ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of the body in relationship to the development and health of the mind. I present a method of using bodily awareness to deepen psychoanalytic treatment. Currently, psychoanalytic therapists and analysts are treating patients who come to therapy complaining of being “dead” or “shut down”. These patients are very different from Freud’s hysteric. As such, they present new challenges to our understanding and our techniques. Clinicians who recognize the body as a processor of emotional experience are able to work with seriously disturbed or regressed patients who use language as “action” and behaviour as communication. For these patients, the Talking Cure does not cure so much as it continues the defence against experiencing the early traumatised infantile part of themselves. In the absence of emotional awareness, bodily sensation and action fill the gap. If the clinician can remember the function of the body as both an aid in understanding reality as well as a defensive blocking agent, these patients become more accessible to treatment.
