Background and influences

I have called the course  ‘Embodied Awareness’ rather than ‘body awareness’ because it builds on the idea that our bodies act as antennae for our own and our clients unformulated but impinging feelings and ideas. Awareness is mediated through the body, rather than just focussed on the body.

I use the words ‘A New Anatomy’ to emphasize  that it represents a paradigm shift away from the traditional anatomy of Western medicine which was based on the dissection of dead bodies.  This is living anatomy, or experiential anatomy (Olsen, A & McHose, K. 1991). Or emotional anatomy, as Keleman called it.  The experiential entry into awareness complements the ever more detailed descriptions from neuroscience of the fine-grained inter-relation of brain, body and context.

In this course I draw on a body psychotherapy tradition of building awareness of the body; the pioneering synthesis represented by Bodymind Centering; my training in movement disciplines, especially authentic movement;  my study of neuroscience; and finally my interest in attachment and intersubjectivity.

Body psychotherapy

Sensory awareness was originated by Elsa Gindler in Germany around 1910.  She developed the idea of the ‘body scan’, a practice based on paying attention to sensations, feelings and movement impulses as they arise in the body. Gindler was the first to use the word 'experiment' in relation to people's working with their own awareness of body sensation in interaction with their environment. Her work aimed to engender ‘a wakeful relation to the regulating and regenerating processes of one’s own body’( Geuter, U, Heller M.C., & Weaver, J. (2010) : 63)

The therapist tracks the moment-by-moment observable physical changes in the client that correspond to emotions, thought and narrative such as:

And the therapist also attends to his or her own shifts in state by attending to sensations, images, affect and relational response – or dissociative gaps -  as they arise or impinge.

This basic skill is foundational for many more advanced skills of relational psychotherapy.

Body-MindCentering (BMC) is a synthesis of movement and bodywork disciplines designed to enhance experience and understanding of the body in a wide range of occupations: dance and movement arts; occupational, movement, dance and speech therapies; psychotherapy, medicine, child development, education; voicework, music-making and visual arts, meditation, yoga, and athletics.

Developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, BMC is an experiential study based on the embodiment and application of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical and developmental principle. These utilize movement, touch, voice and mind. www.bodymindcentering.com

This course draws on Body-mind Centering but it is not a Body-Mind Centering training. Rather I have taken the basic BMC framework of the body systems as a map for supporting a range of ways of coming back into and deepening self-sensing and self-regulation. I present my own synthesis as described  here along with my co-trainers who have different background in Eutony and Gestalt. I add neuroscience – particularly the emphasis on  the ‘human engagement system’ ; I also bring in a body psychotherapy emphasis on belly-heart-pelvis and centres of awareness, as well as experience of working with relational touch.

The beauty of BMC is its anchor in ‘real’ anatomy but with a focus on the experiential qualities of the systems, and learning to differentiate awareness. In an interview in ‘Sensing, Feeling and Action’ Bonnie puts it like this:

 “Some people feel things more through the bones, another person more through the muscles, some say they’re more into the senses. Its different if you sense something than if you feel it, than if you simply do it. Sensing is related to the nervous system through the perceptions. Feeling and flow are related to the fluid system including the circulatory, lymphatic and cerebral-spinal fluids. “ p64

Authentic movement  

Authentic Movement offers the opportunity to develop a deep, self -sensing awareness. Authenticity is not a goal to be achieved, but rather a constant process of becoming. It is both sought for, through deep attention, and waited for with humility. Each individual has to discover it in their own way - listening, tuning into, internally generated cues...a sensation, an image, an impulse, a feeling.  This process is contained and elaborated within the mover-witness relationship.  

Deriving originally from the work of the pioneering movement therapist Mary Whitehouse, Authentic Movement has been extended by her student Janet Adler. Whitehouse encouraged the development of kinesthetic awareness and drew on Jung's method of active imagination to invite free association in movement.  For more on authentic movement click here

Neuroscience

Despite the increasing prominence of the body in neuroscience (Damasio, Schore, Panksepp, Trevarthen, Cozzolineo, Siegal etc), little is specified in these writings about the detail or systems of the body; the focus remains on parts of the brain.

Neuroscience can help us appreciate how our bodies and brains work together, shaped and developed by the relational environment. This is useful theoretical knowledge. However, whilst we can never actually ‘know’ experientially what our brain is doing, we can track what is happening in our bodies.

I have written a number of articles [link to index of papers] and chapters [link to Books on homepage] on neuroscience. In this course I integrate some of the neuroscience into the overview of the body systems.

Attachment & Intersubjectivity

In my original training at Chiron, the body was understood primarily through a Reich model. He situated bodily experience within a frame that co-ordinated physiology, mental representation, unconscious communication – including transference – and the impact of society on an individual. His was a psychoanalytic model, with a radical critique of the mental emphasis of Freud’s thinking.

Attachment theory, originated by Bowlby,  drew on ethology, evolutionary theory, general systems theory, and empirical research as well as psychoanalytic thinking. In the past decade I have come to see attachment theory as a more coherent base than the Reichian model for bringing together an account of body, mind, and relationships. This is because attachment theory prioritises relationships within a systems view. Contemporary attachment theory elucidates a theory of development which moves through the physiological bond to emotion regulation to the ability to symbolize. (Wallin 2007)

Schore comments that “attachment theory has spawned one of the broadest, most profound and creative lines of research in twentieth century psychology” because it is a heuristic complete theoretical model which can “shift back and forth between the psychological and biological levels”.

Intersubjectivity is a fundamental property of human relating, evident from conception onward and a developmental achievement with different levels of sophistication. Intersubjectivity refers to the most immediate level of
shared embodied relationship (such as the ability to grasp the affects and
intentions of others) and to the ways in which we learn about others in a triangular relationship of self-other-world.

These are just some of the influences that have shaped the development of this course on Embodied Awareness: A New Anatomy.

Cozolino, L (2006)The neuroscience of human relationships: attachment and the developing social brain New York : Norton

Damasio, A Descartes Error:Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (Putnam, 1994)

Geuter, U, Heller M.C., & Weaver, J. (2010) ‘Elsa Gindler and her influence on Wilhelm Reich and body psychotherapy’ Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, vol 5, no 1, April

Olsen, A & McHose, K. (1991) BodyStories: An Experiential Anatomy (Station Hill Press, New York)

Soth, M (2002)  A Response to Maggie Turp’s Paper from a Body Psychotherapy perspective European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2002 , pages 121 – 133

Wallin, D.J.(2007) Attachment in Psychotherapy  New York: Guilford Press