here is another root of "Somatic Studies"

In germany in the 19th centuary there was a movement amongst psychatric medical doctors that called themselfs "Somatiker" (in opposition to the "psychikern") that believed that all mental illnesses had a physical root, more precise: are rooted in the brain.
Considering the newest brain research about trauma, and the effect that trauma has on the brain which leads to physical and mental illnesses these are really interesting roots:

"In the middle of the century, a "somatic reaction" (somatiker) formed against the speculative doctrines of mentalism, and it was based on neuroanatomy and neuropathology."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_psychology

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatiker

in my inquiry I found today the philosopher and sociologist Helmut Plessner.

His thinking could be a theoretical base for the somatic practices:

"His masterwork of Philosophical Anthropology is "Levels of Organic Life and the Human", which argues that the humans are 'naturally artificial beings' within living nature and attempts revocation of mind-body dualism."
"the formal qualities that make up our consciousness a priori — given as the conditions through which we experience things — conditions such as time, space, causality and number, and, indeed, the laws of physics, however we may then conceptualize them, are given to us both in our own physical nature, and in the physical nature of the environments we inhabit, through our growth from and interactions within these environments. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_Plessner

Hi everybody!

In my first informal meeting with helen and my collegues melody and mathew we decided on areas of feedback, so that we can structure our feedback in a more helpful way:

please give critical as well as positive feedback about:

• Course Content /Delivery / Pedagogy / structure
• Administrative/Financial Issues
• Communication with Programme Team
• Communication with the university
• Technology / IT/ UniHub
• Library Resources/Access
• Support / Individual / SET Student Union
• Special Issues

for your feedback:
please leave a comment on this post
or email me: dieter.rehberg[at]pme.or.at
or phone or whatsapp: +43 650 5458610
or leave an anonymous feedback here: https://app.conceptboard.com/board/368m-t9at-88bi-k3t2-pq1d

also the next MAPP Cafe will be a possiblility to share your feedback:
sunday 26.2. at 5pm CET
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87999754460?pwd=blhQQVUxME9xK1JBUHBzYmVjNVlEdz09
Meeting-ID: 879 9975 4460
Kenncode: 293629

thanks
Dieter

this picture below was a joint production of my students and me in the module "Anatomical Embodiment & Somatic Movement" of the "Basic Somatic Training", that just finished last week.
the texts came out of the reflections and writings after sensing and perceiving different bodyparts. so it is a kind of artefact describing the outcome of a somatic research: