Searching for Embodied Connection in the Age of COVID-19

As teletherapy continues to be an ongoing mode of treatment during the pandemic, clinicians grapple with the loss of shared in-person space. Without access to the same richness of expression through gesture, movement, and embodied experience, therapists must consider the psychic impact of this new way of being with our patients. In this paper, I describe work with a young patient where the treatment comes unexpectedly alive in response to the destabilizing impact of COVID-19. With the reemergence of traumatic material catalyzed by circumstances resulting from the pandemic, I consider the challenge of connecting to the traumatized body through a screen. With an improvisational sensibility, my patient and I search for creative and embodied ways to connect through the screen. We track somatic experience, use visual imagery from clinical hypnosis, and engage playful bodily mirroring to create a felt presence, a sense of "being with each other" in alive connection.