Situated anticipation.

In cognitive science, long-term anticipation, such as when planning to do something next year, is typically seen as a form of 'higher' cognition, requiring a different account than the more basic activities that can be understood in terms of responsiveness to 'affordances,' i.e. to possibilities for action. Starting from architects that anticipate the possibility to make an architectural installation over the course of many months, in this paper we develop a process-based account of affordances that includes long-term anticipation within its scope. We present a framework in which situations and their affordances unfold, and can be thought of as continuing a history of practices into a current situational activity. In this activity affordances invite skilled participants to act further. Via these invitations one situation develops into the other; an unfolding process that sets up the conditions for its own continuation. Central to our process account of affordances is the idea that engaged individuals can be responsive to the direction of the process to which their actions contribute. Anticipation, at any temporal scale, is then part and parcel of keeping attuned to the movement of the unfolding situations to which an individual contributes. We concretize our account by returning to the example of anticipation observed in architectural practice. This account of anticipation opens the door to considering a wide array of human activities traditionally characterized as 'higher' cognition in terms of engaging with affordances.

An enactive approach to appropriation in the instrumented activity of trail running.

The incorporation of external tools during a sports activity can be analyzed through the dynamics of appropriation. In this study, we assumed that appropriation could be documented at both the phenomenological and behavioral scales and aimed to characterize trail runners' interactions with five carrying systems (i.e., backpacks proposing different ways of carrying water) in an ecological setting. The runners ran a 3-km trail running loop, equipped with inertial sensors to quantify both their vertical oscillations and those of the carrying systems. After the trials, phenomenological data were collected in enactive interviews. Results showed that (1) the runners encountered issues related to the carrying system, whose emergence in their experiences while running revealed the interplay between the tool's transparency (i.e., when runners provided no account of the carrying system) and opacity (i.e., when runners mentioned perceptions of disturbing system elements), and (2) when the runners carried the water bottles on the pectoral straps, they felt the system bouncing in an uncomfortable way, especially in the less technical parts of the route. We therefore investigated the low- and high-order parameters of coordination by computing the vertical accelerations and the acceleration couplings between the carrying system and the runners in order to identify coordination modes. The congruence between the runners' experiences and the behavioral data was noted in terms of (1) the system's vertical oscillations (i.e., low-order parameters) and (2) the couplings between the accelerations of the runners and the backpacks (i.e., high-order parameters). Our results demonstrated that the appropriation process was shaped by the interactions between the runners' activity, the environment and the physical properties of the tool. These interactions occurred in fluctuating phases where the runners perceived the carrying systems as more or less incorporated. Our results highlighted how tool incorporation is revealed through changes in its transparency/opacity in the actor's activity.

Reconceiving representation-hungry cognition: an ecological-enactive proposal.

Enactive approaches to cognitive science aim to explain human cognitive processes across the board without making any appeal to internal, content-carrying representational states. A challenge to such a research programme in cognitive science that immediately arises is how to explain cognition in so-called 'representation-hungry' domains. Examples of representation-hungry domains include imagination, memory, planning and language use in which the agent is engaged in thinking about something that may be absent, possible or abstract. The challenge is to explain how someone could think about things that are not concretely present in their environment other than by means of an internal mental representation. We call this the 'Representation-Hungry Challenge' (RHC). The challenge we take up in this article is to show how hunger for representations could possibly be satisfied by means other than the construction and manipulation of internal representational states. We meet this challenge by developing a theoretical framework that integrates key ideas drawn from enactive cognitive science and ecological psychology. One of our main aims is thus to show how ecological and enactive theories as non-representational and non-computational approaches to cognitive science might work together. From enactive cognitive science, we borrow the thesis of the strict continuity of lower and higher cognition. We develop this thesis to argue against any sharp conceptual distinction between higher and lower cognition based on representation-hunger. From ecological psychology, we draw upon our earlier work on the rich landscape of affordances. We propose thinking of so-called representation-hungry cognition in terms of temporally extended activities in which the agent skilfully coordinates to a richly structured landscape of affordances. In our framework, putative cases of representation-hungry cognition are explained by abilities to coordinate nested activities to an environment structured by interrelated socio-material practices. The RHC has often figured in arguments for the limitations of non-representational approaches to cognitive science. We showcase the theoretical resources available to an integrated ecological-enactive approach for addressing this type of sceptical challenge.

Cities, from Information to Interaction.

From physics to the social sciences, information is now seen as a fundamental component of reality. However, a form of information seems still underestimated, perhaps precisely because it is so pervasive that we take it for granted: the information encoded in the very environment we live in. We still do not fully understand how information takes the form of cities, and how our minds deal with it in order to learn about the world, make daily decisions, and take part in the complex system of interactions we create as we live together. This paper addresses three related problems that need to be solved if we are to understand the role of environmental information: (1) the physical problem: how can we preserve information in the built environment? (2) The semantic problem: how do we make environmental information meaningful? and (3) the pragmatic problem: how do we use environmental information in our daily lives? Attempting to devise a solution to these problems, we introduce a three-layered model of information in cities, namely environmental information in physical space, environmental information in semantic space, and the information enacted by interacting agents. We propose forms of estimating entropy in these different layers, and apply these measures to emblematic urban cases and simulated scenarios. Our results suggest that ordered spatial structures and diverse land use patterns encode information, and that aspects of physical and semantic information affect coordination in interaction systems.

The anticipating brain is not a scientist: the free-energy principle from an ecological-enactive perspective.

In this paper, we argue for a theoretical separation of the free-energy principle from Helmholtzian accounts of the predictive brain. The free-energy principle is a theoretical framework capturing the imperative for biological self-organization in information-theoretic terms. The free-energy principle has typically been connected with a Bayesian theory of predictive coding, and the latter is often taken to support a Helmholtzian theory of perception as unconscious inference. If our interpretation is right, however, a Helmholtzian view of perception is incompatible with Bayesian predictive coding under the free-energy principle. We argue that the free energy principle and the ecological and enactive approach to mind and life make for a much happier marriage of ideas. We make our argument based on three points. First we argue that the free energy principle applies to the whole animal-environment system, and not only to the brain. Second, we show that active inference, as understood by the free-energy principle, is incompatible with unconscious inference understood as analagous to scientific hypothesis-testing, the main tenet of a Helmholtzian view of perception. Third, we argue that the notion of inference at work in Bayesian predictive coding under the free-energy principle is too weak to support a Helmholtzian theory of perception. Taken together these points imply that the free energy principle is best understood in ecological and enactive terms set out in this paper.

Enactive behaviour settings: situating agency, normativity and transformation.

Behaviour settings are sociocultural places defined by three main ecological aspects: the affordances of material structures, typical patterns of skilful action and socially situated norms. These aspects explain the observed regularities of human behaviour associated with the material characteristics of places. However, the focus of ecological theories on how individual agents attune their actions to the pre-established order of behaviour settings neglects the agents' active role in sustaining or motivating transformations in this order. We therefore propose an alternative enactive approach to behaviour settings that accounts for the role of agents as active supporters and transformers of behaviour settings. Based on the enactive concepts of agency, normativity and dialectics, we argue that agents, as participants of behaviour settings, simultaneously respond to multiple normative dimensions (e.g. biological, sensorimotor and interactive). To sustain the order of behaviour settings, agents sometimes need to inhibit other normative responses of their bodies, which sometimes is detrimental to one or many aspects of their lives. Nonetheless, agents can collectively trigger the transformation of behaviour settings. This transformation can occur dialectically as tensions between two or more norms to which human bodies respond are resolved, even if new tensions arise and the process of changing behaviour setting continues. This article is part of the theme issue 'People, places, things and communities: expanding behaviour settings theory in the twenty-first century'.

Empathy bodyssence: temporal dynamics of sensorimotor and physiological responses and the subjective experience in synchrony with the other's suffering.

Background: Empathy is foundational in our intersubjective interactions, connecting with others across bodily, emotional, and cognitive dimensions. Previous evidence suggests that observing individuals in painful situations elicits whole bodily responses, unveiling the interdependence of the body and empathy. Although the role of the body has been extensively described, the temporal structure of bodily responses and its association with the comprehension of subjective experiences remain unclear. Objective: Building upon the enactive approach, our study introduces and examines "bodyssence," a neologism formed from "body" and "essence." Our primary goal is to analyze the temporal dynamics, physiological, and phenomenological elements in synchrony with the experiences of sportspersons suffering physical accidents. Methods: Using the empirical 5E approach, a refinement of Varela's neurophenomenological program, we integrated both objective third-person measurements (postural sway, electrodermal response, and heart rate) and first-person descriptions (phenomenological data). Thirty-five participants watched videos of sportspersons experiencing physical accidents during extreme sports practice, as well as neutral videos, while standing on a force platform and wearing electrodermal and heart electrodes. Subsequently, micro-phenomenological interviews were conducted. Results: Bodyssence is composed of three distinct temporal dynamics. Forefeel marks the commencement phase, encapsulating the body's pre-reflective consciousness as participants anticipate impending physical accidents involving extreme sportspersons, manifested through minimal postural movement and high heart rate. Fullfeel, capturing the zenith of empathetic engagement, is defined by profound negative emotions, and significant bodily and kinesthetic sensations, with this stage notably featuring an increase in postural movement alongside a reduction in heart rate. In the Reliefeel phase, participants report a decrease in emotional intensity, feeling a sense of relief, as their postural control starts to reach a state of equilibrium, and heart rate remaining low. Throughout these phases, the level of electrodermal activity consistently remains high. Conclusion: This study through an enactive approach elucidates the temporal attunement of bodily experience to the pain experienced by others. The integration of both first and third-person perspectives through an empirical 5E approach reveals the intricate nature of bodyssence, offering an innovative approach to understanding the dynamic nature of empathy.

Documenting and analyzing pre-reflective self-consciousness underlying ongoing performance optimization in elite athletes: the theoretical and methodological approach of the course-of-experience framework.

Traditional theories of motor learning emphasize the automaticity of skillful actions. However, recent research has emphasized the role of pre-reflective self-consciousness accompanying skillful action execution. In the present paper, we present the course-of-experience framework as a means of studying elite athletes' pre-reflective self-consciousness in the unfolding activity of performance optimization. We carried out a synthetic presentation of the ontological and epistemological foundation of this framework. Then we illustrated the methodology by an in-depth analysis of two elite windsurfers' courses of experience. The analysis of global and local characteristics of the riders' courses of experience reveal (a) the meaningful activities accompanying the experience of ongoing performance optimization; (b) the multidimensionality of attentional foci and the normativity of performance self-assessment; and (c) a micro-scale phenomenological description of continuous improvement. These results highlight the fruitfulness of the course-of-experience framework to describe the experience of being absorbed in an activity of performance optimization.

Corrigendum: Bringing forth within: Enhabiting at the intersection between enaction and ecological psychology.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01348.].

Bounded rationality, enactive problem solving, and the neuroscience of social interaction.

This article aims to show that there is an alternative way to explain human action with respect to the bottlenecks of the psychology of decision making. The empirical study of human behaviour from mid-20th century to date has mainly developed by looking at a normative model of decision making. In particular Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) decision making, which stems from the subjective expected utility theory of Savage (1954) that itself extended the analysis by Von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944). On this view, the cognitive psychology of decision making precisely reflects the conceptual structure of formal decision theory. This article shows that there is an alternative way to understand decision making by recovering Newell and Simon's account of problem solving, developed in the framework of bounded rationality, and inserting it into the more recent research program of embodied cognition. Herbert Simon emphasized the importance of problem solving and differentiated it from decision making, which he considered a phase downstream of the former. Moreover according to Simon the centre of gravity of the rationality of the action lies in the ability to adapt. And the centre of gravity of adaptation is not so much in the internal environment of the actor as in the pragmatic external environment. The behaviour adapts to external purposes and reveals those characteristics of the system that limit its adaptation. According to Simon (1981), in fact, environmental feedback is the most effective factor in modelling human actions in solving a problem. In addition, his notion of problem space signifies the possible situations to be searched in order to find that situation which corresponds to the solution. Using the language of embodied cognition, the notion of problem space is about the possible solutions that are enacted in relation to environmental affordances. The correspondence between action and the solution of a problem conceptually bypasses the analytic phase of the decision and limits the role of symbolic representation. In solving any problem, the search for the solution corresponds to acting in ways that involve recursive feedback processes leading up to the final action. From this point of view, the new term enactive problem solving summarizes this fusion between bounded and embodied cognition. That problem solving involves bounded cognition means that it is through the problem solver's enactive interaction with environmental affordances, and especially social affordances that it is possible to construct the processes required for arriving at a solution. Lastly the concept of enactive problem solving is also able to explain the mechanisms underlying the adaptive heuristics of rational ecology. Its adaptive function is effective both in practical and motor tasks as well as in abstract and symbolic ones.

Not in the drug, not in the brain: Causality in psychedelic experiences from an enactive perspective.

Psychedelics are psychoactive substances that receive renewed interest from science and society. Increasing empirical evidence shows that the effects of psychedelics are associated with alterations in biochemical processes, brain activity, and lived experience. Still, how these different levels relate remains subject to debate. The current literature presents two influential views on the relationship between the psychedelic molecule, neural events, and experience: The integration view and the pluralistic view. The main aim of this article is to contribute a promising complementary view by re-evaluating the psychedelic molecule-brain-experience relationship from an enactive perspective. We approach this aim via the following main research questions: (1) What is the causal relationship between the psychedelic drug and brain activity? (2) What is the causal relationship between brain activity and the psychedelic experience? In exploring the first research question, we apply the concept of autonomy to the psychedelic molecule-brain relationship. In exploring the second research question, we apply the concept of dynamic co-emergence to the psychedelic brain-experience relationship. Addressing these two research questions from an enactive position offers a perspective that emphasizes interdependence and circular causality on multiple levels. This enactive perspective not only supports the pluralistic view but enriches it through a principled account of how multi-layered processes come to interact. This renders the enactive view a promising contribution to questions around causality in the therapeutic effects of psychedelics with important implications for psychedelic therapy and psychedelic research.

From autopoiesis to self-optimization: Toward an enactive model of biological regulation.

The theory of autopoiesis has been influential in many areas of theoretical biology, especially in the fields of artificial life and origins of life. However, it has not managed to productively connect with mainstream biology, partly for theoretical reasons, but arguably mainly because deriving specific working hypotheses has been challenging. The theory has recently undergone significant conceptual development in the enactive approach to life and mind. Hidden complexity in the original conception of autopoiesis has been explicated in the service of other operationalizable concepts related to self-individuation: precariousness, adaptivity, and agency. Here we advance these developments by highlighting the interplay of these concepts with considerations from thermodynamics: reversibility, irreversibility, and path-dependence. We interpret this interplay in terms of the self-optimization model, and present modeling results that illustrate how these minimal conditions enable a system to re-organize itself such that it tends toward coordinated constraint satisfaction at the system level. Although the model is still very abstract, these results point in a direction where the enactive approach could productively connect with cell biology.

Cartography of the multiple formal systems of molecular autopoiesis: from the biology of cognition and enaction to anticipation and active inference.

A rich literature has grown up over the years that bears with autopoiesis, which tends to assume that it is a model, a theory, a principle, a definition of life, a property, refers to self-organization or even to hastily conclude that it is hylomorphic, hylozoist, in need of reformulation or to be overcome, making its status even more unclear. Maturana insists that autopoiesis is none of these and rather it is the causal organization of living systems as natural systems (NS) such that when it stops, they die. He calls this molecular autopoiesis (MA), which comprises two domains of existence: that of the self-producing organization (self-fabrication) and that of the structural coupling/enaction (cognition). Like all-NS in the universe, MA is amenable to be defined in theoretical terms, i.e. encoded in mathematical models and/or formal systems (FS). Framing the multiple formal systems of autopoiesis (FSA) into the Rosen's modeling relation (a process of bringing into equivalence the causality of NS and the inferential rules of FS), allows a classification of FSA into analytical categories, most importantly Turing machine (algorithmic) vs non-Turing machine (non-algorithmic) based, and FSA with a purely reactive mathematical image as cybernetic systems, i.e. feedbacks based, or conversely, as anticipatory systems making active inferences. It is thus the intent of the present work to advance the precision with which different FS may be observed to comply (preserve correspondence) with MA in its worldly state as a NS. The modeling relation between MA and the range of FS proposed as potentially illuminating their processes forecloses the applicability of Turing-based algorithmic computational models. This outcome indicates that MA, as modelled through Varela's calculus of self-reference or more especially through Rosen's (M,R)-system, is essentially anticipatory without violating structural determinism nor causality whatsoever, hence enaction may involve it. This quality may capture a fundamentally different mode of being in living systems as opposed to mechanical-computational systems. Implications in different fields of biology from the origin of life to planetary biology as well as in cognitive science and artificial intelligence are of interest.

From analytic to synthetic-organizational pluralisms: A pluralistic enactive psychiatry.

Introduction: Reliance on sole reductionism, whether explanatory, methodological or ontological, is difficult to support in clinical psychiatry. Rather, psychiatry is challenged by a plurality of approaches. There exist multiple legitimate ways of understanding human functionality and disorder, i.e., different systems of representation, different tools, different methodologies and objectives. Pluralistic frameworks have been presented through which the multiplicity of approaches in psychiatry can be understood. In parallel of these frameworks, an enactive approach for psychiatry has been proposed. In this paper, we consider the relationships between the different kinds of pluralistic frameworks and this enactive approach for psychiatry. Methods: We compare the enactive approach in psychiatry with wider analytical forms of pluralism. Results: On one side, the enactive framework anchored both in cognitive sciences, theory of dynamic systems, systems biology, and phenomenology, has recently been proposed as an answer to the challenge of an integrative psychiatry. On the other side, two forms of explanatory pluralisms can be described: a non-integrative pluralism and an integrative pluralism. The first is tolerant, it examines the coexistence of different potentially incompatible or untranslatable systems in the scientific or clinical landscape. The second is integrative and proposes to bring together the different levels of understanding and systems of representations. We propose that enactivism is inherently a form of integrative pluralism, but it is at the same time a component of the general framework of explanatory pluralism, composed of a set of so-called analytical approaches. Conclusions: A significant number of mental health professionals are already accepting the variety of clinical and scientific approaches. In this way, a rigorous understanding of the theoretical positioning of psychiatric actors seems necessary to promote quality clinical practice. The study of entanglements between an analytical pluralism and a synthetic-organizational enactivist pluralism could prove fruitful.

Voluntary self-initiation of the stimuli onset improves working memory and accelerates visual and attentional processing.

The ability of an organism to voluntarily control the stimuli onset modulates perceptual and attentional functions. Since stimulus encoding is an essential component of working memory (WM), we conjectured that controlling the initiation of the perceptual process would positively modulate WM. To corroborate this proposition, we tested twenty-five healthy subjects in a modified-Sternberg WM task under three stimuli presentation conditions: an automatic presentation of the stimuli, a self-initiated presentation of the stimuli (through a button press), and a self-initiated presentation with random-delay stimuli onset. Concurrently, we recorded the subjects' electroencephalographic signals during WM encoding. We found that the self-initiated condition was associated with better WM accuracy, and earlier latencies of N1, P2 and P3 evoked potential components representing visual, attentional and mental review of the stimuli processes, respectively. Our work demonstrates that self-initiated stimuli enhance WM performance and accelerate early visual and attentional processes deployed during WM encoding. We also found that self-initiated stimuli correlate with an increased attentional state compared to the other two conditions, suggesting a role for temporal stimuli predictability. Our study remarks on the relevance of self-control of the stimuli onset in sensory, attentional and memory updating processing for WM.

Language and Intelligence: A Relationship Supporting the Embodied Cognition Hypothesis.

Cognitive science has gathered robust evidence supporting the hypothesis that cognitive processes do not occur in an amodal format but take shape through the activation of the sensorimotor systems of the agent body, which works as simulation system upon which concepts, words, and thought are based. However, studies that have investigated the relationship between language and cognitive processes, as both embedded processes, are very rare. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that intelligence is associated with referential competence, conceived as the ability to find words to refer to our subjective and perceptual experience, and to evoke understanding of this experience in the listener. We administered the WAIS-IV test to 32 nonclinical subjects and collected autobiographical narratives from them through the Relationship Anecdotes Paradigm Interview. The narratives were analyzed linguistically by applying computerized measures of referential competence. Intelligence scores were found to correlate with the use in narratives of words related to somatic and sensory sensations, while they were not associated with other measures of referential competence related to more abstract domains of experience or based on vivid or reflective dimensions of language style. The results support the hypothesis that sensorimotor schemas have an intrinsic role in language and cognition.

COVID-19 in the United States as affective frame.

In this paper I attempt to contribute to the developing field of "political philosophy of mind." To render concrete the notion of "affective frame," a social situation which pre-selects for salience and valence of environmental factors relative to a subject's life, I conduct a case study of a deleterious socially instituted affective frame, which, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, produced individuated circumstances that came crashing down on "essential workers" who were forced into a double bind. We saw here an untenable and ultimately fatal situation that forced a choice between, on the one hand, increasing the risk of their failing to provide financial support for their family if they quit their job or reduced their hours, and on the other, increasing their risk of contracting the virus by continuing to work. The case study will thus be itself an affective frame that will bring to the fore for its readers a nexus of harmful social practices of contemporary American society. Form is reinforced by content here, as this particular affective frame brings forth a further emphasis on affect when we focus on workers simultaneously socialized into roles as breadwinners and as members of the caring professions. For those people, quitting work becomes even more difficult as they come to affirm their self-identity of being providers of affective labor for those in their care at work and of being the affective anchor of family life at home, the one who financially helps keep a roof over the heads of their loved ones as well as being the emotional backbone of the family. Hence the affective frame of "essential workers in Covid times" renders salient and affirmatively valenced their affectively laden self-image as caring helpers of those in need, at home and at work.

Knowing the Knowing. Non-dual Meditative Practice From an Enactive Perspective.

Within a variety of contemplative traditions, non-dual-oriented practices were developed to evoke an experiential shift into a mode of experiencing in which the cognitive structures of self-other and subject-object subside. These practices serve to de-reify the enactment of an observing witness which is usually experienced as separate from the objects of awareness. While several contemplative traditions, such as Zen, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta emphasize the importance of such a non-dual insight for the cultivation of genuine wellbeing, only very few attempts in contemplative science have turned toward the study of non-dual-oriented practices. This article starts from a recently developed theoretical cognitive science framework that models the requirements of a temporary experiential shift into a mode of experiencing free from cognitive subject-object structure. This model inspired by the enactive approach contributes theoretically grounded hypotheses for the much-needed rigorous study of non-dual practices and non-dual experiences. To do so, three steps are taken: first, common elements of non-dual-oriented practices are outlined. Second, the main ideas of enactive cognitive science are presented including a principled theoretical model of what is required for a shift to a pure non-dual experience, that is, an experiential mode that is unbound by subject-object duality. Third, this synthesized theoretical model of the requirements for the recognition of the non-dual is then compared with a specific non-dual style of meditation practice, namely, Mahamudra practice from Tibetan Buddhism. This third step represents a heuristic for evaluating the external coherence of the presented model. With this, the aim is to point toward a principled enactive view of non-dual meditative practice. In drawing the implications of the presented model, this article ends with an outlook toward next steps for further developing a research agenda that may fully address the concrete elements of non-dual practices.

Embodiment in online psychotherapy: A qualitative study.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many therapists and patients have been required to switch to online sessions in order to continue their treatments. Online psychotherapy has become increasingly popular, and although its efficacy seems to be similar to face-to-face encounters, its capacity to support the implicit nonverbal and embodied aspects of the therapeutic relationship has been questioned and remains understudied. OBJECTIVES: To study how embodied and intersubjective processes are modified in online psychotherapy sessions. DESIGN: Taking the enactive concept of participatory sense-making as a guiding thread, we designed an interpretative phenomenological analysis to examine the experiences of embodiment in online therapy. METHODS: We conducted phenomenological semi-structured interviews with patients and therapists who have recently switched from face-to-face encounters to online modality. RESULTS: Adjustments in verbal and nonverbal behavior, gaze behavior, management of silences, and displacements of non-intentional and pre-reflective patterns onto reflective ones are reported as necessary to compensate for changes introduced in the online modality. CONCLUSIONS: From an enactive perspective, such adaptations manifest regulatory processes aimed at sustaining interactive dynamics and coordinating the primordial tension between relational and individual norms in social encounters. PRACTITIONER POINTS: We examine different aspects of embodiment that practitioners should take into account when switching from face-to-face to online encounters with their clients. Online communication systems can alter aspects of the therapeutic relationship, such as its structure, its fragility, and its significance. Video calls afford new forms of intervention such as integrating the experience of patients with their self-image, incorporating information about their habitual environment into the process, and adopting less confrontational therapeutic styles.

Navigating in the Gray Area of Coach-Athlete Relationships in Sports: Toward an In-depth Analysis of the Dynamics of Athlete Maltreatment Experiences.

Several studies have revealed the abusive behaviors directed against athletes in various sports contexts, but knowledge about the processes by which the athletes realize and accept or reject maltreatment is underdeveloped. Thus, it is difficult to establish a solid scientific basis for characterizing the mechanisms of maltreatment from the athletes' perspective regarding the forms of maltreatment they endure and the impact on their performance and wellbeing. The main goals of this paper are to show how the enactive approach (including theoretical assumptions and methodological standards) can meet these challenges, as it is well-suited to (a) describe the evolving interactions between athletes and the sports situations that lead to maltreatment (i.e., navigating in the gray area of coach-athlete relationships), (b) identify those alert landmarks that help us assess the level of risk of athlete maltreatment, and (c) provide concrete guidelines to prevent and deal with sports-related maltreatment. We illustrate our approach by a case study that examines the experience of a retired high-level boxer who faced several forms of maltreatment. Our results reveal a dynamic change in the interactions between the boxer and the maltreatment situations that led her through (a) Acceptance (i.e., future-oriented positive involvement), (b) Regulation attempt (i.e., negative feelings about weight loss, exhaustion and loneliness, questioning the compromise between performance and health, acceptance and loneliness), (c) Distancing (i.e., reopening to others) and (d) Rejection (i.e., rebellion and the decision to stand up to her coach and leave). Based on our results, we present concrete guidelines to prevent and address sports-related maltreatment, with four progressive alert landmarks that help situate the athlete in the gray area of coach-athlete relationships and suggest a "timeline" of maltreatment escalation with key warnings.