Being a Body/Paradox
The therapy seeks an exploration of what it is like for patients to be their particular bodies, instead of just having them, experiencing the embodiment of their minds and the being of the body, while being can only be understood in conceptual worlds, seemingly outside of the body ; indeed, "Dasein" means being in the world and we can not separate our being from our body or environment, and yet we also exist with language (Heidegger cited in Clocan, 2015). Language, belonging to the symbolic order, can be truthful, but it never directly contains the real, only traces (Lacan, 2019).
Dualistic tensions with their accompanying pleasures and agonies pervade human experience, with either mind or body generally being privileged (Bartole, 2012), even if the mind and brain really are one. Understanding that as a subject one is divided and indeed empty in essence--just as in Buddhist thought, emptiness emerges at the core of the mind--unable to directly access the unconscious that does have agency, that there is no unitary, coherent self, especially given anyone's disparate self-states, even when they do not have a dissociative disorder (Bromberg, 2002, Fink, 2006), allows for greater humility and curiosity and for healing. We must work with what is dynamically, seeing the paradoxes and absurdities and the creative potential for developing greater uniqueness--in one's chosen role and one chosen for us in social enclaves and whirlpools, however paradoxical-- and bright, constructive use of pain. There is also triage and coping, as well as more pronounced changes, usually arising out of clinical necessity in a world of conflict and hope.