The poetics of the symptom

Abstract

In contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice, the patient’s and the analyst’s body are growing in importance. Over time psychoanalysis has become enriched by neurosciences, sociology, neonatal studies, philosophy, literature, and art. It is especially focused on what has not been represented and integrated within the mind, and on how to recover, represent, transform, and integrate these types of experiences, with the corporeal experience now acquiring more prominence. I will assemble those so-called “poetic” aspects in the formation and manifestation of the symptom, which come from embodied and non-symbolized experiences. I will start from the observation that poetry offers an embodied meaning, learned through the body before being understood in the mind. Similarly, the suffering world of our patients can resonate within the therapist like a poem or a piece of music. Through careful attention to the resonances in the body and in reverie, therapists can deduce the personifications inhabiting that internal world. It is as if the poetic experience is situated “on the border” between the sensorial dimension and the verbal dimension. After a brief review of the psychoanalytic literature on corporeal experience in psychoanalysis, a clinical vignette will clarify these statements.