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This may not be quite the book we all have been waiting for, but it is awfully close. How many times have we had patients with demoralizing physical conditions and felt unable fully to understand what our patients are going through - how to sooth the troubled body, the physiological effects of trauma, a damaged knee that will not heal, the aftermath of stroke, living with artherosclerosis. Stauffer has given us a psychotherapist's guide to the human body with clinical examples from her practice as a body psychotherapist.
In twelve chapters, Stauffer briefs us on the structure of the human body, from molecules to cells to tissues to organs to systems. We have large and small molecules and their relation to nutrition. We have the central nervous system and the psychological creation of meaning. We have the peripheral nervous system and chronic pain. We have bones and wear and tear, the emotional function of muscle groups, skin and touch, digestion and the visceral ego, the heart, hormones (the endocrine system), reproduction, respiration and breathing, all written from the point of view of how our bodies connect with the subjective inner world of human experience.
I learnt a lot from this book. Not just about the body, how it works and how it makes us feel, but also about how to learn from my patients' bodies. Stauffer's client, Ernie, suffered from an ambivalent relationship with his mother, wanting to heal her pain on the one hand and, on the other hand, being/feeling helpless to do so. We do know about the pain and ambivalence of the parenting child. But do we know/observe how this painful ambivalence gets expressed in our patients' bodies?