BODY PSYCHOTHERAPY

„I am rooted, but I flow.“

Virginia Woolf

“Du musst lernen, auf dich zu warten.”

Ilse Schmidt-Zimmermann

In the roots of psychotherapy, the body has largely been neglected. However, the body is the very foundation of our human existence, our “housing”, our “home”. It is inseparably connected to our emotions and inhales the atmosphere in which we grow up to embody it later on. The body provides access to unconscious and deeper emotions, often more so than language does. Our bodies are mirrors of our souls, emotions are symbolized through body sensations. Many people have difficulties to really sense their bodies, though. Protection mechanisms can be the cause of that – unpleasant emotions are avoided by avoiding to sense the body. As a result, our vitality as well as our emotional and physical sensitivity will be strongly limited. When pain is suppressed, joy is going to be felt less intensely, too. We lose our orientation in life. Normally, we’ve got a physically anchored sensation of what feels right and what feels wrong to us. We have to allow ourselves to perceive it, though, even if it might mess with our concepts about ourselves or life. 

Our body posture mirrors our attitude towards life – where do we get tense and narrow ourselves down, where do we lack power and collapse? Becoming more conscious about how we move through life in our bodies will help us to gain understanding about ourselves. Body psychotherapy sharpens the perception of the body and thus enhances contact with ourselves. Body perception and getting in touch with ourselves can be actively learned – it is going to need time to develop, though. We can also sense blocks in our body. Certain regions of our bodies might not be accessible to our perception or they might be perceived as separate from each other. This corresponds to our souls, our emotions, our biographies. More connection in and with our bodies means to be more connected to our authentic feelings – we are more grounded, feel more accepting towards ourselves, are able to act more lightly and with less fear. Grounding is the foundation for straightening up and expansion. We grow into our natural sizes and learn to fill up our bodies with ourselves so that we become more visible in the outside. We learn to “reorganize” ourselves physically and emotionally – in a suitable relation of solidity, form and muscle power on one hand as well as openness and emotional flexibility on the other hand.