Somatic correspondences during psychoanalysis

Somatic as well as cognitive correspondences occur during psychoanalytic treatment. The somatic type have received little, if any, attention from the analytic community, at least in terms of published references. Somatic symptom(s), activated by external events in his or her life, first appear in the analyst. Almost immediately thereafter identical or closely similar experiences appear in the analysand and (during the treatment hour) are verbalized by him or her. Should attempts to understand correspondences stop at this point, it is easy to conclude they are due to mere coincidence, but they have deep, unconscious roots. Analytic exploration of these roots reveals practically simultaneous occurrence of certain activated conflict residues in the analyst and comparable ongoing but far less worked-through conflict areas in the analysand. The brief interval when these activated facets become approximate in intensity appears to be the trigger for the correspondence. Preoedipal aspects of unconscious conflict are more apt to be reflected in somatic correspondence, whereas oedipal aspects are more likely to be expressed in cognitive correspondence. In any event, data available from the case material reported suggest that from a psychological point of view the unconscious plays a significant role in extrasensory and unverbalized communication and suggest addition of the concept of body-language transference to that of thought transference.