The Body Remembers: Working with the Body in Therapy

The body is the blueprint for all of our experiences.  Whatever has happened to us in our lifetime can be re-accessed through the body-the body remembers.  Any traumatic or wounding even will negatively impact the functioning of our body, emotions, thoughts and behaviours.  If we need to either tighten or collapse to restrict our energy and movement, and if this strategy is used frequently, it becomes chronic and fixed in the body.  Body psychotherapists will diagnose the body by observing areas of stillness or blocked movement in the body. 

Treatment consists of a client having direct physical experiences that promote healing.  Simply talking about an issue is not seen to address the root causes of trauma.  Breath is the primary intervention used in body psychotherapy.  Clients do breath work by lying down and deepening their breathing until it stirs up energy and feeling or they are asked to breathe more deeply as they feel and report memories, emotions and beliefs.

A second intervention used in body psychotherapy is expressive movement.  Since a primary goal is to re-establish movement, body psychotherapists encourage their clients to allow their bodies to move with what they feel.  Movement enters into healing all the way from subtle shifts inside the body to expressive gestures such as hitting and kicking.  Sound is also regarded as movement and clients may be asked to make various sounds or be encouraged to vocalize their experience as a way to re-establish movement processes that have been blocked. 

Most body psychotherapists see in the future a deep reclaiming of and regard for our bodies and that all transformational work will involve an emphasis on the body.  It is my hope that by returning home to the body, we will find power, joy and aliveness which has always been our birthright.