What is body psychotherapy?
Body psychotherapy can be described as a talking, touch and togetherness therapy. It works from the basis that people experience the world not only through their thoughts and emotions but simultaneously, and foremost, through their bodies. As human beings, all of our mental and emotional experiences occur in conjunction with physical experiences. These experiences are encoded in the body’s patterns, rhythms and reactions, and become our patterns of relating to others and ourselves. While talking therapies address only the mental and emotional aspects of an experience, body psychotherapy acknowledges and works with the whole. This approach enables us to work with the patterns which were laid down in earliest childhood, even before the age where your cognitive memories begin. By working in this way, you can shift and release these patterns on the deepest level, and become open to experiencing more joy, more connection, more vital health and more freedom.
How is it used and who is it for?
Body psychotherapy incorporates touch (biodynamic massage), breathing, movement and other creative/ dynamic techniques to address a wide range of mental and physical health concerns such as anxiety, depression, grief, loneliness and trauma/ childhood PTSD. We would usually begin and end the session by sitting in chairs and talking, and we might spend the whole session like that if that is what is required, yet body psychotherapy is open and creative in response to what is called for in the moment.
Biodynamic Massage
Biodynamic massage is a form of therapeutic touch which works with your body in a deeper way than regular massages. Biodynamic massage works with your autonomic nervous system. Some of the interventions in biodynamic massage work with the sympathetic branch (taking action) of the nervous system, while others work with the parasympathetic branch (resting and digesting).
Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
People who have experienced really difficult life events, people who are living with illness or injury, or have specific conditions such as autism, will likely have a dysregulated nervous system. This may manifest in feeling hyper-stressed and/or responding to certain situations or people as if they are a threat, even though no threat exists.
In these cases, the autonomic nervous system is biased toward experiencing the environment as unsafe, which can limit the body’s ability to heal and recover from trauma or illness.
By listening to the specially filtered music of the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) in the context of the therapeutic relationship, the nervous system can be re-patterned to enhance autonomic regulation, changing the way that you respond to cues from the environment.
Talking
Touch
Togetherness
Let’s work together
Interested in working together? Fill out the contact form and I will be in touch shortly.
