Somatic Countertransference & Kinesthetic Empathy
How therapists can use bodily awareness to reflect on the therapeutic relationship through somatic countertransference and kinesthetic empathy.
FOR THERAPISTSBODY-BASED PSYCHOTHERAPY
Sabine Tendas
10/29/20266 min read
When the therapist's body becomes part of the conversation
Have you ever noticed yourself holding your breath during a session? Felt unexpectedly tense, restless or tired? Perhaps you have experienced an impulse to reassure a client, move closer or withdraw, without immediately understanding why.
Sometimes these responses reflect our own needs or circumstances. At other times, they may offer clues about what is happening in the therapeutic relationship.
In Dance Movement Therapy (DMT), the body is not simply something to observe in the client. It is also part of how the therapist experiences and responds to the encounter. Through movement, rhythm, posture and bodily sensation, we may become aware of aspects of the relationship that are difficult to put into words.
Two concepts can help us explore this: kinesthetic empathy and somatic countertransference.
They are related, but not identical. Kinesthetic empathy concerns our embodied capacity to sense something of another person's movement or expressive experience. Somatic countertransference invites us to reflect on our own bodily responses within the therapeutic relationship.
Neither offers direct access to another person's inner world. Both ask us to pay attention with curiosity, while remaining aware of the limits of what we can know.
Kinesthetic empathy: sensing the relational experience
Kinesthetic empathy has an important place in Dance Movement Therapy. It describes the capacity to experience, through our own bodily and movement awareness, something of another person's expressive or emotional state.
A therapist might notice an impulse to mirror a client's rhythm, a sense of restriction as their movement becomes smaller, or a spontaneous change in their own posture as the quality of the encounter shifts.
This does not mean copying the client's movements or assuming that we feel exactly what they feel. Rather, our own embodied responses may help us become more attentive to the client's way of being and to the dynamic unfolding between us.
Irma Dosamantes-Beaudry's work on somatic transference and countertransference in psychoanalytic intersubjective Dance/Movement Therapy is particularly relevant here. It explores how bodily experience and movement can contribute to understanding the therapeutic relationship.
Although kinesthetic empathy is associated with DMT, embodied sensitivity is not exclusive to movement-based practice. Therapists working primarily through conversation may also notice changes in their breathing, posture, muscular tension, energy or impulses towards action and withdrawal.
The question is not whether these sensations reveal a hidden truth. It is whether we can use them to become more curious about what is happening in the encounter.
What is somatic countertransference?
Countertransference has evolved from its early association with the therapist's unconscious conflicts towards broader relational understandings of the therapist's subjective experience.
Somatic countertransference brings bodily experience into this picture.
A therapist might notice heaviness in the limbs, tension in the chest, a sudden sense of urgency or an impulse to end a conversation. These responses may emerge before we have consciously understood what has changed in the session.
Daniel Stern's work on forms of vitality helps us appreciate how we experience the dynamic qualities of another person's expression: a movement that accelerates, a voice that loses energy, a gesture that feels hesitant or an interaction that becomes increasingly intense.
Allan Schore's writing on affect regulation and non-verbal communication also draws attention to the implicit bodily and emotional dimensions of relating. Much of what happens between two people may not be immediately available to conscious reflection.
The therapist's body can therefore become one source of information about the relational process. But a bodily response is not a diagnosis, an interpretation or proof of what the client is experiencing.
The distinction matters: we can be affected by a client without knowing exactly what that response means.
A connection with Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis (TA) offers another way to think about what may unfold between therapist and client.
A client may speak about wanting greater independence while repeatedly apologising for taking up time. Another may describe anger while remaining physically contained. Someone who longs for support may insist that they can manage everything alone.
We might understand these patterns through the concept of script, exploring the beliefs, adaptations and relational expectations that shape a person's experience. Yet the process may become clearer when we also notice how it unfolds in the therapeutic relationship.
What happens in the therapist when a client approaches a vulnerable subject? Is there an impulse to rescue, reassure, challenge or become especially careful? Does the therapist find themselves taking on responsibility that the client seems reluctant to hold?
William F. Cornell's work at the intersection of Transactional Analysis, psychoanalysis and body psychotherapy is relevant here. His writing explores how psychological experience, bodily life and relational patterns are intertwined.
From this perspective, the therapist's bodily responses can be considered alongside the client's words, behaviour and history. They may help us reflect on a pattern being enacted between two people, including one that neither has yet been able to articulate.
However, our responses are also shaped by our own history, expectations and current circumstances. What we experience cannot automatically be attributed to the client.
Embodied awareness requires differentiation: recognising our own experience while remaining curious about the experience of the other person.
Imagine that, during a session, you notice a sudden heaviness and an urge to end the conversation. The client has been speaking about a difficult experience, but you are not sure what has shifted.
It might be tempting to conclude that the client is withdrawing or communicating something they cannot put into words. These are possibilities, but your sensation alone cannot establish them.
Instead, you might ask yourself:
What am I noticing, before I try to explain it?
When did this sensation arise, and what was happening between us?
Could my own history, fatigue or expectations be contributing?
What else might explain this response?
What remains uncertain?
These questions create space between experiencing a response and acting upon it.
Sometimes, reflection will lead us towards an understanding of our own reactions. At other times, a relational pattern may become more apparent across several sessions. Occasionally, the sensation will remain unexplained.
From bodily response to clinical reflection
Supervision and personal therapy can help us explore recurring or particularly intense responses, distinguishing our own material from possible dynamics in the therapeutic relationship.
Ethical restraint is equally important. We do not need to disclose every bodily reaction or ask a client to confirm our interpretation. If an observation seems clinically useful, we can decide whether and how to explore it in a way that respects the client's experience and the therapeutic contract.
The aim is not to use our body to tell the client what they feel. It is to listen more carefully, question our assumptions and make more considered choices about how we respond.
Listening through the body
Somatic countertransference and kinesthetic empathy invite us to broaden our understanding of clinical listening. They remind us that psychotherapy is not only a conversation between minds: it is an encounter between embodied people.
Our bodily responses are not conclusions to be decoded. They are experiences that may help us notice shifts in rhythm, contact, distance and emotional intensity, provided we approach them with curiosity and reflection.
This is part of what I explore in Embodied Listening: Body, Relationship and Attunement in Psychotherapy, a workshop bringing Transactional Analysis and Dance Movement Therapy into dialogue.
Through embodied exploration and clinical reflection, we consider how the therapist's bodily experience can become a resource for awareness without becoming an unquestioned interpretation.
The invitation is not to decode the body, but to listen more fully — to the client, to ourselves and to what takes shape between us.
References and further reading
The following sources offer further reading on Dance Movement Psychotherapy, kinesthetic empathy, somatic countertransference, non-verbal relational processes, and embodied approaches to psychotherapy.
Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK. (n.d.). What is Dance Movement Psychotherapy? ADMP UK.
ADMP UK – What is Dance Movement Psychotherapy?Cornell, W. F. (2019). At the interface of transactional analysis, psychoanalysis, and body psychotherapy: Clinical and theoretical perspectives. Routledge.
Routledge – William F. CornellDosamantes-Beaudry, I. (2007). Somatic transference and countertransference in psychoanalytic intersubjective dance/movement therapy. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 29(2), 73–89. https DOI: 10.1007/s10465-007-9035-6
Article record / DOIRova, M. (2017). Embodying kinaesthetic empathy through interdisciplinary practice-based research. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 55, 164–173. DOI: 10.1016/j.aip.2017.04.008
The Arts in Psychotherapy – RovaSchore, A. N. (2014). The right brain is dominant in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 51(3), 388–397. DOI: 10.1037/a0037083
PubMed – Schore (2014)Stern, D. N. (2010). Forms of vitality: Exploring dynamic experience in psychology, the arts, psychotherapy, and development. Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/med:psych/9780199586066.001.0001
Oxford Academic – Forms of Vitality
Sabine Tendas
Counselling Psychologist · TA Psychotherapist (CTA) · Dance Movement Therapist
Embodiment Tutor, The Metis Institute
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