In Memory of

Physis'

Professor Petruska Clarkson, PhD

31 Oct 1947 - 21 May 2006

Mind Gliding Ltd

  
Physis is the name and concept under which Professor Petruska Clarkson Ph.D., D. Litt. et Phil, C. Psychol., FBPS, FBACP provided world-wide research-based training, consultancy and supervision based on The Therapeutic Relationship (Whurr, 1995) and her other works. (See list of publications)
It provided the opportunity for professional qualification, self- growth and the development of your therapeutic, consulting and academic skills through Learning by Enquiry (Dieratao) in a supportive and challenging environment more like an ancient Greek academy of philosophy than a conventional ‘school’.
Physis (or Phusis) is an ancient Greek word very rich in meaning. It is used to refer to life energy as it manifests in nature, in growth and healing as well as in all dimensions of creativity. Physician or physic (as in medicine) and Physics (as in Quantum and Chaos understandings of the world) are both derived from it.
It is used as a concept to concentrate some of the most significant qualities and aspirations of Prof. Clarkson’s work - in honour of everlasting change, unlearning as well as learning, living as well as dying well, bodysoul, the cycle as potent paradigm for human evolutionary processes, the individual and society, relationship and archetype, the importance of nature as teacher and inspiration, the drive towards complexity, quality and wholeness, the co-existence of contradictions. Whether in individuals, children, couples, groups, organisations or artistic work, the central and organising theme is simply to have life and to have it more abundantly.
In contemporary terms we experience ourselves as a global virtual community of enquiry and physis is another name for the complexity concept of auto-poiesis.
“Autopoiesis sees self-generated, self-constituting domains of activity and discourse, (explanatory domains) that are autonomous and incommensurable, each constructing its own self-referential differences and distinctions”.

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HAT is it that the word physis says? (...) Lexically it means phyein, growing. But what is the meaning of phyein? Does it mean only growth of quantity, that something becomes something more and bigger? (...) Greeks did not begin to learn what physis is through the natural phenomena, but on the contrary: through a foundational poetic and noetic experience of Being, there opened before them what they will call physis. It was only through this opening that they could see also nature in the narrow sense. That way, then, physis, in the primary and original sense, means as much the sky as the earth, as much the stone as also the plants, as much the animals as man and human history as a work of men and of Gods, finally and above all it means Gods themselves with their destiny.

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N the age of the first and exemplary growth of the Western philosophy from the Greeks, who for the first time asked about beings as such in their entirety, beings were named physis (φύσις). That foundational Greek word about beings usually is translated as "nature". But in this Latin translation the original and primary meaning of the Greek word φύσις is passed by, and the genuine philosophical denoting power of the Greek word is damaged. It didn't happen with this only the Latin translation, of this only the word, but also with all the other translations of the Greek philosophical language into Roman. What happened with that translation from Greek to Roman is not accidental nor harmless, but it is the first stage of the process of our getting cut, isolated and alienated from the original and primary essence of Greek philosophy. (...) Words and language are not bandages by which things are wrapped to be exchanged among those who speak and write. Things become and exist only inside the word, in language. This is the reason why a bad use of language, in chatter and slogans, destroys our genuine contact with things. What is it, then, that the word φύσις says? (...) Lexically it means φύειν, growing. But what is the meaning of φύειν? Does it mean only growth of quantity, that something becomes something more and bigger? (...) Greeks did not begin to learn what φύσις is through the natural phenomena, but on the contrary: through a foundational poetic and noetic experience of Being, there opened before them what they will call φύσις. It was only through this opening that they could see also nature in the narrow sense. That way, then, φύσις, in the primary and original sense, means as much the sky as the earth, as much the stone as also the plants, as much the animals as man and human history as a work of men and of Gods, finally and above all it means Gods themselves with their destiny.