“We think with our skin as much as our head”

Psychoanalysis and the body

Psychoanalysis has always assigned the body an important role – Freud drew attention to the special connection between the body and the psyche. Starting medical practice, he noticed that women suffering from hysteria often also have partial paralysis, for example, of their hands. He was the first to understand that it was not a violation of organic functions, but a disturbed body image. This helped him build a theory of the nature of mental life.

I have a lot of papers on this subject because of my professional education. I studied with the psychoanalyst Serge Leibovici, who studied the relationship between infants and parents. He filmed their communication on video, and then, together with his parents, analyzed the emotions that they experienced when looking at their child.

I later attended counseling sessions for parents of infants by psychoanalyst Carolyn Eljacheff. Together with other future psychoanalysts, I learned from her to feel with my body what is happening in the session.

Francoise Dolto said: “At some point you have to go through this test – to listen with the body.” This is precisely the job of any psychoanalyst today: he not only comprehends what is said, especially when communicating with children, but also interacts with the patient through body language.

Babies and body language

Françoise Dolto never claimed that children understand words. Her expression “everything is speech” was taken too literally. She sought to remind of something else: the child constantly feels the desire to communicate. Everything that comes out of his body serves as a message about what he is, what image of himself he is trying to build and what he is trying to discover in another person.

Therefore, she always emphasized that not “we are talking to the child”, but “we are talking to the child” and our whole body is listening at this moment. We listen not only with our ears, but also with our skin and eyes… A child does not understand words – he lives them.

“First we are flesh and only then do we become a body”

When a child comes into the world, in order for him to turn into a human child, it is necessary that they invest themselves in him – their dreams, their hopes, their love – those who conceived him. Otherwise, he really will be “only flesh.” He will become a full-fledged personality only when he meets another person, with someone who will think about him, give him what the neuropsychologist Boris Tsiryulnik called “food for the senses” – and these are, first of all, the first manifestations of care, animated by maternal love.

“The child is alone, on his own – this does not happen,” said the English pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicott. This is the fundamental meaning of the early bond between mother and child.

In maternity hospitals, we psychologists sometimes see a disturbed mother-child relationship: a woman who is psychologically torn herself is unable to “think” of her child. She throws him mentally, and at that moment he loses his true existence. This happens in tragic, but, fortunately, rare cases of infanticide: if the child is “crossed out” in the mother’s thoughts, then in reality he ceases to exist for her.

Our body is a monitor

Imagine the situation: during a family dinner, a mother angrily grumbles at one of the children. The child does not take her words seriously, because he sees that her nostrils are only slightly flared. He understands that this is false anger, and does not pay attention to it.

Children are very good at recognizing the emotional state of their parents by bodily signs. They understand how they should behave, and decide whether, for example, to insist on their own. They perfectly decipher the bodies of adults – children seem to be “connected” to the psychology of our body … But in the future they lose this quality.

At the sessions, they always tell the child: “Look at your aunt when she is talking to you,” but I know very well that the child is already listening to me. Bodies are indicators in the sense that they have preserved imprints of posture or gesture, including the most fleeting ones, remembered them with their skin. And they can tell a lot about us. The psyche may repress something, but the body does not forget anything.

It contains the whole history of life, and sometimes it is the body that makes it come to the surface. It can evoke positive emotions when suddenly the aroma of perfume or the smell coming from the kitchen brings back some kind of event and makes you feel again the joy of a family dinner in childhood.

But it can be difficult when a piercing pain suddenly awakens, which you once managed to cope with. It could be caused by cruelty or a painful loss that we have never come to terms with … In this sense, we think with our skin no less than with the help of our mind.

What is the mental body

We have a body of flesh and blood, and inside it there is a psychic body, which is responsible for the organic body to live and for the soul to live in it. Over time, the mental body is structured, individualized, determines the intonation of the voice, builds facial expressions, bodily habits, affects the way of existence and development, and relationships with other people.

But the mental body is virtual. Although we cannot see it, it has health, just like an organic body. What a pity that we know so little about what the “mental skin” or “I-skin” is, a concept introduced by the psychoanalyst Didier Anzier.

In France, a story recently happened: a schoolboy wanted to strangle a teacher for asking him to take off his jacket. If only the teacher were aware that to ask a student about this meant to expose him, destroy him, hurt his dignity!

The jacket was a protection for a teenager, a vital shell. When he took it off, he felt naked and succumbed to a strong impulse that demanded that he defend himself. Since he no longer had a shell, he was literally falling apart. And he could not accept this situation, come to terms with it.

When Body Signals Become Symptoms

When the signals of the body interfere with us and disturb the balance of life, they become symptoms. Everyone has emotions, and everyone is characterized by obsessive actions, for example, cleaning an apartment to a shine, thereby freeing yourself from feelings of anxiety or from the feeling that you do not have enough air … But everything is in order only until you start checking 15 times a day plate cleanliness.

This is why I don’t like it when bodily messages, like the way you fold your hands, jump to conclusions about you. This is an extremely simplistic approach to psychology that strikes me as dangerous and aggressive. Mental life is so much more complicated.

Of course, while working in a maternity hospital, I came across various forms of the “kuwad syndrome” – when future fathers live in their body all stages of pregnancy, and I know the stories of men who managed to break their leg and end up in bed at the very moment when the baby needed to be taken home …

But you can’t be satisfied with just a projection of your own representation or a generally accepted interpretation of body language. Every body has a complex history that needs to be truly analyzed. You cannot decipher a symptom in five minutes with three words.

How do we take care of our mental body

Today, alas, very little is thought about it. Every year, parents receive instructions on how their child should brush their teeth, but they are not taught anything about maintaining mental health. Nothing about what fear, anxiety, longing are, what it means to be mentally independent. Is it only because the child already knows how to open the door that he can be allowed to return alone to an empty house? He can brag, but at the same time experience stress every time …

To adult patients, I always say, “Take care of yourself.” I see so many people who put themselves in unbearable conditions! They arrange for themselves one stress after another, when in professional life, in relation to material goods or entertainment, they do not know the measure. They move from one activity to another without pausing. But the mental body, like the physical body, has its own rhythm, which must be reckoned with.

Freud identified two phases in the infant’s bodily life, and we retain these early experiences in our memory. Take the feeling of hunger: at first the child is tense, experiencing discomfort. He then feels the satisfaction of being well fed. This is the first phase.

But, according to Freud, there is a second period of time, which goes beyond the principle of obtaining pleasure and leads to peace. This second phase is about feeling good. You can eat a lot, feel full, but still not achieve peace.

This is the case today with many who enjoy indulging in excessive and sometimes even obsessive entertainment, but they do not achieve peace. This second phase, when you feel peace and tranquility to the very depths of the body.

This ability of the body to rest, which is not associated with obtaining pleasure, is achieved by fewer and fewer adults. And this is paradoxical, because now the body care industry is very developed – massages, spas – but people use it very superficially.

Separation from one’s own body

We often look at the body as an object that can be controlled, that needs to be controlled. It becomes something external. The desire for control makes it difficult to feel it. We must be able to accept what the body has experienced along with that mysterious part of ourselves that eludes us.

I believe that in society, the general desire to control, master, conquer largely determines modern patterns of behavior. For example, we attach more importance to image than to internal well-being. We neglect intimate life, do not listen to the body. We even create shells for ourselves, becoming like teenagers – and this speaks quite clearly of mental vulnerability.

The one who is really sensitive to his body monitors the state of his psyche. He knows how to protect his emotional rhythm and evade when pressured. He listens to needs, to himself, and therefore to others. He manages to achieve harmony in relationships and feelings. He does not invade other people’s lives and does not judge others.

Such people cause universal sympathy. They soothe. There is a sense of rightness in them. These are beautiful personalities – they are surrounded by a certain aura, they say about them: “There is something in them.” In fact, it is not “there is something in them”, but they themselves “are”, they exist in their body.

About the Expert: Sophie Marinopoulos is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who has worked for many years in a maternity hospital in Nantes, France. Author of several books, among them “In the depths of the mother’s soul” and “Talking body”.