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. 2024 Mar;84(1):57-78.
doi: 10.1057/s11231-024-09441-1.

Somatization and symbolization

Marilyn Charles  1
Affiliations

Somatization and symbolization

Marilyn Charles. Am J Psychoanal. 2024 Mar.

Abstract

Psychoanalysis had its origins in an era when feelings that could not be recognized by the mind were being manifested in the body. Psychoanalysis works towards resolving this type of split by recognizing the existence of a dual language structure that includes both body and mind as constituents of the fabric of embodied meanings. The field of psychosomatics helps to provide keys to this language, marking the essential, patterned truths that are recognized at very basic levels and increasingly organize our perceptions as we make sense of the world. In disrupting the integration of embodied meanings, trauma impedes identity development. For some patients, learning to make meaning from somatic symptoms is an important adjunct to coming to know their own embodied experience. Two cases will be offered in which somatic symptoms provided important information that was channeled through the analytic experience as a way of making sense of what otherwise remained unknown.

Keywords: identity development; narcissism; psychosomatics; reflective capacities.

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