Die analytische Haltung und das körperliche Unbewusste: Bemerkungen zu einer behandlungstechnischen Kontroverse.

The author argues that the implications from Freud’s discoveries in Beyond the Pleasure Principle have not yet been fully drawn in the theory of structural psychoanalysis, but especially not in treatment technique. With regard to the structure of the unconscious, the author proposes distinguishing the symbolic unconscious on this side of the pleasure principle from the bodily unconscious in which traumatic inscriptions disorganise the bodily self beyond symbolic structures. The concept of the encapsulated body engram is used to describe the dynamic structure of the bodily unconscious. Processes of disorganisation, petrification, sensory defence, and secondary self-stimulation are elaborated. The author proposes a method for confronting these inscriptions in the analytic process. The somatic narration method systematically examines the patient’s bodily sensations, reverses the defensive processes of the engram, and enables a reorganisation of the bodily self, which can then reconnect with symbolic structures. For this, a more active analytic stance is required that responds to the defensive processes used by the subject to ward off the threat of annihilation to which he or she was exposed in the traumatic inscription. A clinical vignette illustrates the method. The treatment controversy surrounding conventional treatment technique is elaborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]