ABSTRACT
The chapter outlines some features of transference and countertransference in somatic patients, notably in the cases reported in the volume. The contributions of Marina Perris and Eva Schmid-Gloor appear compatible and complementary. Marina, however, is keener on highlighting the importance of bodily and sensorial communication (the communicating body) both in the transference and countertransference—a form of communication which may become a crucial tool in the treatment of somatically ill patients, allowing them to get in touch with split-off (dissociated) aspects. Eva is more focused on the difficulty of verbal communication often noticed in somatic patients (the speechless mind), which in the transference leads to an emergence of emotions that originally pertain only to the patient. Analysis of the countertransference in particular becomes fundamental. Both authors, on the one hand, link their observations with Freud’s (second topic) drive theory; on the other hand, they place great importance on early trauma, on the lack of holding/containment, which predisposes the emergence of somatic symptoms and other forms of pathology and conditions the development of certain qualities of the transference.
