Frances Sommer Anderson on Using Somatic Experiencing in Psychoanalytic Practice

Frances Sommer Anderson, PhD, is a psychoanalyst and licensed psychologist in private practice in New York City.  The body–disabled, disfigured, and in pain–has been the focus of her clinical work, beginning with a clinical psychology internship in physical rehabilitation medicine at Rusk Institute-NYU Langone Medical Center in 1974.  Specializing in treating pain and other mindbody disorders since 1979, she integrates relational psychoanalytic theory, research in the neuroscience of emotional and cognitive processing, and the neurobiology of attachment, trauma and pain.  She has been recognized internationally for her experiential teaching style and for leading edge publications regarding the body in psychoanalytic theory and practice: Relational Pespectives on the Body and Bodies in Treatment:  The Unspoken Dimension.  Her forthcoming book, Pathways to Pain Relief, is co-authored with Eric Sherman, PsyD. See website.

Published October 2012. See other conversation with Frances Sommer Anderson