'In the case of lived experience, there is no difference between an object that is perceived and the eye that perceives it. | “That which forms a unity of presence in the flow of time because it has a unitary meaning is the smallest unit definable as a lived-experience.” | “A lived experience is a temporal sequence in which every state is a flux before it can become a distinct object.” | “The course of life consists of parts, of lived experiences that are inwardly connected with each other. Each lived experience relates to a self of which it is a part.” |
Dilthey influenced Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Max Weber and Toro, who redefined Erlebnis as the vivencia. Toro described the vivencia as an intense lived-experience in the here-and-now involving the whole bodymind complex, i.e. emotions, physical sensations, and so forth. He went on to describe its ten main characteristics and came up with a method to induce integrative vivencia by stimulating deep connection with self and with life.
Aware of Skinner´s theory of positive reinforcement, Toro argued that learning was consolidated by stimulating the positive rather than by punishing the negative. He believed that because regular attendance in Biodanza involved experiencing pleasurable situations on a regular basis, these would promote and stabilise the experience of joy, pleasure, creative flow, warm-heartedness and transcendental bliss in daily life.
Toro also believed that learning involves the whole organism, not just the analytical mind, which is why Biodanza proposes learning on three levels: the cognitive, the vivencial, and the visceral. These levels are neurologically connected, and can mutually affect each other despite their autonomy. Toro argued that learning needs to integrate the body, the heart and the mind. Otherwise they become dissociated and work against each other, e.g. thinking one has the right to be assertive, but feeling anxious and experiencing breathlessness and an increased heart rate every time one tries to assert oneself.
Toro saw cognitive talking therapies as an attempt to go from meaning to emotion. Analysing a painful situation and reframing it in the hope that people would feel differently about it and be able to move on with their lives. Toro didn't believe that intellectual understanding was enough to change how people actually respond to life. That is why Biodanza goes from emotion to meaning. Its priority is the vivencia, the felt-experience of positive emotions. Its aim is to induce integrative vivencias, which are registered by consciousness only afterwards. The vivencia is seen as having intrinsic value. Describing it is enough. There is no need to analyse it or add any psychological interpretations because the healing comes from experiencing positive affect: happiness, exhilaration, pleasure, enjoyment, optimism, confidence, enthusiasm, euphoria, fascination, inspiration, affection, love, serenity, thankfulness, awe... And this is what we are learning in Biodanza, a system which is both therapeutic and educational.