In his philosophical writings, Eugene Gendlin has developed a way of thinking about human experience that inextricably connects the body to language and thought. His work has stemmed out of a frustration with the limited scope of rationalism and deconstructionism, both of which currently dominate discourse in the human sciences. Gendlin has drawn on the work of a rich and diverse array of thinkers, from Aristotle to Heidegger, to develop a novel approach to understanding the subjective processes that propel the meanings that we create and live by during our existence. This article explores the philosophical influences on Gendlin’s thought, as well as the significance of his experiential phenomenological philosophy for our understanding of the human body, the process of thinking, and language. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of Gendlin’s philosophy for psychotherapeutic practice.
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