ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the use of somatic countertransference as a means of learning about the patient, about projective and adhesive identification and about the object relating nature of a traumatized and withdrawn part of the personality. It uses clinical material to illustrate the hypotheses that the analyst’s somatic countertransference is an indicator of a very elemental communication occurring from the aspect of the patient’s psyche that is united in a body mind or mind body. The chapter assumes that this body mind state was object seeking at birth and perhaps before.
