What is Body Psychotherapy?

Body Psychotherapy is a wholistic system of counselling that integrates the mind, body, and spirit.  Body Psychotherapy draws upon: yoga; Jungian, Reichian, and Gestalt therapies; movement and dance therapy; acupuncture; meditation; and developmental psychology.   

There are a few basic premises in Body Psychotherapy.  Those being:

1.    Any event that occurs impacts our whole being-physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual. 

2.    Humans are unique energy systems and Body Psychotherapy pays detailed attention to human energy.

3.    Feeling and expression are seen as prime components of healthy functioning.  Breath and movement re-establish the healthy flow of energy in the body. 

4.    The body can be divided into energetic segments which store different memories, emotions, issues, and traumas.  Body Psychotherapy can re-access any event that happened to our body-the body remembers.

If something happens to our energy early in life, then we develop a poor sense of self which becomes buried under defensive blocks.  If we have had to block our feelings, we block the healthy flow of energy in our bodies. 

Blocks appear as muscular tension in the body.  Contacting blocks in the body, relaxing the tensions that produced them, and releasing the energy to flow freely, allows the emergence of the stunted Core Energetic Self buried within each of us.  With energy flowing unimpeded, a person can have the sense of well-being in their body that should have been their birthright. 

Dysfunctional patterns cannot be changed by talk alone, it is only by going back home to the site of where the injury happened-the body-where real change can occur.  When aliveness in the body is reawakened, one experiences an intensified sense of self-authenticity that can be expressed through relationships with others, leading to higher levels of personal fulfillment and intimacy.