ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that language acts as the body's mediator and resides in the body; life experience searches for a place in the body and marks it as a signifier. Language touches the body: words can caress, comfort, soothe the body; they may be harsh, make us blush, or make our hearts race. Words can instil feelings of shame, make us clench our fists in frustration, or open our hearts. Language elicits physical responses: words can cause physiological changes. In psychotherapy, unique words can emerge from this silent space when given the opportunity. Narrative psychotherapy aims to restore connections. If the therapy focuses on the significant words used by a client, and on a "close reading" of them, these words will gain in intensity. If new meanings are found in the semantic playing field, these new meanings will create a different organising principle, which will in turn organise the body differently.
