On Self-Transformation in Response to Disruptive Experience: Phenomenological and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

On Self-Transformation in Response to Disruptive Experience:

Phenomenological and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Royal Holloway, University of London

Central London Campus, UK

28/29th of January 2027

Free

Central London Campus, UK
28/29th of January 2027
Free

Twelve 30 minute talks over two days, with each talk followed by open Q&As. Four talks will be delivered by pre-invited keynotes with the remaining eight speakers selected through a call for abstracts – see below to submit an abstract…

Overview

Our day-to-day sensemaking breaks down when disruptive events challenge minor facets or core aspects of our self- and world-understanding. If a disruption affects only a minor part of our sensemaking, we can often manage by making small adjustments, such as learning to complete a task or dismissing the issue as merely frustrating. However, when our sensemaking breaks down more profoundly – for example, when we realise we have made a significant mistake, encounter a new but deeply disruptive opportunity, or face crises in our relationships, economic stability, or another defining aspect of our life – such minor adjustments are no longer sufficient. In such cases, our self- and world-understanding becomes so deeply disrupted that we cannot go on as before, and we risk a state of permanent despair or desynchronisation if we fail to make necessary changes. This event is dedicated to exploring the phenomenology of self-transformation in response to deep-seated breakdowns of sensemaking.

One indication of a possible starting point for such a phenomenology is provided by Nikolas Kompridis, who, in his (2006) contribution Critique and Disclosure, writes: “In as much as the selves of our theory are part of the data, any solution to the problem will depend on a decentering of the self, and the emergence of a new self, possessing the capacity to integrate its old and new worlds, its old and new selves.” (p. 174) Kompridis thus offers one articulation of the basic structure of the process of self-transformation: when our sensemaking breaks down profoundly, the self that is part and parcel of this type of sensemaking is challenged and must be ‘decentred’ and ultimately sacrificed to allow the emergence of a new self and a new form of sensemaking.

But this structure raises many questions: is this the only way self-transformation can be conceptualised? How does this process differ from less profound disruptions? Do we passively receive a new self, or do we actively construct it? In what sense is the self that emerges, as Kompridis says elsewhere, “higher” or “better” than our prior self? The event invites contributions that answer such questions through classical or contemporary phenomenology. It also encourages contributors to develop interdisciplinary perspectives to shed light on, for example, the religious or neurocognitive implications of self-transformation, and to focus on specific contexts in which self-transformations occur.