Swimming Lessons: Aging, Dissociation, and Embodied Resonance

Abstract

How do bodies communicate in the analytic relationship? What is the therapeutic action of embodied communication? In this paper, I examine the effects of a form of embodied communication that I refer to as “embodied resonance.” Using a model of mind that is comprised of multiple self states that become dissociated in response to trauma and that are carried, unsymbolized, in body and mind, I suggest that “embodied resonance” enables patient and analyst to make initial contact with dissociated self-states. Consequently, the analyst helps her patient understand, verbalize, and incorporate a greater and truer sense of himself into his life story. I present a detailed clinical example of my work with Jon, an elderly patient suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, to illustrate how understanding the impact of a patient’s traumatic past can be a freeing experience that allows him to come to terms with his particularly traumatic aging experience. Changes in self understanding were reflected in changes in my patient’s body and changes in his experience of himself as an aging person. I also suggest that whether implicitly known or explicitly verbalized, embodied resonance can offer enriching, mutative attachment experiences. Finally, the analyst’s somatic attunement to her own traumatic memories and dissociated self states is discussed as a way to inform clinical impasses in the analytic treatment.