Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article discusses the phenomenon of desire from the perspective of the phenomenology of life and love developed by Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Marion, seeking to elucidate its implications for both clinical practice and teaching. Methodologically, it is a narrative review of a philosophical-hermeneutical-phenomenological nature, centered on the analysis of fundamental works by these authors. The investigation reveals, through the phenomenology of life, that erotic desire is only realized as an interpathetic and intercarnal experience, situated in the invisibility of auto-affection. Desire, understood as the will-to-live, manifests itself as an originary expression of life in its radical immanence, remaining irreducible to intentional objectification. In turn, in the phenomenology of love, desire emerges from the originary donation that comes from elsewhere, arousing openness to the face, to the gaze, and to the encounter with the other. In this context, both clinical practice and education demand relationships founded on a pathetic intersubjective communion, capable of welcoming affective experience in its originary dimension. In the clinical context, this perspective enables the transformation of suffering into enjoyment, the intensification of the will-to-live, and the redirection of desire towards that which exceeds all objectification and possession. In teaching, the importance of formative practices that do not reduce knowledge to mere conceptual transmission, but that favor experiences of encounter and openness to the other, understanding education as an ethical, affective, and existential constitution, becomes evident. Thus, clinical practice and education are modes in which desire can rediscover its originary orientation: openness to the ungraspable, to the excess of life, and to unconditional love.
Source: Griot Revista de Filosofia
Authors: Stephan Malta Oliveira, Janessa Pagnussat
Institutions: Universidade Federal Fluminense, Universidade Franciscana
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7223678709