The Child as a Sense Organ: An Anthroposophic Understanding of Imitation Processes - Paperback
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The initial period of childhood is essentially about adapting to and incarnating on Earth and establishing a provisional balance between the "spiritual" and the "physical," between the prenatal cosmic and the earthly factors. During this time, according to Rudolf Steiner, "all the forces of a child's organization emanate from the neurosensory system. . . . By bringing respiration into harmony with neurosensory activity, we draw the spirit-soul element into the child's physical life."
Peter Selg investigates how children's early experience of the world begins as an undifferentiated sensory relationship to their phenomenological environment. This aspect of a child's incarnation leads to learning through imitation and to the process of recognizing "the Other" as a separate entity with which to interact.
In this cogent work, Peter Selg describes the early stages of childhood from the perspectives of conventional scientific and spiritual-scientific-- anthropological and anthroposophic--research with the purpose of encouraging a new educational attitude in working with young children. In his numerous references to early childhood development, this was Rudolf Steiner's most important and urgent purpose.
∞ ∞ ∞
"Steiner directed attention to the special character of the senses in childhood, particularly in the first few years of life. Through their senses, children are fully exposed to (and to some extent at the mercy of) objects and people around them.... In many of his lectures, especially those dealing with education and developmental physiology, Rudolf Steiner emphasized that the anthropology of early childhood must not only recognize the child as a 'comprehensive' or 'universal' sense organ, but must also give that recognition top priority in any consideration of what is involved in the child's life and experiences. 'Children are completely like sense organs in how they take in the contents of their surroundings'" (from chapter 2).
Born 1963, Stuttgart.
1986-1993 Study of human medicine at the University of Witten/Herdecke, in Berlin and Zurich. Doctoral thesis: Attempt to systematize Rudolf Steiner's human physiological ideas. An analysis of the entire lecture and written work (Witten/Herdecke 1995).
1993-2000 Further training as a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy. Senior physician in the psychiatric department for adolescents and young adults at the Herdecke Community Hospital.
2000-2002 Research associate at the Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology (Freiburg).
2002-2006 Head physician at the Ita Wegman Clinic Arlesheim (adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy); since 2006 establishment and management of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Anthroposophical Research
Since 2007 professorship for medical anthropology and ethics at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Alfter near Bonn); teaching in the Studium fundamentale and in the accompanying studies in anthroposophic medicine at the University/Witten-Herdecke
Since 2020, co-leader of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Section of the School of Spiritual Science (Goetheanum)
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The initial period of childhood is essentially about adapting to and incarnating on Earth and establishing a provisional balance between the "spiritual" and the "physical," between the prenatal cosmic and the earthly factors. During this time, according to Rudolf Steiner, "all the forces of a child's organization emanate from the neurosensory system. . . . By bringing respiration into harmony with neurosensory activity, we draw the spirit-soul element into the child's physical life."
Peter Selg investigates how children's early experience of the world begins as an undifferentiated sensory relationship to their phenomenological environment. This aspect of a child's incarnation leads to learning through imitation and to the process of recognizing "the Other" as a separate entity with which to interact.
In this cogent work, Peter Selg describes the early stages of childhood from the perspectives of conventional scientific and spiritual-scientific-- anthropological and anthroposophic--research with the purpose of encouraging a new educational attitude in working with young children. In his numerous references to early childhood development, this was Rudolf Steiner's most important and urgent purpose.
∞ ∞ ∞
"Steiner directed attention to the special character of the senses in childhood, particularly in the first few years of life. Through their senses, children are fully exposed to (and to some extent at the mercy of) objects and people around them.... In many of his lectures, especially those dealing with education and developmental physiology, Rudolf Steiner emphasized that the anthropology of early childhood must not only recognize the child as a 'comprehensive' or 'universal' sense organ, but must also give that recognition top priority in any consideration of what is involved in the child's life and experiences. 'Children are completely like sense organs in how they take in the contents of their surroundings'" (from chapter 2).
Born 1963, Stuttgart.
1986-1993 Study of human medicine at the University of Witten/Herdecke, in Berlin and Zurich. Doctoral thesis: Attempt to systematize Rudolf Steiner's human physiological ideas. An analysis of the entire lecture and written work (Witten/Herdecke 1995).
1993-2000 Further training as a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy. Senior physician in the psychiatric department for adolescents and young adults at the Herdecke Community Hospital.
2000-2002 Research associate at the Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology (Freiburg).
2002-2006 Head physician at the Ita Wegman Clinic Arlesheim (adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy); since 2006 establishment and management of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Anthroposophical Research
Since 2007 professorship for medical anthropology and ethics at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Alfter near Bonn); teaching in the Studium fundamentale and in the accompanying studies in anthroposophic medicine at the University/Witten-Herdecke
Since 2020, co-leader of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Section of the School of Spiritual Science (Goetheanum)
Contributor(s)
Author