The Relational Body: Sharing Bodily Experiences from Infancy to Adulthood

Humans form close intimate relationships with others. Social psychologists have shown that the way in which we process social information from intimate partners is very different to that from strangers and acquaintances. We review recent evidence suggesting that within close relationships, there is overlap between representations of oneself and one's partner, both in terms of conceptual information but also with regards to embodied experiences. We focus on the process by which we ‘share’ a partner's bodily experiences, such as touch, pain, emotion and movement. Two experiments demonstrate that bodily overlap is increased between individuals in important relationships, including romantic partnerships and the infant-mother relationship. Furthermore, individual differences in this overlap is related to social interactions and attachment security. Extremely high levels of bodily overlap are associated with an anxious attachment style in adulthood and discordant mother-infant interactions, suggesting that ‘over-sharing’ of another's feelings may be maladaptive within close relationships. Results are discussed in relation to current approaches in psychotherapy and counselling, particularly in terms of the mind-body approach and couples therapy.