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(2010) The emergence of somatic psychology and bodymind therapy, Dordrecht, Springer.
Although beyond the scope of this hook, it would be interesting to trace the history of the psychoanalytic movement as a series of "body phobic" reactions to Freud's original discoveries. It can certainly be demonstrated that the earliest reactions were essentially a repudiation of the significance of libidinality, and that such a fear-based conservatism continues today. This repudiation operates either by disputing the significance of the sexual body (and hence avoiding the notion of libidinality almost entirely), or by conceptualizing Freud's discoveries in terms of a theory of "sex acts" (and hence avoiding almost entirely the practice of listening to bodily experience). Here it will be argued that these two seemingly contrary positions are both actually indicative, in quite different ways, of our culturally endorsed alienation from our experiential embodiment. Let us review this history briefly and schematically.
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Barratt, B. B. (2010). Somatic psychodynamics, in The emergence of somatic psychology and bodymind therapy, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 79-87.
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