Body-psychotherapy approach

Body Psychotherapy is a process of deep change through mental, emotional, and physical awareness.

Our life story is imprinted in our minds and bodies: how we stand, breathe, and move reveals how we have experienced joy and pain in the past and how we respond to life events in the present.

In addition, many medical conditions have phycological causes; therefore, this holistic approach could help you resolve some medical issues and boost phycological functioning.

Body Psychotherapy is one of the oldest branches of therapy, dating back to the origins of Freud’s psychoanalysis. The fundamental assumption is an inseparable link between the mind and the body. This link defines the sense of “self” and the way we relate with “others”. In recent years, neuroscience has confirmed the body-mind connection and offered evidence-based validation and new tools for body psychotherapy.

Body Psychotherapy combines talking therapy with embodied experience. It starts with a growing awareness of “what is” (how emotions and thoughts are reflected in the body) and follows with “what can become” (a long-lasting personal and relational transformation).

It helps to enable reparation work on early deficits. Other aspects of psychodynamic work that are used include ego psychotherapy for deeper analysis and early relationships that appear again in the transferential aspects of the therapeutic relationship. This early ‘developmental’ work enables us to repair early schemas of disturbed or distorted contacts more successfully and more easily.

In a typical session, your therapist helps you identify deeply rooted beliefs, feelings, and behaviours through observation and exercises around muscle tone, posture, and breathing. This gets you firmly grounded in your embodied present. From that position, you can explore and experience with your therapist new ways of thinking, acting, and relating.