Stylus/Karnac Books - The Embodied Self: Movement and Psychoanalysis

The Embodied Self

Movement and Psychoanalysis

Katya Bloom

Foreword by Anne Alvarez

Paperback: 978 1 85575 394 5
Price: $47.00

Publisher: Karnac Books
August 2006 , 246 pp., 5 3/4" x 9"

By integrating principles from her background as a movement psychotherapist and movement analyst with key concepts from contemporary psychoanalysis, the author offers a new perspective on exploring the interrelationships between nonverbal and verbal “articulation” in any therapy setting.

The author starts by presenting theory from both disciplines, showing how the two perspectives can be “embodied” within a mutually supportive framework. She then applies a synthesis of movement analysis and psychoanalysis to several vivid psychoanalytic observational studies of infants and young children, with an in-depth focus on preverbal/nonverbal communication via the language of movement. The author then describes her clinical work with three adults, illustrating how the kinds of primitive psychophysical patterns highlighted in the observational studies are seen to underlie current issues her patients face in movement psychotherapy.

The book aims to provide a practical and experiential working model for developing therapists’ “embodied attentiveness,” which will enhance their recognition of the sensori-affective manifestations of transference and counter-transference. It will inform the work of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, dance movement therapists, and body psychotherapists, as well as those involved in psychoanalytic observational studies. It will also be of interest to anyone interested in exploring the interrelationships between the psyche and the body.

Table of Contents:

Foreword—Anne Alvarez; Preface; PART I: OVERVIEW AND THEORY: 1) Laying the Groundwork; 2) The Language of Movement: Embodying Psychic Processes; 3) On the Meaning of the Body from a Psychoanalytic Perspective; 4) Embodied Attentiveness: A Synthesis of Frameworks; PART II: PSYCHOANALYTIC OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES: Introduction; 5) One Infant’s Manipulation of Time and Space; 6) The Infant’s Language; 7) Falling Into Space; 8) The Social Arena of the Nursery; PART III: CLINICAL CASE STUDIES: Introduction; 9) “I Don’t Know Where I Come From”; 10) “I Don’t Know Where I’m Going”; 11) Signals From the Solar Plexis; Summary of Part III; 12) Conclusions; References; Index.

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Reviews & Endorsements:

"[The Embodied Self] serves as an important source for the experienced professional in either [psychoanalysis or movement analysis]. The content is complex, rich, and potentially challenging to current ways of clinical thinking."
- The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

"Katya Bloom, dancer and clinical movement psychotherapist, is “bilingual,” fluent in the languages of body and mind. Her present work, The Embodied Self, explores the language of emotion as manifested in the body...[This book] teaches us grammar, and we become adept at speaking with our bodies and our minds in the art and science of healing."
- Lynn Somerstein, PhD

"The Embodied Self is a remarkable work written with the sensitivity and kinesthetic intelligence only such a brilliant movement artist as Katya Bloom could bring to it. It speaks with equal relevance to both the informed lay person and the advanced scholar. Bloom has achieved a three dimensional work that includes inviting conscious shifts into the reader’s bodily experience while reading. In describing her patient-therapist interactions with such artistry, Bloom enables us to live the experience and achieve embodied knowledge. Most importantly, Bloom provokes, incites and leaves one with many questions. I experienced many paragraphs as open invitations for intense discussion. This book informs and inspires. It is an invaluable resource for dance movement therapists, movement analysts and students of both. Readers will be truly moved!"
- Virginia Reed, President of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies Faculty, Dance Movement Therapy Program , Pratt University, New York

"In every analysis one has to arrive at the body-self if one wants to achieve deep and enduring change.’ (Rey, 1994). Combining her understanding of movement therapy and psychoanalysis in writing The Embodied Self, Katya Bloom beautifully describes ways of sinking into this body-self to discover the most painful, repressed and neglected layers of the infantile psyche. This highly recommended book is essential reading for therapists and hospital professionals who need to develop more comprehensive understanding of the often neglected primitive spontaneous gestures of the body-self which are not yet able to be put into verbal dialogues.”
- Dr Jeanne Magagna, Ellern Mede Centre for Eating Disorders; Head of Psychotherapy Services , Great Ormond Street Hospital, London

"Written with sensitivity and kinesthetic intelligence, Bloom’s rigorous attention to movement qualities, posture and gesture, and embodied imagery combine here with theoretical frameworks in both object relations and dance/movement therapy theory, making this book a valuable clinical tool."
- American Journal of Dance Therapy

“Katya Bloom’s newly published volume The Embodied Self—Movement and Psychoanalysis is most surely the book Dance and Movement Psychotherapists have all been waiting for. So many of us who explore and navigate in that emotional area between words and physical experience are aware of the numerous links between these two traditions of understanding and communicating about feeling. Never before have the strands of free association in movement and the theory of psychoanalysis been brought together in quite this imaginative way or articulated with such clarity.”
- Association of Dance Movement Therapy Newsletter

"Bloom’s book is highly recommended for dance/movement therapists, body psychotherapists, authentic movement practitioners and clinicians who respect and value the place of body and movement in the psychotherapeutic encounter, as well as those clinicians and psychoanalysts who utilize an object relations framework. This volume is particularly important for those dance/movement therapists, body psychotherapists and Authentic Movement practitioners whose theoretical background is steeped in psychodynamic theory or psychoanalytically-informed....Bloom’s work opens new pathways for cross-fertilization between the geographically-bound fields of dance/movement therapy in England and United States. It is a rich offering which could prompt fruitful collaborations between the two. The first book to describe the usage of effort theory within a psychoanalytically informed clinical work, Bloom’s Embodied Self enriches our understanding of both theories and gives us ample breadth to integrate them into our clinical practice."
- Arts in Psychotherapy

"This book should be required reading for students in psychoanalytic training as well as for those being trained in somatic and movement therapy."
- PsycCritiques

"Katya Bloom, movement psychotherapist, has created a uniquely valuable exploration into the relationship between body, mind and emotions in her book, The Embodied Self. Primarily an overview of how dance movement therapy and psychoanalysis can inform and benefit each other, Bloom’s book takes the reader into a fascinating exploration of how the language of movement can enhance therapy for both infants and adults….Bloom’s work on transference will significantly advance the understanding of the therapeutic community in these areas and is a worthy addition to the field."
- Psychotherapy and Politics International

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