ABSTRACT
Limitations to the process of symbolization for communication in psychoanalytic work are considered as the basis for an expansion/reformulation of clinical attention to include embodied experience as a source of unconscious meaning. The displacement effect of language and the futility that language meets, as description of lived experience, are key points recognized in the contributions of Daniel Stern and Jacques Lacan. A critique of assumptions underlying Freud’s technique for analytic work, noting contributions from Irwin Hoffman, are reviewed as a point of departure for recommending a relational approach to analytic attention expanded with an emphasis on micro-moment-embodied communication in addition to symbolized communication. A clinical narrative is offered, highlighting the rhythms of movement between embodied and verbally symbolized communication as a basis for constructing emerging unconscious meanings. The implications of this approach are summarized for expanding analytic attention to include registers of communication in addition to the verbal symbolic.
