Experiencing the Body

Book excerpt: Experiencing the Body: A Psychoanalytic Dialogue on Psychosomatics offers a range of perspectives on somatic illness, highlighting key points of convergence and difference between a range of psychoanalytic perspectives, to find a new understanding of this important issue. Including contributions from experienced clinicians, each chapter presents contributions from two authors representing different points of view, before concluding with commentary from a third. It features discussion on key theoretical issues, including drive and affects, the role of the ideal ego, and the function of symbolisation, but also case studies of somatic patients, covering issues around depression and trauma, and exploring similarities and differences between somatic and borderline patients. Key treatment issues are also described such as psychosomatic investigation and the issue of transference and countertransference. The result of a working party on psychosomatics of the European Psychoanalytical Federation, this unique book not only asks whether somatic illness arises from an impoverishment of the psyche or is primarily a form of communication through or by the body, but also tries to go beyond this classical opposition. It will appeal to any psychoanalyst or psychotherapist interested in this contentious and fascinating area.