Frances Sommer Anderson, PhD, SEP

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Frances Sommer Anderson

Dr. Frances Sommer Anderson is a licensed psychologist (NY State 005532-1) and holds a Certificate of Specialization in Psychoanalysis from the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), certified by the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute. Dr. Anderson has had a long career in helping people overcome chronic pain. She began treating patients who experience chronic pain in 1979 under the tutelage of Dr. John Sarno at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine-NYU Medical Center. John Sarno taught Dr. Anderson about TMS and how to cure patients of chronic pain. She worked as part of the Psychology Staff at the Rusk Institute until 1987 when she began working in a private practice and leading psychoanalytic training programs. Her private practice focuses on psychotherapy and psychoanalysis treatments for adults as well as using Somatic Experiencing. (source)

Dr. Anderson has authored several publications about TMS and chronic pain, including a case study in the book Relational Perspectives on the Body which she co-edited with Lewis Aron. She also was a contributing editor of the book Bodies in Treatment, The Unspoken Dimension, in which she also wrote the chapter, "At a Loss for Words and Feelings: A Psychoanalyst Reflects on Experiencing BodyWork." In this chapter, Dr. Sommer Anderson describes how she developed a TMS symptom that was related to early childhood emotional trauma. (source)

Most recently, Dr. Anderson co-authored Pathways to Pain Relief with Eric Sherman, PsyD, which was released January 2013. The book discusses how to recover from TMS, and includes a foreword by Dr. Sarno. Dr. Anderson is also on the board of the Psychophysiologic Disorders Association (PPDA), and played an instrumental role in organizing the 2012 conference When Stress Causes Pain, hosted by the PPDA (in partnership with New York University's Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy And Psychoanalysis). She also participated at a previous conference in Los Angeles in March of 2010, giving two presentations entitled "Experiencing the Pain Matrix" and "A Treatment Approach Illustrated in "Ellen's Story: Psychic Elaboration of Musculoskeletal Pain."

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Contact Information

140 East 40th Street #12A
New York, NY 10016
(212) 661-7588
fanderson@pathwaystopainrelief.com

Related Resources

• Website
• Curriculum Vitae
• Pathways to Pain Relief Website
• Pathways to Pain Relief Biography

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