Enara García
Mental health conditions affect 1 in 4 people. My research applies embodied and enactive cognition to mental health, developing new conceptual frameworks, research methods, and clinical applications.
Therapeutic Atmospheres (THERASPHERES)
This European project investigates how patients and therapists experience affective atmospheres in clinical settings and how these experiences shape therapeutic processes.
The project pursues three objectives:
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Conceptual mapping of existing theories of atmospheres and theoretical refinement.
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Empirical investigation of the experience of atmospheres in real consultation rooms.
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Developing applications for the clinical context.
The project employs a novel methodology integrating front-loading phenomenological methods with Cognitive Event Analysis of video-recorded therapy sessions. This approach enables systematic assessment of how affective atmospheres operate in real therapeutic encounters. It is carried out in collaboration with Anthony V. Fernandez and Sarah Bro Trasmundi at the University of Southern Denmark.
THERASPHERES is supported by an international clinical network that provides the empirical infrastructure for the project, including the Spanish Association of Gestalt Therapy (AETG), the Spanish Federation of Psychotherapy Associations, the PSYCHOPERSONA research group at Universitat Ramon Llull, and the Argentine School of Gestalt Psychotherapy.
Link to the International Workshop on Atmospheres and Interpersonal Encounters
Towards a process perspective of mental conditions
This project develops a processual perspective on mental conditions, exploring the ontological underpinings of enactive cognition.
To investigate this perspective, the project integrates insights from network theory and Waddington's epigenetic landscape to model the developmental constraints (e.g., character traits, life history, and contextual factors) that shape the emergence, vulnerability, and trajectories of mental conditions. In doing so, it engages with longstanding debates in the philosophy of science concerning natural kinds, scientific classification, scientific explanation, and the ontology of psychiatric disorders.
The project is carried out in collaboration with two PhD researchers, Mayo Pinto and Viarda Constino, who work on the concept of function and on a process-based classification, respectively, and with Laura Nuño de la Rosa (CSIC), an expert in dynamic and developmental perspectives in evo-devo.
Garcia, 2026
Participatory sense-making in psychotherapy
This line of research examines embodied intersubjectivity and participatory sense-making in clinical contexts from an enactive, second-person perspective.
It investigates how meaning emerges through embodied interaction in therapeutic relationships, focusing on the dynamic processes through which therapist and patient jointly shape the course of psychotherapy. It focuses on non-verbal coordination, the role of the body in therapeutic interventions, with a special focus on phenomenological and qualitative methods.
This line of research began with my PhD, Participatory Sense-Making in Psychotherapy, defended at the University of the Basque Country in 2022 (International Mention and Extraordinary Doctoral Award). Supervised by Ezequiel Di Paolo and Hanne De Jaegher and funded by the Basque Government (PREDOC 2018–2019), the project established the foundations for applying the enactive framework to psychotherapy research.
Garcia, 2025