The Body as a Mode of Representation | May 7, 2016

The Body as a Mode of Representation
The Dr. Elmor Smit Memorial Lecture

Judy Eekhoff, PhD, FIPA

Scientific Meeting | Saturday, May 7, 2016 | Venue: Arbutus Club
2001 Nanton Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 4A1

Freud and Ferenczi foreshadowed latter clinical evidence that there is more than one mode of representation. Further clinical explorations ( Klein, Isaacs, Bion and Segal) into the processes of symbolization and the role of the body in expressing “memories in feelings” prepared us for the shift in psychoanalysis from a focus on wishes and conflicts to a focus on process and relationship within the here and now of the analytic session. The Botella’s exploration of figurability also emphasizes the role of the body in early primordial symbolization.

This paper will provide clinical examples of the patient’s communication via the body and the analyst’s role in receiving that communication first in her body and then in her mind and aiding the patient in developing a capacity for increased symbolization and representation via language.

Learning Objectives:

1. Differentiate concrete bodily experiences from mental representations and help patients represent these early experiences verbally.
2. Use the concepts of ongoing construction of the self to facilitate awareness of bodily expressions within clinical work.
3. Recognize bodily experiences as communications from the most primitive parts of the self.

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Judy Eekhoff, PhD, FIPA is the Past-President of Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society & Institute. She is an IPA certified training and supervising psychoanalyst and a licensed child psychologist. She has a private practice in Seattle, Washington, USA where she also teaches, writes, and consults. She is a full faculty member of Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society & Institute , of Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and of COR Northwest Family Development Center. She teaches Freud, Klein, Bion and Meltzer and facilitates Infant Observation Groups. Dr. Eekhoff is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis and adjunct clinical faculty at the University of Washington, Department of Behavioural Sciences. Her writing interests include the somatic manifestation of preverbal experience in the transference and counter-transference. Her recent papers focus on the impact of trauma on the development of a self. They are entitled: “Infantile Trauma, Internal Object Relations, and The Silent Transference;” “Infantile Trauma, Therapeutic Impasse, & Recovery,” “The Value of Pathological Mimicry,” “Introjective Identification: The Analytic Work of Evocation.” Most recently, she wrote and presented “Finding a center of gravity via proximity with the analyst.”

The 2016 Scientific Program Committee: Judith Setton-Markus (Chair), M.Ed., R. Psych, Karin Holland Biggs, PhD., RCC, James Fabian, MD, FRCPC, Endre Koritar, MD, FRCPC, Catherine Young, PhD, R. Psych.