Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
6666
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
https://doi.org/10.52885/pah.v3i1.123
The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive
Relation Between Body Memory and
Place Memory1
Abstract
The current work aims to examine the relation between body memory and place memory.
The paper will rely on a phenomenological standpoint, but it will also utilize literary and
clinical studies which are closely connected to the problem of body memory. First, the paper
will dene body memory and place memory with the help of Edward S. Casey’s and Thomas
Fuchs’ work. Second, the paper will discuss the connection between these two types of
memory. Third, the paper will shed light to the processes through which body memory and
place memory alters the structure of the lived space. Finally, the paper will consider the
question whether there is a constitutive relation between body memory and place memory.
Keywords: body memory, place memory, lived body, lived space, phenomenology
Introduction
The modest aim of the paper is to briefly describe the characteristics of body and place
memories and consider the nature of their relation. Philosophers and psychologists have
introduced several metaphors to illustrate the working of memory.2 Recent philosophical
discussions of memory focus on the representational and the non-representational
forms of memory storage and recollection. Casey mentions that the famous mnemo-
technic of antiquity, the method of loci, suggested that memories can be placed and
stored in the recesses of the soul.3 In addition, memorable places might play significant
1 This paper was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences (BO/00189/21/2) and by the No. 138745 project of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund.
2 Including the wax tablet, Freud’s mystical writing pad, or Pribram’s hologram. For the detailed
list of analogies, including spatial and non-spatial analogies, see, Roediger (1980).
3 According to Casey, in the Ancient Greek mnemotechnique place acts as a grid for memorizing,
place situates the memorial life. The model of the wax-tablet, which represents the preservation
of memories, constitutes the topology of the remembered (cf. Casey, 2000, p. 182).
LAJOS HORVÁTH
Affiliation: Department of Philosophy
University of Debrecen, Hungary
Email: horvath.lajos@arts.unideb.hu
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
67
role in the constitution of autobiographical memory; for example, the memory and atmo-
sphere of the childhood home or other dwellings are etched in our memory.4 However,
the processes of storage and retrieval are not restricted to mental localization and place
memories. Skills and habits can also preserve the past in a non-representational form.
In the latter cases the past is enacted rather than remembered. From a phenomeno-
logical viewpoint, memory, including the process of recollection, is a multifarious inten-
tional accomplishment that could take the form of conscious recollection or enacted
bodily skills. Still, the emphasis of bodily elements in the process of recollection is not
the invention of phenomenologists like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. The observation that
knowledge can be preserved in practical skills can be traced back to Descartes (1640/
1996., cf. Fuchs, 2012b, p. 9). Maine de Biran and Bergson have also placed emphasis
on the process of developing habits. Consequently, they have also seen the difference
between conscious recollection and the memory of the body (Fuchs, 2012b, pp. 9–10).
In Matter and Memory, Bergson differentiated between two forms of memory. Recollections
are stored in our memory as images. However, memory has a non-representational form
as well. Memory in action, like writing or walking, is lived and acted out rather than represen-
ted in imagistic forms. The body can store past actions by means of its motor mechanisms.
The habit memory no longer represents but rather acts, or, with contemporary phrase,
re-enacts the past. Bergson claims that the role of habit memory is not to conserve
bygone memories but to prolong their effects into the present moment. One type of
memory imagines and the other repeats (Bergson, 1896/1991, pp. 82–83).5 The two
types of memory support each other in cases of aphasia and dementia. Bergson argues
that automatism shows intelligence in these circumstances. A patient who suffers from
dementia sometimes is able to give an intelligent answer (Bergson, 1896/1991, p. 86).
Inspired by Bergson, Fuchs argued that body memory enables us to explore the lower
levels of the sense of self beyond the stage of conscious recollection and autobiographical
memory. In dementia or in extreme forms of amnesia, patients can no longer remember
4 Casey describes a situation in which the “indistinct image” of the basement of his childhood
home is associatively awakened. Casey contends that this memor y came as a surprise, because it came
from the distant past and lacked reinforcement. He also underscores the frequent occurrence of place
memories (Casey, 2000, p. 28, 183).
5 According to Tewes, Bergson’s concept of habit is in line with contemporary views on habit.
Habit can be seen as part of procedural or non-declarative memory. When a stimulus triggers a habit
then it behaves as an automatically performed action scheme (Tewes, 2018, pp. 137–138). Fuchs also
draws on Bergson’s habit memory. He cites Bergson’s example according to which a learned poem lives
in the subject as a sensorimotor or bodily disposition. He defines habit memory in the following way:
“habitual memory […] does not represent the past, but rather re-enacts it implicitly or unconsciously
in bodily-practical implementations” (Fuchs, 2018, p. 54).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
68
their previous experiences, yet they preserve a “pre-reflective experience of self” which
is basically pre-verbal, or, pre-personal. Fuchs mentions the case of a patient who
suffered from dementia but when his grandchildren visited him, he suddenly awakened
from his lethargic state and played football with them. It turned out that the patient was
a member of a football club. Fuchs also recounts the story of Clive Wearing, a British
musicologist, conductor and tenor, who suffered from severe amnesia but managed
to preserve his ability to play the piano and conduct (2017, p. 311).6 Fuchs claims that
a life story remains implicitly present in the spontaneous interactions of people suffering
from dementia (2021, p. 311, cf. Fuchs, 2012b, pp. 78–79). Following in the footsteps
of Bergson and Merleau-Ponty, Fuchs argues that the unity and identity of the person
is not restricted to conscious remembering (2021, p. 198). In other words, under the level
of personal self, a more fundamental level of selfhood establishes a non-representational
connection with the past. Body memory may play role in the constitution of an experiential
self that can be positioned between the minimal self and the person (Fuchs, 2017,
p. 312). The former is, as Zahavi formulated, pre-reflective self-awareness which means
the minenesss or for-me-ness of first personally presented experiences occurring in
the immanent sphere of consciousness. As Zahavi puts it: “the mineness refers to the
distinct manner, or how, of experiencing. It refers to the first-personal presence of all
my experiential contents; it refers to the experiential perspectivalness of phenomenal
consciousness” (2014, p. 22). The latter is the level of personal identity based on con-
scious recollection and narrative self-understanding.7 Between the formal evidence
of pre-reflective self-awareness and retrospectively constituted personal identity,
one can find another basal self-experience which is constituted by body memories.8
6 Concerning the problem of the loss of personal identity, Shaun Nichols mentioned studies
according to which the family members of patients with neurodegeneration claimed that the changing
moral traits of patients altered their identity more radically than the loss of memory. According to
Nichols, the study indicates that morality plays a more important role in assessing personal identity
than memor y. Furthermore, Nichols argues that while the typical philosophical debates focus on the
role of episodic memory in the constitution of personal identity, personality traits can also be stored
in semantic memory (2017, pp. 173–74, cf. Strohminger & Nichols, 2015). Hydén’s case studies (2018)
demonstrated that procedural memory and embodied episodic memory (a memory mediated by ges-
tures and enactments) made it possible for subjects with Alzheimer’s disease to preserve a sense of
self in social interactions.
7 There is no room here for a detailed account of the various formulations of personal identity.
Nichols argues that the typical, philosophical notion of personal identity is based on immediate memory
connections that chain together the mental states of the person and establish diachronic identity (2017,
p. 170). For a thorough historical overview, see Thiel (2011). For the narrative view of personal identity
see, for example, Schechtman (1996) and Go ldie (2012). In the current work I follow Fuchs who highlights
the importance of “affective self-experience” in contrast to the continuity thesis, including Descartes’
and Locke’s solutions to personal identity (2017, p. 293).
8 As Fuchs puts it: “all performances of life enter into the memory of the body and remain pre-
served as disposition and potentialities: as Merleau-Ponty pointed out, the body is ‘solidified existence’
and, for its part, ‘existence [is] perpetual incarnation’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 148)” (Fuchs, 2021, p. 200).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
69
In what follows, I will show that the above-mentioned bodily self-experience is connected
to place memories. Casey and Fuchs regard body memories and place memories equally
important in the explanation of the diachronic continuity of the subject. That is, body memo-
ries are not restricted to dispositions and skills, but they also enable the emergence of place
memories which contribute to our sense of self and allow re-identification with the past.
Body memory can be divided into subtypes. Casey distinguished between three types
of body memory: (a) habitual memory, (b) traumatic memory, and (c) erotic memory (2000,
p. 154). By contrast, Fuchs distinguishes twice as many types of body memories as Casey,
including procedural, situational, intercorporeal, incorporative, pain, and traumatic memory
(Fuchs, 2012a, p. 12). There is a consonance between Casey’s habit memory and Fuchs’
procedural memory. Fuchs mentions that we can learn to type with two hands or drive
a car effortlessly and forget the process of learning. Fuchs’ notion of procedural memory
is also connected to places: our bodies anticipate the places of objects and we become
disoriented when we cannot nd them in their right location (2012a, p. 12).9 It is worth men-
tioning that traumatic memory is another common category between Casey and Fuchs.
Traumatic body memory refers to the process of re-enactment of the past including
the intrusion of disturbing experiences into the present.10
The main feature of traumatic body memory is the re-enactment or re-living of the past in the
present. For instance, Fuchs mentions Aharon Appelfeld’s autobiographical story. The writer
spent his childhood (7 to 13 years) in the Ukrainian forest during the Second World War,
and an insignicant stimulus can trigger his avoidance behavior and anxiety in the present.
9 Hutto and Myin argue that procedural memory does not store representations of the external
world but rather an “amalgamated response pattern” is created from repeated performances
(Hutto and Myin, 2017, p. 206).
10 Fuchs’ body memory is a philosophical psychological concept inspired by the phenomenology
of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, and studies on implicit memory. Because of the hybrid nature of the notion,
body memory can be approached from philosophical and psychological angles as well. For example,
Petra Jansen claims that body memory is not commonly employed in cognitive psychology because
of the lack of appropriate testing methods. According to Jansen, body schema means the sensorimo-
tor map of the body, body image is the pictorial representation of the body, and, as Fuchs has already
formulated, body memory consists of invisible dispositions (cf. Jansen, 2012, p. 118). Interestingly, Sabine
C. Koch made a content analysis of Fuchs’ body memory taxonomy and found that Fuchs’ categories
were mirrored and even extended with the help of the participants’ accounts. She contends that habitual/
procedural memory can be equated with procedural memory in cognitive psychology; nonetheless,
the other types of body memory are not investigated by cognitive sciences (see Koch, 2012, p. 183).
Most recently, Gentsch and Kuehn introduced the concept of Clinical Body Memory (CBM), which desig-
nates the harmful impact of negative bodily experiences stemming from the past. These past experiences
may contribute to the development of mental health problems such as somatic symptoms, traumatic
re- experiences, or dissociative symptoms (Gentsch & Kuehn, 2022). Body memory is also a recurrent
theme in neuroscientific investigations as one of the components of the complex system of body
representation. For reviewing the taxonomy of body representation and body memory see Riva (2018),
Damasio (1999), and de Vignemont (2010).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
70
In these intrusive symptoms the past, as an “entire segment of life,” is not only embedded
into the present but also overshadows it through its immense affective impact.
The memories of suffering, including the places of suffering, sedimented, and con-
stituted an implicit body memory in the subject (Fuchs, 2012a, p. 18).
Habitual memories and traumatic memories may resurrect the past in different ways.
Casey speaks of the immanent presence of the past, more precisely he imagines
a “co-immanence” between the present and the past. On the one hand, our past is pre-
served in our skills, but, on the other hand, individual memories may occur in represen-
tational form by the mediation of emerging bodily sensations. Therapeutic interventions
shed light on the fact that the painful past can be altered and worked through in the present.
Habitual memories establish the fusion between the past and present, however, in case
of traumatic memories, defense and narration generate a greater distance between them
(Casey, 2000, pp. 168–169).
Familiarization and Kinesthetic Awareness
Body memory not only establishes a connection with the past but also generates the feeling
of familiarity in an environment. The familiarity of our environment is established by our
acquired practical and procedural skills. For example, if someone reorders the room in
which we work we must familiarize ourselves again with our surroundings. In this respect,
there is a strong correlation between Fuchs’ situational memory and Casey’s place memory.
Fuchs claims that implicit memory extends to space and situations where we find our-
selves. With citations from Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, he describes how the house
of our childhood is preserved by means of accumulated past experiences. As Bachelard
put it: our home is “physically inscribed in us,” or “engraved within us” (1958/1964, p. 14,
cf. Fuchs, 2012a, p. 13). Casey distinguishes site from place, the former is the impersonal,
geometrical understanding of space and the latter is a “qualitative whole” owning to our
kinesthetic experience (1997, p. 219). In a similar vein, Fuchs speaks of the “atmosphere of
familiarity” that permeates our childhood home when we arrive back to there. He introduces
the concept of situation in which bodily, sensory, and atmospheric perception is fused.
His examples are a roaring stadium, a boat trip on a sea, and a night walk in a brightly light
city. Situations and places bring forth the atmospheric character of locations that seem
to emanate from their expressive qualities (Fuchs, 2012a, p. 14., cf. Casey, 2000, p. 199).
The qualitative and atmospheric character of place can be preserved and recollected
through body memories and the familiarization of space takes place through the lived
body. The body centralizes the phenomenal field of perception, it provides the zero point
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
71
of orientation.11 Furthermore, the ego is anchored in the lived body, or, as Husserl has
formulated, the body constitutes an absolute “here” (Husserl, 1907/1997, cf. Moran, 2013,
p. 293). The lived body constitutes the surrounding lived space. Casey argues that Husserl
is on the brink of the discovery of lived space when he begins to examine kinesthetic
activities like walking or standing still. Husserl did not immediately discover lived space.
At first, he considered the visual space that lies between the lived body and the objec-
tive space. In this regard, Husserl uses place (Ort) and position (Lage) interchangeably
which, as Casey argues, suggests the image of an invariable space that is always given.
However, the analysis of kinesthesia reveals the subjective character of place. As Casey
has put it: “such a place cannot be a mere site; it is a complex qualitative whole that
answers to my kinesthetic experience of it” (1997, p. 219). According to Casey, Husserl
had no concept of lived space as such, but he had various substitutes like “visual space”
(Sehraum) or “the nears-sphere” (Nah-sphere) that can be accessed through kinesthesis
(Casey, 1997, p. 219). Based on Husserl’s draft from 1914/15, Casey considers the term
“bodily space” (Leibesraum) to be identical with lived space. He defines it as the place
that the lived body experiences at any given moment (Casey, 1997, p. 220).
Place Memories and Affective Atmospheres
According to Casey, there is a constitutive relationship between body memory and place
memory. The memory of the past is not necessarily a disembodied episodic memory.
The passage of life is felt in the lived body, we feel that we are getting older. However, not
only time leaves the mark on and in the body but also the lived body realizes an intimate
relationship between memory and place. As Casey formulates it: “the body’s maneuvers
and movements, imagined as well as actual, make room for remembering placed scenes
in all of their complex composition” (2000, p. 189, emphasis in the original). If we,
for example, consider the recurrent memory of our childhood home, then we can
recognize the intimate connection between place and memory. Memories are frequently
revolving around places; that is, we remember our home, an event, or a person who is
situated in a certain place. It is hard or even impossible to imagine a person without
the surrounding place, or an event without a “specific locale.” In general, place situates
one’s memorial life and provides a “local habitation” to it (Casey, 2000, p. 183–184).
11 The present moment of the stream of consciousness is also bodily founded. The living present
is constituted by a complex set of intentional and bodily accomplishments. As Marosán has formu-
lated: “my stream of experience is made up of three fundamental components: interoceptive, affective-
emotional, and exteroceptive experience. The first two refer to a bodily subject’s self-experience. The lat-
ter relates to one’s own body (as experienced from the outside) and its surrounding world” (2022, p. 114).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
72
From the perspective of the history of philosophy, Casey argues that Descartes over-
shadowed the concept of place by the idea of site. Site is not a container but an open
area, a cartographic representation of a homogeneous and isotropic space. Site can
be defined by the distances between positions. According to Casey, the idea of site
implies emptiness, that is, site has no obstructions, cues, or points of attachment onto
which memories can be attached. By contrast, place is a personalized space, it is full of
“potenties,” “protuberant features,” and “forceful vectors” that enhance memorability
(Casey, 2000, p. 155–156). Casey suggests that memories are massively place-oriented.
His thoroughly examined “Yosemite memory” is a “virtual tour of places.” In addition,
his “Small Change memory” is also imbued with places. In this memory, he recounts the
succession of places that were attended during the approach to the movie theater. Casey
argues that the theater building itself reminded him of memorable movies, therefore it
“held the past in place.” Place as “a nebulous setting” may occur even in recollections of iso-
lated items, like the number of Casey’s oce door (2000, p. 187–188). Casey also suggests
that body memory and place memory are virtually indistinguishable in many ways of re-
membering. The body recollects its “local history” in the present by habits and enactments.
The lived body enables us to experience places as familiar and memorable places. In our
day-to-day living, the lived body transforms the lived space into a shelter. The loss of the
sense of habitable space leads to disorientation and anxiety. The importance of places
may occur retrospectively. As Casey suggests, places are “retrospectively tinged,” they
may have a “nostalgic spell,” or we can get stuck in them because we have created our
memories in them. Feeling at home in a place is eventuated by our lived body, and it also
makes possible to remember what it was like dwelling in our childhood home. In short,
when familiarization is completed, we have the conviction of being at home in the world;
however, if it fails then we may experience Heimatlosigkeit (Casey, 2000, p. 195).
The affectively charged and empowered places constitute the implicit horizon of the life-
world. Contrary to site, in which space is determined by relative positions, lived space
is endowed with expressive qualities, a kind of “inherent emotionality.” Based on Ervin
Straus’ and Lawrence Durrell’s considerations, Casey accentuates the landscape-
character of places. Spaces can inspire or repel us, and these physiognomic qualities,
which are outside of the authority of the subject, contribute to the encoding and recol-
lecting of memories. We may remember vividly the landscapes that sparked our interest.
Casey argues that the expressive qualities of landscapes could be so overwhelming
that we sacrifice the explicit consciousness and the emotion moves us out of the body;
in this case, place and the lived body may dissolve into a unity (Casey, 2000, p. 200).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
73
The lived space is colored by affective atmospheres. These atmospheres may come
from the past in cases of familiarization or de-familiarization. The above-mentioned
Heimatlosigkeit can be seen as the absence of familiarity. According to Fuchs, we must
abandon the idea that emotions are introjected feelings in the psyche. We do not only live
in the physical world, but rather experience space accompanied by affective qualities:
We feel something ‘in the air,’ or we sense an interpersonal ‘climate,’ for example,
a serene, a solemn, or a threatening atmosphere. Feelings befell us; they emerge from
situations, persons, and objects which have their expressive qualities, and which attract
or repel us. The emotional space is essentially felt through the medium of the body which
widens, tightens, weakens, trembles, shakes, etc. in correspondence to the feelings and
atmospheres that we experience. (Fuchs, 2014, p. 186, emphasis in the original)
Affective atmospheres cannot be reduced to moods because of their ability to modulate
the actual mood of a subject. Atmospheres are closely connected to perceptions of places,
they are intersubjectively shared pre-reflective experiences.12 Affective atmospheres are
the holistic qualities of interpersonal and spatial situations. The place-oriented examples
of atmospheres could be the “awe inspiring aura of an old cathedral” or “the uncanni-
ness of a somber wood at night” (Fuchs, 2013, p. 616–617). Atmospheres could challenge
the intellect. In cases of the uncanny (Unheimlich) and delusional mood (Stimmung) the
atmosphere of the environment seems indefinable and engenders anxiety, tension, and
emptiness. In addition, even paranoid delusions may follow from delusional mood (Fuchs,
2019, p. 110).13 The felt familiarity, the bodily resonance with the near and distant sphere
of perception has been lost in these situations and the ambiguity of perception occurs.
The foreboding and alienating affective atmospheres indirectly show the role of place and
body memories in the constitution of the self. In these situations, the felt sense of familiarity
begins to fade away and the basal experience of the self also disintegrates or diminishes.
Lived Space and the Horizontal Unconscious
According to Fuchs, the lived space is not only permeated by affective atmospheres
but also the unconscious can be spatialized. Fuchs contends that the Gestalt-analysis
of our surroundings may have psychological and psychopathological implications.
12 Trigg (2020) defines atmospheres in the following way: “atmospheres are affective phenomena,
which are grasped pre-reflectively, manifest spatially, felt corporeally, and conceived as semi-
autonomous and determinate entities” (p. 1).
13 For the detailed account of delusional mood, see, for example, Sass (2017), Sass and
Pienkos (2013, 2014), Sass and Ratcliffe (2017). For the analysis of the uncanny, see Trigg (2012).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
74
Merleau-Ponty has already reinterpreted Freud’s metapsychology in an illuminating way.
The crux of Merleau-Ponty’s argument was that subjectivity is extended in the life-
world and the unconscious expresses itself in our visible behavior during day-to-day
living. In short, the structure of the lived space is characterized by unconscious moti-
vations. Fuchs argues that a person’s corporeal and intercorporeal experiences are not
hidden in an intrapsychic reservoir but rather actualized in the horizontal dimensions
of the lived space. Past actions and situations are fused together in body memory
and re-actualized as attitudes. The virtual presence of the past enables us to feel
at home in situations (Fuchs, 2012b, p. 73). That is, the lived space is schematized
by the lived body, in which the past resides in sedimented forms, however, the present
circumstances can enrich and extend the scope of sedimented body memories.
We can acquire new skills, develop new attitudes and habits, and traumas can also
leave their mark in our body and behavior.
Fuchs employs Kurt Lewin’s field psychology to exemplify the intertwining between
the lived body and lived space. According to Lewin, the lived space of a person can be
divided into sectors including their physical and symbolic boundaries.14 Sectors can
be peripersonal spaces around the body, claimed territories, or the spheres of influence.
However, the zones of prohibition or taboo are also significant ingredients of sectors.
The lived space is structured by dynamic forces. One can see fields of attraction and
aversion in the lived space because of the underlying attracting and repelling forces
(Fuchs, 2012b, p. 74). Fuchs contends that the analysis of lived space enables the refor-
mulation of two psychodynamic concepts, namely, defense and repetition compulsion.
The effect of emotional trauma is the deformation of the lived space: the traumatized
person takes up an avoidance stance toward certain locations. Resistance or defence
in psychotherapy takes the form of “relieving or avoidance posture.” In case of repetition
compulsion, the person is stuck in the past and early life experiences unconsciously
dominate the present. Someone who has experienced abusive and violent relation-
ships in the past may encounter similar situations in the present. According to Fuchs,
for such people, the lived space contains “attracting spaces” that afford negative
attachment patterns for the subject. These patterns of behavior and the distortions
of the lived space indicate that the unconscious is not a hidden realm in the psyche but
rather embodied in the ways of living and surrounds the subject (Fuchs, 2007, p. 432).
14 Fuchs utilizes Lewin’s term of “life space” which is, in this context, compatible with the
phenomenological notion of lived space. For the sake of consistency, I will employ the notion of
lived space in this succinct presentation of the horizontal unconscious (cf. Fuchs, 2012b, p. 74).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
75
Body memory and the topology of the lived space enables the introduction of the hori-
zontal unconscious that lies in front of the perceiving subject. Fuchs also reformulates
Freud’s theory of repression. Certain drive or wish can act as a “field force” in lived space
and takes shape by the mediation of ambiguous or uncertain perception. Fuchs takes the
example of Heinrich von Kleist’s story in which an abstinent soldier relapses because he
heard the names of various brandies in the tolling of bells. In this short story the body and
environment are intertwined: a suppressed desire finds its way and crystallizes around
ambiguous perceptions. The latent desire found its satisfaction through displacement.
In this context, displacement means that the subject confronted with his drive in the
ambiguous perceptions of his experiential field (Fuchs, 2012b, pp. 75–76).
Implicit body memory may offer several opportunities to organize or hinder day-to-day
living. Prominent examples are the avoidance behavior and the zones of prohibitions of
a child. The lived body is not an isolated pattern of experience, rather its constitution
depends on “intercorporeal encounters” (Fuchs, 2012a, p. 15). The body integrates bodily,
emotional, and behavioral dispositions, resulting in embodied personality structures
that can be activated in the interpersonal realm. Past experiences may lead to certain
types of conduct, for instance, submissive behavior has its typical components including
emotions, interaction, and posture (Fuchs, 2012a, p. 15). Unconscious fixations can be
seen as restrictions in the lived space. Fuchs argues that the traces of fixations remain
present in the blind spots, empty spaces, and curvatures of the lived space. The life of
the person is lled with avoided spaces, missed opportunities, recurrent relationship pat-
terns thatconstitute a negative curvature in lived space. These can be transformed and
symbolically presented in neurotic or psychosomatic symptoms (Fuchs, 2012b, p. 80).
Bodily Place Memories
It is worth considering that, in Fuchs’ view, body memory is not only identical with disposi-
tions of perceiving and behaving, including the above-mentioned horizontal unconscious,
but it can also be seen as the carrier of “memory cores of our biographical past” (2012a,
p. 20). Fuchs shows that the spontaneous “explication” of memory cores during Proust’s
madeleine experience begins with emerging bodily sensations. Specic regions of childhood
and the whole Combray and its surroundings are associatively awakened during the memory
retrieval. Casey also examines Proust’s famous description, and he compares place memo-
ries to a Chinese garden. The garden symbolizes the microcosm of nature and is lled with
great emotional charge. On the one hand, it is a memorable place in itself, and, on the other
hand, its inherent expressiveness may evoke prior experiences of landscapes or paintings.
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
76
That is, it facilitates memory retrieval and it can also be transformed into a memorable
place, later. According to Casey, the madeleine experience and the Chinese garden clearly
represent the three main characteristics of place memory: one can find different path-
ways (the streets of the town, the roads of the garden) and specific things inside them,
and they are also filled with internal and external horizons (for example, the Swann’s
estate and its surroundings in Proust’s passage) (Casey, 2000, p. 207).
Fuchs argues that the past as well as the actual perception are given in the present
moment. Autobiographical memory represents events as belonging to the past. However,
bodily remembering (leiblicher Erinnerung) re-actualizes the past in the present; that is,
the past becomes living present, again. As we have seen, the identity-constitutive effect
of body memory can be supplemented by literary and clinical examples. For Fuchs,
Proust’s madeleine experience represents the situation where a condensed and seem-
ingly forgotten period of biography resurfaces owing to the taste of the cake.15 Bodily sen-
sations can be the signs of the explication of “implicit meaning cores” (Sinneinsclusses).
During the madeleine experience, childhood memories and an entire world have been
awakened. In general, we are not only connected to the past by means of an autobio-
graphical episode, but we also carry the emotional weight of a terrible past or the joy
of a cloudless childhood in implicit memory cores. Both explicit and body memory
are the “carrier of our life history” (Fuchs, 2008, p. 52; cf. Fuchs, 2012a, pp. 19–20).
The idea that there is a close connection between autobiography and body memory
can also be represented with a clinical case study. Fuchs recounts the story of
Madame I., whose limbic system was seriously injured resulting in the loss of bodily
experiences. She was unable to feel her limbs and underwent the process of alien-
ation; that is, her identity became abstract and intangible. The collapse of her bodily
experiences correlated with the deficits of autobiographical memory. She claimed that
she cannot retrieve the sight of her own house or other familiar places, and she was
unable to remember the taste of a meal, the scent of flowers, or even the voice of
her children. In general, she felt her memories as alien and untrustworthy (Fuchs,
2008, p. 51). According to Fuchs, a familiar scent, taste, melody, or the atmosphere
of places could bring the distant past back into the present in a condensed form.
15 Recent memory research claims that the tasting of the madeleine (three times) was
a multimodal experience in which smell played a significant role. For instance, Smith argues
that smell constitutes a “wordless form of contact with a time one didn’t know one had remem-
bered” (Smith, 2016, p. 40). Proust’s madeleine episode sparked the interest of contemporary
neuroscience. According to Gibson, the madeleine moment demonstrates how subconscious
emotions color our memories, and it helps the past to guide the present (Gibson, 2016, p. 48).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
77
Remembering can take us back to the childhood home including the feelings and pros-
pects of that time. However, if the basal, bodily self-experience collapses, then the places
of the present as well as of the past may seem unreal and alien (Fuchs, 2008, p. 51).
Is it not paradoxical to talk about the presentiment of the past in bodily sensations and
place memories? Fuchs argues that the implicit meaning cores of bodily remembering are
not just amalgamated, condensed biographical episodes, they can also be seen as sparks
of interest from which new meaning may arise. The sensations, movements, and forebod-
ings of the lived body engender not only echoes of the forgotten or repressed past, but they
can also open the gate to the future, to the unpredictable and unexpected. The unraveling
of latent motives may orient the subject to the open possibilities of the future (Fuchs, 2008,
p. 52). Or, as Gendlin has formulated Fuchs’ ideas: the past reshapes itself in the body’s
present performance and the present experience reshapes the past. This bidirectional inter-
action between the past and present is the manifestation of life itself (Gendlin, 2012, p. 74).
Conclusions
As it was discussed above, both Casey and Fuchs contended that body memory comprises
habits. That is, habits and skills establish our bodily familiarity with the environment. Body
memory also provides the foundation of an underlying self-experience including individual
attitudes, modes of expression, and behavior. We can differentiate between shy, submis-
sive, or considerate ways of behaving. It is important to note that body memory is inter-
subjectively structured and significantly shaped by traumatic experiences (Fuchs, 2017,
pp. 306–307). In general, body memory anchors the subject in the past, lays the foun-
dations of character traits and skills. However, the role of body memory is not limited to
the habitual and procedural characteristics of the person. It can also contain and express
autobiographical memories. Fuchs designated this process as the explication of implicit
meaning or memory cores. The process of explication can be triggered by various ways.
Casey’s analyses of place memory have shown the predominance of spatial elements
in occurring body memories. Based on the previous discussions, it seems reasonable
to assume that in these affectively charged experiences mental time travel and spatial
transportation occurs at the same time.16 The remembering subject is fascinated by the
re-emerging past and re-located into a long-forgotten place.
16 Mental time travel (MTT) is the revised definition of episodic memory that emphasizes
the subjective experience of remembering. Contrary to traditional philosophical analysis, it does not
assume a gap between remembering the past and imagining the future. For a detailed analysis of
the models of episodic memory, see, for example, Sant’Anna et al. (2020) and Michaelian (2016).
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
78
The retentional modification of primal impressions suggest that the present cannot be
given again in its totality. However, in emerging place memories the subject experiences
a bi-locality; that is, owing to the affective-associative reproduction of distant memories
we are “implaced” into the past, as Casey has suggested.
While habitual body memory provides a basal experiential reality to our lives, place memo-
ries revitalize and reinforce our sense of self on the level of explicit recollection and,
at the same time, resurrect the condensed affective atmospheres of long forgotten lived
spaces. This kind of bolstering effect was demonstrated by Proust’s madeleine experi-
ence. In addition to this process of re-familiarization with the past, including the memory
of significant places like childhood home, Appelfeld’s account illustrated the process
of de-familiarization where the seemingly forgotten place of suffering causes fright and
alienation in the present. In sum, we can imagine situations in which positive or nega-
tive affective atmospheres of distant and long forgotten places intrude into the present.
In case of the madeleine experience the connection between bodily sensations and
Combray is explicit. However, in the case of Appelfeld’s avoidance behavior the place
of former suffering is not necessarily explicated during the state of fright but rather
implicitly present in the author’s habit. In this latter case, place memory may not neces-
sarily occur in explicit form despite of its impact on conduct. That is, not all body memory
indicates the explicit recollection of places, but places and situations are necessary
for the constitution of body memory and bodily remembering.
References
Appelfeld, A. (2005). Geschichte eines Lebens [The story of a life]. Reinbek.
Bachelard, G. (1964). The Poetics of space (M. Jolas, Trans.). Beacon Press. (Original
work published 1958)
Bergson, H. (1991). Matter and memory (N. M. Paul, & W. S. Palmer, Trans.). Zone Books.
(Original work published 1896)
Casey, E. S. (1997). The fate of place: A philosophical history. University of California Press.
Casey, E. S. (2000). Remembering: A phenomenological study. Indiana University Press.
Casey, E. S. (2022). Turning emotion inside out: Affective life beyond the subject.
Northwestern University Press.
Damasio, A. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body, emotion and the making of con-
sciousness. Harcourt Brace and Co, Inc.
Descartes, R. (1996). Euvres de Descartes [Descartes’ collected works]. (C. Adam &
P. Tannery, Eds). Vrin. (Original work published 1640)
de Vignemont, F. (2010). Body schema and body image – pros and cons. Neuropsychologia,
48(3), 669–680. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.09.022
Fuchs, T. (2007). Psychotherapy of the lived space: A phenomenological and ecological
concept. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 61(4), 423–39. https://doi.org/10.1176/
appi.psychotherapy.2007.61.4.423
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
79
Fuchs, T. (2008). Leibgedächtnis und Lebensgeschichte [Body memory and life history].
In F. A. Friedrich, T. Fuchs, J. Koll, B. Krondorfer & G. M. Martin (Eds.), Der Text im
Körper. Leibgedächtnis, Inkarnation und Bibliodrama (pp. 10–40). EB-Verlag.
Fuchs, T. (2012a). The phenomenology of body memory. In S. C. Koch, T. Fuchs, M.
Summa & C. Müller, (Eds.), Body Memory, Metaphor and Movement (pp. 9–22). John
Benjamins Publishing Company.
Fuchs, T. (2012b). Body memory and the unconscious. In D. Lohmar & J. Brudzińska
(Eds.), Founding Psychoanalysis Phenomenologically (pp. 69–82). Springer.
Fuchs, T. (2013). The phenomenology of affectivity. In K. W. M. Fulford, M. Davies, R. G.
T. Gipps, G. Graham, J. Z. Sadler, G. Stanghellini & T. Thornton (Eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (pp. 612–631). Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579563.013.0038
Fuchs, T. (2014). Depression, Intercorporeality, and interaffectivity. In M. Ratcliffe & A.
Stephan (Eds.), Depression, Emotion and the Self (pp. 183–198). Imprint Academic.
Fuchs, T. (2017). Self across time: the diachronic unity of bodily existence. Phenomenology
and the Cognitive Sciences, 16, 291–315. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-015-94 49-4
Fuchs, T. (2018). The cyclical time of the body and its relation to linear time. Journal of
Consciousness Studies, 25(7–8), 47–65.
Fuchs, T. (2019). The uncanny atmosphere. In G. Francesetti & T. Griffero (Eds.),
Psychopathology and atmospheres. Neither inside nor outside (pp. 101–118).
Cambridge Scholar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs7040070
Fuchs, T. (2021). In Defense of the human-being. Oxford University Press.
Gendlin, E. T. (2012). Comment on Thomas Fuchs: The time of the explicating process.
In S. C. Koch, T. Fuchs, M. Summa & C. Müller (Eds.), Body Memory, Metaphor and
Movement (pp. 73–82). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Gentsch, A., & Kuehn, E. (2022). Clinical manifestations of body Memories: The impact
of past bodily experiences on mental health. Brain Sciences, 12(5), 594. https://doi.
org/10.3390/brainsci12050594
Gibson, E. L. (2016). Proust recalled: A psychological revisiting of that madeleine mem-
ory moment. In S. Groes (Eds.), Memory in the Twenty-First Century (pp. 42–50).
Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137520586_4
Goldie, P. (2012). The Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion, & the Mind. Oxford University Press.
Hutto, D. D., & Myin, E. (2017). Evolving enactivism: Basic minds meet content. The MIT Press.
Husserl, E. (1997). Thing and Space: Lectures of 1907. In R. Rojcewicz (Ed. and Trans.),
Edmund Husserl Collected Works VII. Springer. (Original work published 1907)
Hydén, L-C. (2018). Dementia, Embodied Memories, and the Self. Journal of Consciousness
Studies, 25(7–8), 225–241.
Jansen, P. (2012). Implicit body memory. In S. C. Koch, T. Fuchs, M. Summa & C. Müller
(Eds.), Body Memory, Metaphor and Movement (pp. 115–120). John Benjamins
Publishing Company.
Koch, S. C. (2012). Testing Fuchs’ taxonomy of body memory: A content analysis of
interview data. In S. C. Koch, T. Fuchs, M. Summa & C. Müller (Eds.), Body Memory,
Metaphor and Movement (pp. 171–186). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Marosán, B. P. (2022). Husserl on Minimal Mind and the Origins of Consciousness in
the Natural World. Husserl Studies, 38, 107–127. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-
021-09299-6
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory
Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023
80
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible (A. Lingis, Trans). Northwestern
University Press. (Original work published 1964)
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2005). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans). Routledge.
(Original work published 1962)
Michaelian, K. (2016). Mental Time Travel: Episodic Memory and Our Knowledge of the
Past. MIT Press.
Moran, D. (2013). The Phenomenology of Embodiment: Intertwining and Reflexivity. In
R. T. Jensen & D. Moran (Eds.), The Phenomenology of Embodied Subjectivity (pp.
285–304). Springer.
Nichols, S. (2017). Memory and personal identity. In S. Bernecker, & K. Michaelian (Eds.),
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory (pp. 169–179). Routledge.
Riva, G. (2018). The neuroscience of body memory: From the self through the space to
the others. Cor tex, 104, 241–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.07.013
Roediger, H. L. (1980). Memory metaphors in cognitive psychology. Memory & Cognition,
8, 231–246. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197611
Sant’Anna, A., Michaelian, K. & Perrin, D. (2020). Editorial: Memory as mental time
travel. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11, 223–232. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s13164-020-00484-8
Sass L, & Ratclif fe, M. (2017). Atmosphere: On the phenomenology of “atmospheric” alter-
ations in schizophrenia – overall sense of reality, familiarity, vitality, meaning, or rele-
vance (ancillary article to EAWE domain 5). Psychopathology, 50, 90–97. https://doi.
org/10.1159/000454884
Sass, L. (2017). Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the light of modern art, literature, and
thought (revised edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sass, L. A., & Pienkos, E. (2013). Delusion: The phenomenological approach. In K.W.M.
Fulford, M. Davies, R. G. T. Gipps, G. Graham, J. Z. Sadler, G. Stanghellini & T. Thornton
(Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (pp. 632–657). Oxford.
Sass, L. A., & Pienkos, E. (2014). Space, time, and atmosphere: A comparative phenome-
nology of melancholia, mania, and schizophrenia, part 2. In M. Ratcliffe & A. Stephan
(Eds.), Depression, Emotion and the Self (pp. 103–123). Imprint Academic.
Schechtman, M. (1996). The Constitution of Selves. Cornell University Press.
Smith, B. C. (2016). Proust, the madeleine and memory. In S. Groes (Eds.), Memory in
the Twenty-First Century (pp. 38–41). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/
9781137520 5 86_ 3
Strohminger, N., & Nichols, S. (2015). Neurodegeneration and Identity. Psychological
Science, 26(9), 1469–1469. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615592381
Tewes, C. (2018). The habitual body and its role in collective memory formation. Journal
of Consciousness Studies, 25(7–8), 135–157.
Thiel, U. (2011). The Early Modern Subject: Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity from
Descartes to Hume. Oxford University Press.
Trigg, D. (2012). The Memory of Place: A Phenomenology of the Uncanny. Ohio University
Press.
Trigg, D. (2020). The role of atmosphere in shared emotion. Emotion, Space and Society,
35, May 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100658
Zahavi, D. (2014). Self & Other: Exploring subjectivity, empathy and shame. Oxford University
Press.
Lajos HORVÁTH. The Topography of Memory: The Constitutive Relation Between Body Memory
and Place Memory