Behind the Stage of Interacting Faces: Commentary on Case Study by Beatrice Beebe

Abstract

This paper uses tools forged in the analysis of nonverbal communication to illuminate some dimensions of Beatrice Beebe's case description. It will also show how an awareness of postural dynamics can sharpen one's perception of long-term individual development. From this perspective, psychotherapy is a gradual reconstruction of how self-regulatory processes include themselves in interpersonal ones so as to support a relevant reformulation of representations. Psychotherapists who work with nonconscious dimensions are often efficient, but they do not always understand what really happened during their therapy sessions. What is exceptional with Beebe's work is her capacity to follow so many parallel events with an understanding that is technically, clinically, and humanly relevant.