{"id":780,"date":"2026-02-20T16:39:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=780"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T20:56:10","slug":"research-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=780","title":{"rendered":"Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Thesis<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Papers<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Invited Chapters<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Phenomenology of Flow, Well-Being, Autotelic and Self-Transcendent Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My dissertation develops a Husserl- and Merleau-Ponty-inspired phenomenological account of the flow state, which is a state of absorption in effortless, spontaneous action. Also, flow is autotelic (insofar as action is experienced as its own reward) and self-transcendent (insofar as it involves an experience of oneness and of a dissolution of the boundaries between the self, other agents and the world). Flow is philosophically interesting insofar as it is one of the most readily accessible altered states of consciousness. As such, it reveals aspects of the experience of agency that are overlooked by accounts that focus on ordinary, deliberative action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dissertation is built around two puzzles that I argue are revealed but unsolved by psychological accounts of flow. First, psychological accounts of flow present the self in flow as having a maximally enhanced agency, while at the same time ceasing to experience itself as the sole or primary author of its actions. Second, I introduce what I call \u201cthe puzzle of autotelic experience\u201d: autotelic experience appears as both intrinsically valuable (since the experience is its own reward) and as valuable only insofar as it orients the subject to a self-transcendent source of value. My phenomenological account aims to dissolve these puzzles by describing the invariant experiential structures that are conditions for the possibility of flow states. read more<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Papers <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Forthcoming – \u201cAction in Unison: A Phenomenological Account of Collective Agency in Group Flow States.\u201d European Journal of Philosophy<\/em>, accepted for publication July 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, there has been a burgeoning interest in the so-called group flow state both in positive psychology and in the phenomenology of collective agency. Group flow is a form of collective agency in which agents experience a sense of intensified efficacy coupled with diminished individual ownership of action and heightened shared ownership thereof. This state reveals an under-theorized dimension of the sense of agency: an experience in which the source of one\u2019s agency is a sense of oneness rather than individual autonomy. However, its first-person character remains poorly understood. I begin by revealing the lack of conceptual rigour and precision in key current psychological accounts of group flow. I then argue that phenomenology has the descriptive tools needed to generate a more precise description of the experiential character of group flow. Finally, drawing on Husserlian and Merleau-Pontyian phenomenology, I give a novel phenomenological account of the intentional structures that jointly constitute group flow. This account explains how individual agents\u2019 sense of efficacy in action can be transformed by their sense of oneness with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works in Progress and Under Review<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Paper on altered self-consciousness in flow states<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paper on the normativity of flow states as autotelic experiences and as contributors to well-being<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invited Chapters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Circling Around the Transcendental: the Conscious Subject as the Limit of Nature in Raymond Tallis\u2019 Philosophy and in Phenomenology<\/a><\/strong> – In: The Palgrave Companion to the Philosophy of Raymond Tallis, <\/em>2026, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This chapter reconstructs and critically assesses Raymond Tallis\u2019 critique of scientific naturalist accounts of consciousness, which for all their diversity share a basic commitment to explaining consciousness by reifying it. My aim is to bolster Tallis\u2019 critique of naturalism by drawing on the theoretical resources of Husserlian phenomenology. read more<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel free to reach out for drafts or discussion!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Phenomenology of Flow, Well-Being, Autotelic and Self-Transcendent Experience My dissertation develops a Husserl- and Merleau-Ponty-inspired phenomenological account of the flow state, which is a state of absorption in effortless, spontaneous action. Also, flow is autotelic (insofar as action is experienced as its own reward) and self-transcendent (insofar as it involves an experience of oneness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-780","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":62,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1158,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/780\/revisions\/1158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}