The Transformation of Body Experience Into Language

Abstract Body experience can be seen as the basis for the formation of the self-concept. The relation between body experience and self-concept is fundamental for human existence and is especially in focus in the fields of psychotherapy (Gendlin, 1981) and movement activities (Stelter, 1996, 1998). But body experience is a "data source" which is difficult to handle scientifically. Body experiences are based on "internal physical sensations" - which Gendlin also describes as the felt meaning or the felt sense, and is not in opposition to phenomenology. To bridge the gap between internal sensations - which are the foundation of the creation of meaning - and language as the medium in both everyday and scientific communication, a form of visualisation technique is introduced to help to evoke descriptions and metaphors that are able to transform body experiences as the pre-reflective mode of information into language as the digital mode of information. Metaphors are the source domain for the target domain body experience (see: Lakoff, 1987). Through the presentation of an empirical project in the field of movement and sport, the theoretical reflections on the process of transforming body experience into language will be exemplified.