Towards an integration of objectifying and (inter)subjective stances in relation to the body in psychotherapy

Abstract

In Soth, 2006, I traced some of my own development as a therapist through the shadow aspects and pitfalls of traditional body psychotherapy towards an integration of holistic-embodied and relational-intersubjective perspectives, illustrating this with examples from work with a client I called Max. In this follow-up paper, I propose that the crucial concepts arising from this integration, relevant to all modalities of psychotherapy, are re-enactment and an extended notion of parallel process. Paradoxically, the re-enactment of the client's original wounds, as experienced in the here and now between client and therapist, constitutes both the worst and best that therapy has to offer. Through understanding the therapist's conflict in the countertransference as part of a complex relational body–mind system of parallel processes, containment of the re-enactment and spontaneous transformation may become more likely. This requires that the therapist can enter the re-enactment experience as it manifests across the full body–mind spectrum. In summary, I call this an integral-paradoxical approach to the fractal self in relationship.