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2021
- ISIDORE Id: 10670/1.adbd87...
- isbn: 978-1800500327
- halshs: halshs-03902337
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/ , info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
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Hugging Personal development RitualCiter ce document
Michael Houseman, « Immersive hugging as a ritual act », HAL SHS (Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société), ID : 10670/1.adbd87...
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As the popular psychology and well-being literature attests, contemporary Westerners consider hugging to be both highly meaningful and intrinsically beneficial. The oft-touted (but seemingly apocryphal) quote from Family Therapy founder Virginia Satir says it all: ‘We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need twelve hugs a day for growth.’ Unsurprisingly, prolonged, intense hugging—between people, but also with trees, animals or visualised beings—is one of the hallmarks of ritualised practices associated with what have been called contemporary spiritualities: New Age-inspired movements, Contemporary Paganisms, Personal Development initiatives, etc. This chapter explores the interactive workings of such pointedly meaningful embracing which I will refer to as ‘immersive’ hugging. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and other illustrative material, I attempt to identify some of the recurrent features of immersive hugs in order to speculate about what is at stake in their performance.
