This presentation is about interweaving somatic approaches from outside of psychoanalysis into psychoanalytic treatment, especially for patients suffering from early developmental trauma and severe dissociation. Dr. Levit is a psychoanalyst who trained in Somatic Experiencing (SE). Developed originally as a treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder, SE is rooted in neurophysiology, biology and ethology. As its name suggests, SE focuses on the body, but it introduces ways of working in the body that are quite different from psychoanalytic modes. Dr. Levit will provide an overview of the SE model, but the focus of the presentation will be on illustrating how somatically based approaches from SE can enfold into, and enhance, psychoanalytic treatment. He will present clinical process illustrating forms of responsiveness based on SE. In discussing each vignette, he will invoke Ogden’s notion of looking at any clinical process from multiple conceptual vertices. Dr. Levit will consider each vignette from the perspectives of SE, of holding, and of containing. In so doing, he hopes to illustrate the synergy when interweaving SE into psychoanalytic treatment.

Presented by David Levit, PhD, ABPP, SEP