ABSTRACT
We have highlighted the importance of embodied expression and the fact that many aspects of experience will not be available to conscious re¯ection. Our bodies carry information and messages that are important and pertinent to issues which are being explored. From the therapist's point of view, an awareness of their own body sensations is likely to signal key countertransferential responses to the client which might in part signal issues to do with the therapist's own experiences, but which are usually also, from an intersubjective point of view, relevant to the client's issues. In working with body process it is important to remember that this can be a powerful way to bypass more cognitive `defences' and therefore should be used sensitively and with respect for the client's adaptive coping which will have been built up over a long period of time. Body awareness techniques can also, however, be very enlivening, bringing to mind Stern's `vitalizing affects' (Stern, 2003), and their use can also therefore be extremely powerful in a transferential and healing sense.
