Open peer commentary on the article “The Uroboros of Consciousness: Between the Naturalisation of Phenomenology and the Phenomenologisation of Nature” by Sebastjan Vörös. Upshot: I present a concrete example of how phenomenology might “seriously” contribute to our understanding of certain aspects of the human mind, by drawing on recent research in psychopathology.

Open peer commentary on the article “Modeling Subjects’ Experience While Modeling the Experimental Design: A Mild-Neurophenomenology-Inspired Approach in the Piloting Phase” by Constanza Baquedano & Catalina Fabar. Upshot: The authors show in their pilots how open it is to participants not to obey the instructions during an experiment. Their findings leave us to choose between two options: either we (a) accept that subjective confounds are inevitable and stronger than we think, but in this case, why should we continue trying to measure subjective experience?; or (b) strive at designing better experiments in order to control for these fluctuations. I will argue for option (b) and propose an alternative model to go beyond the first- and third-person data gap, namely “predictive processing.”

Open peer commentary on the article “Applying the Neurophenomenological Approach to the Study of Trauma: Theory and Practice Yochai Ataria, Mooli Lahad & Omer Horovitz The Study of Trauma” by Yochai Ataria, Mooli Lahad & Omer Horovitz. Abstract: While I applaud Ataria and colleagues’ emphasis on the importance of “returning” to the phenomenology of disrupted subjective experiences, here I draw attention to the importance of second-person body-based dynamic engagements with others in bridging the gap between first- and third-person approaches in understanding traumatic experiences. To put it in a provocative slogan: the second person comes first. I will conclude by briefly outlining some implications for therapeutic interventions based on dynamic body-based engagements with others complementing the static, interview-based approaches.