Yoga, gestalt-terapia e fenomenologia mundana: vivências de mulheres que estão envelhecendo

Abstract

This research aims to propose articulate gestalt-therapy, mundane phenomenology and yoga, with a focus on the women aging process in Brazil and India. The specific objectives are: to expand the theoretical-conceptual framework of gestalt-therapy; to articulate theoretically gestalt-therapy, Merleau-Ponty's mundane phenomenology and philosophical foundations of yoga; to analyze the experience with aging of yogini women in India and Brazil; to value an authentic space for first-person speech by the participants, through letters; to disseminate scientific/artistic production to the academic and transacademic universe. The epistemic basis of this study is qualitative epistemology, with a phenomenological approach, and the research strategy adopted is the case study, using in-depth interviews with four indian and four brazilian participants, regular practitioners of yoga and who consider themselves experiencing old age. As a result of the analyses, we highlight five major categories that cut accross the narratives: part-whole integration; presence of the mystery, sacred and spiritual dimensions; aging: impermanence and the human as becoming; awareness and here-now: old age and trajectories of self-knowledge; general aspects of experiencing aging and old age. Finally, it is postulated that yoga can offer gestalt-therapy and phenomenology a broadening of understanding for somatic contemplative praxis, in the same way as phenomenology and gestalt-therapy approaches can be an important basis for theoretical articulation with the philosophy of yoga.