BODY MUSIC

BODY MUSIC: GETTING NEXT TO  DEEP EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE Neal Kass, MD    Monday, February 10, 2014 Presentation and Discussion 8:00 - 9:30 pm The Cambridge Hospital, 1493 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA Learning Center, 3rd Floor, Conference Room A/B Felt experience, especially traumatic emotional experience, is held by people in their bodies. If one listens, there is a music to this bodily configuration. For two people to experience together, there is a visceral, musical, bodily connection that allows often dissociated felt experience to emerge into a mutual play-space.  In this presentation we will wrestle with the psychoanalytic dilemma of getting next to another's felt experience through attention to the embodiment and music of that experience.  In particular we will consider non-verbal and implicit forms of meaning making. Clinical material from the analyses of two adolescents in which music was literally involved will be explored in detail.  Music can help two people live together in a shared place, a play space, and in turn this transforms the shape of held emotion.  The musical play modality will help us explore the overall dilemma of joining another in felt bodily experience.   Neal S. Kass, MD is a child psychiatrist and analyst working in private practice in Concord, MA. He is on the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Institute of New England (PINE) and an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He teaches and supervises at PINE and at The Cambridge Hospital. Neal is also an active violinist.

The Psychoanalytic Educational Forum of Boston is a combined effort of three psychoanalytic institutes in Boston (Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and PINE Psychoanalytic Center) to enhance opportunities to learn about psychoanalytic perspectives for mental health professionals, students and trainees. For more information about the PEFB or to be added to the PEFB mailing list, please contact Liz Bernstein at 617-943-2529 or Kate Sullivan at 508-397-2589.