LiNKS
Research Group on Explicitation
The Research Group on Explicitation (GREX) was founded by Pierre Vermersch, the creator of the "explicitation interview", an interview method aimed at describing actions, which is the source of the micro-phenomenological interview. GREX offers training in the explicitation interview, discussion workshops on the method and its applications, particularly in the educational field, and publishes a bimonthly journal, "Expliciter".
The Focusing Institute
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The Focusing method has been created by the American psychologist Eugene Gendlin. This psychotherapeutic approach pays special attention to bodily feelings. It helps one to become aware of the "felt sense" associated with a given situation and to describe it, in order to refine and transform it. This method can be used for therapeutic purposes, but also to develop a new idea or take a decision.
Mind and Life Institute
The Mind and Life Institute, founded in 1987 on the initiative of the 14th Dalaï Lama, the neuroscientist Francisco Varela, and the lawyer Adam Engle, aims at exploring the complementarity of Science and Buddhism as methodologies for understanding the nature of reality. This project was born of their conviction that while science relies on technology and "objective" observation, disciplined contemplative practices and introspective methods should be used as equal means of investigation - means that would not only make science itself more humane but also ensure its conclusions were far-reaching. Mind and Life was formed to bridge this divide and advance progress in human well-being.
Mind and Life Europe
Mind and Life Europe is a timely new initiative which was established in 2008 and will further expand Mind and Life's reach in Europe. Mind and Life Europe's future work is based on “Hubs” that connect scientists, scholars and professionals in the development of contemplative science. These hubs cover both fundamental research in areas such as neuroscience, cognitive science, behavioral science and philosophy, as well as applied research in education, health care and management.
Interacting Minds Center
The Interacting Minds Centre (IMC) provides a transdisciplinary platform to study human interaction. Specific abilities for interaction are key to being human. Successful interaction is critical for cooperation, coordination and learning. When this fails, confusion and conflict abound. In many clinical disorders, interactions that otherwise seem automatic may be difficult or outright impossible. We are, however, only beginning to understand even their most basic mechanisms.
The IMC involves researchers from the humanities, social sciences, cognitive sciences, biology and clinical research, and is also involved in the development of micro-phenomenology.
APHEx
The Experiential Phenomenology Workshop of Marseille (APHEx), created by Jean Vion-Dury, aims at developing a research dynamics on the applications of the explicitation interview in neuroscience, neurology and psychiatry, and at proposing a philosophical, ethical and epistemological reflection on introspective methods.
Michel Bitbol
Michel Bitbol is a researcher in the philosophy of sciences, specialized in the philosophy of physics. Over the last few years he has focused on the relations between the philosophy of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind and consciousness. He studies in particular the epistemological conditions of micro-phenomenology.
Russ Hurlburt
Russ Hurlburt has created the "Descriptive Experience Sampling" (DES) method, designed to collect high fidelity and high precision glimpses of inner experience, thanks to a device that emits a "beep" at random intervals, after which subjects are asked to describe what they were currently experiencing, this self-report being complemented by an interview with the researcher. This method has been used to describe the inner experience of a variety of individuals including those with bulimic, schizophrenic, depressed, borderline personalities, and anxious, as well as non-clinical individuals.
Claire Petitmengin
After studies in Buddhist Philosophy and ten years of experience in information system design, Claire Petitmengin completed her PhD thesis under the supervision of Francisco Varela, on the subject of the lived experience which accompanies the emergence of an intuition. Her research focuses on the usually unrecognized micro-dynamics of lived experience and the "micro-phenomenological" methods enabling us to become aware of it and describe it. She studies the epistemological conditions of these methods as well as their educational, therapeutic, artistic and contemplative applications.
Camila Valenzuela Moguillansky
Camila Valenzuela Moguillansky, researcher at the Laboratorio de Fenomenología Corporal in Chile, PhD in Cognitive Sciences at the Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris, Master of Cognitive Sciences at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris and BA in Biology The University of Chile. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Complex Systems of Valparaiso (ISCV) on the relationship between body awareness and pain in people with fibromyalgia. Camila is also a dancer and Ashtanga yoga teacher. Its scope of interest are the mechanisms underlying body awareness and the development of methodologies for the study of experience considering a dialogue between neuroscience, phenomenology and different artistic languages.