Routledge Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond

This book explores the role of bodily phenomena in mental life and in the psychoanalytic encounter, encouraging further dialog within psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the humanities, and contributing new clinical and theoretical perspectives to the recent resurgence of psychoanalytic interest in the body. Presented in six parts in which diverse meanings are explored, Body as Psychoanalytic Object focuses on the clinical psychoanalytic encounter and the body as object of psychoanalytic inquiry, spanning from the prenatal experience to death. The contributors explore key themes including mind–body relations in Winnicott, Bion, and beyond; oneiric body; nascent body in early object relations; body and psychosensory experience; body in breakdown; and body in virtual space. With clinical vignettes throughout, each chapter provides unique insight into how different analysts work with bodily phenomena in the clinical situation and how it is conceived theoretically. Building on the thinking of Winnicott and Bion, as well as contributions from French psychoanalysis, Body as Psychoanalytic Object offers a way forward in a body-based understanding of object relations theory for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Review “It is paradoxical and intriguing that after a century of existence psychoanalysis is still so uncomfortable saying what it knows about the body. Paradoxical because psychoanalysis was born giving voice to the body of hysterics. Yet over time, the picture became that of a disincarnate analyst for a disincarnate patient, prompting Paula Heimann to remind us the purpose of psychoanalysis is not to transform the analyst into a mechanical brain, which produces interpretations purely on the basis of intellectual procedures. In her classic 1949 essay on countertransference, Heimann denounces a split not yet resolved in psychoanalytic theorizing on the link between mind and body. Otherwise one would not understand why a book like Body as psychoanalytic object can be so intriguing. The fact is, this remains an exciting frontier of research in psychoanalysis. How body and mind communicate remains quite mysterious. We know that the body that interests us does not speak in words; still it ‘speaks’ and cannot be placed entirely outside the field of the symbolic even when it is deprived of the ability to communicate lexically, as is the case with small children. It is not at all obvious that even the body of the infant, that is, the child who does not yet have access to words, is already touched by culture; which means that it starts immediately (even before birth) to exist as a body that has its own intentionality, a body that dreams, a body that communicates. Nor is it clear what relation there is between intersubjectivity based on instinct, what Bion calls the proto-mental system―the ability of individuals to connect with each other on the basis of certain ‘valences’―and intersubjectivity based on language. This outstanding book co-authored and edited by Caron Harrang, Drew Tillotson, and Nancy Winters promises readers an extraordinary journey in which, little by little, they will be able to reflect on these issues and see them in the light of a series of rigorous, provocative, and sophisticated essays that make up the volume. I recommend this splendid book to psychotherapists, to psychoanalysts, and to all those in philosophy and the humanities who reflect on the mystery of what constitutes the essence of our humanity.” ― Giuseppe Civitarese, MD, FIPA, author of Sublime Subjects: Aesthetic Experience and Intersubjectivity in Psychoanalysis “In this theoretically intricate, clinically rich and challenging collection of essays, edited by Caron Harrang, Drew Tillotson and Nancy Winters, we are exposed to new and evolving ideas on the creative forms of body-mind engagement. With Bion and Winnicott as guiding lodestars, authors here take us on fascinating journeys. Body-mind emergence in prenatal and perinata