The training is intended for mental health and healthcare professionals, including psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, physicians, nurses, occupational therapists, psychomotor therapists, music therapists, and physiotherapists, as well as advanced psychology students.

A basic understanding of clinical psychology, psychopathology, or psychodynamic concepts is recommended.

No prior specialized training in psychosomatics or borderline psychopathology is required.

Individuals with borderline functioning may appear relatively well adapted in their social and professional lives, suggesting a stable relationship with reality. Beneath this apparent stability, however, there may be significant psychic fragility, marked fluctuations in self-esteem, and an inner world burdened by intense anxieties that can be difficult to represent mentally or symbolize.

When the capacity for mental representation is limited, psychological distress may find other pathways of expression. Acting out, forms of discharge that bypass symbolic elaboration, and psychosomatic manifestations may become privileged modes of expressing what cannot yet be psychically contained or represented. Bodily complaints whether expressed through hypochondriacal concerns or actual somatic symptoms may thus become an alternative language for psychic conflict.

This training explores psychosomatic manifestations within borderline functioning and examines how the body may come to express and discharge what the psychic apparatus is unable to contain, represent, or elaborate.

Particular attention is given to the clinical challenge of working with patients whose psychic boundaries are fragile, and to the therapeutic conditions that may facilitate a movement from discharge toward representation, symbolization, and the gradual emergence of psychological meaning.

Teaching Methods

The training combines:

• Psychoanalytic and psychosomatic theoretical lectures
• Presentation and discussion of a clinical case
• Clinical examples illustrating borderline and psychosomatic functioning
• Analysis of primitive defenses and modes of psychic discharge
• Interactive clinical discussions
• Direct articulation between theoretical concepts and therapeutic technique

Training Duration and Schedule

Total Duration: 9 hours

Structure: Two training sessions

Session 1 

Borderline Functioning: Between Inside and Outside

Theoretical and Clinical Content:

• Borderline moments in everyday life
• Borderline functioning versus Borderline Personality Disorder
• The concept of psychic boundaries
• Characteristic forms of anxiety
• Resistance and the negative therapeutic reaction
• Object relations
• Ego functioning
• Difficulties related to separation
• The logic of “non-choice”
• The wish to “have everything”
• Different forms of borderline functioning
• Characteristic defense mechanisms
• Clinical case presentation and discussion

Session 2 

The Body as an Apparatus for Discharge and Therapeutic Perspectives

Psychosomatic Content:

• Somatization as discharge rather than symbolic expression
• The body as an alternative pathway for unrepresented psychic experience
• Panic attacks and bodily manifestations of overwhelming anxiety
• Hypochondriacal complaints and bodily preoccupation
• Difficulties in mental representation and symbolic elaboration
• The relationship between psychic fragility and somatic expression

Clinical and Technical Focus:

• Establishing a containing and secure therapeutic setting
• Working with fragile psychic boundaries
• Containing experiences that cannot yet be mentally represented
• Facilitating the movement from discharge toward mental representation
• Supporting the development of symbolization
• Accompanying the gradual emergence of psychological meaning
• Working clinically with psychosomatic manifestations in borderline functioning
• Clinical case discussion and integration of theory and technique

By the end of the training, participants will be able to:

• Understand borderline functioning from a psychoanalytic perspective
• Recognize common somatic and psychosomatic manifestations associated with borderline functioning
• Understand how the body may function as an alternative pathway when mental representation and symbolization are compromised
• Identify forms of psychic discharge and distinguish them from more symbolically elaborated expressions of conflict
• Recognize the role of fragile psychic boundaries, primitive defenses, and separation difficulties in borderline functioning
• Understand the relationship between somatic manifestations and difficulties in psychic elaboration
• Establish a containing and secure therapeutic framework for patients with fragile psychic boundaries
• Facilitate the movement from discharge toward representation and symbolization
• Support the gradual emergence of psychological meaning within the therapeutic process
• Integrate psychosomatic thinking into the clinical understanding and treatment of borderline functioning