Hi Tamar,

Wonderful question. I'm a psychoanalyst-psychologist and family therapist with many years experience in New York and California, and cannot recall any supervisor asking me for my somatic reactions to patients! And yet, I've learned to be always attuned to my body during any therapeutic encounter. I have found that my somatic reactions give me an early information system re unconscious communications, whether of sadness (tears welling up in my eyes before client begins to express sadness!); headaches when clients are experiencing distressing and conflicted feelings; tightness in my shoulders when clients are anxious, etc. I try to then figure out how to formulate and make useful for the patient. I carry the assumption that they are unconscious resonances with patients' affect states or received projections from  patients' unconscious, dissociated or disavowed affects and self-states.

Would love to continue conversation!

Best,

George

George Bermudez, Ph.D., Psy.D.

Licensed Psychologist

Psychoanalyst and Marital and Family Therapist

In 2004 I wrote a paper on body countertransference in psychoanalysts and psychotherapists who practiced vipassana meditation; It was based on my MHSc thesis. It's on my Academia page if you're interested.

The body, beyond the biological, speaks. Such is the case of the hysterical body. It is not only the posture but the body inserted in the signifying chain. The body between the real and the symbolic, the body of the drive. The body that is spoken. In the psychoanalytic tradition, which favors language, the body is anchorage, a pivot point. El cuerpo habla y es hablado. 

Please look to Defensive Mechanisms by Vaillant and isssue of Copying by Cramer. I would suggest first a session with own supervisor about: was may reaction a defense or copying and then, after some sessions it could be developed further. Just an idea. I would refer here to asnwer given by George Bermudez before. Great question.

Dear George, thank you for your response; ideally we metabolize the " unconscious resonances with patients' affect states or received projections from  patients' unconscious, dissociated or disavowed affects and self-states". 

Thank you.

A key question to any supervisee is what physical feelings do they have with that patient, in that session and with that material. Being attuned to the physical manifestations of our countertransference is central to an understanding of the patient's inner world and the transferential relationship. I often first notice what is happening for a patient by observing changes in my body. Do I feel tearful, sleepy, sexually aroused? What does that tell me about myself or about my patient? I can't imagine being a disembodied therapist.

And so I certainly agree with your statement, Tamar, about our unconscious resonances with our patients' affective states and projections.

Edit: Sorry, just realised that the phrases that I said I agreed with were a quote from a post by George Bermudez - sorry George

Hi Tamar. Body has an important  role in psychoanalytic session but listening it requires a trained psychoanalyst listening to the body aspects of countertransference as well as mental ones. So in my training were important Zen and Vipassana meditation practices more then the traditional psychoanalytic training.

Very interesting question. I am aware of many of my body reactions as unaware of many others, in the sense that the splitting of attention is either hard as an automatic habit as well. But its tracking togetherwith note-taking becomes unwritten and quite forgotten once it has happened. I am most interested in deepening this reflexion on body choreographies during psychoanalitic sessions, and I believe that the body is emerging more not only from the couch but from the armchair in the analytic space.