Our bodies relating: how do child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapists working with the body in specialist settings understand their bodies in relation to their patients?

This study explores how Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists (CAPs) understand their bodies in relation to their patients. Using semi-structured interviews and an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) method, it delves into the lived experiences of each participant. The study first situates the body within a psychoanalytic framework through the literature review, drawing on various psychoanalytic theories to examine the meaning of the body and its position in therapeutic interactions. Participant interviews explore participant’s personal, lived experiences in specialist therapeutic environments where the body plays an explicit role in daily practice. The CAPs interviewed for this study work with cases involving sexual perversion and violence, in hospital settings, with learning and physical disabilities, anorexia, and other eating disorders. The findings reveal that discussing and reflecting on the body can feel unsafe, often triggering defence mechanisms. The experience of being interviewed on this topic stirred anxieties in both participants and the interviewer, bringing up themes of consent, intrusion, and boundaries. This, in turn, raised fundamental questions about the nature of therapeutic work and what therapists are consenting to in their relationships with patients. The interviews also uncovered latent messages regarding the sexuality of bodies, which evoked considerable discomfort. A working hypothesis suggests that CAPs in the NHS may find it particularly challenging to engage with this topic freely. Additionally, participants spoke sparingly about play-a fundamental aspect of child and adolescent psychotherapy. This absence felt significant, given the inherent bodily nature of play. All participants worked in highly intense settings, which naturally influenced both the interviews and the experiences they shared. It is possible that highly embodied play becomes more difficult in environments with high levels of disturbance, where the therapist’s body may be more vulnerable to intense states of projection.