Treating Survivors of Torture and Refugee Trauma: A Preliminary Case Series Using Qigong and T'ai Chi

Objectives: This paper seeks to explore the potential value of qigong and t'ai chi practice as a therapeutic intervention to aid in the treatment of survivors of torture and refugee trauma. Design: The common effects of torture and refugee trauma are surveyed with a focus on post-traumatic stress disorder. An alternative theoretical framework for conceptualizing and healing trauma is presented. Evidence is reviewed from the scientific literature that describes how qigong and t'ai chi have been used in studies of the general population to alleviate symptoms that are also expressed in torture survivors. Observations are presented from a combined, simplified qigong and t'ai chi intervention with a convenience sample of four refugee survivors of torture. Results: Preliminary observations from four cases and a review of the literature support the potential efficacy of incorporating qigong and t'ai chi into the treatment of survivors of torture and refugee trauma. Conclusions: The incorporation of qigong and t'ai chi into the treatment of torture survivors, within a new framework for healing trauma, merits further investigation

Intentionality, Cognitive Integration and the Continuity Thesis

Naturalistic philosophers ought to think that the mind is continuous with the rest of the world and should not, therefore, be surprised by the findings of the extended mind, cognitive integration and enactivism. Not everyone is convinced that all mental phenomena are continuous with the rest of the world. For example, intentionality is often formulated in a way that makes the mind discontinuous with the rest of the world. This is a consequence of Brentano’s formulation of intentionality, I suggest, and can be overcome by revealing that the concept of intentional directedness as he receives it from the Scholastics is quite consistent with the continuity thesis. It is only when intentional directedness is conjoined with intentional inexistence that intentionality and content are consistent with a discontinuity thesis (such as Brentano’s thesis). This makes room to develop an account of intentional directedness that is consistent with the continuity thesis in the form of Peirce’s representational principle. I also argue against a form of the discontinuity thesis in the guise of the derived/underived content distinction. Having shown that intentionality is consistent with the continuity thesis I argue that we should focus on intentionality and representation as bodily enacted. I conclude that we would be better off focussing on representation and intentionality in action rather than giving abstract functional accounts of extended cognition