The Embodied Analyst: From Freud and Reich to relationality

209 Pages·2014·1.53 MB·English

by  Jon Sletvold

The Embodied Analyst
The Embodied Analyst brings together the history of embodied analysis found in
the work of Freud and Reich and contemporary relational analysis, particularly as
influenced by infant research. By integrating the “old” embodied and the “new”
relational traditions, the book contributes to a new clinical perspective focusing
on form and process rather than content and structure – the “how” rather than the
“what” and the “why.” This perspective is characterized by a focus on movement,
emotional interaction, and the therapist’s own bodily experience in the analytic
encounter.
Jon Sletvold presents a user-friendly approach to embodied experience, provid-
ing the history, theory, training, and practice of embodied experience and expres-
sion as a way of expanding clinical attention. Starting with a Spinozan view of
the embodied mind, P art One: History of Embodied Psychoanalysis presents an
overview of the history of the field in the works of Freud and Reich as well as a
look at the Norwegian Character Analytic tradition. Part Two: Conceptual Frame-
work and Clinical Guidelines explains how clinical interaction can be navigated
based on the embodied concepts of subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and reflexivity.
Part Three: Embodied Training and Supervision presents innovative approaches
to training in emotional communication inspired by the performing arts. The book
ends with a consideration of the embodied analyst in the twenty-first-century con-
sulting room.
Capturing key aspects of a transitional movement in the development of psy-
choanalysis and psychotherapy, The Embodied Analyst is ideal for those working
and training in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
Jon Sletvold is a Faculty, Training, and Supervising Analyst at the Norwegian
Character Analytic Institute. He is former chair of the Psychotherapy Speciality
Board of the Norwegian Psychological Association and is co-editor of two
previous books.
“An invaluable contribution, The Embodied Analyst bridges psychoanalytic cultures
and countries, substantially and impressively advancing contemporary attempts to
integrate non-verbal and body-based experience in relational psychoanalytic theory
and practice. Sletvold enriches the relational literature in his discussion of these dimen-
sions in the work of Freud and his often-excluded disciple, Wilhelm Reich. Further
enhancement is offered in his discussion of Scandinavian analysts who were influ-
enced by Reich, illuminating the often misunderstood and inaccurately represented
historical roots of including the non-verbal dimension in treatment. Using evocative
clinical material throughout, Sletvold also offers a model for embodied clinical train-
ing and supervision.” – Frances Sommer Anderson, PhD, SEP. Editor, Bodies in
Treatment: The Unspoken Dimension (2 008 )
“The Embodied Analyst is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the non-
verbal and affective aspects of the analytic process. Within the psychoanalytic world,
Wilhelm Reich is primarily recognized for the role that his seminal book on character
analysis played within the development of the ego psychology tradition. By focusing
more broadly, however, on his thinking about embodiment, Sletvold has managed to
synthesize a lost aspect of Reich’s legacy with a contemporary relational perspective
on transference and countertransference, as well as recent insights into the change pro-
cess emerging from mother-infant developmental literature. The result of this synthe-
sis is rich in both theoretical and technical yield. It’s also a fascinating and engaging
read.” – Jeremy D. Safran, PhD, Past-President of the International Association for
Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and Co-Founder and Co-Chair of The
Sandor Ferenczi Center at The New School
“Norwegian psychoanalysis has long understood that being human involved living in
a body, something that many others have managed to overlook. In this groundbreaki ng
book, Jon Sletvold brings a contemporary reading of the best of Wilhelm Reich’s theo-
ries of character analysis to such diverse influences as affect theory, cognitive neurosci-
ence, infancy research and an array of contemporary psychotherapies. He thus weaves
a vivid, immediate and scholarly picture of how we live our histories and psychologies
through our embodied subjectivity. This book will change every analyst’s practice for
the better.” – Stephen Seligman, DMH, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University
of California, San Francisco, Joint Editor-in-Chief, Psychoanalytic Dialogues,
Training and Supervising Analyst, San F rancisco Center for Psychoanalysis and
the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California
“In this lucid, judicious, and important book, Jon Sletvold integrates material from con-
temporary neuroscience, attachment and infant research, philosophy, and the history of
psychoanalysis to give his reader an analyst for the twenty-first century. Through his read-
ing of Freud’s body ego and affect theory, as well as Reich’s character analysis, Sletvold
revisits the corporeal foundations of psychoanalytic thought and creates links among ideas
that have often been perceived as incompatible. He further contextualizes these theories
in light of more recent work on intersubjectivity in various fields and demonstrates their
pragmatic importance with illuminating stories from his own work with patients and train-
ing analysis. Finally, Sletvold’s consistently undogmatic, intellectually open, and compas-
sionate explication of the implicit and explicit dynamics between analyst and patient is a
pleasure to read.” – Siri Hustvedt
Relational Perspectives Book Series
Lewis Aron & Adrienne Harris
Series Co-Editors
Steven Kuchuck & Eyal Rozmarin
Associate Editors
The Relational Perspectives Book Series (RPBS) publishes books that grow out
of or contribute to the relational tradition in contemporary psychoanalysis. The
term r elational psychoanalysis was first used by Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) to
bridge the traditions of interpersonal relations, as developed within interpersonal
psychoanalysis and object relations, as developed within contemporary British
theory. But, under the seminal work of the late Stephen Mitchell, the term r ela-
tional psychoanalysis grew and began to accrue to itself many other influences
and developments. Various tributaries – interpersonal psychoanalysis, object rela-
tions theory, self psychology, empirical infancy research, and elements of contem-
porary Freudian and Kleinian thought – flow into this tradition, which understands
relational configurations between self and others, both real and fantasied, as the
primary subject of psychoanalytic investigation.
We refer to the relational tradition, rather than to a relational school, to high-
light that we are identifying a trend, a tendency within contemporary psycho-
analysis, not a more formally organized or coherent school or system of beliefs.
Our use of the term relational signifies a dimension of theory and practice that
has become salient across the wide spectrum of contemporary psychoanalysis.
Now under the editorial supervision of Lewis Aron and Adrienne Harris with
the assistance of Associate Editors Steven Kuchuck and Eyal Rozmarin, the
Relational Perspectives Book Series originated in 1990 under the editorial eye
of the late Stephen A. Mitchell. Mitchell was the most prolific and influential of
the originators of the relational tradition. He was committed to dialogue among
psychoanalysts, and he abhorred the authoritarianism that dictated adherence to
a rigid set of beliefs or technical restrictions. He championed open discussion
and comparative and integrative approaches, and he promoted new voices across
the generations.
I ncluded in the Relational Perspectives Book Series are authors and works
that come from within the relational tradition and extend and develop the tra-
dition, as well as works that critique relational approaches or compare and
contrast them with alternative points of view. The series includes our most dis-
tinguished senior psychoanalysts along with younger contributors who bring
fresh vision.
Vol. 1 Vol. 9
Conversing with Uncertainty: Influence and Autonomy in
Practicing Psychotherapy in a Psychoanalysis
Hospital Setting Stephen A. Mitchell
Rita Wiley McCleary
Vol. 10
Vol. 2 Fairbairn, Then and Now
Affect in Psychoanalysis: Neil J. Skolnick & David
A Clinical Synthesis E. Scharff (eds.)
Charles Spezzano
Vol. 11
Vol. 3 Building Bridges:
The Analyst in the Inner City: Negotiation of Paradox in
Race, Class, and Culture through a Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalytic Lens Stuart A. Pizer
Neil Altman
Vol. 12
Vol. 4 Relational Perspectives on
A Meeting of Minds: the Body
Mutuality in Psychoanalysis Lewis Aron & Frances Sommer
Lewis Aron Anderson (eds.)
Vol. 5 Vol. 13
Holding and Psychoanalysis: Seduction, Surrender, and
A Relational Perspective Transformation:
Joyce A. Slochower Emotional Engagement in the
Analytic Process
Vol. 6 Karen Maroda
The Therapist as a Person:
Life Crises, Life Choices, Life Experi- Vol. 14
ences, and Their Effects on Treatment Relational Psychoanalysis:
Barbara Gerson (ed.) The Emergence of a Tradition
Stephen A. Mitchell &
Vol. 7 Lewis Aron (eds.)
Soul on the Couch:
Spirituality, Religion, and Morality in Vol. 15
Contemporary Psychoanalysis The Collapse of the Self and Its
Charles Spezzano & Gerald J. Therapeutic Restoration
Gargiulo (eds.) Rochelle G. K. Kainer
Vol. 8 Vol. 16
Unformulated Experience: Psychoanalytic Participation:
From Dissociation to Imagination in Action, Interaction, and
Psychoanalysis Integration
Donnel B. Stern Kenneth A. Frank
Vol. 17 Vol. 25
The Reproduction of Evil: Gender as Soft Assembly
A Clinical and Cultural Perspective Adrienne Harris
Sue Grand
Vol. 26
Vol. 18 Impossible Training:
Objects of Hope: A Relational View of Psychoanalytic
Exploring Possibility and Limit in Education
Psychoanalysis Emanuel Berman
Steven H. Cooper
Vol. 27
Vol. 19 The Designed Self:
Who is the Dreamer, Who Dreams Psychoanalysis and Contemporary
the Dream? Identities
A Study of Psychic Presences Carlo Strenger
James S. Grotstein
Vol. 28
Vol. 20 Relational Psychoanalysis, Vol. II:
Relationality: Innovation and Expansion
From Attachment to Lewis Aron & Adrienne Harris (eds.)
Intersubjectivity
Stephen A. Mitchell Vol. 29
Child Therapy in the Great
Vol. 21 Outdoors:
Looking for Ground: A Relational View
Countertransference and the Sebastiano Santostefano
Problem of Value in
Psychoanalysis Vol. 30
Peter G. M. Carnochan The Healer’s Bent:
Solitude and Dialogue in the
Vol. 22 Clinical Encounter
Sexuality, Intimacy, Power James T. McLaughlin
Muriel Dimen
Vol. 31
Vol. 23 Unconscious Fantasies and
September 11: the Relational World
Trauma and Human Bonds Danielle Knafo &
Susan W. Coates, Jane L. Kenneth Feiner
Rosenthal, & Daniel S.
Schechter (eds.) Vol. 32
Getting From Here to There:
Vol. 24 Analytic Love, Analytic
Minding Spirituality Process
Randall Lehman Sorenson Sheldon Bach
Vol. 33 Vol. 40
Creating Bodies: The Analyst in the Inner City,
Eating Disorders as Self-Destructive Second Edition:
Survival Race, Class, and Culture through a
Katie Gentile Psychoanalytic Lens
Neil Altman
Vol. 34
Relational Psychoanalysis, Vol. III: Vol. 41
New Voices The Hero in the Mirror:
Melanie Suchet, Adrienne From Fear to Fortitude
Harris, & Lewis Aron (eds.) Sue Grand
Vol. 35 Vol. 42
Comparative-Integrative Sabert Basescu:
Psychoanalysis: Selected Papers on Human Nature
A Relational Perspective for the and Psychoanalysis
Discipline’s Second George Goldstein & Helen Golden (eds.)
Century
Brent Willock Vol. 43
Invasive Objects:
Vol. 36 Minds under Siege
Bodies in Treatment: Paul Williams
The Unspoken Dimension
Frances Sommer Vol. 44
Anderson (ed.) Good Enough Endings:
Breaks, Interruptions, and Termina-
Vol. 37 tions from Contemporary Relational
Adolescent Identities: Perspectives
A Collection of Readings Jill Salberg (ed.)
Deborah Browning (ed.)
Vol. 45
Vol. 38 First Do No Harm:
Repair of the Soul: The Paradoxical Encounters of
Metaphors of Transformation Psychoanalysis, Warmaking, and
in Jewish Mysticism and Resistance
Psychoanalysis Adrienne Harris & Steven
Karen E. Starr Botticelli (eds.)
Vol. 39 Vol. 46
Dare to be Human: A Disturbance in the Field:
A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Essays in Transference-
Journey Countertransference Engagement
Michael Shoshani Rosenbaum Steven H. Cooper
Vol. 47 Memory, Trauma, and Representation
Uprooted Minds: in Psychotherapy
Surviving the Politics of Terror in the Paul Renn
Americas
Nancy Caro Hollander Vol. 55
A Psychotherapy for the People:
Vol. 48 Toward a Progressive Psychoanalysis
Toward Mutual Recognition: Lewis Aron & Karen Starr
Relational Psychoanalysis and the
Christian Narrative Vol. 56
Marie T. Hoffman Holding and Psychoanalysis:
A Relational Perspective
Vol. 49 Joyce Slochower
Understanding and Treating Dissocia-
Vol. 57
tive Identity Disorder:
The Play Within the Play:
A Relational Approach
The Enacted Dimension of Psycho-
Elizabeth F. Howell
analytic Process
Gil Katz
Vol. 50
With Culture in Mind:
Vol. 58
Psychoanalytic Stories
Traumatic Narcissism:
Muriel Dimen (ed.)
Relational Systems of Subjugation
Daniel Shaw
Vol. 51
Relational Psychoanalysis, Vol. IV:
Vol. 59
Expansion of Theory
Clinical Implications of the Psycho-
Lewis Aron & Adrienne Harris (eds.)
analyst’s Life Experience:
When the Personal Becomes
Vol. 52
Professional
Relational Psychoanalysis, Vol. V:
Steven Kuchuck (ed.)
Evolution of Process
Lewis Aron & Adrienne Harris (eds.) Vol. 60
The Origins of Attachment:
Vol. 53 Infant Research and Adult
Individualizing Gender and Treatment
Sexuality: Beatrice Beebe & Frank M. Lachmann
Theory and Practice
Nancy Chodorow Vol. 61
The Embodied Analyst:
Vol. 54 From Freud and Reich to
The Silent Past and the Relationality
Invisible Present: Jon Sletvold
This page intentionally left blank
The Embodied Analyst
From Freud and Reich to relationality
Jon Sletvold