Brainy Kids Skating on Thin Ice: New Thoughts on Psyche-Soma and How Minds Over-Develop to Cope with Trauma

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at how difficult early experiences may give rise to defenses in which patients rely excessively on their minds, or on bodily activity, having little faith in good reliable objects, internal or external, and little capacity for relaxation and “just being.” Links are made between Winnicott’s theories about mind and psyche-soma as well as both older and more recent thinking about the body, nervous system, and the importance of safeness. This is illustrated with clinical examples of patients with bright, busy minds who were distrustful of others and out of touch with their own bodily states. Examples of some ways in which psychoanalytic therapy can incorporate work with embodied processes are demonstrated and discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Psyche-soma
• trauma
• embodiment
• intellectual defenses
• misattunement
• nervous system regulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Graham Music

Graham Music, PhD, is a psychotherapist, trainer, author and supervisor. He has been Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Centre where he worked for nearly 30 years, and he has been adult Psychotherapist for about 35 years. Formerly Associate Clinical Director of the Tavistock Clinic’s Child and Family Department, he has developed many innovative programs, including setting up services in over 40 schools and a range of services working with the aftermath of child maltreatment and neglect. His clinical specialty for decades been understanding and working with trauma. He supervises and teaches nationally and internationally and has a particular interest in linking cutting-edge developmental findings with therapeutic practice. His publications include Nurturing Natures (2023, 2016, 2010), Respark: Igniting Hope and Joy after Trauma and Depression, (2022), Affect and Emotion (2022, 2001), Nurturing Children: From Trauma to Hope (2019), The Good Life (2014), as well as co-editing From Trauma to Harming Others.