Choreographies in the beginnings of psychoanalytic psychotherapy sessions with an adult male patient

This case study focuses on the meanings of nonverbal and bodily expressions of a patient and a therapist in creating a confidential psychoanalytic relationship in the first moments of psychotherapy sessions. During a two-and-a-half-year therapy process, 25 therapy sessions with one patient were videorecorded by a therapist-researcher. Psychoanalytic understanding and an artistic research method that emphasizes the importance of the researcher’s embodied knowledge were used to analyze the meanings of these encounters with the patient. When the video recordings of the session beginnings were watched without audio, three different types of choreography of interaction were identified. These were named (1) like a child and his mother, (2) like a business meeting, and (3) two individuals in discussion. When the session beginnings were viewed with the soundtrack, further insights were obtained into the choreographies of these patient–therapist encounters. The article concludes with a discussion of the benefits and problems of applying an artistic research method in psychotherapy research.