Brainy Kids Skating on Thin Ice: New Thoughts on Psyche-Soma and How Minds Over-Develop to Cope with Trauma

Abstract

This paper looks at how difficult early experiences may give rise to defenses in which patients rely excessively on their minds, or on bodily activity, having little faith in good reliable objects, internal or external, and little capacity for relaxation and “just being.” Links are made between Winnicott’s theories about mind and psyche-soma as well as both older and more recent thinking about the body, nervous system, and the importance of safeness. This is illustrated with clinical examples of patients with bright, busy minds who were distrustful of others and out of touch with their own bodily states. Examples of some ways in which psychoanalytic therapy can incorporate work with embodied processes are demonstrated and discussed.