From somatic pain to psychic pain: The body in the psychoanalytic field

Translations of summaryThe integration of psyche and soma begins with a baby's earliest contact with his or her parents. With the help of maternal empathy and reverie, β‐elements are transformed into α‐elements. While we understand this to be the case, we would like to enquire what actually happens to those parts of the affect which have not been transformed? For the most part they may be dealt with by evacuation, but they can also remain within the body, su bsequently contributing to psychosomatic symptoms.This paper describes how the body serves as an intermediate store between the psychic (inner) and outer reality. The authors focuses on the unconscious communicative process between the analyst and the analysand, and in particular on how psychosomatic symptoms can spread to the analyst's body. The latter may become sensitive to the analysand's psychosomatic symptoms in order to better understand the psychoanalytical process. Sensory processes (visual and auditory) and psychic mechanisms such as projective identification can serve as a means for this communication.One of the first analysts to deal with this topic was Wilhelm Reich. He described one kind of psychosomatic defence like a shell, the character armour, comparing the armour formed by muscle tension with another, more psychical type of armour. This concept can be linked to Winnicott's contribution of the false self and later on to Feldman's concept of compliance as a defence. The authors links further details...

Source: The International Journal of Psychoanalysis - March 23, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Thomas Hartung, Michael Steinbrecher Tags: Original Article Source Type: research