Working with the Body in Mind

Organised by:

Counselling Service, Birkbeck University of London

Description

BIRKBECK TRAINING SERIES 2024-25
Background

The Student Counselling Service at Birkbeck, University of London launched The Birkbeck Training Series in September 2018 in response to need for specialist short-term HE specific training and a space for counsellors in the sector to meet and think together about the challenges of our work. This year we enter our seventh year in bringing the series to you.
The theme of this year’s series is the Psychodynamics of the body: When the body talks, how do we listen?
The body has traditionally been treated as a biological object. We experience it as a vehicle that carts our head around and we don’t notice (or ignore) it when the check engine light comes on. Others of us live on the surface our body, experiencing a shallow interface between our body and the environment. But it is through the body that we relate to other people and the world around us.
However, most of us live in our heads, which is why often we see a significant split between the treatment of the mind versus that of the body. It is for the same reason that we can find that much of the work we do with our clients can become a cerebral exercise, leaving out a crucial aspect of their lived experience and the impact that the countertransference can have on us.
So how then do we understand and help clients who come to us struggling with physical pain/ailments, dysregulation, those who have experienced trauma or attachment wounding and have developed defences to cut off contact with their bodies or are struggling to put into words the source of their emotional distress and are overridden with physical symptoms?
In a world of screens where people are becoming more disconnected from their bodies and more influenced in terms of how they should feel about themselves, therapy becomes a grounding space to bring attention back to two bodies in a room, the importance of understanding that how we feel begins in our bodies and re-establishing the link between mind and body.
The aim of this series is to focus on the embodied experience of our clients, to help them understand their body narratives in relation to their experiences, to develop a deeper understanding of the psychodynamics of body presentation in our work and to remind us of the impact and work our bodies do while working with our clients.
With that in mind we would like to invite you to join us for our 2024-25 Training Series.

TRAINING 3: Working with the Body in Mind by Sarah Benamer

Wednesday 26th March 2025 ,9.00am-1.00pm

About the Workshop

Much of what clients come to our rooms to process has happened to, or been perpetrated upon their bodies, and in turn shaped their minds. We are also not disembodied in delivering our services. However, therapeutically it can seem as if bodies are optional, and the inclusion of embodiment as an ordinary part of the therapeutic frame has been relegated. As practitioners confident in the verbal, we may feel less equipped in this ‘messy’ territory. Sometimes naming and exploring facets of embodied experience and identity can feel risky or taboo, and yet in not doing so we may unwittingly gatekeep what it is possible for clients to explore. The body-to-body relationship between the therapist and client, as individuals sharing intimate space over time is interesting terrain; a felt sense of each other that has been impacted by the new normal of online work.

This training will seek to explore the way in which holding in mind all the bodies in the therapy room can support the therapeutic process and include:

Historical underpinnings – The body mind split that persists. The ‘danger’ of bodies in our profession.
Developmentally how we ‘get a body’ – Attachment and body narrative.
The Therapists’ body as the felt secure base for the work – Countertransference and regulation.
Real bodies through the lifecycle – illness, aging, menopause, pregnancy
Dysregulated and traumatised bodies – The body as consistent object, a means of communication and connection. The window of tolerance for therapeutic change.
The Proximity Dilemma – Exploring the different quality to online work and face to face therapy.
Clinical vignettes to illuminate what being curious about body narratives in the room may contribute to therapy.
Knots that emerge in the embodied terrain – The therapist gatekeeping by omission. Boundary transgressions, Talking about sex, Naming difference etc. Recognition of our own growing edge.

About the Speaker

SARAH BENAMER (UKCP, MBACP, SEP) is a relational attachment based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor who works with individuals and couples. She originally qualified as a psychotherapist at The Bowlby Centre and has subsequently trained as a psychosexual and couples’ therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Prior to becoming a psychotherapist Sarah was a community worker, advocating for those in crisis within the NHS psychiatric system, and supporting individuals living with chronic pain, long-term illness, and severe physical disabilities. In addition to therapeutic trainings, she has an MA in Applied Anthropology, a grounding that informs her ‘participant observer’ approach to clinical practice. Sarah has a particular interest in the many roles of the body in our emotional and relational worlds. In her clinical and written work, she seeks to integrate psychoanalytic and attachment understandings with an appreciation of individual body narrative. Sarah is deeply committed to anti discriminatory practice, the accessibility of therapy, and theory that is relevant in the clients’ world.

Publications & Talks: Telling Stories’ Attachment Based Approaches to the Treatment of Psychosis (Ed), Trauma and Attachment (Edited with Kate White), Killing Me Softly; A Relational Understanding of Attachment to Pain in ATTACHMENT Journal, Not So Hysterical Now’ Psychotherapy, Menopause, and Hysterectomy in ATTACHMENT Journal, Skintimacy’, The Co-creation of a Therapeutic Skin (2021), Minding The Menopause: From Misogyny to Therapeutic Meaning Making (TRtogether 2024), ‘Embodied Intimacies’ in Expanding Psychoanalysis: The Contributions of Susie Orbach (2024).

For any queries about the training, information about discounted tickets or group bookings, please contact:

Aditi Dhar
Email: counselling-services@bbk.ac.uk

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