A LIVE STREAMED WEBINAR SERIES

SUSANA FERNANDEZ De La VEGA GONZALEZ, PsyD

The Memory of the Body:

A Theoretical Justification of Corporal Interventions

in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Discussant  ERNESTO MUJICA, PhD

Friday, April 14th from 12Noon-2:00PM/Eastern

All events in this series take place live, in Eastern Daylight or Eastern Standard times.

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ABOUT TODAY'S TALK

There are many psychotherapeutic proposals that offer corporal interventions to deal with psychic suffering, some of them lacking a solid theoretical foundation. On the other hand, different authors accept the presence of archaic experiences that maintain their influence throughout life and are inaccessible to the word. When verbal intervention is insufficient, it is necessary to reflect on the limits of therapeutic action: attention to somatic dialogue, questioning of the touch taboo or the integration of body techniques that evoke sensory and primordial emotional experiences. The meaning of the body within the psychoanalysis field, according to a range of authors such as Freud, Reich, Bion, Winnicott, Anzieu or relational psychoanalysis theorists, will be reviewed in search of a conceptual foundation for body techniques. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Susana Fernández de la Vega Gonzalez, PsyD,  is a Clinical Psychologist who currently works in a Public Mental Health Day Hospital in Salamanca (Spain), performing group therapy, individual psychotherapy and body techniques with patients with severe mental disorders. She has previously worked in Madrid, Toledo, Valladolid, and Rome as a clinical psychologist, with adult and child patients, and in different resources of the public mental health network.  She also worked in the care of those affected by the March 11 attacks in Madrid. She carries out teaching tasks at the Complejo Asistencial Universitario de Salamanca.

On the other hand, she has worked with companies of experience theater or sensory theater such as Teatro de los Sentidos (Theater of the Senses) of Barcelona and Teatro en el Aire (Theater in the Air) of Madrid. She is currently developing her own theatrical project with La Estancia Doble, and is a teacher in the Posgraduate of Lenguaje Sensorial y Poética del Juego of the Universidad de Girona.

Her interests revolve around the relationship between psychotherapy and play, the memory of the body and psychotherapy, the application of bodily techniques in a therapeutic context and the bodily correlates of trauma.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Ernesto Mjjica, PhD, is a supervisor of psychotherapy at the William Alanson White Institute, where he is an associate editor of the Institute’s journal, Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He is also a supervisor of psychotherapy at the Doctoral Programs in Clinical Psychology of Teachers College/Columbia University and at the City University of New York. In 2010, Dr. Mujica was President of the Division of Psychoanalysis for the New York State Psychological Association and he has served on the Board of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association. 

To see this year's entire Colloquium series schedule, click here.