Conation Work in the Feldenkrais Method is about action. More specifically, effective action. One of the big principles is developing enough self-awareness to discover how you might be inteferring with your performance of a movement sequence, and then letting go of the interference. This is all done in the "domain of movement," as they say. Others have developed self-awareness approaches to effective action in other domains. The "Inner Game" books of Timothy Gallwey comes to mind. Another that I discovered about a decade ago is the work of Kathy Kolbe, in a domain that she calls conation. Actually conation is a legit term that philosophers and psychologists have kicked around for a quite while. It refers to the instinctive part of behavior. Other parts are cognitive, dealing with the knowledge and the intellect, and affective, dealing with emotions and feelings.
Kolbe has come up with a psychometric instrument that she says measures a person's instinctive modes of action. I've thought it quite innovative and have found it pretty useful in my life. This, even though it's packaged and priced for mostly corporate types. She has written a new book and has a web site devoted to it. This is pretty offbeat stuff and the packaging can seem overly slick, but it's worth a look.
- Posted - 3:09:37 PM -
