The Body Speaks Its Mind, NEAPP conference

The Body

Speaks

Its Mind

attending

to body states

in psychotherapy

Saturday 2nd November 2024 9.30am-3.30pm

The Lipman Theatre, Lipman Building, City Campus, Northumbria University

Newcastle-upon Tyne

full personal attendance conference

organised by the North of England Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists

This event is for those qualified or training in psychotherapy or associated professions concerned with the subject

In psychoanalytic work we describe mental development and processes with reference to parts and functions of the body, and we know that for Freud the ego is first and foremost a bodily ego. Taking this knowledge seriously and being attentive to the body has radical theoretical and clinical implications. This conference brings together two distinguished analytic practitioners, Professor Joachim Kuechenhoff and Mr Ricky Emanuel, who, working in different professional cultures, have come to understand that emotional experience is rooted in the body, which can be thought of as coterminous with the mind. The speakers find common ground in valuing the work of Wilfred Bion.

Joachim Kuechenhoff is Visiting Professor at the International Psychoanalytic University in Berlin. With a large body of published work, Professor Kuechenhoff has achieved distinction as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in both Germany and Switzerland where it is the analytic and medical culture to pay close attention to the somatic expression of psychic distress. In these productive environments, over a forty-year career, Professor Kuechenhoff has refined his understanding of the ways in which the analytic practitioner can approach the physicality of the emotions and the affective content of physiological symptoms.

Ricky Emanuel is a child and adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice. He enjoyed a prestigious career in the NHS including as Head of Child Psychotherapy Services at the Royal Free Hospital, valuable work at the Birmingham Trust for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and supervisory and teaching posts at the Tavistock Clinic. Ricky's work rests on a bio-psycho-social foundation. He points out the interconnectedness of the mind and body and the incompleteness of a psychotherapy which neglects the physical realm.

On Transformational Work in Psychoanalytic Psychosomatics: Intercorporeality and the Embodied Self

Joachim's talk is based on two key concepts, 'intercorporeality' and 'the embodied self' as introduced by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. A third term, 'transformational work', is added to describe what the psychoanalyst does in dealing with psychosomatic disorders. Two transformational modes are differentiated and explained using case vignettes. In the first, the somatoform symptom can be read as an unconscious significant. In the second, the personal world is not repressed but foreclosed, leading to a 'semiotic' exchange, including intercorporeal reactions and countertransference phantasies as elaborated by Bion and others.

The Relationship between Body States, Emotions and the Development of a Conceptual Inner World: its Relevance for Psychotherapy Technique

The eminent neuroscientist Antonio Damasio said 20th and 21st century science has largely ignored the role of the body. Ricky will be discussing the findings from modern neuroscience which show how emotions are made, linking them with the work of Wilfred Bion, whose theory of thinking showed how prescient he was 60 years earlier. He will discuss how vital it is for psychotherapists to address bodily states.

Ricky argues that we have to find ways to make contact with traumatised patients before they are able to make use of classical psychotherapy techniques.

Programme

0930-1000 Coffee and registration

1000-1015 Welcome to the conference

1015-1100 On Transformational Work in Psychoanalytic Psychosomatics

1100-1115 Contributions from the floor

1115-1145 Coffee

1145-1230 The Relationship between Body States, Emotions and the Development of a Conceptual Inner World

1230-1245 Contributions from the floor

1245-1345 Lunch

1345-1515 Plenary discussion with contributions from the floor and debate between the speakers

1515-1530 Thanks and closing remarks

£85.00 qualified professionals, £55.00 trainees and retired professionals

In this event, we invite delegates to participate by expressing opinions, as well as by asking questions of the speakers.

Confidentiality.

Clinical material discussed at this conference must not be disclosed elsewhere. Electronic recording is prohibited.

Compliance with professional standards of confidentiality is required.

North of England Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists | Unit 3, St Peter's Wharf St Peter's Basin | Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 1TZ GB

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