title: What can we learn from the therapist's body?
abstract: I suggest a re-theorization of the relationship between psyche and soma in which the body is no longer seen as 'mere' receptacle for unwanted contents of the mind but in which a body subjectivity has a developmental history in its own right. I argue that the body has its own history arising out of the attachment nexus and the internalization of the bodies of its caregivers and the bodies they are able to recognize in their infants and children. I illustrate the way developmental body issues appear in the clinical setting and how the therapist's body can be used to locate and identify the troubled bodies of our clients. A long history of work with women with eating problems and troubled bodies shows that bodies are not born but are acquired in relationship with key caregivers.
authors.affiliation: susieorbach@blueyonder.co.uk
authors.forename: Susie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Orbach
mesh_terms: D003379:Countertransference; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D009769:Object Attachment; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*