ABSTRACT
In its elementary phase, biology sought to distinguish between the living and the non-living. Animal forms of life, for instance, have locomotion. Without in any way wishing to resurrect the old idea of an élan vital, this animate type of biological movement has qualities that make it seem quite different from the sort we get from mechanical devices, and this feature requires our notice. Although it is by analogy that we describe this as a form of movement, we are not just being analogical. The motion that we see from the mind involves change in noticing, attending, linking and relating in non-spatial dimensions. These have directions such as towards or against life, towards or against death, towards linking with an object or against. The quality of this mind–body movement is nearly always affected in any significant degree of emotional disorder, and improvement is nearly always manifest by some recovery of it. These changes extend to other changes in that distinctive quality of intentionality that seems to be distributed throughout all the parts of the human psyche.
