ABSTRACT
The authors discovered they shared a mutual interest in embodied cognition at the 2016 European Brief Therapy Association conference in Bruges. Having come across these ideas at a paediatricians’ conference and on a Masters’ course in philosophy respectively, they had both set about finding ways of applying them in their Solution Focused (SF) therapy and training. This chapter introduces the field of embodied cognition, using an embodied account of visual experience as an illustration. This account will also help to show how the idea of implicit and embodied knowledge plays an important part in embodied cognition The chapter introduces the extended mind thesis and considers whether this concept suggests an extended version of the self, in which smartphones, for example, augment our brains and bodies. It gives an account of research on prevention programmes for athletes at risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries and describes Esther’s practice developments which, inspired by this research, drew on both embodied and extended ideas. The chapter ends with a description of the exercises the authors developed for their workshop at the SF World Conference in Frankfurt in 2017, which they hope readers will try out for themselves.
