Psychology

The research investigates the possible telesomatic experiences of 20 adult twins. The authors posit that the body can only exist in one exact spatial area with existing boundaries, which is the human skin, and these boundaries can be tested by performing examinations such as a physical assessment of utilizing technology eg. x-rays, CT scans. Moreover, the body relies heavily on its own six senses and not of others. However, telesomatic instances between twins have shown that they are able to know and feel what is happening to the inside of another twins body (Mann  Jaye, 2007). These and other evidence of telesomatic experiences prompted the researchers to investigate on the said phenomena.

Snowball sampling was utilized to find the 20 adult twin participants and 1 to 2 hours of structured interview was done and was recorded through an audiotape. The interviewer used a technique that lets the participants talk about their experiences with minimal interruptions from the interviewer, with particular use of the immersion-crystallization technique. Results showed that the correspondents reported 50 telesomatic experiences that occurred mostly during major life experiences such as pregnancy, childbirth, accidents, trauma, among many others. The experiences were categorized into three types. The first type is when a pregnant twin was already having labor contractions, astonishingly, the other twin, who isnt pregnant, felt the same contractions too (Mann  Jaye, 2007). Another type is when a twin was feeling negative emotions, and the other twin will feel anger or rage. The third type of telesomatic experience in twins is when one twin is feeling a symptom, for example, pain in a localized area, but the other twin is feeling constipated.

The researchers conclude that this phenomenon may be explained by utilizing pyschotheraphy and family therapy as the approach to understanding telesomatic expaeriences. In psychotherapy, it is posited that in order to understand emotional states one considers the experiences of another individual with whom this person shares a strong emphatic bond with, instead of focusing ones the experiences (Mann  Jaye, 2007). Family therapy, on the other hand, supposes that issues within the family that are of psychological and emotional nature of just one family member may be seen to manifest to the other members of the family (Mann  Jaye, 2007). The authors, being aware of the controversies suffered by parapsychological experiences, suggest that these experiences pose a dilemma in western scientific and medical views of telesomatic phenomenon and that this experience extend beyond the person to cover other individuals (Mann  Jaye, 2007).

Telesomatic experiences are basically felt when something that is not a part of the body is experienced to be a part of that person and is likened to what the Mixtec people of Central America calls as their coessential animal (Mann  Jaye, 2007). However, the authors do not claim that the telesomatic experience is real but instead they assert the growing evidence researched regarding this phenomena amidst the skeptics that contest the very evidence of researches like this. This prompts the researchers to clarify that what they believe in is that the experiences of the participants are real for these individuals and that they aim to delve into what the experiences mean and the implications of it (Mann  Jaye, 2007).