Elena Holmgren

I am a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where I work with Evan Thompson. My general research interest lies in defending the enduring relevance of the Husserlian phenomenological tradition to contemporary philosophy of mind. My dissertation articulates a phenomenological account of flow states (autotelic, or intrinsically rewarding, states of absorbed, self-transcendent, effortless, and spontaneous action). By describing how alterations of self-, time- and norm-consciousness bring about such states, my work strives to bring greater conceptual precision to our understanding of these states and of how they contribute to well-being. In doing so, my work shows how phenomenology can help bolster the philosophical foundations of positive psychology.