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‘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 on the Body. New York: Routledge

Bakal, D. (1999). Minding the Body: Clinical uses of somatic awareness. New York: Guilford Press.

Baker, E.F. (1967). The Man in the Trap. New York: Macmillan.

Barratt, B.B. (2010). The Emergence of Somatic Psychology and Bodymind Therapy. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bermudez, J.L., Marcel, A. & Eilan, N. (Eds.) (1995). The Body and the Self. Cambridge, MA: Bradford, MIT Press.

Boadella, D. (1973, 1985). Wilhelm Reich: The evolution of his work. London: Vision & Routledge.

Boadella, D. (1986). Lifestreams: An introduction to Biosynthesis. London: Routledge.

Boyesen, G. & Boyesen, M-L. (1980). The Collected Papers of Biodynamic Psychology: Vol. 1 & 2. London: Biodynamic Psychology Publications.

Brown, M. (1990). The Healing Touch: An introduction to Organismic Psychotherapy. Mendocino, CA: LifeRhythm.

Caldwell, C. (1996). Getting Our Bodies Back. Boulder, CO: Shambala.

Changaris, M. (2015). Touch: The neurobiology of health, healing and human connection. Mendocino, CA: LifeRhythm.

Conger, J.P. (1994). The Body in Recovery: Somatic Psychotherapy and the Self. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Cornell, W.F. (2015). Somatic Experience in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: In the expressive language of the living. London: Routledge.

Corrigal, J., Payne, H. & Wilkinson, H. (Eds.) (2006). About a Body: Working with the embodied mind in psychotherapy. Hove, UK: Routledge.

Damasio, A. (2000). The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the making of Consciousness. London: Vintage.

Damasio, A. (2006). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. London: Vintage.

Dychtwald, K. (1984). BodyMind. New York: Penguin Group.

Frank, R. (2001). Body of Awareness: A somatic and development approach to psychotherapy. Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press.

Gendlin, E. (1981). Focusing. London: Bantam.

Guimón, J. (Ed.) (1997). The Body in Psychotherapy. Basel: Karger.

Hartley, L. (Ed.), Contemporary Body Psychotherapy: The Chiron Approach. Hove, UK: Routledge.

Heller, M.C. (2012). Body Psychotherapy: History, Concepts, Methods. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Johnson, D.H. & Grand, I.J. (Eds.) (1997). The Body in Psychotherapy: Inquiries in Somatic Psychology.

Juhan, D. (1987). Job’s Body: A handbook for bodywork. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press.

Keleman, S. (1975). Your Body Speaks Its Mind. Berkeley, CA: Center Press.

Keleman, S. (1985). Emotional Anatomy. Berkeley, CA: Center Press.

Kepner, J. (1993). Body Process: Working with the Body in Psychotherapy. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Kreuger, D.W. (2002). Integrating Body Self and Psychological Self: Creating a new story in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. New York: Brunner-Routledge.

Kurtz, R. (1990). Body-Centered Psychotherapy: The Hakomi Method. Mendocino, CA: Life Rhythm.

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Levine, P. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma – The Innate Capacity to transform overwhelming experiences. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Lowen, A. (1976). Bioenergetics: The revolutionary therapy that uses the language of the body to heal the problems of the mind. New York: Macmillan.

Marcher, L. & Fich, S. (2010). Body Encyclopedia: A guide of the psychological functions of the muscular system. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Marlock, G., Weiss, H., Young, C. & Soth, M. (Eds.), The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy & Somatic Psychology. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Mindell, A. (1982). Dreambody: The body’s role in revealing the self. Boston, MA: Sigo Press.

Ogden, P., Minton, K. & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Pierrakos, J. (1990). Core Energetics: Developing the capacity to love and heal. Mendocino, CA: LifeRhythm.

Reich, W. (1933, 1980). Character Analysis (3rd Ed.) New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Reich, W. (1942/1973). The Function of the Orgasm. New York: Farrer Straus Giroux.

Rispoli, L. (2004). The Basic Experience and the Development of the Self. Berne, Switzerland: Peter Lang.

Rolef Ben-Shahar, A. (2014). Touching the Relational Edge: Body Psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books.

Rubenfeld, I. (2000). The Listening Hand: How to combine bodywork and psychotherapy to heal emotional pain. London: Piatkus.

Russell, J. & Cohn, R. (2012). Integrative Body Psychotherapy.

Schore, A. (1994). Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The neurobiology of emotional development. New York: Psychology Press.

Stattman, J. Jansen, E.M., Marlock, G., Aalberse, M. & Stubenrauch, H. (1989). Unitive Body-Psychotherapy: Collected Papers: Vols 1 & 2. Frankfurt: AFRA Verlag.

Staunton, T. (2002). Body Psychotherapy. Hove, UK: Brunner-Routledge.

Totton, N. & Edmondson, E. (1988). Reichian Growth Work. Melting the blocks to life and love. Bridport, Dorset, UK: Prism Press.

Totton, N. (2003). Body Psychotherapy: An introduction. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.

Totton, N. (2015). Embodied Relating: The Ground of Psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books.

van der Kolk, B.A. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Viking Press.

Westland, G. (2015). Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in Psychotherapy. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

White, K. (2014). Talking Bodies: How do we integrate working with the body in psychotherapy from an attachment and relational perspective. London: Karnac Books.

Young, C. (Ed.) (2011). The Historical Basis of Body Psychotherapy. Galashiels, UK: Body Psychotherapy Publications.

Young, C. (Ed.) (2012). About the Science of Body Psychotherapy. Galashiels, UK: Body Psychotherapy Publications.

Young, C. (Ed.) (2012). About Relational Body Psychotherapy. Galashiels, UK: Body Psychotherapy Publications.

Young, C. (Ed.) (2014). The Body in Relationship: Self – Other – Society. Galashiels, UK: Body Psychotherapy Publications.

Body-Oriented Psychotherapy Journals

Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy: An International for theory, research & practice. ISSN: 1743-2979.

Energy & Character: The Journal of Biosynthesis.
International Body Psychotherapy Journal: The art and science of somatic praxis. ISSN: 2169-4745

Somatic Psychology Today: www.somaticpsychotherapytoday.com
The Journal of Orgonomy. ISSN: 0022-3298

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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 20^th 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 1^st 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 2^nd (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

Boadella, D. (1997).
Geuter, U., Heller, M. & Weaver, J.O. (2010).
Heller, M. (2012).
Johnson, L. (1981). Integrated Respiration Theory/Therapy.
Raknes, O. (1970).
Reich, W. (1927). The Function of the Orgasm;
Reich, W. (1933).Character Analysis
Reich, W. (1933). The Mass Psychology of Fascism
Reich, W. (1936). The Sexual Revolution

The post Significant People & Key Players in the field of the Embodied Psychotherapies appeared first on Confer.

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 – up to then – essentially been left out of psychology and psychotherapy. This later inclusion (or recognition) was the start of a ‘subtle’ revolution. It is interesting to note that attention to embodiment developed more quickly and consistently than attention to spiritual aspects: and, whilst we have also seen the development of several transpersonal psychotherapies, they have not carried as much weight as body-oriented aspects.

Fritz Perls, one of the founders of Gestalt therapy (a development of Gestalt psychology ), who had also been a patient of Wilhelm Reich in Berlin in the early 1930s , started to work more directly with the body in his therapy work at the Esalen Institute in the 1960s and 1970s. This was paralleled by the development of the Esalen Massage & Bodywork Association (EMBA), and also by the presence at Easalen of several people who later became quite influential in the field of psychotherapy: among others, Ilana Rubenfeld, who founded Rubenfeld Synergy (a synthesis of Gestalt psychotherapy, Feldenkrais work, and the Alexander Technique) that has been accepted in the USA as a Body Psychotherapy; Will Schultz (author of Joy: Expanding Human Awareness – and a ‘promoter’ of Encounter Groups); Diana Whitmore (who went on to develop Assagioli’s ‘Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy’ in the UK), and Stanislav Grof (who developed a transpersonal technique he calls Holotropic Breathwork. that he claims has similar effects to taking LSD).

The Esalen community (in Big Sur, CA) also provided many opportunities for developments in the fields of Somatics, as well as for specific embodied techniques such as Holotropic Breathwork. It became a major centre for new humanistic and body-oriented psychotherapies, which in the 1970s helped to facilitate, first in America and then in Europe, a gradual greater acceptance of the significance of embodied approaches, emphasising not only the body in psychotherapy, but also the development of various body-oriented psychotherapeutic approaches that started to develop more widely.

More specifically, in the USA, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, two of Reich’s pupils, Alexander Lowenand John Pierrakos, developed another form of embodied psychotherapy, that was later popularised in a number of best-selling books by Lowen. They called this Bioenergetic Analysis, which became much more widely known than the more purist Reichian tradition which still used Reich’s term ‘Orgonomy‘. A great number of people became influenced by Reich’s work and the importance of the body in psychotherapy.

In Europe, David Boadella had in 1970 founded the journal Energy & Character, which became a pre-internet conduit for those interested in body-oriented approaches. He subsequently developed his own form of Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, that he calls “Biosynthesis” and published the definitive (1987) book of his work, Lifestreams. Also in the 1970s, Gerda Boyesen (a psychology patient of Ola Raknes and a physiotherapy pupil of Aadel Bulow-Hansen) began to teach her own form of body-oriented psychotherapy in London, Biodynamic Psychotherapy.

There had been a very strong Norwegian tradition of body-oriented techniques and their influence into psychiatry, physiotherapy, child psychiatry and psychotherapy, dating back to Reich’s pre-WW2 work (1934-1939) that is still alive and strong today. It developed primarily from the post-WW2 work of Ola Raknes, Nic Waal, and Reich’s ‘second wife’ Elsa Lindenberg. Trygve Braatoy was another eminent Norwegian psychiatrist, who had been strongly influenced by Reich and who also collaborated with Bulow-Hansen. Lillemor Johnsen (1970), another physiotherapist with an interest in Reich’s work, subsequently influenced Lisbeth Marcher and her body-oriented psychotherapy, ‘Bodynamics’. Bjorn Blumenthal (and others) have carried forward this reasonably well establish tradition of integration and collaboration with Reich’s Character Analytic Vegetotherapy, work.

Michael Heller has written about “The Golden Age of Psychotherapy in Norway” (2007a, 2007b) and he describes how a number of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists have since picked up on the body-oriented themes (inherent in Reich’s work) of somatic countertransference (Lewis, 1984; Samuels, 1985; Ross, 2000; Stone, 2006; Pallaro, 2007; Orbach, 2009; Carroll, 2010; Gubb, 2014) and “embodied empathy” (Scheflen, 1964; Gendlin, 1981; Cox & Theilgaard, 1987; Erskine et al., 1999; Pearmain, 1999; Sletvold, 2015).

There were also several other neo-Reichian ‘spin-offs’, especially in America: Charles Kelley had developed his own form of an embodied approach, Radix; and Ron Kurtz developed his embodied (and somewhat transpersonal) approach, which he called Hakomi. All of these had an increasing impact throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s in the field of psychotherapy, in general. Many other people in America, not connected to Body Psychotherapy, had also been strongly influenced by Reich’s work: these included Frank Zappa, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Itzak Perlman, Fritjov Capra, Saul Bellow, Alan Ginsberg, Norman Mailer and William Burroughs (Mannion, 2002), as well as the New Yorker artist William Steig, who married Reich’s daughter; the actor Orson Bean, who wrote Me and the Orgone; and the singer Kate Bush. These people helped to popularise Reich’s work after his death.

We have already seen in previous papers how bodily-oriented techniques can be integrated or synthesised with a psychotherapy method or modality to form a body-oriented psychotherapy: for example, Postural Integrative Psychotherapy, or Rubenfeld Synergy. Other ways in which the influence of the embodied psychotherapies has contributed to other forms of psychotherapy include:

1. A group of French (Geneva-based) psychoanalysists (Guimon, 1997), many of whom were influenced by De Ajuriaguerra, who developed a particular form of relaxation psychotherapy, used in psychoanalysis and later extended into ‘psychomotor therapy’. A similar development was the Jacobsen Relaxation method, also used by psychoanalysts to amplify body awareness (Fortini & Tissot, 1997).
2. The Autogenic Training technique, developed originally by Schultz for people with hypertension, has since evolved into a recognised form of psychotherapy, prominent in Austria, Germany and Spain, and this has also developed a bodily awareness technique they call the ‘autogenic state’ (de Rivera, 1997);
3. Sophrology, a study of harmony between body and mind, similar in some respects to phenomenology, developed originally by Alfonso Cadcedo, a Columbian neuro-psychiatrist in the 1960s, and then furthered by Abrezol in the late-1960’s to enhance the performance of sports-persons, with remarkable success.

One of the major contributions to the field of Gestalt psychotherapy (post Fritz Perls) has been the work of Jim Kepner with his Gestalt Body Process Psychotherapy (1993), and also with the significance of body-oriented work in the healing of trauma (1995). Ruella Frank, another Gestalt psychotherapist, endorsed and extended this movement, especially in her 2001 book, Body of Awareness, which looks especially at developmental models. William Cornell (2015) has also extended his body-oriented form of Transactional Analysis into psychoanalysis and psychotherapy contributing to those mentioned in the final paragraph.

In addition, the aspect of work with trauma has also been paralleled more generally: by Babette Rothschild (2000), with what she calls Somatic Trauma Therapy; by Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing work in understanding and healing trauma (1997, 2010, 2015); by Pat Ogden’s Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and her books (2006, 2014); and by Bessel van der Kolk’s (1999, 2015) ground-breaking work linking brain research and body-oriented psychotherapy (see also here). This area is becoming increasingly significant.

Finally, it is clear that a significant branch of psychoanalytical psychotherapy, Relational Psychoanalysis, has relatively recently and whole-heartedly taken up body-oriented work, as Anderson’s (2010) compilation indicates: chapters by Cornell (2010), Bucci (2010), Eldredge & Cole (2010), Pacifici (2010), Gerbarg (2010),Bass (2010) and Newman (2010) all show how various psychoanalysts have brought bodily experience back into their practice. Additionally, other analysts who have utilised bodily experience in their treatment relationship, namely Knoblauch (2010), Nebbiosi & Federici-Nebbiosi (2010) provide useful references. Analysts who describe using their body as both subject and object are Petrucelli (2010) and Harris & Sinsheimer (2010). There are a few further examples of this trend in Aron & Anderson’s (1998)earlier collection, particularly in two contributions in the final section by Karen Hopenwasser, Tamsin Looker and Ron Balamuth, that extend and enhance the theme of the importance of both the analyst’s and the analysand’s somatic experiences in the relational matrix. These works, which have come out of the ‘postdoc’ community of New York University’s Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis program, begin to bridge the 100-year gap between psychoanalysis and the body.

References

Anderson, F.A. (2010). Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension. London: The Analytic Press.
Aron, L. & Anderson, F.S. (1998). Relational Perspectives on the Body. New York: Routledge.
Baker, E.F. (1967). Man in the Trap. New York: Macmillan.
Balamuth, R. (1998). Remembering the Body: A psychoanalytic study of presence and absence of the lived body. In: L. Aron & F.S. Anderson (Eds.), Relational Perspectives on the Body, (pp. 263-286). New York: Routledge.
Bass, G. (2010). Sweet are the Uses of Adversity: Psychic integration through body-centered work. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 51-78). London: The Analytic Press.
Boadella, D. (1987). Lifestreams: An introduction to Biosynthesis. London: Routledge.
Bucci, W. (2010). The Role of Bodily Experience in Emotional Organization: New perspectives on the multiple code theory. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 151-159). London: The Analytic Press.
Carroll, R. (2010). The Subtle Body & Countertransference. [Accessed 12-July, 2016: http://www.thinkbody.co.uk/body-psych/subtlebodyctr.htm]
Cornell, W.F. (2015). Somatic Experience in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: In the expressive language of the living. London: Routledge.
Cornell, W.F. (2010). Self in Action: the bodily basis of self-organization. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 29-50). London: The Analytic Press.
Cox, M. & Theilgaard, A. (1987). Mutative metaphors in psychotherapy: The Aeolian mode. London: Tavistock.
de Rivera, J.L.G. (1997). Autogenic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. In: Guimon, J. (Ed.) (1997). The Body in Psychotherapy, (pp. 176-181). Basel: Karger.
Eldredge, C.B. & Cole, G.W. (2010). In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 79-102). London: The Analytic Press.
Erskine, R.G., Moursund, J.P. & Trautmann, R.L. (1999). Beyond Empathy: A Therapy of Contact-in-Relationship. London: Taylor & Francis.
Fortini, K. & Tissot, S. (1997). For a typology of body-mediated therapies. In: Guimon, J. (Ed.) (1997). The Body in Psychotherapy, (pp. 94-106). Basel: Karger.
Frank, R. (2001). Body of Awareness: A somatic and development approach to psychotherapy. Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press.
Gendlin, E. (1981). Focusing. London: Bantam.
Gerbarg, P.L. (2010). Yoga and Neuro-Psychoanalysis. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 51-78). London: The Analytic Press.
Gubb, K. (2014). Craving Interpretation: A case of Somatic Countertransference.. British Journal of Psychotherapy, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 51-67. [Accessed 12-Jul, 2016: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjp.12062/abstract]
Guimon, J. (Ed.) (1997). The Body in Psychotherapy. Basel: Karger.
Harris, A. & Sinsheimer, K. (2010). The Analysts’s Vulnerability: Preserving and fine-tuning analytic bodies. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 255-274). London: The Analytic Press.
Heller, M.C. (2007a). The golden age of body psychotherapy in Oslo I: From gymnastics to psychoanalysis. Body Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 6-16.
Heller, M.C. (2007b). The golden age of body psychotherapy in Oslo II: From vegetotherapy to nonverbal communication. Body Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 81-94.
Hopenwasser, K. (1998). Listening to the Body: Somatic representations of dissociated memory. In: L. Aron & F.S. Anderson (Eds.), Relational Perspectives on the Body, (pp. 215-236). New York: Routledge.
Johnsen, L. (1970). Integrated Respiration Therapy. Self-published.
Kepner, J. (1993). Body Process: Working with the Body in Psychotherapy. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Kepner, J. (1995) Healing Tasks: psychotherapy with adult survivors of childhood abuse. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Knoblauch, S.H. (2010). Tipping Points between Body, Culture and Subjectivity: The tension between passion and custom. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 193-212). London: The Analytic Press.
Levine, P. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma – The Innate Capacity to transform overwhelming experiences. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Levine, P. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice: How the body releases trauma and restores goodness. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Levine, P. (2015). Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a search for the living past: A practical guide to understanding and working with traumatic memory. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Lewis, P. (1984). The Somatic Countertransference: The inner ‘pas de deux‘. In: P. Lewis (Ed.), Theoretical approaches in dance-movement therapy. London: Tavistock.
Looker, T. (1998). “Mama, Why Don’t Your Feet Touch the Ground?”: Staying with the body and the healing moment in psychoanalysis. In: L. Aron & F.S. Anderson (Eds.), Relational Perspectives on the Body, (pp. 237-262). New York: Routledge.
Nebbiosi, G. & Fererici-Nebbiosi, S. (2010). “We” Got Rhythm: Miming and the polyphony of identity in psychoanalysis. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 213-235). London: The Analytic Press.
Newman, H.M. (2010). Coming into Being: Employing the wisdom of the body and mind-body therapy. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 169-191). London: The Analytic Press.
Ogden, P., Minton, K. & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Ogden, P. & Fisher, J. (2006). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for trauma and attachment. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Orbach, S. (2009). Bodies. London: Picador.
Pacifici, M.P. (2010). The Co-construction of “Psychoanalytical Choreography” and the Dancing Self: Working with an anorectic patient. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 103-126). London: The Analytic Press.
Pallaro, P. (2007). Somatic Countertransference. In: P. Pallaro (Ed.), Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved: A Collection of Essays – Volume Two, (pp. 176-193). London: Jessica Kingsley.
Pearmain, R. (1999). What do we mean by developing empathy and intuition. Counselling, February, pp. 45-48.
Petrucelli, J. (2010). When a Body meets a Body: The impact of the therapist’s body on eating-disordered patients. In: F.A. Anderson (Ed.), Bodies in Treatment: The unspoken dimension, (pp. 237-254). London: The Analytic Press.
Ross, M. (2010). Body talk: Somatic countertransference. Psychodynamic Counselling, 6, pp. 451-467. [Accessed 12-Jul, 2016: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13533330050197089?journalCode=rpco19]
Rothschild, B. (2000). The Body Remembers: The psychophysiology of trauma and trauma treatment. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
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Sletvold, J. (2015). Embodied Empathy in psychotherapy: Demonstrated in supervision. Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 82-93. [Accessed 12-July, 2016: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17432979.2014.971873?journalCode=tbmd20]
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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 the libido, whereas Freud had moved away from this. This controversy was then perpetuated with a concern that any form of physical contact would complicate or compromise the transference process.

Psychoanalysts who touched their patients (like Fenichel and Ferenczi), were often criticized (Heller, 2012), and so potentially valuable contributions such as Fenichel’s attempts to develop a psycho-physiological approach within psychoanalysis, and Ferenczi’s or humanistic techniques of ’empathic response’ and ‘self-disclosure’ were therefore disowned (Ibid). Simultaneously, Reich was equally scathing of some of these previously supportive colleagues and thus some lost potential allies (Heller, 2012, Cpts. 16 & 18). This split led to a 50-year separation between the field of psychoanalysis (Mind) and the different embodied psychotherapeutic approaches (Body), similar to the body-mind distinction epitomized in Descartes’ dualistic statement, “I think, therefore I am”.

Many of the embodied approaches become marginalized from the post-war field of psychology and psychotherapy, despite awareness of their potential efficacy. While those practicing in psychology, psychiatry or psychotherapy, who became interested in embodied approaches, were channelled towards to mind-based approaches, medical doctors (like Lowen, Pierrakos, and some of the other medically-trained pupils of Reich (Orgonomists and Reichians), as well as physiotherapists (like Gerda Boyesen) were more able to adopt embodied approaches to psychotherapy, as they were already professionally ‘allowed’ to touch.

This controversy is complicated by a number of different factors around the definition of touch and what kinds of touch in psychotherapy are ethical or not (Struve & Hunter, 1998; Young, 2016; Zur, 2007). There are acknowledged risks in the practice of body psychotherapy (Young, 2015) given the use of certain powerful and evocative breathing techniques and methods of energetic discharge. In addition, regression and re-traumatization is considered a risk factor when body-oriented techniques and methods are employed. Therapeutic touch can be abusive, if used inappropriately; the client’s embodied (somatic) defenses can be broken down, especially if there has been insufficient building of the core persona first; and some of the techniques that are used can be considered as regressive (or possibly even seductive), especially if used without due caution, or by an ungrounded or relatively untrained therapist.

There are also particular responsibilities within embodied approaches when working with people in trauma. World expert on the treatment of PTSD and complex trauma, Bessel van der Kolk (2015), says that therapists must have had the training, skills and understanding of a body psychotherapist in order to work effectively with people in trauma. If not, then, “… the attempt at therapeutic re-experiencing and discharge of traumatic experience succeeds only in recreating the original trauma, and even imposing a further layer of trauma on the client. The client may be no more able now than in the original situation to process their experience effectively” (Totton, 2003, p. 125). Some argue that more simplistic techniques for the treatment of trauma, such as body-oriented like EMDR (Shapiro, 2001), do not have the lasting effects of therapies that enable the person to fully integrate and come to terms with their traumatic experience over time.

In the development of embodied approaches to therapy there are confusions that still linger about the difference between “body therapy” and “body psychotherapy”. Various therapists, many of them psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists, some even influenced by Reich’s work, have developed their own form of therapy: Janov’s Primal Therapy is perhaps the best known. Other methods include Stanislav Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork; Joseph Heller’s Hellerwork (similar in some ways to Ida Rolf’s Rolfing), and the Therapeutic Touch method (as developed by Kunz & Krieger). There are many other bodywork therapies and breath-work therapies that are potentially psychotherapeutic, but very few of these cross the divide and can actually be considered as a proper body-oriented psychotherapy. An example of one which did, and which fulfilled the criteria of both EABP’s training standards and the EAP’s criteria is Psychotherapeutic Postural Integration (based in Strasbourg).

Some of the confusion between modalities – at least in Europe – have recently been clarified with the development of psychotherapy as an independent profession and Body Psychotherapy as a legitimate mainstream within psychotherapy. European psychotherapy (as per the EAP Training Standards) requires a post-graduate level of entry, 4-year training, personal experience of psychotherapy and a set of professional core competencies to be attained (see the EAP’s ECP document and the EAP’s 2013 Core Competencies document). Several of the body-oriented modalities fit within these criteria.

In the USA, with the dominance of academic psychology, the establishment of body-oriented (or somatic) psychotherapy Masters and Doctoral programs in several universities has legitimized the development of a highly-qualified professional body psychotherapy training: (JFK University, Berkeley, CA; Naropa University, Boulder, CO; California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA; & the Pacifica Graduate Institute Santa Barbara, CA).

These academic and training standards have been assisted and supported by the growth of several national and international professional associations for body psychotherapy and somatic psychology, which have also helped to create a clearer definition of embodied psychotherapy. However, this professionalization process has been resisted by some (Mowbray, 1995; Postle, 2007). Furthermore, the process has not been helped by the multiplicity of the body-oriented psychotherapeutic approaches or methods or their variation of names.

In Europe, there exists: Character Analytical Vegetotherapy (Reich); Bioenergetic Analysis (Lowen); Biodynamic Psychotherapy (G. Boyesen); Biosynthesis (Boadella); Bodynamics (Marcher); Psycho-Organic Analysis (P. Boyesen); Contemporary Body Psychotherapy (CABP); Unitive Body Psychotherapy(Stattman); Psychotherapeutic Postural Integration (Painter); Concentrative Movement Therapy (Gindler).

In America, with some incursions into South America, Australasia, the Far East and Europe, one can add: Orgone Therapy (Reich); Hakomi (Kurtz); Rubenfeld Synergy (Rubenfeld); Pesso-Boyden System Psychomotor (Pesso); Integrative Body Psychotherapy (Rosenberg); Somatic Education & Formative Psychology (Keleman); etc.

There are also several other embodied methods, promoted mostly by just one person: for example, Christine Calwell has developed a method (influenced by Dance Movement) that she calls The Moving Cycle; Susan Aposhyan developed her Body-Mind Psychotherapy (influenced by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s work); Peter Levine has developed his trauma work into Somatic Experiencing; Gill Westland’s Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre has excellent links to the UK professional association for psychotherapy (UKCP) and to a Master’s programme at the Anglia Ruskin University; Gestalt Body Process Psychotherapy by James Kepner; Roz Carroll’s Embodied Awareness; Nick Totton’s Embodied Relational Therapy, and people like William F. (Bill) Cornell and Sue Hampton, who differently combine Transactional Analysis & Body Psychotherapy; and so forth. The multiplicity of terms that arises out of so many variations of embodied psychotherapy implies, in itself, that there is divergence of views between schools within the approach.

Additionally, and even more confusingly, there are then several ‘cross-over’ methods (or other psychotherapies that utilize embodied techniques, though they are not ‘pure’ embodied psychotherapies). We have already mentioned a couple of modalities originating from different methods that can fit within the Body Psychotherapy category, but other ‘proper’ psychotherapy methods, like Arnold Mindell’s Process Oriented Psychotherapy confusingly do not.

The development of all these methods – almost inevitably – leads into another area of confusion and controversy, that of the quality of teaching and administering these trainings. Together with Gill Westland, Courtenay Young wrote a (2014) article about the “Shadows of Body Psychotherapy” published in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2. This exposé of some of the more contentious and largely unspoken aspects of these embodied psychotherapies covered concerns about distortions to the history, unacknowledged risks of practice, the ethics of touch, and significant boundary issues. Tensions – and the mixture of roles (trainer, therapist, founder, director, etc.) within many of these (quite small) training organizations was often complex to unravel. Some training schools became perceived as closed communities – something akin to a sect or cult – idealizing the trainer/founder/leader, and ignoring their ‘idiosynchronicities’ – basically a lack of proper awareness of boundary issues or possible contra-indications of the method.

Finally – until relatively recently – there has also been a general lack of properly indexed, peer-reviewed articles, studies or research-based articles in books and professional journals. This delay in the embodied psychotherapy field’s participation in mainstream approaches to communicating its theory has contributed to a perception of its work as academically undeveloped. With a recent upsurge of Body-Oriented publications, as well as some better BP research, this imbalance is gradually being addressed.

I The mind-body problem is the problem of explaining how mental states, events and processes-like beliefs, actions and thinking-are related to the physical states, events and processes, given that the human body is a physical entity and the mind is non-physical: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem).

II Body-Oriented Modalities that have been ‘accepted’ via the EAP’s 15 Questions on Scientific Validity: Biosynthesis; Bioenergetic Analysis; Hakomi; Biodynamic Psychology; Bodynamic Analysis; Emotional Re-Integration; Psycho-Organic Analysis; Concentrative Movement Therapy; Character Analytic Vegetotherapy;

III European Association for Body Psychotherapy (EABP); United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP); Australian Somatic Psychotherapy Association (ASPA); Japan Association for Somatics and Somatic Psychology (JASSP),

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The various embodied approaches – both in physical therapy and in psychological therapies and psychotherapy – have (until recently) put insufficient effort into developing a good scientific basis, though this does not necessarily mean that they are ‘unscientific’. Psychotherapies can be informed by science, and can also inform science, but they are not per se a science (Young, 2012a), so one needs to be cautious in applying a scientific method or a medical model to embodied approaches.

Fortunately, in the last decade or so, the ‘body’ of science with particular relevance to embodied approaches has greatly increased, in particular through the development of the field of neuroscience, which has confirmed much of what, in the view of many practitioners, was ‘known’ already through direct experience (Carroll, 2012).

An appropriate scientific method of gathering evidence for and against these embodied approaches is debatable. Manualised Treatments and Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are increasingly discounted for most of the psychological therapies, despite the considerable amount of such evidence for approaches like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which has been constructed in a way that corresponds to these methods (Richards, 2007). There are also very well trusted scientific studies or reviews, such as those within the Cochrane Society. However, most of these are really oriented much more towards psychotherapeutic treatments that have been utilised for a medical disease or disorder. Some suggest that a wider and more general scientific evidence base, may be appropriate for embodied approaches.

The European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) – an umbrella body for psychotherapy in Europe – has a process for examining the scientific validity of all the various psychotherapeutic methods as follows:-

1. Has clearly defined areas of enquiry, application, research, and practice.
2. Has demonstrated its claim to knowledge and competence within its field tradition of diagnosis/assessment and of treatment/intervention.
3. Has a clear and self-consistent theory of the human being, of the therapeutic relationship, and of health and illness.
4. Has methods specific to the approach which generate developments in the theory of psychotherapy, demonstrate new aspects in the understanding of human nature, and lead to ways of treatment/intervention.
5. Includes processes of verbal exchange, alongside an awareness of non-verbal sources of information and communication.
6. Offers a clear rationale for treatment/interventions facilitating constructive change of the factors provoking or maintaining illness or suffering.
7. Has clearly defined strategies enabling clients to develop a new organization of experience and behaviour.
8. Is open to dialogue with other psychotherapy modalities about its field of theory and practice.
9. Has a way of methodically describing the chosen fields of study and the methods of treatment/intervention which can be used by other colleagues.
10. Is associated with information which is the result of conscious self reflection, and critical reflection by other professionals within the approach.
11. Offers new knowledge, which is differentiated and distinctive, in the domain of psychotherapy.
12. Is capable of being integrated with other approaches considered to be part of scientific psychotherapy so that it can be seen to share with them areas of common ground.
13. Describes and displays a coherent strategy to understanding human problems, and an explicit relation between methods of treatment/intervention and results.
14. Has theories of normal and problematic human behaviour which are explicitly related to effective methods of diagnosis/assessment and treatment/intervention.
15. Has investigative procedures which are defined well enough to indicate possibilities of research.

It can be argued that there are four main areas of research that are most relevant to the field of embodied psychotherapy. These areas are not mutually exclusive, and each serves a slightly different purpose that might help to structure, integrate and define potential research projects that would go to make the evidence-base more solid. These areas of research are:

1. Studies about specific bodily-oriented psychotherapeutic processes and techniques involved in Body Psychotherapy (e.g. ‘grounding’ or ‘mindfulness’ or ‘touch’ or ‘character armour’, etc.);
2. Research into special and specific aspects of Body Psychotherapy: (e.g. the therapeutic relationship, or relational body psychotherapy (Young, 2012b, Totton, 2015); the embodied psychotherapist (Shaw, 2003); somatic resonance (McConnell, 2011); embodied transference & counter-transference (Soth, 2004); etc.);
3. Specific research studies into the various Body Psychotherapy modalities (e.g. outcome studies; case studies, field studies, comparative studies, etc.);
4. Research in relevant and related fields that have a connection to the theory and practice of Body Psychotherapy (e.g. attachment theory, developmental psychology, movement sciences, neuroscience, endocrinology, psychophysiology, etc.). – as well as studies in non-verbal communication, phenomenology of body experiences, body image research, body memory systems, ethnological research and anthropology, etc.

There have only been four or five really good articles that have considered all of these points, and there have also been an increasing number of individual and independent studies, and – while many of these are interesting and valid in themselves – together they only provide a fairly patchy ‘evidence-base’. In addition, there are also – at least – half-a-dozen excellent research studies that have demonstrated both the efficacy (‘Does it work?’) and the effectiveness (‘Does it benefit people?’) of such embodied approaches, to say nothing of their efficiency (‘How much benefit is derived from how much input?’) – and these three measures are all significantly different from each other.

Essentially, what makes the medical model or the natural scientific model inappropriate for embodied and other relational psychotherapies is that it does not account for the presence – physical, emotional, psychic, environmental, societal – of the other person: the therapist. There is not the observed and the observer: there are two bodies in the room and these interact on many different and – in many cases – immeasurable ways, means and levels (Totton, 2015, pp. 40, 44, 48, 209).

Michael C. Heller (1993; 2012, p. 587) – one of the early researchers in Body Psychotherapy, based at the University of Geneva – videotaped patients and coded their postural dynamics and social status using Marcus Frey’s ‘Time Series Notation System’ in response to ordinary therapeutic interventions (also videotaped and coded). He concluded that there were potentially forty-three million different codings in a normal hourly ‘session’: however this would still leave us with the problem of how to analyse and interpret these codings.

Heller writes (2012, p. 668-9) ” … [there are] four forms of knowledge: Speculative, clinical, empirical, and scientific … today, all research blends these four forms of knowledge”: more specifically: “Clinical knowledge is based on the case analyses of individual persons and the way each subject reacts in a relatively standardized setting and set of methods, which allows colleagues to compare their observations”. And – particularly with psychotherapy – clinical knowledge is extremely significant, however these observations (by themselves) do not constitute empirical evidence; and (rigorous) empirical studies – also not ‘scientific’ by themselves – can complement clinical findings to form a solid evidence-base. This is beyond the competence of most individual (body) psychotherapy ‘schools’.

Another basic distinction used in research into methodologies across many different fields is that between quantitative and qualitative methods. It used to be the case that, in imitation of the ‘hard’ or ‘natural’ sciences, only quantitative or empirical research was taken seriously: this “… tries to find predictable causal chains by collecting standardized data (measures, questionnaires, etc.) on a large number of individuals having some [of the same] specific traits (anxiety, depression, cancer, race, sex, etc.)” (Ibid).

However it is now widely agreed that in other fields (e.g. social sciences), that qualitative research, which explores the individual’s subjective experience is as valid and valuable as quantitative research. The classic example from psychotherapy is the case history: a detailed account of a therapeutic relationship over a period of time, which can be analysed in many ways. The EAP proposes that properly conducted – and properly used – case histories have scientific validity.

Thus, we are arguably beginning to see a separation between psychotherapeutic clinicians and psychological research scientists. There are many studies that lack any clinical application; and many clinical applications that have not been researched: researchers also often know very little about clinical practice, and many psychotherapy clinicians have not been trained in research. However, there are a few cases where “… clinical and research processes share common values and methods. By taking advantage of these overlaps, we can increase our capacity as clinician-researchers to engage in our own specific inquiry” (Prengel, 2012).

This leads us a relatively new development: Clinical Practitioner Research Networks (CPRNs), which involve collaboration between clinicians and researchers in medicine as well as psychology. CPRNs are developing both in the USA and in the UK , as well as in other countries. The Scientific Committee of the European Association of Body Psychotherapy (EABP) – is in the process of setting up a CPRN, so as to involve its members (mostly practising clinicians in various methods of embodied psychotherapies) in appropriate forms of research.

One of the more frequently used methodologies by such individual clinicians within a particular discipline is “outcome research” or “outcome studies”, which investigate the results of any particular interventions on the health and well-being of the patients (or clients) involved. Outcome research can also be used on a wider level in research and assessment of a wide range of health services and healthcare outcomes, which utilise a more general assessment of healthcare technology, decision-making, and policy analysis through a systematic evaluation of the quality of care, availability of access, and – of course – effectiveness.

Two ‘multi-centre’ research projects are of particular interest: one evaluating the efficacy of Body Psychotherapy (Koemeda-Lutz et al., 2006), and an effectiveness study of client-centred Body Psychotherapy (Muller-Hofer et al., 2003) (both were in originally in German, now translated). There are also several studies (all of which are Randomised Controlled Trials – RCTs) that explore the use of various forms of embodied psychotherapy approaches for a particular client group: e.g. Nickel et al., 2006(Bioenergetic exercises for somatoform disorders); Rohricht et al., 2011 (Body-oriented psychotherapy for schizophrenics); Lahmann et al., 2010 (Functional relaxation for irritable bowel syndrome); and Rohricht et al., 2013 (Body-oriented psychotherapy for chronic depression).

Some noteworthy research-based studies have been published: Routes to embodiment (Korner, Topolinski & Strack, 2015); Mechanisms of Embodiment (Dijkstra & Post, 2015); Overcoming Dis-embodiment (Martin et al., 2016); Embodiment and the Developmental System (Marshall, 2014); on Embodied Affectivity(Fuchs & Koch, 2014); and the Mechanics of Embodiment (Pezzulo et al., 2011). There are now several doctoral theses and research papers that cover further aspects of embodied approaches (e.g. Kaschke, 2010; Matulaite, 2013).

Several more research listings can be found on the European Association for Body Psychotherapy website (under “Research”: The Evidence-base for Body Psychotherapy). This particular EABP website page mentions a number of articles reviewing all aspects of Body Psychotherapy research: (e.g. May, 2005; Loew et al., 2006; Rohricht, 2009); and other papers describing research into different embodied psychotherapies – particularly (for example) Dance-Movement Therapy (or Dance- Movement Psychotherapy).

In addition, a recent chapter by Barnaby Barratt (2015) in, The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy & Somatic Psychology (Marlock et al., 2015) summarises the ‘state of the art’ of research in these embodied psychotherapies, as did a chapter in the earlier (German) edition, by Loew & Tritt, 2006).

Salvatore et al., (2015) also looks at the wider field of embodiment in psychotherapy and concludes that most communicative processes in psychotherapy are a field-dynamic phenomenon, with temporal differences, occurring in a particular context (i.e. such communications thus relate to a specific moment in time and to a specific moment in the client’s process and the environment of that moment). This perspective builds on an earlier concept (Salvatore & Tascher, 2012), which emphasises that the whole field of psychotherapy (and research into psychotherapy) needs to recognise that psychotherapy is quintessentially dynamic and developmental and there is thus a significant time function (which is often ignored).

Also worth a particular mention here is Robert Shaw’s book and research work (2003, 2004) on ‘The Embodied Psychotherapist‘, which reminds us that we as therapists also need to attend carefully to our own embodiment, and that this internal dynamic can affect the process of the embodiment of the client: ‘You can only take the client as far as you yourself have gone’. This principle is not unique to Body Psychotherapy, as it is also accepted in much of Mindfulness practice, and in many other therapeutic disciplines.

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If we consider how people actually relate with each other, we can see that there are many different levels of energetic exchanges apart from speech, and that a lot of communication is essentially non-verbal (Hinde, 1972). Non-verbal communication can be an extremely significant aspect of interpersonal relationships; much of it is body and thus relates to our own levels of embodiment.

Forms of non-verbal relating include: body language (kinesics); distance and positioning (proxemics); physical appearance (height, weight, clothing, posture, style); gestures; elements of voice (paralanguage – voice quality, rate, pitch, volume, and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation, and stress); touch (haptics); chronemics (the use of time); oculesics (eye contact and the actions of looking while talking and listening); as well as information conveyed through smell (pheromones), and through preconscious modelling (mirror neurones): all of these are embodied. Many are also culturally inflected (Meyers, 2003), especially between genders and social classes within the culture (Bourdieu, 1977, 1984) and also vary with different levels of emotion. Normally, non-verbal language complements verbal communication: although it becomes increasingly significant when it does not.

There is also a strong association between physical experiences and psychological states. Physical experiences can ‘activate’ psychological experiences, which means that when you are happy, you tend to smile and – if you smile – then you will also tend to feel happier (Mattingly, 2012). The relatively new but fast developing field of embodied cognitive science rejects the traditional view that the body is of little significance to mental processes, and argues that our thinking and our knowledge of the world are integrally bound up with our embodied nature. Lakoff & Johnson (1999) write:

Mind is embodied, [but] thought requires a body – not in the trivial sense that you need a physical brain to think with, but in the profound sense that the very structure of our thoughts comes from the nature of the body. Nearly all of our unconscious metaphors are based on common bodily experiences.

The proposition here is that if it is through our body that we know the world, then it is through our body that we know each other. It is the complex balance and interplay between the personalities and emotions of the two (or more) people involved that define the nature of human relationships.

As explained in the previous study guide, each of us has developed a character structure – a body-mind style and set of preferred attitudes and emotions which sum up our past relationships and which also shapes how we will perceive and thus interact with our present and future ones. These character patterns, interacting in complex ways with the character patterns of others, will determine the eventual course and outcome of the relationship, even though the emotional moods of the people involved can vary from moment to moment.

It follows from this that our capacity to relate openly and clearly with others depends on our capacity to relate to ourselves, i.e. to be able to be aware of and get beyond the character patterns that can limit our relational freedom.

We can develop a deeper level of body awareness, simply by feeling and listening to the honesty of our body. This is a key element that allows us to continually develop the level of self-care in our life. (Bordieu, 1977)

This contact with the embodied self is absolutely fundamental to any form of embodied relationship with another person, or any other people, or the world around us. This internal (and relational) process mirrors (and/or is mirrored by) the surrounding social structures: and, to the extent that that society accepts or negates the body, the members of that society will relate to their bodies and to their level of their embodiment.

Many authors throughout time have commented on this – and especially how the social and cultural structures mitigate against any form of embodiment; famously D.H. Lawrence epitomised this in many of his novels and short stories. Many philosophers and spiritual guides also recommend a contemplation of the body, and especially the body in the here-and-now. A currently popular therapeutic technique is Mindfulness practice, and whether or not this is being promoted from within Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy (CBT) by somebody like Jon Kabat-Zinn (2004, 2006), or from a Zen Buddhist perspective by someone like Thich Nhat Hahn (2008), both encourage people to develop an increase in their awareness of their body, and thus a deeper level of embodiment.

Relational Body Psychotherapy

Nearly all practicing Body Psychotherapists actively work with the principle that the body ‘remembers’ what has happened to it (often much better than the mind does), in particular how the body-mind has been negatively impacted and whether this psychic wound or trauma has healed or not.

This imprinting on the body and the body ‘memory’ becomes more apparent when working with people with trauma (viz: Babette Rothschild’s popular (2000) book “The Body Remembers: The psychophysiology of trauma and trauma treatment“). Another well-known trauma therapist, Bessel van der Kolk holds a similar perspective in his latest (2015) book, “The Body Keeps the Score“. Van der Kolk also asserts that you have to be a Body Psychotherapist to work properly with people with trauma.

James Kepner, a Gestalt Body Psychotherapist, indicates – in the title of his (1993) book, “Body Process: A Gestalt approach to working with the body” – that one has to work with the body. He suggest that if you try to get your client to ‘do’ something that meets with an embodied resistance. You will have to work with that opposition before you can proceed further with any therapy. Working through such a resistance involves both people and both bodies.

Within Body Psychotherapy, the concept of embodied relationshipsas well as the relationships that are embodied is becoming an increasingly influential modality (Young, 2012, 2014; White, 2014; Totton, 2015. Body Psychotherapists also often refer to significant recent developments in neuroscience that relate to modern attachment theory (e.g. Beckes et al., 2015) and there also several parallel developments from psychopathology (Fuchs & Schlimme, 2009).

One of the more recent therapeutic developments, Embodied Relational Therapy (ERT) develops a theme that is taken up by a well-known UK Body Psychotherapist, Nick Totton (2005), and his work with Allison Priestman (and others):

What we have just called ‘character structure’ can be usefully reframed as ‘style of relating’. There is a consonance between a person’s style of relating to their conditions of existence – to [their level of] embodiment – and [thus to] their style of relating to other human beings. … Each individual has come up with a brilliant solution to the conditions in which they have found themselves – the optimum style of relating, the optimum balance between body and spirit. Equally, each person is seeking, consciously or unconsciously, to change their behavioural style in accordance with current conditions – which may be very different from the conditions in which we grew up. Whatever appears in a person’s life as a problem, a symptom, a conflict, can also be understood as an incomplete attempt to change and grow.

We can summarise that a person’s ‘character structure’ (viz: Reich, 1933, 1980), or the ‘style of embodiment’ has grown out of their historical developmental environment and their primary relationships. These inevitably structure their current relationships, and thus their ways of relating. Reich’s original theory expanded the concept of psychoanalytic resistance into the more inclusive concept of character. The sum total of the person’s typical (individual) character attitudes were understood to have developed as a block (or resistance) against emotional excitation and this ‘block’ became the object of psychotherapeutic treatment. These ‘encrusted’ attitudes functioned as a form of embodied “armouring” that Reich had found to manifest and be held in chronic muscular rigidities. Others later discovered these existing in more visceral areas as well (viz: Boyesen & Boyesen, 1980; Keleman, 1986; Davis, 2012).

Thus, Reich’s original treatise on Character Analysis had opened the door to a way of approaching psychological problems, which was simultaneously biophysical and also relational. Other psychoanalysts, like Alice Miller (who was not a Body Psychotherapist), also found significances in working with the body, as the title of her (2005) book “The Body Never Lies” indicates. Mind and body could start to come back together again.

As we examine these ‘fundamental’ structures of relationship within ourselves – we discover that they are inevitably ’embodied’ in our relationships with our clients – and in their relationships with us. The ‘shadows’ of these old formational relationships will inevitably re-appear, again and again, in all of our (present) relationships – to be worked with and (hopefully and eventually) resolved into more creative and constructive versions.

We often look for this resolution in others, who are important to us, but it is suggested that any resolution needs to happen within ourselves because it is ‘we’ who are carrying a function of our history. If we take these unresolved issues into new relationships, they will almost inevitably contaminate them, just as we will – almost inevitably – repeat the original relational dynamics, looking for some form of resolution.

This is not, as Patrick Casement (1990; 1992) suggests, a cognitive, intellectual or even psychoanalytical dynamic. It is essentially a hard-wired visceral, somatic and body-oriented dynamic, operating well below the level of consciousness and therefore really only accessible to a body-oriented psychotherapeutic approach. Such an embodied approach helps the client to become much more aware of their own embodied defences and resistances, and then – and only then – can these be effectively challenged, worked with, changed and overcome.

Mindfulness practice, yoga (Rama et al., 1976), Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, psychotherapeutic massage, Touch for Health, Pilates, (or any other of the multitude of body-awareness techniques) may play a significant part of attaining something of this initial awareness of our armouring and of the character-patterns that fundamentally limit us. However, to facilitate the undoing of these patterns or structures, we may need access to something more pragmatic, as though working with a good set of tools (awareness, techniques, interventions) coming from the different types of body-oriented, or embodied, or psycho-somatic psychotherapeutic practices.

All these theoretical, historical, scientific and practical aspects lie behind the actual practice of body-oriented psychotherapy (and the various body psychotherapies, or somatic psychology practices), working within this somewhat extraordinary realm of embodied human relationships. These aspects are also very present in and throughout the actual sessions as they are part of the two (or more) bodies in the room and thus form an essential part of the therapeutic relationship. All these aspects are inevitably and continuously present. However, we require specific training to be aware of and to work with them.

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