By Laurie F. Schwartz, L.M.H.C, M.S.

Click here to contact Laurie and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

In the ongoing practice of psychotherapy clients and therapists exchange many words in the often frustrating attempt to make the therapeutic conversation come alive. In the midst of all the verbal communication what is often missing is the sense of both people being fully engaged and focused. Therapy can often too easily become reduced to people talking, communicating with words, and often ignoring the intense sense of life that can emerge when we tap into our immediate emotional and body-centered experience.

While many forms of communication take place outside of verbal dialogue, many therapists have little knowledge how to bring the nonverbal, present moment experience into their work. Yet, with a few basic principles and methods, many of them drawn from body-centered experiential psychotherapy called the Hakomi Method, therapists can help clients in a different way, which enhances both the intensity and the effectiveness of psychotherapy. (Kurtz, 1990). Read the rest of this entry

Written by Julie Simons, LCSW

Bioenergetics is a form of psychodynamic psychotherapy that combines work with the body and mind to help people result their emotional problems and realize more of their potential for pleasure injoy in living.

Bioenergetics psychotherapists believe that there is a correlation between the mind in the body.  What affects the body affects the mind; in what affects the mind affects the body.  The psychological defenses when uses to handle pain and stress of life are also anchored in the body.  They appear in the body as unique muscular patterns that inhibit self expression.  These patterns can be identified and understood by bioenergetics psychotherapists who knows how to look the structure, movement and breathing patterns in a person’s body.

Bioenergetics psychotherapists, like other psychotherapists, focus special attention on the muscular patterns and person’s body.  They are interested in these patterns and their relationship to movement, breath, posture and emotional expression.  Every physical expression of the body has meaning. Read the rest of this entry