Minding the moving self: The centrality of body movement in the neurodynamics of the self and psychotherapeutic implications

Sharon Vaisvaser^*

• Ono Academic College, Kiryat Ono, Israel

Neuroscientific explorations of the self acknowledge the central role of the body and dynamic sensory-motor interactions in sense of self and mental functioning. The multidimensional self-concept comprises pre-reflexive bodily dimensions scaffolding higher-order mental self-representations, which relate to and rely on movement-based relational foundations. Disruptions in ongoing self-constitution, development and expansion call for psychotherapeutic work that recognizes and utilizes dynamic bodily aspects, and formulation of personalized treatment plans. This manuscript discusses the brain-body-mind interface, encompassing experiential and temporal-spatial dynamics supported by integrated hierarchical neural processes, in line with predictive processing accounts. Epistemic affordances, or action possibilities, are anchored in neural mechanisms and interlaced with psychotherapeutic work facilitating the generation of predictive models of the body in the world. Movement within the peripersonal space is linked to self-modeling, along with insights into interoceptive awareness covering multimodal sensory-motor integration that facilitates emotional and cognitive processing. Bodily-anchored, and movement-based temporal aspects of the self are discussed in terms of the 'temporal thickness' of experience and further elaborated in relation to mental time travel and autobiographical memory. This grounds the analysis of the implicit and explicit movement within therapeutic relationships. Intersubjective neural mechanisms of mirror-simulation and synchronization are shown to be associated with kinesthetic empathy, embodied mentalization and communicative means of mirroring, attuning, and synchronizing movement. By bridging neuroscientific and clinical perspectives on the embodied, multifaceted dynamics across the nested dimensions of the self, this manuscript outlines pathways for transformative interventions that foster neuroplastic movement toward self-integration.