Significant People & Key Players in the field of the Embodied Psychotherapies
Pioneers
Pierre Janet (1959-1954) was a pioneering French psychologist and psychotherapist; a pupil of Jean-Martin Charcot; and pre-dated Sigmund Freud slightly; he is said (by many) to be the true founder of psychotherapy. He was one of the first people to connect events in a person’s early childhood with present day traumas or neuroses, and he also coined the words “dissociation” and “subconscious”. Freud originally attributed some of his ideas to Janet, but later, having been accused (possibly correctly) of plagiarism, dissociated himself from Janet and even refused to meet with him many years later. Janet achieved great popularity and renown in the early 20th century, both in France and in America. Carl Jung also studied with Janet, and Janet influenced William James and Alfred Adler as well. His 1906 Harvard lectures are about the only works ever published in English (as The Major Symptoms of Hysteria), though his output was immense (for more information: see here). David Boadella (1997) particularly refers to him as the first “Body Psychotherapist”, due mainly to his attention about the connections between both physical and psychological symptoms.
Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), an Austrian psychoanalyst, originally (as a young man) was a member of Freud’s inner circle, who became one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry and psychotherapy. His body-oriented therapeutic work subsequently inspired many different approaches to body psychotherapy. He inspired several students in pre-WW2 Norway, who continued his body-oriented psychotherapeutic work in Europe: and Ola Raknes was perhaps the most influential of these and he was also the therapist for David Boadella, A.S. Neill, Gerda Boyesen and several others. In Reich’s later post-WW2 career in America, he financed most of his “orgone” research and experiments from his body-oriented psychotherapeutic work, however he did not advance the actual body-oriented psychotherapy work much, as he had become more interested in ‘orgone therapy’ (using an orgone energy accumulator as an aid to cancer relief), however he also inspired several others to continue and develop their own work in body-oriented psychotherapies. His most influential books were probably: The Function of the Orgasm(1927), Character Analysis (1933),The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), and The Sexual Revolution (1936). His American life (and death) was somewhat iconic and has recently been made into a film.
Ola Raknes (1887-1975) was a Norwegian psychologist and psychoanalyst, who was also influenced by Wilhelm Reich. He was originally interested in the psychology of religion and then studied with Karen Horney in Berlin. He then became acquainted with Wilhelm Reich’s theories, and later supported him when Reich was excluded from the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1934. Raknes went into therapy with Otto Fenichel, and then later with Reich in Norway. He became one of the main proponents and developers of Reich’s Character-Analytical Vegetotherapy – a way of interpreting character expressions and bodily attitudes and working through a series of somatic blocks through direct manipulation (pressure) and (intellectual) analysis. Some of his ‘pupils’ or ‘patients’ were: Gerda Boyesen, David Boadella, A.S. Neill, and even Sean Connery (in 1967). His influence on A.S. Neill (or Neill’s influence on him) promoted a post-war wave of acceptance of freedom and self-expression for children in progressive education. He also wrote an excellent introductory book (in English) about Reich’s work (Raknes, 1970).
Otto Fenichel (1897-1946) was also a psychoanalytical ‘pupil’ of Freud’s and in 1920 (at age 23) was accepted as a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society. In 1922, he moved to Berlin and became one of a group of Socialist (Marxist) analysts (along with Erich Fromm, Wilhelm Reich and others). He also moved to Norway, in 1934, and later to America (in 1938), escaping possible persecution by the Nazis. He is renowned for his 1945 3-volume epic, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neuroses. To count as a Body Psychotherapist (though this label was not used then), we must consider first, his ‘brotherly’ influence on Reich in the early 1920s in Vienna, leading Reich towards ‘sexology’ and towards Marxism: Reich took over Fenichel’s seminar on sexology in 1922. In Berlin, he married Clare Nathanson, a pupil of Elsa Gindler, and the Fenichels’ friendship with Reich, renewed after Reich moved to Berlin in 1930 and especially with Reich’s new relationship with Elsa Lindenberg (another pupil of Gindler’s), helped to stimulate Reich towards his development of his body-oriented psychotherapy techniques (Geuter, Heller & Weaver, 2010). Fenichel was also in accord with Reich’s theory of muscular armouring as a form of neurotic defences, though he disagreed with Reich’s somewhat invasive psychotherapeutic techniques (Heller, 2012).
Lillemor L. Johnsen (1920-1997) was a Norwegian physiotherapist, who developed, independently, a diagnostic method about hypertonic and hypotonic musculature. Her particular method of Integrated Respiration Theory/Therapy (Johnson, 1981) paralleled some the early work of Wilhelm Reich and also of Gerda Boyesen, and was – in particular – very influential for the work of Lisbeth Marcher. She worked specifically on the ‘silent, undeveloped’ hypotonic muscles which – when awoken and becoming allied with the breathing – allowed the tense hypertonic muscles to relax and release.
Nic Waal 1905-1960) was a Norwegian psychiatrist, who became influenced by Reich and Fenichel in Berlin in the early 1930s and later studied under Reich in Oslo. Besides becoming active in the Norwegian resistance during the Nazi occupation, she lectured extensively on muscular tensions and respiration, trained many psychotherapists and physiotherapists, and pioneered child and adolescent therapy in Scandinavia.
Aadel Bulow-Hansen (1906-2001) & Trygve Braatoy (1904-1953) collaborated together and developed a form of Norwegian ‘psychomotor physiotherapy’ in post-WW2 Norway. Their development of breath-work, combined with physiotherapeutic development, was somewhat revolutionary: both had been originally inspired by Reich in his Norwegian period (1934-1939) and, significantly, neither saw the body and the psyche as two (almost) separate entities. Bulow-Hansen was of one the main tutors of Gerda Boyesen, and Bulow-Hansen also inspired Birgit Bunsen.
Theodore P. Wolfe (1902-1954) was an Associate Professor in Psychiatry at Columbia University who studied with Reich in Oslo, and then invited Reich to come to America in 1938. He also contributed significantly by translating several of Reich’s works into English.
The Second Wave (neo-Reichians)
Eva Reich (1924-2008) was the eldest of two – originally Austrian – daughters of Wilhelm Reich. They moved to Berlin in 1930, with Reich, and she attended the Elsa Gindler school for a while. After Reich separated from her mother, Annie, in 1933, they moved back to Vienna and then the family moved again to America in 1938. Eventually, she trained as a paediatric doctor and realised that the obstetric practices of the time were ‘obscene’. She had always maintained a connection with her father and, in the early post-war era, met and married Bill Moise, an artist, when working in her father’s laboratory in Organon. She moved (with him) to Hancock, Maine in 1952, and became the first female “country doctor” in the area. After her father’s death, she plunged back into country medical practice, grew organic foods, and helped to promote natural childbirth – way ahead of the times. She had a daughter, Renata, born in 1960, and founded a Montessori School for her in the local area. She divorced from Bill in 1974, and then started travelling the world, teaching people about her father’s work, and also about her own work, which involved massage with very young babies in incubators that she called “Gentle Bioenergetics”. Autobiographical memories of Eva Reich can be found here.
Elsworth F. Baker (1903-1985), an American psychiatrist, who has been described as the ‘direct descendent of Reich in America, having trained with him and having been his assistant since 1946. Reich asked him to assume responsibility for the ‘future of Medical Orgonomy‘. Baker influenced many of the Reich’s pupils, especially the ‘Medical Orgonomists’, who practiced what Reich called (in America) ‘medical orgone therapy’ and Baker was also the author of one of the early books on Reich’s therapy, Man in the Trap (1967). He founded the Journal of Orgonomy in 1967 and the American College of Orgonomy in Princeton, New Jersey in 1968, and he also wrote an introduction to Ola Raknes’ (1970) book as well as an autobiographical book, My Eleven Years with Wilhelm Reich, as well as many articles about Reich’s work.
Alexander Lowen (1910-2008) was a pupil/patient of Reich’s in America, and collaborated with another pupil/patient, John C. Pierrakos, to develop a neo-Reichian form of mind-body psychotherapy, Bioenergetic Analysis. Lowen’s prolific writings about ‘Bioenergetics’ helped develop an understanding of body-oriented psychotherapy as a significant new modality in post-war America and perhaps helped promote body-oriented psychotherapy more than anyone else at the time: his books include: The Language of the Body(1958); Love and Orgasm (1965); The Betrayal of the Body (1967); Pleasure (1970); Depression and the Body (1972); Bioenergetics (1975); The Way to Vibrant Health: A manual of Bioenergetic exercises (with his wife, Leslie Lowen) (1977); Fear of Life (1980); Narcissism: Denial of the True Self (1984); Love, Sex and Your Heart (1988); The Spirituality of the Body (1990); Joy (1995); Honoring the Body: The autobiography of Alexander Lowen (2004); The Voice of the Body (2005).
John Pierrakos (1921-2001) was originally Greek, but left in 1939 for the USA. He then studied as a doctor and psychiatrist and worked in the US Navy from 1952-54. As a pupil of Reich’s, he collaborated with Alexander Lowen to set up the Bioenergetics Institute. He later (in 1969) separated from Lowen, influenced perhaps because of disagreeing with Lowen’s sole reliance on energetic release, emphasising the need to “own” the lower self for permanent integration of healing into the personality, or perhaps towards a more spiritual way of working, influenced – in part – by his wife, Eva, who ‘channelled’ The Pathwork. He integrated several of The Pathwork concepts (such as the Mask, Lower Self and Higher Self, the Idealized Self, and Life Task) with the Bioenergetic physical interventions, which addressed the physical and emotional armouring in the body and recognized the body’s subtle energy system as a tool for diagnosis and healing, treating the patient as a whole physical-emotional-spiritual unit, with the source of healing lying within itself. He called this work, ‘Core Energetics’, which he taught in America and Europe until his death. His best-known available writing is his (1973) book, Core Energetics: Developing the capacity to love and heal.
Charles (Chuck) R. Kelley (1922-2005) a US Army weather forecaster in WW2, studied the Bates Method of Vision Improvement, when also studying psychology and wrote his Ph.D. thesis on psychological factors affecting myopia. He helped to maintain Reich’s reputation – and some of his research (especially into weather-control) – after Reich’s death in 1957. Becoming disillusioned with the ‘Orgonomists’, and disagreeing with some of Reich’s theories, led him to develop a neo-Reichian form of bodywork and psychotherapy that he called, ‘Radix Education’. He was also involved for over 25 years in sex research and ran programs on sexual enhancement, often with Alice Ladas, one of the early Bioenergetics trainers. His most recent book, 2004, Life Force: The Creative Process in Man and Nature, and his 1970 seminal booklet, Education in Feeling & Purpose, is also still available.
Myron Sharaf (1927-1997) was one of the early psychotherapists in America who was strongly influenced by Reich between 1948-1954. He worked with Reich, trained some people, taught and lectured, and ultimately became the author of the fairly definitive biography of Reich, Fury on Earth (1983).
Al Pesso (1930-2016). While teaching dancers how to use their bodies to express their inner feelings, Al Pesso and his wife, Diane Boyden, realised how their pupils were limited physically and psychologically by emotional scars. They developed their own unique method of Body Psychotherapy, ‘Pesso-Boyden System Psychomotor’, which involved using inter-spatial relationships, recreating specific scenarios, and also using physical touch, all of which combine both mind and body experiencing in order to free up these limitations. He refined these methods when working at the Boston veterans’ hospital where he explored the effects of his techniques’, and then taught these world-wide. He made a (2010) film ‘State of Mind’ featuring his work in the Democratic Republic of Congo about the use of psychotherapy to talk about loss, forgiving, and finding new memories to overlay the traumatic older ones. He wrote or contributed to at least 16 books and many published articles; he was also awarded the USABP Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, and died recently shortly after his wife.
David Boadella (1931 – present), B.A., M.Ed., D.Sc. (Hon): was an English schoolteacher, who became interested in Reich’s work in the 1950s. He subsequently trained in Vegetotherapy with Paul Ritter in England; and also with Ola Raknes in Oslo, who had been trained by Reich. The work of Stanley Keleman was also a very important influence. His major contributions to embodied psychotherapy were: (a) his founding of the journal Energy & Character which was one of the early (only) journals available in Europe in the 1970s; (b) three of his published books: ‘Wilhelm Reich: The evolution of his work’; an edited book, ‘In the Wake of Reich’; and ‘Lifestreams: An introduction to Biosynthesis’ (1987); and (c) he was also the founder of Biosynthesis therapy and a significant ‘trainer’ in the UK, Europe and internationally in the 1970s and 1980s in the field body-oriented psychotherapy, contributing very significantly to the ‘Gerda Boyesen Centre’ and the ‘Minster Centre’ in London, as well as being a co-director of the Institute for the Development of Human Potential in 1976. In the early 1980s, he retired from his school teaching post and travelled worldwide, teaching and training in Body Psychotherapy (Biosynthesis), before settling down in Switzerland in 1985 and founding the International Institute for Biosynthesis, together with his wife, Dr. Silvia Boadella. He was elected as first President of the EABP in 1989. Since then, he has continued to contribute massively to the field of psychotherapy and Body Psychotherapy; running training groups and teaching Biosynthesis internationally, presenting at conferences; writing articles; and being made an honorary member of EABP. He is President of the International Foundation for Biosynthesis. In 1995, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of a science degree from the Open International University of Complementary Medicine.
Gerda Boyesen (1922-2005) a Norwegian psychologist and physiotherapist, training originally with Aadel Bulow-Hansen and Ola Raknes, became keenly aware of the connection between repressed emotions and – in particular – ‘holding patterns’ in the gut: the smooth muscles of the intestines. This she saw as parallel to Reich’s “Character Armour”. In 1969, she moved to London and began to develop her way of working that she called ‘Biodynamic Psychology’. This is now a recognised form of Body Psychotherapy in Europe (but not really in the USA). Within this method, the client is encouraged to discover his or her own mental and physiological experiences (increased introspectiveability), and then to follow and to express his or her bodily-psychological impulses towards a successful (safe) expression, and they can then relax back into a form of somatic self-regulation. Any unconscious and unresolved conflicts would thus be brought ‘to the surface’, and to conscious attention, and could then be further processed with psychotherapy, and finally (hopefully) resolved. Parallel to this, she taught various forms of ‘Biodynamic Massage’ (based on her work with Bulow-Hansen), by which the therapist helped the client’s body to discharge and then digest small amounts of tension held in the skeletal muscles. Listening through a stethoscope positioned over the gut, the therapist can hear these activities of ‘release’ and thus is given a form of direct feedback to the rebalancing of the client’s Autonomic Nervous System. She taught these methods extensively throughout Europe (1970-1990). Her three children (Ebba, Mona-Lisa and Paul) all developed her work, though in quite different directions. Her main written work, often with others, are either in French, German or out-of-print in English.
Lisbeth Marcher (1940 – present) a Danish child educator is one of the founders of Bodynamic Analysis, a carefully researched and constructed developmental somatic psychotherapy, which has a foundation in psychology, anatomy & physiology. Having received some training from Lillemor Johnsen, she (with twelve others, over a 25-year period) studied a combination of physical therapy and psychotherapy, and in this process discovered not only that emotions were held in the body musculature (the Reichian concept), but that there was a clear developmental sequence to the enervations of the muscles. These observations and insights allowed her to create a developmental map of the body using the muscles’ state of tension or collapse for each age level. This is the basis of Bodynamic Analysis. She was President of EABP for 4 years from 2008; and runs trainings and gives lectures in Europe, America and Asia. She is co-author of Body Encyclopedia: A guide to the psychological functions of the muscular system (North Atlantic Books, 2010).
Ron Kurtz (1934-2011) was the originator of Hakomi Therapy, with a background in mathematics, science and computer engineering; he then re-trained in experimental psychology; became a client of John Pierrakos; became interested in the work of Reich and Lowen and was inspired by Al Pesso; he also studied with Moshe Feldenkrais and received Rolfing sessions; he added in Focusing, Eriksonian Hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and some principles of the Buddhist practice of mindfulness. He says, “All of this found its way into my thinking, my work and my writing… These threads: eastern philosophy, psychotherapeutic technique and systems theory are the foundations of Hakomi.” A lot of significant people in modern Body Psychotherapy started training in Boulder in 1981: people like Pat Ogden, Halko Weiss, Greg Johanson, Dyrian Benz, etc. In 1992, he separated from the Hakomi Institute and developed a shorter, simplified version of the Hakomi method. He was the author / co-author of three books: Body-Centered Psychotherapy; The Hakomi Method: The Body Reveals (with Hector Prestera), and Grace Unfolding: Psychotherapy in the Spirit of the Tao-Te Ching (with Greg Johanson).
Stanley Keleman (1931-present) graduated in Chiropractics in 1954 and began observing the relationships between emotional conflicts and muscular attitudes, which were visible to him in the body as distortions of posture and expression. In 1957, he joined Alexander Lowen’s Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis, eventually becoming a senior trainer and contributing articles on the life of the body to the American Association of Psychotherapy and to Bioenergetics journals. He was also influenced by Alfred Adler’s work, especially with regards to organ inferiority and feeling, the will to power, and the role of society in the development of personality. This education and training balanced the characterological approaches of Lowen, Freud, Reich, and Sheldon. He collaborated with Nina Bull, author of The Attitude Theory of Emotions, who established a muscular / neural theory of emotions and behaviour and their role in overcoming obstacles. He also studied with von Durkheim in Germany and Gutscher in Zurich, who taught existential Dasein Analysis. Since 1967, he has been living and working in California, where he was part of the first intern program at Esalen. He and Joseph Campbell conducted workshops and lectures for fifteen years connecting dreams, myths and the body. All of these experiences and influences culminated in what he calls ‘Formative Psychology’. Some of his influential books are Your Body Speaks Its Mind, Emotional Anatomy, Embodying Experience, Patterns of Distress, Myth and The Body, and Living Your Dying. He has a DVD of Emotional Anatomy that introduces his ‘Formative’ work. His work shows the function of the voluntary muscular system as the heart of creating personal experience and embodying it in the form of somatic memories that allow recall and editing. Formative Psychology has been taught at the JFK University, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and Sonoma State University. His articles and interviews have appeared in many books, journals, and online publications. Some recent examples are Embodying Experience: A Transcendent Journey and The Quantum Dynamic and the Formative Processfor The Neuropsychotherapist, and Forming An Embodied Life for the European Body Psychotherapy Association, and The Mystery of Embodiment for Meridian University. He was awarded an Honorary PhD by Saybrook University; has been honoured by the University and State of California for being one of the pioneers of somatic work in the field of Humanistic Psychology, and has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the American and the European Body Psychotherapy Associations. In 2007, a special extended issue of the International Body Psychotherapy Journal celebrated his written contributions to this field.
Malcolm Brown (1930 – present) and his wife Katherine Ennis Brown (1927-2006), who had trained in the 1970s with Charlotte Selver in ‘Sensory Awareness’, helped to formulate what he called ‘Organismic Psychotherapy’, which was based on Goldstein’s Gestalt phenomenology, Maslow’s & Roger’s Humanistic Psychology, Jung’s Analytical Psychology, and the work of Wilhelm Reich. It emphasized that change takes place throughout the whole organism, and it works with the mobilization of the body and nurturing touch, bringing about both active and expressive emotional discharge and deep quiet emotional release. Malcolm was a Clinical Psychologist, living in California; Katherine was his third wife. Having married, they soon moved to Europe in the mid-1970s with her two youngest children, where they trained therapists from all over Europe. There, Katherine also got her MA thesis, ‘The Shadow and the Body in Theory and Practice’. Malcolm also conducted research into the varying functionality in therapy, of “vertical grounding” (standing position) compared to “horizontal grounding” (lying position).Malcolm Brown was one of the founders of the EABP. He was also the author of ‘The Healing Touch: Introduction to Organismic Psychotherapy’ (1990), as well as Primordial Regression and Fulfilling Sex’ (2005), and ‘Why an American Psychotherapist Preferred Europe’ (2009).
Jerome Liss (1938-2012), an American psychiatrist and psychotherapist, studied medicine in New York and psychiatry at Harvard, and then moved to Europe in the 1960s. His therapeutic approach was influenced by active collaboration with Henri Laborit (neurophysiology of emotions), R.D. Laing (phenomenological psychiatry) and David Boadella (embryological psychotherapy). Having moved again to Rome, he founded his own school of what he called ‘Biosystemic Psychotherapy’ in the 1980s, which was accredited by EABP & EAP in 2004. He also collaborated with scholars at the universities in Rome, Genoa & Bologna, around a theoretical and clinical research project, which had a fundamental interest in the emotions: for their psycho-physical complexity; for their neuro-physiological aspects; for the their effect on the field of immunology; and more generally, for their influence in the field of psychosomatics. Prof. Jerome Liss was the author of several books: Family Talk (1972); Free to Feel, Finding Your Way Through the New Therapies (1974); La Pisicoterapia del Corpo [Body Psychotherapy] (with David Boadella) (1986); La Comunicazione Ecologica (Ed.) (1992); La Terapia Biosistemica, Un Approccio Psicocorporeo Originale per Affrontare La Sofferenza Emotiva (Eds. J. Liss & M. Stupiggia) (1994). He also wrote many scientific articles about Biosystemic & Body Psychotherapy.
The Third Wave: Modern Body
Susan Aposhyan graduated from the University of Virginia in psychology and dance, and has done graduate work there and at Boston & New York Universities. She has been a counselor, dancer, dance-movement therapist, psychological researcher, and body-mind therapist, who developed ‘Body-Mind Psychotherapy’ as an extension of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s ‘Body-Mind Centering’. She has worked with a wide range of clinical populations both in hospitals and agencies, as well as in private practice. These populations and clinical issues include: psychosis, autism, character disorders, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, addictions, trauma, depression and anxiety.
She is the former director of the Somatic Psychology Dept. at Naropa University, Boulder, CO and is the author of Natural Intelligence: Body-Mind Integration and Human Development 1999) and Body-Mind Psychotherapy (2004). E-mail: aposhyan@comcast.net
Asaf Rolef Ben-Shahar is an Israeli psychotherapist, teacher and writer. Having gained substantial experience in working with trauma, dissociation, psychosexual issues, eating disorders and relationship issues, he is also interested in exploring gender and sexual identity issues and am mindful of cultural, power and class influences. He founded two post-graduate relational body psychotherapy programmes: in Israel and UK and is now regularly teaching worldwide. Asaf developed what he calls ‘Integrative-Mindbody-Therapy’, an integration of relational work, body psychotherapy and trancework. He has authored two books, A Therapeutic Anatomy, Pardes, 2013;Touching the Relational Edge, Karnac 2014) and co-edited two: with Rachel Shalit,When Hurt Remains – Relational Perspectives on Therapeutic Failure(Karnac, 2016), and with Liron Lipkies & Noa Oster,Speaking of Bodies, (Karnac, 2016). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the International Body Psychotherapy Journal, and an editor for Self & Society, Body Dance and Movement in Psychotherapy and Psychotherapy and Politics International. E-mail: asaf@imt.co.il
Berit Heir Bunkan is a Norwegian physiotherapist and body psychotherapist. She trained with Aadel Bulow-Hansen, Lillemor Johnsen, Trygve Braatoy, Gerda Boyesen and others and is carrying on the tradition of Norwegian Body Psychotherapy. In 2005, she was made a Knight 1st Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olaf for her pioneering work in physiotherapy and he has contributed to the practical and theoretical basis of the method of body examination in psychomotor physiotherapy. She is currently doing some post-doc research into merging two body examinations within the psychomotor tradition. She has presented at several EABP conferences and has authored numerous textbooks and articles (in both Norwegian and English). E-mail: BeritHeir.Bunkan@hioa.no
Christine Caldwell is the founder and chairperson of the Somatic Psychology Program at Naropa University, Boulder, CO, as well as being the director of the ‘Moving Cycle Institute’, a training centre for Body Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology, with trainings in Boulder, California, Montreal, Korea, Taiwan, Ireland and Germany. She trained originally in Dance Movement Therapy and Gestalt, but has evolved being influenced by pre- and peri-natal psychology and transformational movement and particularly the process of opening, deepening, committing, completing and integrating that she calls ‘The Moving Cycle’. She is also interested in body-oriented psychotherapy research and is the author of Getting Our Bodies Back: Recovery, Healing and Transformation Through Body-centered Psychotherapy (1996), and Getting in Touch: The Guide to New Body-Centered Therapies (1997), as well as numerous published articles. E-mail: caldwell@naropa.edu
Ulfried Geuter, a German Body Psychotherapist and author, based at the Philipps University of Marburg. He is the author of many articles, both in German & English, a chapter in the new Handbook of Body Psychotherapy & Somatic Psychology, and of two books: Korperpsychotherapie: Grundriss einer Theorie fur die klinische Praxis (2015) and Body Psychotherapy – Experiencing the Body, Experiencing the Self, as well as co-authoring, with Richard Holmes, the 2008 book, The Professionalization of Psychology in Nazi Germany. E-mail: geuter@gmx.de
Marti Glenn was the founding President of Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, which offers graduate degrees in Clinical Psychology, Somatic Psychology, and Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology. She has been a pioneering psychotherapist and educator for over 25 years integrating somatic principles, attachment, early development, and trauma. E-mail: martiglennphd@gmail.com
Dryian Benz was a collaborator with Marti Glenn in setting up the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, who then diverged into what he (and his new collaborator, JoAnne Chartrand) call the ‘Relational Constellations’ approach, which is a blend of Somatic Psychology, Family Constellation Methodology, Embodiment Practice, Attachment Trauma Work, Internal Family Systems, Somatic Experiencing, Transpersonal Psychology & Psycho-Spiritual influence from the Diamond Heart Approach. Since 1995 he has been a practitioner, teacher and trainer, of the Family Constellations approach (as first developed by Bert Hellinger). Dyrian has been presenting the Constellation approach in workshops, trainings and in University Graduate Courses where he also teaches group process, therapeutic skills and family therapy.
Roz Carroll is a UK Body Psychotherapist and dance-movement therapist who has developed her own way of working that she calls ‘Thinking Through the Body’. She trained at the Chiron Centre in London; worked with Authentic Movement and Body-Mind Centering; and has been strongly influenced by the development of neuroscience, especially the work of Travarthen, Stern, Schore, Tronick, Solms, Panksepp, Beebe, Damasio, Bucci, Fonagy and Porges: I have found the framework of attachment and intersubjectivity theory, updated by neuroscience, to be the most robust foundation for an understanding of human development in the context of psychotherapy.” E-mail: roz@thinkbody.co.uk
Will Davis is an American Body Psychotherapist living and working in France. He has a psychology degree and was trained in Encounter Groups, Gestalt Therapy, Radix, and in various alternative healing methods. Will developed the form of Body-oriented Psychotherapy, Functional Analysis, and is considered one of the major researchers in the fields of the functioning of the instroke and of the plasmatic basis of early disturbances. He is on the International Advisory Boards of the Journal of Energy and Character and the International Journal of Body Psychotherapy. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Society of Psychologists and Psychiatrists and the European Association of Body Psychotherapy. He lives with his wife in the south of France and conducts Body Psychotherapy training workshops in Europe. E-mail: willdaviswilldavis@gmail.com
Michel Costa Heller is a Swiss-American psychotherapist and researcher, living in Lausanne, Switzerland. He trained with Gerda Boyesen, as well as being influenced by Piaget and several others. He is the author of many articles and chapters (in both French and English) on Body Psychotherapy; he edited the (2001) book, The Flesh of the Soul; and authored the (2012) book, Body Psychotherapy: History, Concepts and Methods. He has also been a long-standing member (and Board Member) of EABP and has – especially – been an active member of the EABP Ethics Committee. E-mail: mmaupash@aqualide.com
Peter Levine is an American psychologist and psychotherapist and developed a method of healing trauma that he calls ‘Somatic Experiencing’, which “facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.” He is the author of the (1997) best selling, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma – The innate capacity to transform to transform overwhelming experiences; as well as (in 2010) In an Unspoken Voice: How the body releases trauma and restores goodness; and (in 2015) Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a search for the living past: A practical guide for understanding and working with traumatic memory. E-mail: DrPeterPAL@aol.com
Gustl Marlock is a German psychologist, psychiatrist and body psychotherapist, trained originally by Jay Stattmann in ‘Unitive Psychotherapy’. With Ilse Schmidt Zimmermann, he set up the Frankfurt-am-Main training centre in Unitive Psychology, has been a long-standing member of EABP, and has written many articles and books. He has over 30 years of professional experience combined with an extensive knowledge of the various therapeutic cultures, dialects and sub-dialects. He has been the head of German education in Unitary Body Psychotherapy, lecturer and supervisor for deep psychological psychotherapy. With Halko Weiss, he was the main co-editor of the (2010) seminal Handbuch der Korperpsychotherapie, and the 2nd (2015) edition, Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology. E-mail: gmarlock@mac.com
Pat Ogden is one of the new pioneers in somatic psychology and the founder and director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute that specializes in training psychotherapists in somatic/cognitive approaches for the treatment of trauma, developmental and attachment issues. She has had 35 years experience working with individuals and groups; is a co-founder of The Hakomi Institute; serves on the faculty of The Naropa University; and lectures internationally, especially about trauma. She is the main author of the (2003) book, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. E-mail: patogden@comcast.net
Helen Payne is a UK Body Psychotherapist and Dance Movement Therapist, as well as being a professor at the University of Hertfordshire. She is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal of Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy. She has engaged in several research projects, especially concerned with personal development groups for post graduate trainees in the psychological therapies, and embodied practice with patients with medically unexplained symptoms in primary care. She has a number of publications including: Creative Movement and Dance in Groupwork (1990); A Handbook of Inquiry in the Arts Therapies (1993); and, as a Director of The University of Hertfordshire spin-out company ‘Pathways2Wellbeing’, which trains facilitators in The BodyMind Approach (TBMA), she co-ordinates the delivery of this service in the NHS and privately. E-mail: h.l.payne@herts.ac.uk
Luciano Rispoli is an Italian Body Psychotherapist, who developed what he calls, ‘Functional Psychotherapy, exploring the functionality of a person on all levels: mind, emotion, body and physiology. This therapy aims to mobilize and (again) incorporate the altered functions, so as to restore primal fundamental experiences. His reflections on his practice have led to research on the psycho-body processes, in the fields of clinical psychology, on individual and group therapy, on training groups, and about problems of childhood and adolescence. He has formulated the concepts of the Functional model of the Self, of the Basic Experiences of the Self, working on methodology, on theory and techniques, on systems of evaluation of outcome and on diagnosis. He has participated in 20 books, more than 150 articles, and has authored 26 books, as well as organising several national and international conferences. E-mail: lucrispo@tin.it
Babette Rothschild is a Body Psychotherapist and specialist in the treatment of trauma. She trained originally with Lisbeth Marcher. She is the author of five books: The Body Remembers: The psychophysiology or trauma and trauma treatment (2000); The Body Remembers Casebook: Unifying methods and models in the treatment of trauma and PTSD (2003); Help for the Helper: The psychophysiology of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma (2006); 8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery: Take-Charge Strategies to empower your healing (2010); Trauma Essentials: The Go-To Guide (2011), and numerous articles, videos: and trains people world-wide in trauma recovery. E-mail: babette@trauma.cc
Halko Weiss is a German ‘Hakomi’ Clinical Psychologist and Body Psychotherapist, who trained originally in contemporary psychology, Rogerian psychotherapy and Behaviour Modification. He then trained with Ron Kurtz, and now teaches and trains internationally. He is the author of 6 books, including co-authoring, ‘Hakomi: Mindfulness Centered Somatic Psychotherapy‘, as well as being the main co-editor of (2010) ‘Handbuch fur Korperpsychotherapie‘ of (2015) ‘The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy & Somatic Psychology’. E-mail: halkohd@aol.com
Ilse Schmidt-Zimmermann is is a group and adult psychotherapist and a child and adolescent specialist in Frankfurt am Main. She trained originally in Jay Stattman’s ‘Unitive’ Body Psychotherapy, gestalt therapy, group analytic and psychodynamic therapy, as well as further in developments in ‘Bioenergetics’, ‘Biosynthesis’, and Stanley Keleman’s Formative Psychology. She has been an active member of EABP for many years, serving on the Board and Ethics Committee, as well as being EABP President from 1999 to 2002. E-mail: ilse.schmidt@mac.com
Nick Totton is a UK therapist and trainer with almost 30 years experience. Originally a Reichian body therapist, his approach has become more broad-based and open to the spontaneous and unexpected. He has an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies, and has worked with Process Oriented Psychology. He has also trained as a cranio-sacral therapist. Nick is currently involved with eco-psychology and addressing climate change. He has a grown up daughter. He has written or edited a number of books, including: Body Psychotherapy: An Introduction; New Dimensions in Body Psychotherapy; Psychotherapy and Politics; Press When Illuminated: New and Selected Poems; Wild Therapy; and most recently, Not A Tame Lion, published by PCCS Books. He lives in Calderdale with his partner and grows vegetables.
Gill Westland trained originally as an occupational therapist and a social therapist at the Maudsley & then at the Fulbourn Hospital with D.H. Clark, and then trained as a Body Psychotherapist with Gerda Boyesen in 1979-1983. She joined the newly-forming Chiron Centre, and later set up the Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre, a training school in massage and Body Psychotherapy in the mid-1980s. Since then, she has been a long-standing member of EABP, registered with UKCP, and also a co-editor of the journal of Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy. She is also the (2015) author of ‘Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in Psychotherapy‘, and of many articles and chapters on Touch in Body Psychotherapy. E-mail: gillwestland@cbpc.org.uk
Courtenay Young is a UK Body Psychotherapist, who trained originally as a teacher becoming inspired by the work of A.S. Neill, which led him to the neo-Reichian Body Psychotherapy of Gerda Boyesen and David Boadella. Having trained at the Boyesen Centre London (1997-1983) and having been influenced by Boadella, John Pirrakos, Jack Lee Rosenberg, and several others, took his work initially into psychiatric social work. Having collaborated with David Boadella on his (1987) book, Lifestreams, he moved to the Findhorn Foundation (a spiritual community in NE Scotland) and (i) became involved in the ‘politicization’ of UK psychotherapy, becoming involved in the early formation of the UKCP and subsequently, in 1996, the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP); and (ii) developed his clinical work into the dimensions of Stan Grof’s concept of ‘Spiritual Emergencies’. Having become involved in EABP and having become its General Secretary (1994-2001) and President (2002-2006), and a founder member of USABP, he then established the ‘scientific validity’ of Body Psychotherapy in the EAP and the inclusion of Body Psychotherapy (in Europe) as one of the psychotherapy mainstreams. In 2003, he largely stepped aside from the political sphere and started writing much more. He has written several books and many articles (both about psychotherapy and about Body Psychotherapy) and is currently the Editor of the International Journal of Psychotherapy. He has recently been involved in producing the English-American edition of The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy & Somatic Psychology, as well as publishing a series of edited books about Body Psychotherapy. He currently lives and works around Edinburgh, Scotland. E-mail: courtenay@courtenay-young.com
References
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Reich, W. (1936). The Sexual Revolution