Talking Bodies: How Do We Integrate Working with the Body in Psychotherapy from an Attachment and Relational Perspective?

This monograph brings together the presentations from the nineteenth John Bowlby Memorial Conference in 2012, organized by The Bowlby Centre. The aim of this was to explore the growing role of the body in relational psychotherapy over the last decade, and to bring us up to date in thinking about the relationship between attachment, the body and trauma. Questions addressed included: How do we anchor the new understandings we are gaining within the framework of attachment? How might the integration of these ideas about the body change what we do in the consulting room? What impact might this have on the therapy relationship? Can we maintain and respect the place of a secure, attuned attachment between therapist and client, and its healing potential, at the center of our therapeutic work?

Pat Ogden’s paper “Wisdom of the Body, Lost and Found” was the conference centerpiece and there are contributions from leading clinicians including Roz Carroll, Mark Linington, and Orit Badouk Epstein. Each in their different ways have brought their clinical experiences to life in their presentations and demonstrated this leading edge work in relation to the themes of the body and touch with clients including those so often regarded as “unsuitable for therapy”, namely those who have a physical or learning disability or those who have survived extreme trauma through the painful means of psychic protection resulting in dissociative states of mind.

Other contributors include Phil Mollon on “Attachment and Energy Psychology” and Nick Totton on “Embodiment and the Social Bond”.