rytelling, and community.

During graduate school, I sensed the cultural need to share

our meaningful, true stories to create connections and trans-
 380 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
form our relationships with each other. From the perspec-
tive of intuitive inquiry (Anderson, 1998, 2000, 2004), my
sense of storytelling as a call for connection was the initial
claim of the research topic.
As storytelling and intuition reflect similar processes,
the method is well-suited for the study reported in this arti-
cle. Similarities include: (a) bringing compassion to the
process, (b) utilizing intuition and creativity, (c) valuing the
unique voice of the individual, and (d) catalyzing social ac-
tion. Although most at home in creative and intuitive mode,
I find that the amorphous nature of these processes does not
lend itself easily to order and rigor. Specifically, intuitive
inquiry added a framework to the process and offered a rig-
orous way to capitalize on my intuitive knowing. Study
findings were the result of a long process of dwelling upon
the data, allowing information to integrate within me, and
noticing insights as they emerged over time.
This study explores modem storytelling using modern
media by utilizing a gallery exhibition to tell the story of a
woman who confronts breast cancer and her will to live.
While styles of storytelling vary greatly, the storytelling
style in this study: (a) honors rather than exploits the teller;
(b) honors rather than sensationalizes the story; (c) tells the
story with, rather than without, the teller's permission;
(d) utilizes heartfelt motivation to share the story rather than
bragging, revenge, or other non-heart-based motivation;
(e) is guided by an internal sense of truth rather than by ex-
ternal fact checking; (f) is conducted in a safe and trusting
environment rather than an unprotected and vulnerable one;
(g) relies on the storyteller rather than other sources to pro-
vide the story; and (h) invites the audience to interact with
the story and co-own the experience rather than view the
story distantly as voyeurs.
During the years prior to completing this study, I de-
veloped a storytelling process called Living Stories as a
remedy to the cultural call for connection and which I facili-
tate professionally as a storiographer. The storiographer is
Sharon Hoffman 38 1
the facilitator of the storytelling process and also the re-
searcher in this study. Living Stories is a collaborative and
creative way of engaging in meaningful personal storytel-
ling that expresses the teller's story from a place of authen-
ticity, creates connections through sharing the story with
others, and thereby creates opportunities for transformation.
While storytelling traditionally involves a storyteller recit-
ing tales to a live audience, Living Stories entails a story
told via modem media, such as interactive exhibitions, tele-
vision, film, and the internet, without the actual presence of
the teller. Storytelling itself occurs when the storyteller re-
lays the story to the storiographer during storytime; a ritual-
ized process of tuning into and following the unfolding
story organically, intuitively, and creatively; and during
subsequent presentations .of the story to a larger audience
without the storyteller present.
The study utilized Living Stories as the framework
through which to explore storytelling and served to further
develop this storytelling style for practical application as my
vocation. Due to the dual study purpose, a lengthy 5-year
research process ensued. The Cycle 1 text was a pilot study
that consisted of storytelling meetings with a woman who
shared her breast cancer experience with me, followed by a
,public exhibit of her story featuring creative materials that
resulted from our meetings. Text included written, drawn,
and videotaped responses from exhibit visitors. Pilot Study
1 was a personal exploration which was later incorporated
into the hermeneutic circle of investigation. The forward arc
of the hermeneutic circle, usually Cycles 1 and 2, entails
researcher articulation of topic understanding prior to en-
gaging the claim of others in the return arc. Due to the rela-
tional nature of the topic of storytelling, the study also en-
gaged the claim of others informally in Cycles 1 and 2. The
Cycle 2 text was a second pilot study that consisted of con-
tinued storytelling meetings with the woman who partici-
pated in Pilot Study 1, accompanied by records that tracked
our storytelling process. Pilot Studies 1 and 2 informed the
382 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
study design, carried out during Cycle 3. Cycle 3 text con-
sisted of collecting original empirical data via an interactive
gallery exhibition of the teller's story, featuring materials
prepared for the exhibit plus materials that had resulted
from both pilot studies. Data included questionnaire and
creative expression responses from exhibit participants, and
researcher observations. Cycle 4 included the final set of
interpretive lenses. Cycle 5 entailed a discussion of study
findings and how they related to relevant literature.
Although initially narrower in scope, the study ulti-
mately addressed five main questions: (a) What comprises
the art of storytelling? (b) What is the essence of storytel-
ling? (c) What makes storytelling elicit compassionate con-
nection? (d) What encompasses storytelling experience? and
(e) What engages audiences in the storytelling experience?
Relevant Literature
The historical view of stories as cultural artifacts has led to
a focus on content over process. The prevalent constructiv-
ist view posits that our narratives serve to make meaning of
ourselves and our world (Bruner, 1987; Cohler, 1991; Sar-
bin, 1986). Therefore, the story literature has neglected dy-
namic exploration of the act of storytelling. This inquiry
focused on expanding and enhancing the exploration of sto-
rytelling to include a relational and transpersonal perspec-
tive.
Storytelling is related to personal growth and develop-
ment, as well as individual and cultural transformation. In
particular, Stone Center research resulted in a relationship-
authenticity model of human development promoting em-
powerment through connection, counter to the separation-
individuation model (Jordan, Kaplan, Baker Miller, Stiver,
& Surrey, 1991). Personal storytelling is a natural means of
relationship formation; Living Stories emphasizes authen-
ticity and connection through collaboration.
In alignment with Whitehead (1 92911960) and Ferrer's
(2002) participatory theories of individual, communal, and
Sharon Hoffman 383
global change, this study extends the relational perspective
beyond interpersonal relationship to participation in trans-
personal phenomena occuring in collective consciousness.
Ferrer defined participatory knowing as a multidimensional
access to reality that includes not only the intellectual
knowing of the mind, but also the emotional and empathic
knowing of the heart, the sensual and somatic knowing of
the body, the visionary and intuitive knowing of the soul, as
well as any other way of knowing available to human be-
ings. (p. 121)
Cycle 1: Pilot Study 1, Initial Lenses, and Refining the
Research Topic
Pilot Study 1 served as the text of Cycle 1. The pilot study
consisted of storytelling &eetings with 1 storyteller over the
course of several months followed by a public mixed media
exhibition of the resulting story to 100 atttendees. The ex-
hibit featired black and white photographs I took of the sto-
ryteller; her poetry, paintings, and collage; a pre-
mastectomy breast casting of the teller; music she listened
to during chemotherapy; and hats she wore after losing her
hair. Attendees were given an opportunity to leave written,
drawn, and videotaped feedback during the exhibit.
Because I did not anticipate conducting a second pilot
study for Cycle 2, interpretive lenses were created at the end
of Cycles 1 and 2. Therefore, I spent time immersed in the
story experience, story materials, and feedback of the story-
teller, exhibit attendees, and myself. To extract my under-
standing, I asked myself, What do I know now? In the man-
ner of brainstorming, I wrote down whatever phrases auto-
matically came to mind about the storytelling process with-
out dwelling on or thinking about them. I put these in a list
format, then narrowed it to those views that most immedi-
ately and strongly claimed my attention. I identified nine
interconnected lenses to characterize my initial understand-
ing of the storytelling process used in Pilot Study 1: 1) con-
necting beyond the self, 2) the dynamic nature of stories, 3)
 384 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
story ripeness as the desire to share a meaningful story with
others from an inner place of authenticity, 4) storytelling as
sacred process, 5 ) storytime as a ritual to engage the story-
teller, storiographer, and audience, 6) storytelling as an act
and art form that occurs in the context of relationship, 7)
power of black and white photography to convey the story,
8) intuition as a story pathway, and 9) story expression in
creative form. At the end of Cycle 1, my research questions
was, What makes stories sacred? To address ongoing shifts
in topic clarity, I subsequently revised the question to, What
makes storytelling elicit compassionate connection?
Cycle 2: Pilot Study 2 And Second Set Of Lenses
The second pilot study entailed the continuation of the sto-
rytelling process and served as Cycle 2 of intuitive inquiry.
During the initial pilot study, trust and a close collaborative
relationship had developed between the storyteller and me.
Although cancer-free, her journey through breast cancer re-
covery continued 1 % years after the exhibition. The story-
teller agreed to culminate our continued collaboration with
another story exhibition, described in Cycle 3 of this report.
The storyteller and I first tracked our storytelling process
using three methods: (a) tape-recording meetings; (b) jour-
naling thoughts, processes, and insights; and (c) notating
specific storytelling experiences using a Process Grid, de-
veloped by Anderson (2000). The Process Grid proved frus-
trating and difficult to each of us, due to the requirement to
use linear thinking to describe intuitive processes. Alter-
nately, we set an intention to maintain a witnessing aware-
ness of the story and storytelling process as we worked to-
gether, tracking the emerging connections and insights in
our journals.
In order to generate lenses anew, I made a fresh list of
phrases that expressed my topic view. As in Cycle 1, I nar-
rowed the list to items that claimed my attention most
strongly and immediately, adding my accompanying
thoughts. Again, I experienced each lens merging into the
Sharon Hoflman 385
other, seeming more like a whole than individual elements.
1 experienced a breakthrough moment when my perspective
clarified into an image, shown next to lens 2. The following
lenses aligned with aspects of the image:
' I H ~ e r s o n a storytelling
l as spiritual longing. The basic
human thirst for connection is a spiritual longing.
Sacredness permeates-the storytelling process and
openness to mystery.
3 . b n internal sense of truth defines story authenticiv
rather than external facts.
4. Love transforms us. The core of storytelling is love,
symbolically represen'ted in the center of the image.
5.&ollaborative relationship as a catalyst for love. The
storiographer and storyteller form a relationship
stemming from compassion and trust for each other and
the story, which the story audience later joins and may
experience
h as loving.
torytelling is a transpersonal journey, attuning us to
spiritual essence and realization of our
transpersonal nature.
-participatory knowing flows through one from
sources beyond and interconnected with oneself:
1 Our stories are art, and art is powerful. Art is the
8 . y g or outer expression of the yin or internal sense of
truth of our stories.
9. L! Our stories are living. The dynamic nature of our
tories extend beyond the teller, audience, place, and
time to connect with other people, places, and times.
386 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Cycle 3: Data Collection and Review of Data
Cycle 3 involved collecting data via an interactive mixed
media exhibition of the teller's story presented to 95 re-
search participants. Both pilot studies informed the study
design and yielded story materials utilized in the exhibit.
Story materials included (a) written narrative, (b) paintings,
(c) a pre-mastectomy breast casting, (d) poetry, (e) photo-
graphs taken at various stages of the cancer process, (0 mu-
sic, (g) hats, (h) a collage, and (i) a voice recording.
The exhibit was held during a single weekend in a San
Francisco gallery with heavy foot traffic. Exhibit entry was
granted to those who agreed to become research partici-
pants, including the general public and those invited by the
storyteller or researcher; one-third were male. Participant
recruitment was accomplished through event promotion in
print media and via e-mail; the exhibit topic of breast cancer
was omitted to prevent participant bias.
The exhibit venue met goals the storyteller and I agreed
would create a good context for sharing her story: (a) win-
dows and natural light, (b) nature visible, (c) an artistic yet
homey feel, and (d) a public setting. The storyteller chose to
have minimal input into the exhibit planning and design.
Using my background in human environmental design, 1
designed the exhibit to evoke the sacredness of the teller's
story and maximize the likelihood of sympathetic resonance
in participants. Some of the design elements used to elicit
resonance were (a) the choice of an aesthetically pleasing
space, (b) a spacious layout of materials within the gallery,
(c) creative expression stations integrated into the exhibit
allowing for a sense of privacy yet inclusion, (d) near mu-
seum-quality presentation of materials, and (e) opportunities
to physically interact with story materials.
Exhibit participants were invited to take a quiet mo-
ment before entering the exhibit space. This simple ritual
was intended to introduce participants to the exhibit space
and set the tone for entering into storytime, a sacred realm
Sharon Hoffman 387
where they were free to become immersed in the offerings.
A voice recording of the teller and music she listened to
during chemotherapy were available to participants via
headphones. Signs invited participants to try on hats the sto-
ryteller had worn after losing her hair and leave responses at
creative expression stations. Stations included a table with
supplies for drawing or writing, a video camera for taping
responses (which no one opted to do), and a lounge chair
I with a music station and drawing supplies.
Data consisted of written and drawn creative expres-
sion responses left at the stations in the exhibit space and an
open-ended questionnaire completed by participants imme-
diately following exhibit attendance. Data analysis included
questionnaire data review, my aesthetic response to creative
expressions analyzed as Lndividual and collective audience
feedback, and my observations during the timefiame of
planning and holding the exhibition.
Data Analysis
Participant data consisted of 79 completed questionnaires
and 44 creative expressions. First, I read the questionnaires
in chronological order; jotting down thoughts, observations,
and recollections as I went along. My first questionnaire
"readthrough was intended to acquaint me with the mate-
rial-a way of letting myself begin to absorb it slowly with-
out the added burden of trying to make sense of it. Then, I
purposely released focus on the materials for the next sev-
eral weeks to commence an incubation period.
I read the questionnaires in reverse order during the
second review, hoping to notice trends by taking in the data
from a perspective varying from my first reading. I set an
intention to allow data synthesis and findings to form natu-
rally and effortlessly. I sought to be surprised. Findings and
interpretation of findings became an enmeshed process. I
took notes in my journal about each questionnaire, copying
sentences resonating within me and noting similar responses
that eventually (as the number of reviewed questionnaires
 388 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
mounted) revealed themes. As pages in my journal filled, I
experienced periodic spurts of insight about the topic. New
thoughts and ideas came into consciou~nessin what seemed
like a creative and synthesizing process of participatory
knowing.
About halfway through the second questionnaire re-
view, I sensed that being interviewed would help draw out
the analysis of data emerging from within me. A colleague
who was familiar with my research interviewed me in a lo-
cation in nature. The relational nature of interviewing paral-
leled the storytelling process of drawing out the story itself,
so it seemed like a natural fit. While some of the interview
yielded repetitive information, new elements of understand-
ing also appeared.
To synthesize the data, I outlined findings by theme,
often quoting from participants. Rather than asking myself,
"What do I know now?" as I had in successive cycles of
lens development, I asked myself, "What are the data say-
ing?" Rather than focusing on specific phrases or responses,
I felt immersed in the whole of the data as a collective re-
source. As I registered insights, I found that specific find-
ings often melded into each another, as though intertwined.
Synthesizing the data and preparing Cycle 4 lenses became
progressively more confusing. I intuitively took daily walks
in nature to catalyze this process, carrying a tape recorder to
capture illsights and breakthroughs as they occurred. The
process of reaching deeper understanding continued outside
of the walks in nature, as they effected a breaking loose of
consciousness that spurred the process.
Creative expression data were treated both individually
and as a collective audience expression. I used my aesthetic
response to access resonance and other aspects of participa-
tory knowing. According to art-based researcher McNiff
(1998), "The basic test of aesthetic significance is whether
or not the expression of another appeals to the person per-
ceiving it. This is a completely different measure of efficacy
than the conventional scientific criterion" (p. 172). Braud
Sharon Hoffman
(1998) noted, "Aesthetic feelings may serve as usehl indi-
cators of the validity of methods, findings, and conclusions,
as well as any conceptual models or theories developed
from the work" (p. 220). When I experienced a strong aes-
thetic response, my immediate internal sense was an affir-
mation that the particular creative expression captured a
deep truth about the story and teller and thus was appealing-
-as opposed to my personal aesthetic of finding a poem or
drawing pleasing in its own right. This sense of connection
to or alignment with truths of the story, storyteller, and par-
ticipant expressions possibly pointed to participatory know-
ing. My aesthetic response included surges of emotion, such
as the welling of tears, the sensation of tingling throughout
my body, and the experience of sympathetic resonance
(Anderson, 1998, 2000, 2004). Sympathetic resonance reg-
isters in my body as a vibrating sensation in my heart
chakra. According to numerous Eastern traditions, the heart
chakra is one of several energy centers in that body and is
located in the heart region. I have not compared notes with
other researchers who utilize sympathetic resonance to dis-
cover how they experience it. As the reader, you may ex-
perience sympathetic resonance as you read this and other
intuitive inquiry-based research articles, which would serve
as a measure of resonance validity (Anderson, 2004).
I experienced a simplicity and clarity in the overall
creative expression data in comparison to the complexity
and variation of the quesionnaire responses. The cohesive
mood of the creative expression data as a whole seemed to
define a particular aspect of the storytelling experience. The
aspect was elusive until I experienced a breakthrough in the
questionnaire data which led to the finding of emotional
narrative as an essential feature of storytelling. The break-
through came after a period of indwelling and incubation
during which I simultaneously held the strong, ineffable
moodiness of the collective creative expression data along-
side the varied thematic expressions of the questionnaire
data. The contrasting qualitative feelings eventually shifted
390 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004 Sharon Hoffman 391

from ineffability to a cognitive flash of insight which lent Table 1. Major Findings Organized as the Art, Essence, and
new understanding to my visceral experience. Following, Experience of Storytelling
came the realization that the creative expression data was a
collective response to the emotional narrative of the story.
Meta-Lens 1: Meta-Lens 2: Meta-Lens 3:
Cycle 4: Interpretive Lenses as Meta-Lenses What comprises What is the es- What encompasses
the 'art of storytel- sence of storytel- storytelling experi-
The meta-lenses serve as Cycle 4 lenses and address the ling ling ence
findings in three main categories: art, essence, and experi-
ence, as displayed in Table 1. The meta-lenses incorporate A. Motivation and A. Emotional nar- A. Audience en-
stance of love and rative gagement
more developed concepts from Cycles 1 and 2, as well as
compassion
new concepts. Findings are presented primarily at the meta-
level in this article due to length constraints. Accompanied B. Creative col- B. Interior and ex- B. Participant in-
by illustrative participant responses, the 3 meta-lenses of the laboration terior landscape sights and change
storytelling process are:
C. Story C. Congruence C. Participatory
1. The art of storytelling is comprised of six elements: (a) transpersonal ex-
Motivation and a stance of love and compassion, (b) periencehowing
creative collaboration between storyteller, D. Story Materials D. Authenticity
storiographer, and audience, (c) the story itself; (d)
story materials, (e) presentation of the story, and fl E. Presentation of E. Love and com-
experience of the storytelling. story passion

A notable aspect of the first meta-lens is the indivisibility of
the story itself from the art of storytelling-entwinement of
content and process.
Photography as the visual anchor. Exhibit participants
indicated that a powerful visual anchor-a visual depiction
of the teller and story in an aesthetically strong manner-
was vital to the storytelling. One exhibit participant com-
mented, "Her art helped me connect to the story, but her
face throughout helped connect it to a person, a living
woman." The photographs were continually referred to as
powerful and associated with conveying the emotional nar-
F. Experience of F. Creative col-
storytelling laboration
rative, particularly the vulnerability and anguish of experi-
encing and exposing a body ravaged by cancer and chemo-
therapy. A participant reflected, "The photos-all of them-
were incredibly moving. Powerful, forceful, clear. . . . Only
after I saw the nude photos of the mastectomy did I remem-
ber that my mother had breast cancer and a mastectomy (30
years ago)."

2. The essence of storytelling is comprised of six

elements: (a) Emotional narrative, (b) interior and
392 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
exterior landscape, (c) congruence, (d) authenticity,
(e) love and compassion, and fl creative collaboration.
Each of these elements is important to most of the storytel-
ling components defined in Meta-lens 1, thereby distin-
guishing them as a separate meta-lens.
Emotional narrative. Perhaps the strongest finding-
and a new lens-was the discovery of an emotional narra-
tive, as opposed to a factual narrative. The emotional narra-
tive delivered the emotional tone and depth of the story and
storyteller to the exhibit participants whereas the factual
narrative delivered dates, times, and other details about the
story events. As 1 participant remarked, "It was a deeply
personal telling." The exhibit included a lot of emotional
narrative and comparatively little factual narrative. Al-
though a number of participants expressed the desire for
more factual information, the emotional depth conveyed
through the storytelling was considered vital by many par-
ticipants. A participant explained, "Now I feel that I know
deeply her emotional and somewhat physical struggle,
which is interesting because I don't know much at all about
the specifics-I have depth, but not breadth-it's the former
that really matters."
Interior and exterior landscape. As I have defined it,
the interior landscape revealed the teller's inner psychospiri-
tual struggle and decision to live. It was the description of
her internal life, including emotions, thoughts, and attitudes;
whereas the exterior landscape was the detail of the teller's
outer life, such as physical appearance and surroundings
(which also conveyed emotional narrative).
Congruence. Exhibit participants showed a strong sen-
sitivity to congruence between elements of the storytelling
experience, including the exhibit environment and story ma-
terials. For instance, exhibit participants commented that the
environment provided a nurturing holding ground for the
story. When aspects of the physical environment did not
match the emotionally vulnerable tone of the story exhib-
Sharon Hoffman 3 93
ited, exhibit participants acted to correct the incongruence.
One notable example occurred continuously during the ex-
hibit opening night: participants closed the door to the ex-
hibit space to block out the noise from the exhibit reception
in the neighboring room. I interpretted these acts as in-
tended, in part, to rectify the incongruence between the
deeply personal exhibit story and the laughter and party
chatter of the opening reception.
Authenticity. Exhibit participants overwhelmingly
viewed the story and storyteller as authentic. The story-
teller's authentic expression of herself and her story-from
the heart, open, revealing, vulnerablethrough the story
materials was met by exhibit participants with resonance or
a sense of connection. One participant expressed, "I reso-
nated, felt, invited, knew I heard/saw a universal truth
communicated through [the storyteller's] story." Another
offered, "I felt sadness, empathy and a connectedness to [the
storyteller] because I had a similar experience. . . . All of the
emotions were certainly authentic."
Love and compassion. The pervasiveness of exhibit
participant responses about the presence of love and com-
passion throughout the storytelling process identified this
finding as an essential storytelling feature.
. Creative collaboration. The collaborative relationship
between storiographer and storyteller was evident to exhibit
participants, who often commented on what the relationship
conveyed to them and how it impacted their experience.
3. Storylelling experience is encompassed by (a) audience
engagement, (3) participant insights and change, and
(c) participatory transpersonal experienceknowing.
Participants indicated the storytelling created a wide array
of connections for them. Exhibit participants experienced
personal insights and change, and participatory and spiritual
knowing.
Audience engagement. The finding of audience en-
gagement gradually emerged over the course of data analy-
394 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
sis, through a combination of observational data and exhibit
participant data. Exhibit participants appeared to become
immersed in the storytelling through a series of stages of
increasing connection: (a) commitment, (b) attention, (c)
participation, and (d) ownership. I believe that a fifth stage,
interbeing or a sense of unity on some level, may occur in
succession to ownership, as reported by a few participants.
As exhibit participants committed to attending the ex-
hibit-by signing a consent form and then walking through
the gallery entrance-they focused their attention on the
exhibition. Most gave the exhibit their full attention, then
experienced the resulting pull of the emotional narrative.
The emotional narrative and participant movement through
the exhibit at a slow and relaxed pace increased story im-
mersion. Interacting with story elements and the exhibit en-
vironment transitioned the audience from observers to par-
ticipants in the storytelling process.
Participant insights and change. Most participants re-
ported personal insights from their storytelling experiences.
Often, the insights revealed a changed perspective, a step-
ping back and viewing oneself from within a larger context
than in normal, everyday life:
The story brought me back to an awareness of how and
who I want to be in the world and what really matters.
This made me focus on what's really important in life,
i.e. loving someone and feeling the same from the other
and not waiting for tomorrow to [sic] things that are
important.
A number of male participants lacked a sense of connection
with the storyteller but gained "the insight of what women
have to go thru [sic]." The following comment reflects what
a number of men conveyed: "I could truly empathize with
[the storyteller's] pain. But to be honest it was hard for me
to feel a connectedness with her."
Sharon Hofman 395
Participatory transpersonal experiencehowing. Re-
flections by a number of exhibit participants revealed ex-
periences, insights, or knowing of a participatory or spiritual
nature. For instance:
Those hats transported me into humanity vs. detached
observer. . . . I felt connected to [the storyteller], the
physical [storyteller], but only briefly. She became real,
but then she became an icon for cosmicidivine injus-
tice. In other words, she lost her individual identity and
became an image through which I received other reve-
lations.
We all seem to be connected to the same source.
We all may live in different bodys [sic] but in the end
we are all the same - I am the same as [the storyteller].
I was hit hard by the idea . . . that the body and mind
and all things are connected.
Some exhibit participants expressed intuition or possible
participatory knowing about the future. For example:
I find myself not wanting to write this but I had the
feeling that my partner would get breast cancer.
I felt it put me into the future, knowing that everything
is going to be 0.k.
Several expressed experiences with loved ones who had
died of cancer. Some of the language exhibit participants
used to describe such occurrences was remarkable in its
concreteness:
My friend . . . who died from breast cancer, was there
in the room too.
396 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
My mother died in my living room of brain cancer after
2 yrs of struggle. . . . It transports me to my mother's
side.
Cycle 5: Integration of Final Lenses with Relevant
Literature
Study findings reveal storytelling as a dynamic art form in-
separable from the story itself, as Georges (1969) suggested.
Storytelling includes qualities that narrative alone, as a sim-
ple depiction of events, does not. Story or narrative, as it is
considered in story research, must therefore be expanded
from its definition as a description of events to inclusion
within the context of the act of storytelling. Dewey (1916)
explained this concept, "There is no distinction of subject
matter and method. . . . When a man is eating, he is eating
food. He does not divide his act into eating and food."
Human participation in transpersonal and spiritual phe-
nomena is a creative, multidimensional event that can
involve every aspect of human nature, from somatic
transfiguration to the awakening of the heart, from
erotic communion to visionary cocreation, and from
contemplative knowing to moral insight. (p. 12)
Findings from this study allow for a shift in the constructiv-
ist paradigm to what could be calledparticipatory construc-
tivism. That is, we are not merely making sense of our own
lives through narrative interpretation but are also accessing
and cocreating transpersonal phenomena and achieving
transpersonal understanding or participatory knowing.
Relational theory, studied at the Stone Center (e.g., Surrey,
1991), which posits that connection through mutual rela-
tionship is critical to psychological growth, could be ex-
panded to include a transpersonal perspective. While re-
search shows that mutual empathy and mutual engagement
are important elements of mutual relationship, this study
found that exhibit participants experienced a high degree of
Sharon Hoffman 397
empathy and engagement with the story and teller--even
though not through mutual relationship/presence. Perhaps
storytelling that elicits connection in various ways fosters
psychological and spiritual growth in the individual and col-
lective humanity. Future research could address these con-
cepts.
Contributions and Challenges of Intuitive Inquiry
Intuitive inquiry invited and offered me freedom to live in
the mystery of intuitive processes and watch for, rather than
deduce, meaning-within the rigorous framework of this
research process. I found data analysis and the emergence of
findings to be fun and surprising experiences. Previously, I
had been skeptical about hpw much new information could
come through my persohal filter or interpretive lenses.
However, many concepts and phrases completely new to
my topic understanding emerged from the data. Emotional
narrative, congruence, and interior and exterior landscape,
for instance, were unknown to my thought process about
storytelling before collecting and analyzing original empiri-
cal data. I came to understand that the intuitive inquiry re-
searcher capitalizes on the blending of a unique, in-depth
immersion in and understanding of the topic--in a manner
similar to heuristic research (Moustakas, 1990)--with the
ability to see the data with a beginner's mind. An expanded
understanding of the topic emerges from an integration of
in-depth immersion with maintaining a beginner's mind.
One of the most difficult aspects of intuitive inquiry I
encountered was lens development. Thoughout the research
process, I struggled to understand what lenses were and how
to access, organize, and present them. I found it helpful to
identify my evolving perspective by asking myself, "What
do I know now?" at the end of Cycles 1 and 2 and "What
are the data telling me?" at the end of Cycle 3. I had ongo-
ing- and unresolved difficulty in calling out individual lenses
because I experienced my perspective as an intertwined and
indivisible whole. Various aspects of my perspective
398 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
blended into each other as I tried to separate them through-
out each cycle. The way I could best express my perspective
was often through an image or poem--evoking an essence
inclusive of more than a sum of parts.
I still do not know how to bridge this collision of intel-
lectual and creative worlds. In utilizing a creative and intui-
tive-based research method that capitalized on my natural
proclivities, it felt counter-intuitive, constrictive, and even
painful to funnel this process through my rational, left brain
in order to express my understanding in written form; like
trying to squeeze into a shoe two sizes too small. I think in-
tuitive inquiry positively challenges the intuitive inquiry
researcher and the research community to use creative
modes of expression of understanding such as current tech-
nology allows through, sound, digital video, and computer
animation and graphics.
One of the greatest contributions intuitive inquiry made
to the study was to increase the domain of practical applica-
tion of findings through requiring an expansive approach to
topic exploration. Whereas I was able to refine Living Sto-
ries in an exhibition format in process of my dissertation,
my vocational focus shifted substantially. Findings yielded
key principles and concepts I saw as applicable to storytel-
ling in a broader context. For instance, I concluded that the
findings of congruence and emotional narrative could be
effectively applied to media formats such as television and
film. This has led me to film a documentary as a direct ap-
plication of the storytelling process developed through the
study. Applying study findings to a collaborative filmmak-
ing process is a continually rewarding experience, allowing
me to bridge academic research with the lived world. In this
expansion I am able to contribute to the goal of social action
shared by Living Stories and intuitive inquiry and also in-
dulge my preference to reside primarily in my right brain.
From where this researcher stands, navigating the waters of
intuitive inquiry has been well worth the journey.
Sharon Hoffman
References
Anderson, R. (1998). Intuitive inquiry: A transpersonal
approach. In W. Braud & R. Anderson, Transpersonal
research methods for the social sciences: Honoring
human experience (pp. 69-94). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Anderson, R. (2000). Intuitive inquiry: Interpreting
objective and subjective data. Revision: Journal of
Consciousness and Transformation,22(4), 3 1-39.
Anderson, R. (2004). Intuitive inquiry: An epistemology of
the heart for scientific inquiry. The Humanistic
Psychologist, 32(4).
Braud, W . ,& Anderson, R. (1998). Transpersonal research
methods for the sosial sciences: Honoring human
experience. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bruner, J. (1987, Spring). Life as narrative. Social
Research, 54(1), 11-32.
Cohler, B. J. (1991). The life story and the study of
resilience and response to adversity. Journal of
Narrative and Life History, l(2 & 3), 169-200.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An
introduction to the philosophy of education (chap. 13).
Retrieved March 27, 2003, from
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/projects/
digitextsldeweyld elchapter1 3.html
Ferrer, J. N. (2002). Revisioning transpersonal theory: A
participatory vision of human spirituality. Albany:
State University of New York Press.
Georges, R. A. (1969). Toward an understanding of
storytelling events. Journal of American Folklore, 82,
3 13-328.
Hoffman, S. L. (2003). Living stories: An intuitive inquiry
into storytelling as a collaborative art form to effect
compassionate connection. Dissertation Abstracts In-
ternational, 64 (06), 2 150A. (UMI No. 3095413)
400 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Jordan, J. V., Kaplan, A. G., Miller, J. B., Stiver, I. P., &
Surrey, J. L. (Eds.). (1991). Women's growth in
connection: Writings from the Stone Center. New
York: The Guilford Press.
McNiff, S. (1998). Art-based research. Philadelphia: Jessica
Kingsley.
Moustakas, C. (1990). Heuristic research. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage.
Sarbin, T. R. (Ed.). (1986). Narrative psychology: The
storied nature of human conduct. New York: Praeger.
Whitehead, A. N. (1 960). Process and reality: An essay in
cosmology. New York: MacMillan. (Original work
published 1929)
Author's Note
Sharon Hoffman, Ph.D. is a storiographer, photographer,
and first time filmmaker of On Bodies, a documentary that
gives voice to women about body image. She also teaches
Couples Communication at Kaiser Permanente. Her inter-
ests include collaborative models of personal storytelling
through creative arts and media; and applications in film,
television, and community. Her goal is to transform the way
we interact with each other by creating deeper understand-
ing and awakening compassion. Sharon Hoffman can be
reached at P.O. Box 41071 1, San Francisco, CA 94141-
071 1. Email: sharon@livingstories.com. Website:
www.livingstories.com.
- -
The Union of Flesh and Spirit in Women
Mystics
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology
ABSTRACT: This study1 explores the experience of the
body for contemporary female mystics. It is an exploration
in how women mystics of today-those who have devoted
most of their lifetime to prayer, meditation, and spiritual
service-make sense of the body. What is the relationship
between spirit and body, God and flesh, for such women? Is
it a relationship of tension or even opposition, and how does
it evolve over time? These are some of the questions that
guided my investigation. The impulse to understand how
the body is experienced and understood by such women was
felt by me as both a longing to challenge, deepen, and refine
my awareness and understanding of spirit and the body,
specifically for women mystics. I also felt this as a burning
in the heart, an urgent desire to connect and bridge the lar-
ger world of matter and that of spirit, to inquire into that
dimension where flesh and spirit are not two, but one. I be-
lieve that this impulse to understand the relationship be-
tween body and spirit is both personal and quite possibly
collective. My hope is that this research will serve as one
step to further our collective understanding of human em-
bodiment.
My vehicle for this exploration was a qualitative re-
search method developed by Rosemarie Anderson (1998,
I
This report is based upon dissertation research (Esbjom,
2003) supervised by Rosemarie Anderson, Paul Roy, and
Kaisa Puhakka.
402 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
2000, 2004) called intuitive inquiry. Intuitive inquiry is a
method of research that invites the researcher to explore a
chosen topic, often one that has personal meaning, through
entering into several cycles of interpretation or engagement
with texts that are relevant to the topic of inquiry. As I wove
my way through literature on the body--Continental phi-
losophy to poststructuralism, Christian mysticism to Vajra-
yana Buddhism, feminist theology to conscious embodi-
ment, my own views on the body expanded, deconstructed,
and continually became more nuanced. Through this re-
search process I entered into a hermeneutic dialogue with
the mystics and scholars who have for centuries reflected on
human corporeality.
Literature Review
Since at least as early as Plato in the 5th Century B.C.,
Western philosophy has long grappled with the tenuous
mind-body relationship, a dialogue that is intertwined
within the tendrils of Christian theology. In the seventeenth
century Descartes' legacy of the body as separate from and
inferior to the mind was birthed, one that epitomized West-
em Cartesian positivism and shapes views of the body for
the next 300 years. Friedrich Nietzsche (188511982) pre-
sented a radical challenge to the ideas that Descartes had put
forth. Nietzsche instead suggests that knowledge is borne
from corporeal reality. He proposes the radical notion that
knowledge springs forth from our fleshly existence.
Other essential philosophers who helped shape our cur-
rent understandings about the body are Edmund Husserl
(19 1311962), Martin Heidegger (1962), and most notably,
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962). It was Husserl who first
constructed the presentation of Leib, the lived-body, and
posed it as an alternative and in opposition to Korper, the
purely physical body. A student of Husserl, Heidegger ar-
gues that it is not possible to separate the mind from the
body. Heidegger's position is that the world, including our
bodies, i s a product of our mind and mental projections. In
Vipassana Esbjorn-Hargens 403
Being and Time, Heidegger (1962) attempts to shift the
phenomenological approach to the body that Husserl pre-
sented into an ontology that is concerned with being in the
world. An important contemporary figure who elaborates on
the work of Heidegger is David Levin (1999) who explores
the constituents that make up Dasein, most notably the
"seasons" of embodiment.
Merleau-Ponty (1962) expands upon the later work of
Husserl, while drawing on aspects of Heidegger's presenta-
tion of being-in-the-world, to form his notion offlesh. We
know the body through reason and cognition. Reason is not
disembodied; it is an outgrowth of our embodied experi-
ence. Therefore, consciousness is always married to blood
and bones, the lived reality of tissue and flesh. Expounding
his theory of the lived body, Merleau-Ponty suggests,
Consciousness is being towards the thing through the
intermediary of the body. A movement is learned when
the body has understood it, that is, when it has incorpo-
rated it into its "world", and to move one's body is to
aim at things through it; it is to allow oneself to re-
spond to their call, which is made upon it independ-
ently of any representation. Motility, then, is not, as it
were, a handmaid of consciousness, transporting the
body to that point in space of which we have formed a
representation beforehand. (as cited in Welton, 1999,
pp. 154-55)
To Merleau-Ponty, the notion of flesh is understood as an
element, such as earth, fire, water, or air. Flesh is the root,
the principal, the general through which the particular
springs forth. Merleau-Ponty's elaborations on flesh de-
scribe a nondual perspective on body and spirit that privi-
leges neither, but instead mixes being with flesh in a matrix
that is both subject and object.
Growing out of Merleau-Ponty's work are contempo-
rary thinkers such as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
404 The Hutnanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
(1999) who write extensively about "embodied flesh." La-
koff and Johnson expand upon latent ideas within Merleau-
Ponty's work that speak to an emphasis on language. Chal-
lenging the traditional view of metaphor, Lakoff and John-
son suggest that it is through our embodied experience that
we form metaphors-up, down, high, low-and that how
we interact with the world then arises out of these meta-
phors. Lakoff and Johnson claim: "Reason and conceptual
structure are shaped by our bodies, brains, and modes of
functioning in the world. Reason and concepts are therefore
not transcendent, that is, not utterly independent of the
body" (p. 128). From this perspective, one could say that
language grows out of the body, given that metaphor is the
substratum between body and reason. This is an inverted
perspective from that of the postmodernists who argue that
the body is a text that requires interpretation. For Lakoff
and Johnson, as was the case for Merleau-Ponty, the body is
foundational.
Our notions about the body are also religiously and cul-
turally informed. Chnstianity reminds us that "we are in-
deed made in the image and likeness of God, a likeness
most perfectly manifested in the humanity of Christ"
(Milos, 1993, p. 194). At the same time, it is widely recog-
nized that a spirit-flesh dualism has long permeated the
Christian culture, particularly where sexuality, and often
where women (who are likened to flesh, while men are as-
sociated with spirit) are concerned. Elisabeth Moltmann-
Wendel (1986) reminds us that "Augustine put this very
aptly: for him emotionalism is flesh, rationality spirit;
woman is the embodiment of the spirit, and the relationship
between the two reflects the Christian world order" @. 85).
Christian perspectives that critique the spirit-flesh dualism
embedded in Chnstianity and aim to recognize our fleshly
embodiment arise from a number of often overlapping
fields-body, sexual, feminist, ecofeminist, and incarna-
tional theologies; Creation spirituality; Pauline theology;
and Christology (e.g., Chavez-Garcia & Helminiak, 1985;
Vipassana Esbjom-Hargens 405
Donnelly, 1982; Fox, 1983, 1999; Haughton, 1969, 1981;
McFague, 1987, 1993; Milos, 1993; Moltrnann-Wendel,
1986, 1994; Nelson, 1978, 1995; Ruether, 1993; Robinson,
1952).
Examining the Buddhist Pali texts, the Therigatha and
Theragatha, Kathryn Blackstone (1998) illustrates how
deeply imbedded in ancient Buddhist scripture is the belief
in transcending or denying the flesh. She explains: "the
body poses a powerful obstacle for those seeking the Bud-
dhist goal of liberation from all ties, from a delusory per-
ception of permanence and stability, and above all, from a
false conception of self as real and abiding in any tangible
sense" @p. 59-60). Throughout these texts the "foul" body
is described as a heap of blood, flesh, bones, and pus. It is
said to be impure, stinking of urine, and food for worms and
vultures. This starkly confrasts with writings that celebrate
our human enfleshment, like those found in Christian body
theology (Nelson, 1978, 1999, women's spirituality (e.g.,
Noble, 1991; Tomm, 1995), and Buddhist and Hindu
schools of Tantra (e.g., Feuerstein, 1998; Shaw, 1994).
Miranda Shaw's (1994) extensive research on women in
Tantric Buddhism illustrates an example of a full-bodied
celebration of God through blood, bones, and flesh. Shaw
especially articulates the necessity of bridging the split be-
'tween soul and body, and argues that Tantric Buddhism ad-
dresses these issues successfully.
Method
Intuitive inquiry was developed by Rosemarie Anderson
(1998) initially as a qualitative research method especially
intended for the study of transformative experiences. Since
the time she first envisioned and articulated intuitive in-
quiry, Anderson (2000) has revised and refined the method
to include a systematic process of interpretation that is in-
formed largely by hermeneutics. Further refinements to in-
tuitive inquiry are found in the Introduction to the issue of
the Humanistic Psychologist that includes this article
406 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
(Anderson, 2004). Providing a context for our discussion
involving hermeneutics, Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson,
and Eleanor Rosch (1991) outline the evolution of herme-
neutics:
The term hermeneutics originally referred to the disci-
pline of interpreting ancient texts, but it has been ex-
tended to denote the entire phenomenon of interpreta-
tion, understood as enactment or bringing forth of
meaning from a background of understanding. In gen-
eral, Continental philosophers, even when they explic-
itly contest many of the assumptions underlying her-
meneutics, have continued to produce detailed discus-
sions that show how knowledge depends on being in a
world that is inseparable from our bodies, our language,
and our social history-in short, from our embodiment.
( P 149)
Varela et al. (199 1) describe the recursive hermeneutical
circle as an open-ended inquiry that takes place in the con-
text of our embodiment and cultural embeddedness. In his
book, The Body in the Mind, Mark Johnson (1987) also
stresses the importance of meaning as a fluid "event of un-
derstanding" (p. 175). Johnson suggests that meaning is
only fixed in that "fixed meanings are merely sedimented or
stabilized structures that emerge as recurring patterns in our
understanding" (p. 175). The recursive hermeneutical circle
is in a constant state of flux; it is an event of understanding
taking place between subject and object, in the context of
body, culture, language, and history. It is useful to consider
intuitive inquiry as a research method that aims to know
meaning as a changing event of understanding, rather than a
fixed and solid reality.
Cycle 1: Clarifying the Research Topic
I began this research process with a general topic in mind:
spirit and the body. To hone and clarify my research topic, I
Vipassana Esbjorn-Hargens 407
began to work with two texts that repeatedly drew me. First,
I worked with a text called Chod by Machig Labdron
(Edou, 1996) daily, for 14 days. During that period, each
day I spent 30 minutes reading the text aloud, noting
thoughts, images, associations, beliefs, feelings, and sensa-
tions that arose within me. I recorded them in a notebook.
Through the practice of engaging with this particular text I
primarily became aware of the importance of, and my belief
in, transcendence from the body as an important aspect of
spiritual development.
During this first cycle, I also worked with a portion of a
poem by William Everson (1978), one that highlighted a
different aspect of embodiment. I recorded myself reading
Everson's words, and then alternated between reading the
poem, and listening to the poem daily, for 14 days. In addi-
tion to all the variety of types of responses (thoughts, feel-
ings, sensations, etc.) outlined with the previous text, during
this stage I especially became aware of sensual and sexual
feelings that arose with the readings. These were usually
intertwined with what might be called a holy or sublime
longing, an ache that was sometimes felt in my heart, and in
other moments experienced throughout my entire body. All
of these responses were recorded tn a notebook. After I
completed working with these two texts, my research topic
was clarified in a broad sense. It involved spirit and the
body, transcendence and embodiment, sexuality, and
women. I was then ready to move into the second cycle of
I interpretation.
1 Cycle 2: Developing the Preliminary Lenses
During Cycle 2 of interpretation, I worked with two addi-
tional texts. This cycle lasted six weeks. First, for one
month I worked with excerpts from a book by the contem-
porary mystic, dancer, and teacher of Authentic movement,
Janet Adler (1995). Daily, I engaged Adler's text in a simi-
lar fashion as in Cycle 1. I documented my responses in a
notebook. I then worked for 14 days with a Sufi song per-
408 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
formed by a female artist Zuleikha (Undated), the lyrics of
which came originally from a poem by the Sufi woman
mystic, Rabia. This stage included 30-minute sessions over
14 days. Each session consisted of engaging the rnusic-the
text-through listening to the song, singing, prayer, and
movement. During and after each session, I recorded my
responses in a notebook. Throughout Cycle 1, my primary
intention was to clarify my research topic, while in Cycle 2,
I began to look for emerging themes, values, assumptions-
all of which would eventually become my preliminary
lenses.
The next phase, generating my preliminary lenses, oc-
curred over the next three months. During the first month of
this three month period, I spent one full day immersing my-
self in the various notes I had taken thus far, including my
notes from both Cycles 1 and 2. On this particular day, I sat
on the floor of my office loft and spread my notes around
me in a circle on the floor. I then read out loud everything I
had written, to get a sense of the whole picture up until this
point. After spending a few hours engaging the notes I had
made to myself, I was ready to generate a preliminary list of
lenses about my understanding of this whole vast area we
call body. This included my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, val-
ues, assumptions, and ideas about the body. I then worked
with this list over another few hours, omitting repetitive
ideas, looking for themes, and refining my words. This
whole process was done quickly as it seemed important at
this early stage of the research to not edit myself too
closely, nor get tight in my thinking. While I wanted to re-
fine my ideas, I also wanted to continue to expand them. In
working rapidly, I had a better chance of accessing my un-
conscious, rather than merely my conscious mind.
The following is a list of initial lenses that arose out of
this second cycle of interpretation:
1. Inquiring into the tension between spirit and the body
enlivens one's felt sense of living as a body.
Vipassana Esbjorn-Hargens 409
2. Transcendence or disidentification from one's body (or
the realization of the body as impermanent) can pro-
duce the experience of freedom and liberation.
3. I am not the body.
4. The body is impermanent; form, flesh is temporal.
5. Spirit, that which animates our fleshly form, is eternal;
this awareness or spirit exists after death.
6. Spirit transcends flesh, meaning spirit encompasses
flesh.
7. Part of being human includes fear of the death of this
physical form, the b,ody.
8. There is a felt sense that at times awareness expands
beyond the boundaries of my body, though it includes
my body.
9. Sometimes it feels like spirit, or awareness, is located
outside my body, usually behind my head.
10. It is useful (as a spiritual practice) to contemplate
death, the eventual end of our physical form; evolution
of consciousness includes facing our mortality.
11. Energy animates our physical body.
12. Physical sensations of energy bring up a fear response
(kundalini rising).
13. Energy that animates the body is benign and even has
healing capacities.
14. Sexuality is body bound.
15. Transcendence is preferred over the body realm.
41 0 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
16. Women are more embodied than men.
Once my initial lenses were generated, I was ready to begin
Cycle 3 of the intuitive inquiry research.
Cycle 3: Collecting Data and Preparing Summary
Reports
The participants for my study were 12 contemporary female
spiritual leaders, teachers, and healers who are viewed by
their communities as such. The women who participated in
the study represent mystical traditions and spiritual paths
that include Christianity, Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Afri-
can Spirituality, Yoga, Indian Tantra, Authentic Movement,
and Diamond Logos. All of the participants live in Northern
California. Their ages range from 40 to 76. One participant
is Chinese-American, one is African-American, and the oth-
ers are European-American. Pseudonyms are used to iden-
tify all participants in this article.
With each participant I conducted an in-depth semi-
structured interview that ranged from 50 minutes to 3 hours.
The interview process spanned over a six-month period. I
tape-recorded all interviews. My interview questions were
as follows:
1. As a woman deeply embedded in the spiritual life,
could you talk about how you experience and give
meaning to your body?
2. Is there a tradition that informs your perspective? How
so?
3. How has your experience of sexuality transformed, if at
all, throughout your spiritual life?
4. Has your physical body changed as you have developed
or awakened spiritually? How so?
Vipassana Esbjorn-Hargens 41 1
5. Do you experience your sense of 'I' or self as having a
location, a reference point in or including your body?
6. Could you talk about your relationship to death and the
body?
Because the interviews were semi-structured in nature and
they varied in length, I chose to create a portrait of each
woman by editing down the original interview for greater
clarity, precision, grammatical accuracy, and sense of flow.
The interpretation began, therefore, through the process of
deciding what to include and what to leave out from the
original transcript. In addition to sending each participant a
copy of the entire transcribed interview, I then later sent an
edited transcript for review along with a letter. In this letter
I asked participants to make changes, omissions, additions,
or clarifications to the edited transcript.
Cycle 4: Transforming and Refining Lenses
The process of identifying Cycle 4 lenses was both long and
immediate. As intuitive inquiry recommends, while I
worked with the transcripts over the course of one year I
noted significant themes, insights, intuitions, dreams, and
'especially sympathetic resonance with the text. This was the
long part of the research process. It was as if over the course
of this year I was noting all sorts of various themes and in-
sights, but keeping at bay or postponing formulating any
conclusions. I wanted to allow the themes to gestate in me
at an unconscious or semi-conscious level for as long as
possible, until I was ready to bring my analytical mind into
the process. It was not until I began to draft the discussion
chapter that my final lenses came into being. When I finally
sat down to tackle this task, I found that the lenses in many
ways were already living in me. The task at this point was
more a matter of languaging what I had been discovering
over the course of my engagement with the text, as opposed
to creating or generating lenses that were altogether new or
4 12 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
unformulated. I spent about one weekend articulating my
final lenses, which emerged from me with relative fluidity.
Generally speaking, I have found that my lenses-my un-
derstanding of the topic-have changed significantly, some-
times modestly, and sometimes dramatically, since my first
articulation of the lenses in Cycle 2.
The ways in which my new understandings (Cycle 4
lenses) are in relationship to my initial ones (Cycle 2 lenses)
could be understood as falling into three categories: new,
change, and seed lenses. First, certain present understand-
ings or lenses appear to be entirely new, not directly in rela-
tionship to any of my specific earlier intuitions or assump-
tions. At least on a conscious level, I had not anticipated
these findings during Cycles 1 and 2. As these insights be-
gan to emerge, it often felt like the trickster (Anderson,
2000) was at play with me-catching me off guard, confus-
ing me at times, and presenting to me surprising and unex-
pected results. I am calling these interpretations new lenses.
Second, there are those lenses that came into being through
earlier assumptions and understandings being challenged,
changed, or transformed throughout the duration of the
study. In these cases, there is a direct relationship between
certain lenses in Cycle 2 and those found in Cycle 4-a
progression or change can be seen in my thinking. In many
ways, it was in these instances that I grew the most, becaus~
as my assumptions and beliefs were being challenged and
changed, I was transforming through the process. I am call-
ing these interpretations change lenses. Third, there are
those lenses that seem to have their seeds embedded in an
earlier lens, or combination of a few lenses. Then through a
process of being stretched, expanded, combined, and deep-
ened, those earlier intuitions or rudimentary understandings
came into a full, nuanced expression in Cycle 4, one that
might be traced back to earlier seeds from Cycle 2. I am
calling these interpretations seed lenses.
A summary of Cycle 4 lenses, in relationship to each of
the three categories previously outlined, is as follows:
Vipassana Esbjorn-Hargens
Table 1. Cycle 4 Lenses
New Lenses: Tricksters and Surprise Bring Unexpected
Understandings
1. (a) Childhood experiences, from visions to trauma,
serve as a catalyst for spiritual sensitivity in the
body.
2. (b) The body serves as a barometer, where intuition be-
comes physicalized.
3. (c) Transformation of the body occurs on a cellular
level.
4. (d) Being embodied is a choiceful act.
Change Lenses: Challenged Assumptions Result in a
Changed Perspective
1. Central Interpretation: Women who have devoted their
lives to God, to a path of spiritual inquiry, tend to go
through a process of disidentification and re-
identification with the body, taking place over and over
again, deepening throughout one's lifetime.
2. (e) Sexuality is integral to embodiment.
3. (f) Bringing spirit into matter is purposeful.
Seed Lenses: Refined and Nuanced Understandings
1. (g) Spiritual maturation includes an energetic awaken-
ing of the body.
2. (h) Boundaries-between you and me, world and self-
are experienced as permeable.
3. (i) Self reference, or awareness of 'I,' is fluid and flexi-
ble and is not fixed in the body.
4 14 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Table 1. Continued
4. (j) The contemplation of death brings into focus the
immediacy of life.
5. (k) Women are teachers of conscious embodiment.
6. (1) Inquiring into the relationship between body and
spirit deepens and enlivens one's experience of living
as a body.
A further explanation of these research findings is
available in Esbjorn (2003).
Example of a New Lens: Transformation of the Body
Occurs on a Cellular Level
For the purpose of this article, it is not possible to elaborate
on the evolution of each of the various lenses. The follow-
ing is an example that illustrates a discussion on one of the
13 Cycle 4 lenses, a new lens.
What exactly it means to transform on a cellular level I
am still discovering. What is clear though, is that an ener-
getic transformation that is felt to have physical compo-
nents-a cellular transformation-does seem to accompany
the awakening process for most women in this study. For
several women this process was described as a movement
from density to light or spaciousness. This cellular trans-
formation often is felt as a release of blockages in the body,
or energies being released in the body. This process some-
times unfolds with ease, yet in other instances it is described
as a difficult and often harsh process, especially where the
immune and nervous system are concerned. There appear to
be a variety of types of changes that occur at a cellular level,
some more dramatic and others more subtle. Some partici-
pants described looking younger or simply different as they
went through such a transformation. For others, changes
may be less apparent to the outside observer as they are oc-
Vipassana Esbjorn-Hargens 415
curring at a subtle or energetic level, with little or no exter-
nal correlates.
In this study, Arline described how blockages that were
previously interfering with intelligence pouring through her
body began to dissolve: "Feeling cellular experiences. Hav-
ing memories flood up, or feelings of rightness and normal-
ity in the particular area. This was information and intelli-
gence that was blocked to me before." Rose reflected, too,
on the ways in which the body opens and relaxes. She said,
"Somebody recently said to me, you just keep getting
younger every year. I think there is something of the relaxa-
tion, of the not taking on an image of aging. I think it's that
aliveness that begins to enter the body, to stay in the body,
and it becomes magnetic not from youth but fiom con-
sciousness." Yeshe echoed this when she said, "I believe
that in spiritual development there's actually a transforma-
tion that happens in the body, in terms of the whole cellular
structure; and in the subtle body, the whole system of subtle
channels and chakras." Yeshe elaborated on how this hap-
pens:
The integration of emptiness into the body is actually a
whole process, It's hard to kind of remember and put it
in perspective, when you've been doing intense spiri-
tual practice a long time. I realize that it's been like that
for me for so long, that I don't even think about it, that
is: thinking of my body as light, experiencing it as light
and space, rather than as a dense kind of form.
As a Tibetan Buddhist, Yeshe did a traditional 3-year retreat
and she commented on how that impacted her on a body
level. Yeshe used words such as "reborn" and "glowing"
and "lightery' to describe how her body changed throughout
the extended period of meditation.
Reflecting on her body at the completion of the 3-year
Tibetan retreat, Yeshe reported, "My body felt like I was 3
years old again. I could run like I was 3 years old again.
 4 16 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
Literally, my body felt-now I didn't notice any of this un-
til I was out of the retreat-my body felt very, very different
than it had, much lighter. It actually felt glowing." Changes
in the body such as the experience of light opening up in the
body was a common description among the women in this
study, as a way of pointing to how awakening takes place
on a cellular level.
For several women in the study, cellular transformation
initially happened in a dramatic and difficult fashion. Cara
described how an enormous amount of energy opened her
and that as a result of this extreme shift in consciousness,
her body and nervous system was "fairly destroyed." She
said, "Given that I was unprepared for the opening and the
immensity of the energy that was set loose in my organism,
it fairly destroyed my body, my nervous system, as well as
my organ energy." After this immense opening, Cara went
through a very long healing journey. Anna described how it
is the Mother, Divine spirit, who also performs the healing
of the body on a cellular level. Anna articulated how this
process occurs:
There is a cellular cleansing. It's a very palpable ex-
perience. It feels like a knitting between, an enmesh-
ment, an intertwining between the etheric body, and
when spirit finds that, it's a done deal. Because then the
physical body can be healed, as well as the energy bod-
ies. The cells start to wash and cleanse. You can feel
probings. It's the energy of light literally probing
through the brain, through the cellular structure, and the
bones, muscles, organs-the flesh.
It is inspiring to consider the healing that is possible if only,
as Anna suggests, we open to the Divine and let her probe
and cleanse our entire being which includes our bones,
muscles, fleshy tissue, and even etheric or energy body. One
way to think about transformation and healing on a cellular
level-a process many of these women are proposing-is to
Vipassana Esbjorn-Hargens 417
consider the implications of bringing presence into our bod-
ies, enlightening our very cellular structure.
Challenges and Contributions of Intuitive Inquiry
After exploring this topic of spirit and flesh for over 3 years,
with my vehicle for exploration being intuitive inquiry, I
will now reflect further on the research method itself. First,
intuitive inquiry is a participatory methodology that has the
potential to transform the researcher, the reader, and the
text. Second, it is a method that models a dialectic, which in
turn, invites the researcher into this significant developmen-
tal achievement. That is, the researcher is asked to partici-
pate in a dialectical process that by its nature calls forth the
ability to simultaneously hold within oneself two opposing
forces. Third, I will reflect on the method's inevitable sub-
jectivity, as potentially a limitation and a gift. Lastly, I will
suggest that while the researcher, the reader, and the text are
transforming through intuitive inquiry, so too, is the
method.
Intuitive inquiry is a participatory methodology that has
the potential to transform the researcher, the reader, and the
text. In intuitive inquiry the researcher is in constant dia-
logue, mutual conversation with the text. This creates an
inter-subjective space between the researcher and that which
is being studied, the text. Therefore, there is the possibility
for transformation of the researcher throughout this process
in all the variety of ways I have discussed previously.
At times the hermeneutical circle of interpretation can
be dizzying in that it constitutes an endless process of
change for all subjects and objects involved in the encoun-
ter. While the researcher is being changed by the text she
encounters, so to, is the reader of this article quite possibly
being changed by the reading of this text. In an elaboration
on mystical hermeneutics, Jeffrey Kripal (2001) outlines
how an "invisible hermeneutical community" (p. 9) is made
up of the mystic, the mystical experiences of the scholar
studying the mystic, and the readers of the scholar's work.
420 The Humanistic Psychologist, 32, Fall 2004
If we assume, then, that part of the intuitive inquiry process
for the researcher might include practice in holding a dialec-
tic, what this also suggests is that by doing this, the re-
searcher is strengthening her capacity for what Object Rela-
tionalists call a whole object relationship (Ogden, 1990;
Winnicott, 1958/1992). For the purpose of this discussion,
the aspect of a whole object relationship that is being con-
sidered here, is the capacity to tolerate opposing forces
within oneself. A number of developmentalists point to this
stage of being and knowing through a variety of names in-
cluding Robert Kegan's (1994) fourth order of conscious-
ness, Ken Wilber's (1995) vision logic stage, and Jean Geb-
ser's (1 985) integral-aperspectival stage of development.
As these theorists suggest, it is no small developmental task
to tolerate opposing forces within oneself. A far more primi-
tive response to life-and what is commonly understood as
splitting in the psychoanalytic literature (e.g., Ogden,
1990)-is one where we collapse into spirit or body, good
or bad, love or hate, subject or object. Through engaging the
intuitive inquiry research process, we are invited into the
profound human possibility of not collapsing into subject or
object, but instead living in the dynamic space that is the
dance between the two.
Intuitive inquiry's inevitable subjectivity is both a limi-
tation and a gift. Because I as the researcher can only see
through that which is my life experience, which creates the
initial lenses through which I view the data, I am limited in
that I cannot see that which lies outside the parameters of
my perception. Quite possibly, another person with a differ-
ent set of lenses will come into contact with the data gath-
ered and find entirely new interpretations. However, while
this may be a limitation in the method, I also believe that
virtually all modes of knowing are subjective. It is actually
by acknowledging our embeddedness in the knower-known
complex that more objectivity becomes available. The
unique subjectivity the researcher brings to intuitive inquiry
is both the gift and possibly the challenge of the method.
VipassanaEsbjom-Hargens 42 1
Subjectivity brings richness and dimension, but if un-
checked, it could collapse into a form of solipsism or nar-
cissism.
I propose that while the researcher is transforming,
along with the reader and the text, so too, is the method it-
self. The very nature of intuitive inquiry includes an organic
impulse toward change. This means that the method will
always be transforming through the relationship with each
researcher. It is not a static structure but a fluid one. Em-
bedded in the method of intuitive inquiry is this dialectical
dance, a reciprocal, spiraling process that changes the re-
searcher and the method. Therefore, while there are objec-
tive aspects that we may point to in this method, in many
ways intuitive inquiry as a research method will never be
the same twice, for it isshaped each time by the researcher
who is engaging the text anew, which in this case is also the
method itself, intuitive inquiry.
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