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”When the Body Speaks” is not only a tantalizing title but a phrase that can stimulate analysts to rethink their attitude to their own bodies
and to those of their analysands. Too many times countertransferential aspects prevent one from including the subtle bodily signals one experiences when freely hovering over the free associations of the analysands. Even if one is aware of what the patient transmits nonverbally, how and when does one include it in one's interpretive work? Suppose an appropriate space opens up in the analytic work which allows for bridge building (Lichtenberg, 1983; Siegel, 1988) between verbal and nonverbal productions of the analysand, is one still conducting an analysis? Many analysts feel that dealing with nonverbal behavior would take them too far afield from classic technique and force them to include derivatives from the non- or preverbal past of the patient, thus widening the scope of analysis into hazy speculation rather than careful reconstruction. After all, psychoanalysis is thought to be the “talking cure.”
Not so the master clinicians presenting their case histories and cogent reformulations of theory in the papers contained in this book, first presented at the 22nd Annual Margaret S. Mahler “Symposium on Child Development” in 1991. Aside from their highly organized, valuable contents, these papers offer what is known in editorial circles as “a good read.” This reviewer read the book in one sitting and then came back many times to savor the skilled and empathic treatment offered these particular patients. None of the contributors seem to have doubted for one minute whether the non- or preverbal aspects of their analysands’ behavior should be included in their interpretive work. Imbued with and stimulated by the work of Mahler, they see kinetic and other bodily phenomena presented to them on the couch as possible derivatives of the separation—individuation phase. They are also aware that no adult can ever reexperience directly the