Searching for Embodied Connection in the Age of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

As teletherapy continues to be an ongoing mode of treatment during the pandemic, clinicians grapple with the loss of shared in-person space. Without access to the same richness of expression through gesture, movement, and embodied experience, therapists must consider the psychic impact of this new way of being with our patients. In this paper, I describe work with a young patient where the treatment comes unexpectedly alive in response to the destabilizing impact of COVID-19. With the reemergence of traumatic material catalyzed by circumstances resulting from the pandemic, I consider the challenge of connecting to the traumatized body through a screen. With an improvisational sensibility, my patient and I search for creative and embodied ways to connect through the screen. We track somatic experience, use visual imagery from clinical hypnosis, and engage playful bodily mirroring to create a felt presence, a sense of “being with each other” in alive connection.

KEYWORDS:

• Embodied affectivity
• vitalization
• improvisation
• teletherapy
• COVID-19

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge John R. Paddock, Ph.D., ABPP, for his contribution, and to Adrienne Harris, Ph.D., Susan Klebanoff, Ph.D., Victoria Demos, Ph.D., and Quinn Mierlak for their astute reading of prior drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Writer Nathan Robin coined the term manic pixie dream girl in a 2007 Salon essay. He later apologized for this sexist trope that named a type of whimsical female ingenue that serves to vitalize the brooding, soulful lost male figure.

² A study conducted at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, suggests that 75% of US college students have experienced “significant stress” and a quarter have been diagnosed with “a mental health condition.” These findings are consistent with data from the American College Health Association’s 2019 National College Assessment which revealed that 66% of college students nationwide experienced overwhelming anxiety, 45% reported feeling so depressed it was difficult to function, and 13% experienced serious suicidal ideation within the past 12 months. During the pandemic, researchers noted a 40% increase in symptoms of depression and anxiety in the adolescent and young adult population, particularly in socially and racially marginalized communities. Many children, adolescents, and young adults report growing listlessness, feelings of depression and anxiety, and somatic complaints such as body image preoccupation and food obsessions (www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather Ferguson

Heather Ferguson, LCSW, is faculty and supervisor at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, and faculty at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis Certificate Program in Trauma Studies, all in New York City. She is a certified clinical hypnotherapist and member of the Music Industry Therapist Collective (MITC). She is Co-Book Review Editor for Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context and has a private practice in New York City.