November 16, 2022 “Embodied Attunement & Participation: Working within an aesthetic matrix” -Henry Markman, MD, FIPA

Until recently, psychoanalysis has primarily been concerned with meaning and interpretation within a hermeneutic tradition. Markman views this as an unbalanced account of what we actually experience in ourselves, in the world with others, and in our analytic work. Much of what matters to us; what we search for in art, music, and in relationships as well as what we actually experience (not think about) in psychoanalysis happens in the embodied world of being, sensing, and moving in a shared space with others. This is a presence world that has clinical and ethical implications. It follows that recognizing the analytic relationship as embodied brings with it significant clinical possibilities for widening analytic attention, participation, and therapeutic action. Through two detailed clinical examples, Markman shows us how the analyst’s embodied attunement and participation opens up new modes of engagement and therapeutic possibilities. The analyst’s embodied awareness of two bodies together and their interpersonal rhythm is the analytic tool used to gauge the pulse and vitality of connection and the particular rhythmic qualities of a uniquely shared world. This attunement provides a read on the most elemental way the dyad shares emotional experience (or fails to). The analyst’s embodied way of being and acting is not focused on interpretation or finding hidden meanings. Rather, she contributes to an atmosphere of freedom and growth through her embodied being, attuning, and participating. However, there is always a pull to move toward meaning, just as an abstract painter feels the pull (which he must resist) toward figuration in the search for emotional truth. The artistic renderings and writings of Robert Motherwell and Jonathan Palmer serve as vividly informing examples of working within an embodied aesthetic matrix.