The CERAP was founded on 1st June 2004 by Pr Danis Bois Phd and the director of Modern University in Lisbon at that time, Pr Britaldo Rogrigues PhD. Today the CERAP is a research centre affiliated with the Fernando Pessoa University (CERAP/UFP) in Porto, Portugal.
The centre was created to carry out research at national and international levels, to communicate and publish research findings and to open a dialogue with other national and international universities and educational establishments.
Since its inception, the CERAP has been dedicated to the study of human potential in the context of learning, healing and creative processes. It positions itself deliberately at the interface between health and adult learning. Though significant, this interface has been the object of very little scientific investigation.
The CERAP is involved in the following activities :
- Research projects carried out by practitioners-researchers within masters and doctoral programmes
- Tutoring and supervision of graduate and post-graduate practitioners-researchers
- Designing new training programmes (particularly specialized university diplomas) and upgrading existing programmes to integrate new research findings
- Communication of research findings through the publications of articles and presentations at conferences and seminars
- Organisation of international scientific conferences
- Raising awareness of the scientific and teaching activities of the CERAP through the internet.
The research carried out by the CERAP focuses on an original and innovative field within the human sciences : body-focused psychoeducation of human potentialities.
The CERAP brings together researchers and experts who have received training under the direction of Pr Danis Bois over many years. Danis Bois initiated a particular approach within fasciatherapy and is the founder of somatic-psychoeducation. His current work is focused on the theoretical and practical foundation of the paradigm of the Sensible. The collective object of the research conducted at the CERAP concerns the notion of bodily experience as the locus for self-development and the learning of new ways of relating to self, the other, the world and knowledge.
The main body of research thus fits within a general project that explores and analyses the phenomena and processes emerging from the conscious experience it is possible to have of inner manifestations in the living body. On this basis, the research projects contribute to the elaboration of the paradigm of the Sensible, defined as the body of practices and theories resulting from this exploration/analysis in various directions such as patient-centered health education, experiential and existential learning, change support, the interaction between the healing and formative dimensions of inner body experiencing, and the performative and creative dimension of gestural movement.
On an epistemic and methodological level, the CERAP favours a research process that is ‘involved’ and various qualitative and comprehensive approaches, in addition to quantitative and experimental methods that are a pre-requisite for some research objects particularly in the area of assessment and validation of health related practices. As the CERAP’s research is mostly carried out by professionals working in health related fields, education or the arts, the practitioner-researcher stance is particularly valued, insofar as it is given new focus and is being redefined by the engagement of the agents in body-focused practises.
This general project intentionally fits within a multidisciplinary theoretical framework (sociology, psychology, psychosociology, psychoeducation, anthropology, philosophy and the neurosciences) and in this way responds to the current initiatives of the European research ministeries to promote communication between these disciplines. It focuses naturally on the notion of lifelong learning and explores different avenues in two directions defined respectively by research strategies and by research themes.
The CERAP is supported by an international network of partners who contribute to the research and to the organisation of conferences and seminars. These include the Université du Québec à Rimouski, University Paris VIII, University Paris XIII as well as several brazilian universities.
The research is conducted in four main directions which aim to model and expand the framework of the paradigm of the Sensible in their application to fasciatherapy and somatic-psychoeducation.
A) Evaluation and validation of health and adult learning practices, through the study and analysis of their impact on the different sectors or aspects of existence of the individual
B) Development and conceptualization of the paradigm of the Sensible. Conceptual, epistemological and methodological innovation.
Examples : the emergence of sense and meaning in contact with the Sensible; the concept of ‘advenir’; the stance of the researcher as ‘involved’ in the scientific process
C) Analysis of teaching practices in the context of adult learning and mentoring
D) Biographical processes and analysis of practitioners' individual modes
The themes of the research presented illustrate the various areas addressed by the CERAP.
1. Approach to treatment and support care with physiotherapy and fasciatherapy
2. The interface between health related issues and adult learning
The interface between health related issues and adult learning is a theme that is currently being explored within the human and social sciences. Research within this area aims to illustrate the various dimensions of the practices and theories of the Sensible seen as educative and social practices. Examples: somatic-psychoeducation as health education practice, the role of fasciatherapy in support care.
3. Adult learning, education and transformation
Potentialities and new human faculties. Examples: immanent motivation, sensorial intelligence, empathy on the mode of actuating reciprocity.
1. Qualitative research. Specificity of the qualitative research process used within the CERAP.
2. Experimental / clinical research