The Analyst’s Body at Work: Utilizing Touch and Sensory Experience in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies

Abstract

This paper discusses the functions of somatic experience within the therapeutic and analytic processes as both the nonverbal expression of conflicts long held within the patient’s (or analyst’s) body structure as well as a movement toward self-agency. Therapeutic attention and responsiveness to nonverbal communications and spontaneous bodily actions are seen as providing significant avenues of access to the forward intentionality of unconscious, dissociated states of being. Direct, analytic involvement with somatic experience is illustrated through sensate focus, movement, and physical contact between patient and therapist.

Keywords:

• movement
• nonverbal communication
• self-agency
• sensate listening
• somatic experience
• touch

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William F. Cornell

William F. Cornell, MA, TSTA-P, studied behavioral psychology at Reed College and phenomenological psychology at Duquesne University. He followed his graduate studies with training in transactional analysis and body-centered psychotherapy. Since those trainings, Cornell has studied with several mentors and consultants within psychoanalytic perspectives. A coeditor of the Transactional Analysis Journal, Cornell is the author of Explorations in Transactional Analysis: The Meech Lake Papers and Somatic Experience in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: In the Expressive Language of the Living, Une Vie Pour Etre Soi. He is coauthor and editor of the forthcoming Into TA and has authored numerous articles and book chapters. He is a recipient of the Eric Berne Memorial Award.