The body in analysis

Abstract

In what way is psychotherapeutic listening, when the focus of analysis is the body? This is one of the questions that is present in the daily life of psychotherapists, when psychotherapy is performed through the analysis of the body, and with it, its unconscious and / or unconscious meanings. Each client uses the body as a particular form of expression, and because of the need for a more detailed interpretation, psychoanalysis is often the instrument to aid in the analytical process. Themes involving the body are present in the most diverse conversations of the day to day, becoming an everyday and popular subject. This body has been gaining more and more space, especially in the media, which considers physical beauty as synonymous with health, and it is this body, or this popular notion of body, that reaches the psychotherapeutic clinics and clinics. This body that is invested with pleasures and joys, pains and anguishes, that can cause frustrations when the desired and / or idealized beauty standards are not reached. It is with this vision of the body and more specifically with the intention of rethinking the psychoanalytical analysis carried out in settings, which Maria Helena Fernandes, in her book "Corpo", reproduces in full her postdoctoral work, carried out by UNIFESP (Department of Psychiatry of the Escola Paulista de Medicina). The author questions the analytical process carried out in most psychotherapeutic offices, confronting the most varied bodies: the biological, philosophical, historical, aesthetic, religious, social, anthropological and psychoanalytic bodies. The book, therefore, deals with a phenomenon difficult to reduce to a single determinant, and understanding about the psychoanalytic body requires a review of society's expectations about beauty and health, as well as the questioning of psychologists about their actions and practices. The writing of the book is thus shaped by the intersection between history, culture, society, body, ideals of beauty, psychoanalysis and clinical, becoming of real or imaginary importance to psychotherapists who care about their clinical activity, in order to offer your client a differentiated listening. According to the author, it can be seen that in the everyday use of the term body, it is studied and treated in the context of somatic sickness of the diseased body. Fernandes emphasizes to the reader about the psychopathology of the body in daily life and considers that the body is a depository of internal conflicts. The author uses the psychoanalytic axis of Freud as a reference, and argues that according to this theory, the body is not confused with the biological organism, object of study and medical interventions, but is the place in which the complex game of relations between the psychic and the somatic, such a conception of the body, allows to bring into focus the somatic, as also, a place of realization of unconscious desires. The author starts from the hypothesis that the Freudian discourse develops from hysteria and dream, which is thus the driving axis of exploration of the approach of the body. Freudian innovation was precisely to enable us to understand how this body, which at the same time identifies us, is also being constructed with and from contact with the other. In the book are highlighted the theoretical advances, especially after 1920, that will progressively expand the possibilities of understanding the body beyond the logic of representation, and thus, mainly, clinical implications, starting to produce a knowledge from the metapsychological point of view, putting in evidence of the efficacy of analytical listening on the body's record. Fernandes emphasizes that in Freud's theory the body has two meanings: the real body, a material and visible object, occupying a space and can be designated by a certain anatomical cohesion, and another body, the principle of life and individualization, with peculiar meanings. He still reports the importance of the drive when it comes to the body, and the body is inhabited by the drives, and in this way, the body is impulsional, autoerógena and narcísico, concepts of this, of relevance to the question of the body in psychoanalysis. After the theoretical construction of the psychoanalytic body, Fernandes emphasizes analytical developments in the course of the therapeutic process, focusing the body on its complex concept, thus involving possible unconscious frames. The author reports on the importance of psychoanalytic listening, differentiating it from medical listening, and the function of the psychotherapist is much more than listening to interpret what is being said by the client. Of particular note is the number of clients who are referred to the psychoanalytical office by physicians, patients who, for the most part, have psychosomatic diseases, which, for the author, is a necessity for the patient.Thus, the disease or organ attained, are places of deposits, be it of anguish, fear, insecurity, rancor or unconscious desires, and what matters to the individual is to maintain a certain amount of suffering. Thus, the book of Maria Helena Fernandes, consists of the result of a work of experience not only teaching but, and mainly, clinical. This is an engaging reading, which at the very least raises questions about practice in a psychoanalytic practice. To the reader, it makes possible the perception that the body, besides being a means of expression, be it gestures, movements or looks, is the invested element of several desires, conscious or unconscious, permeating the sensations. Thus, it is up to the analyst to invest in the client's body, welcoming it and transforming it into a "spoken body", open to the psychoanalytic approach. Reading this book becomes essential for psychoanalytic students, psychologists, and practitioners who, in order to perform a psychoanalytic review of the body, seek and value professional enhancement.