On Moving and Being Moved: Nonverbal Behavior in Clinical Practice

by La Barre; Frances

• ISBN13: 9780881633160
• ISBN10: 088163316X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Every sensitive therapist intuits the wealth of meaning that resides in nonverbal behavior. Yet, trained as they are to discern and communicate verbal insights, few therapists have a clear idea of how to tap that stream of meaning. In On Moving and Being Moved, Frances La Barre remedies this situation in an intellectually broadening and clinically exciting manner. Drawing on an extensive research literature on movement and nonverbal behavior, her background as a dancer, and her extensive analytic experience, she seeks to enhance our perception of movement and our understanding of its role in therapeutic communication. La Barre anchors her contribution in a thorough-going review of both analytic and nonanalytic sources as they bear on clinical issues. Conversant with the language of posture-gesture mergers, of kines and context analysis, and of body attitudes and self-directed touching, she spans the research literatures of all relevant disciplines, from anthropology to developmental psychology to ethology, from studies of temperament to cross-cultural comparisons of interactive rhythms. Turning to the psychoanalytic domain, she begins by considering the traditionally peripheral role of the body that derived from Freud's own belief that action was often an obstacle to verbal understanding. With the advent of the contemporary relational perspective, she holds, the stage is set for a deeper understanding of nonverbal behavior both as a source of meaning and as a ubiquitous shaper of therapeutic communication. For the clinician, On Moving and Being Movedis a wonderfully informative introduction to the realm of the nonverbal that succeeds both as a reference work and as a pivotal contribution to the theory of therapy. La Barre goes on to illuminate the manner in which analytic and nonanalytic insights can be integrated into a flexible yet disciplined approach that restores nonverbal behavior to its rightful place in the "talking cure."

Author Biography

Frances La Barre, Ph.D., a supervisor and faculty member at The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and at The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center, practices psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in New York City.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
The Choreography of Conversation	p. 1
Language and Nonverbal Behavior	p. 3
Talking and Acting	p. 7
Attunement	p. 15
Temperament, Interaction, and Self	p. 25
Psychoanalytic Theory: The Setting of the Unseen Scene	p. 39
The Body	p. 41
Interaction: The Patient's Action	p. 63
Interaction: The Analyst's Action	p. 75
The Logic of Action: Studies of Nonverbal Behavior	p. 97
The Intrinsic-Meaning Position	p. 99
The Cultural School	p. 117
The School of Practical Analysis	p. 141
Toward Complementarity	p. 165
The Logic of Action in the Clinical Setting	p. 171
The Matching and Clashing of Temperament	p. 173
"Drive" as an Aspect of Interaction	p. 195
Body Attitude and Countertransferential Experience	p. 207
The Interactive Effect and Meaning of Speech Rhythms	p. 219
Conclusion	p. 233
References	p. 237
Index	p. 247
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