Exploring psychosomatic congruence: The effect of focusing on body parts as a body-oriented mentalization process

Background/Objective

: Patients with somatic symptoms are considered to have a deficiency in body-oriented mentalization; that is, the ability to perceive and interpret bodily sensations in relation to psychological states. We introduce the novel concept of psychosomatic congruence—the alignment of physical sensations with cognition and emotional states, which leads to behaviors that synchronize physical manifestations with emotional experiences and internal reflections. Despite its clinical relevance, this concept has not been empirically examined. Three experiments investigated the effects of psychosomatic congruence on the mental content of associations, autobiographical memories, and the accessibility of negative-related words. Grounded in theories of embodied cognition and interoception, we hypothesized that psychosomatic congruence could be facilitated through an initiated interoceptive task.

Methods

: Three pre-registered experiments involving 318 participants were conducted. Participants were asked to identify and label their most pleasant and unpleasant body parts, and then engaged in tasks involving associations with neutral words, memory retrieval, and the accessibility of negative-related words under varying conditions of mortality salience.

Results

: Focusing on the most pleasant body part, as compared to the most unpleasant, led to more positive associations with neutral words, enhanced positive memory retrieval, and reduced accessibility of negatively related words.

Conclusions

: These findings provide evidence that initiating an interoceptive task by focusing attention on body parts can induce congruent mental content. They offer insights into body-oriented mentalization and suggest that emotional distress may potentially be regulated by deliberately focusing on pleasant body parts.