'Embodied Psychotherapy': A Reading List The alphabetically-oriented list immediately below can includes a number of books already mentioned in the references to each of the seven preceding papers, together with some other significant works. Some of these books are now out-of-print. Books relevant to Embodied Psychotherapy / Body Psychotherapy / Somatic Psychology Aron, L. & Anderson, F.S. (Ed.) (1998). Relational Perspectives on the Body. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press. Anderson, F.A. (2010). Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension. London: The Analytic Press. Aposhyan, S. (2004). Body-Mind Psychotherapy: Principles, Techniques and Practical Applications. New York: Norton & Co. Aron, L. & Anderson, F.S. (1998). Relational Perspectives [...]

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 role of the 'body' in psychotherapy was a taboo issue - an "elephant in the room" - for many years until the 1960s. It was not really until the Humanistic Psychology movement arose as a "third force" that the 'body' was once again included (along with the spirit) in the general field of psychology and psychotherapy. This is not to say that the founders of Humanistic Psychology (e.g. Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, and others) related directly to, or worked with, their patients' (client's) bodies, nor used any specific embodied approaches: they just noted that, given the five basic principles of humanistic psychology, the body had - [...]

Since Freud, there has been a fundamental controversy about the relevance of the various embodied approaches to psychotherapy, especially from within psychoanalysis, partly because Freud had essentially rejected (or not acknowledged) the vital contributions of Pierre Janet (a fellow pupil of Charcot's) and his basic direction towards body-oriented (or other embodied) approaches (Boadella, 1997). Freud also ignored (or 'revoked') Reich's systematic work that had supported some of Freud's earlier theories, though Reich's 1934 exclusion from psychoanalysis was probably due to his controversial socio-political views. Reich was also increasingly involved with analyzing aspects of th