Mentalizing from/to/with the Body

Although the body has always been relevant in psychoanalysis, in recent years, the mind/body relation has received greater attention and new ways of conceiving the relation are being forged. The body is not simply the repository of emotions that are too threatening to acknowledge; rather, it is a source of information that we can tune into and that provides meaning. In this chapter, the author focuses on the turn toward "embodied mentalization" in mentalization theory, in particular, the important role that "interoception" plays in maintaining homeostasis, as well as the further processing of emotions that is a part of "mentalized affectivity," a kind of emotion regulation that is mediated by autobiographical memory. The author also discusses cross-cultural research that suggests a revaluation of somatization as a construct: somatization can be regarded as a culturally legitimate form of communication, not as a failure to put feelings into words. Ultimately, the author argues that both neuroscience and cross-cultural studies contribute to the development of a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective on the mind/body relation.