What is Somatic Intersubjective Self Psychology
Somatic Intersubjective Self Psychology (SISP) as an extension of Intersubjective Self Psychology that gives systematic theoretical status to bodily, interoceptive, motoric and nonverbal experiences within the therapeutic relationship.
SISP does not simply add the body to Self Psychology. It proposes that somatic experience is itself a mode of empathic and intersubjective knowing. The therapist’s bodily subjectivity becomes part of the clinical medium through which unformulated experience may be sensed, tolerated and eventually given form and become self-organising. SISP requires the therapist to inhabit Self Psychological theory somatically rather than merely apply it cognitively.
The necessary foundational attitudes needed to practice in a SISP-informed manner include
- the felt-sense of presence and relational safety,
- the centrality of nonverbal experience over explanation, and
- the capacity to allow the unformulated emergent to nonverbally and intersubjectively shape itself.
The synergy resulting from nonverbal, somatic, and procedural processes interacting with intersubjectivity and self psychology expands the clinical capacities of the therapist, offering deeper levels of connection within the therapeutic relationship. The nascent synergy also offers an embodied presence, vitality, and communicative awareness that enlivens client, therapist and the intersubjective field, as well as providing a consistent mien that supports the voice of the client’s body to emerge.
