Body

How, with whom and by what routes do we communicate in the analytic situation? What happens, before or in response to a word, when we are in the presence of our patients? How and from where do we draw our responses: from what experiences, from what memories? Is it always good to follow Winnicott in thinking of the psyche indwelling in the soma, or should we not rather think of the soma as situated in the psyche, a hidden, but potent prompter? (Johnson, 1987, Ferro, 2014). After all, Gaddini (1980) used to speak of mind and body not as opposed realities, but as a body-mind-bodycircuit.

In this paper I would like to address the question on several different levels. First, drawing on observations from the literature and my analytic experience, I shall reflect on some aspects of the communication between analyst and patient. Secondly, I shall propose a model of psychoanalytic psychotherapy focused on the body, which I consider useful both as an extension of psychoanalytic work - in that it is especially suitable for encounters with patients whose difficulty lies at the origin, in accessing an «embodied» word, and in the processes of differentiation - and as the personal experience of the analyst, in that it is capable of rendering him or her more permeable to the work of perception.

All this against a background of repeated questions: what is the fate of the individual in the intersubjective relationship? What is the specific role of the mother in the processes of differentiation?

The paradox of the body consists in the fact that it is what makes us unique, but at the same time it is largely indebted to the body and gaze of the other, to the care received, to experiences undergone, and to heredity. It is the visible and tangible expression of the reality of the person, of the difference between the sexes, of the succession of generations, but it is also the seat of the affections and our constant confrontation with the