Interkinesthesia in psychotherapy: a resource for exploring body memories and learning new ways of making-a-body

Abstract

ABSTRACT Foregrounding the centrality of bodies in therapeutic encounters, we adopt a video-analytic approach to investigate interkinesthetic engagement in the context of psychotherapy. Specifically, we examine moments where a patient and therapist collaboratively reenact – provide an embodied demonstration of – emotional events from the patient’s life. Our analysis shows how the patient and therapist work together in such moments to create an arena for the patient to learn to attend to, prolong and investigate embodiments of past memories. We discuss how such activities in therapy allow for revisiting and exploring challenging body memories in a safe and trusting setting. Furthermore, we highlight how it carries the potential to change the patient’s embodied experiences and ways of making-a-body. We discuss the clinical applications of taking such an approach to bodily expressions in psychotherapy.