Body Psychotherapy

Body Psychotherapy (also known as body-oriented psychotherapy) is a branch of Somatic Psychology and Psychotherapy with origins in clinical psychology and in the work of Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud. Body psychotherapy addresses both the body and the mind as a whole with emphasis on the reciprocal relationships within body and mind.

One branch of body psychotherapy evolved from the work of Wilhelm Reich, author of Character Analysis and many other books, and who developed his form of "Psychoanalysis" into what he called Vegetotherapy or Character-Analytic Vegetotherapy. When he moved to America in 1939, he proceeded to influence therapists both in the United States and in Europe. Many of these therapists practiced and developed their own (neo-)Reichian therapy. Another branch has evolved out of Arnie and Amy Mindell's work with the dreambody. Mindell, once a Jungian analyst, began researching illness as a meaningful expression of the unconscious mind. This is an integrative approach to illness, which addresses the cultural, emotional, spiritual and physical connections that illness invites. The dreambody is believed to be an organizing principle in the background somewhat like a morphogenetic field (sensu Rupert Sheldrake). Other branches trace their roots to individual founders of distinctive forms such as Rolfing to Ida Rolf and biodynamic psychology to Gerda Boyesen (see below).

The term Body psychotherapy was utilised first in the 1980s as professional associations in this type of psychotherapy began to form. There are now associations of Body psychotherapy around the world and many journals inclduing the USABP Journal of Body Psychotherapy.

Field Leaders

 * Ida Pauline Rolf founded Rolfing
 * Elsworth Baker (Orgonomy, founded The American College of Orgonomy)
 * Jon Kabat-Zinn mindfullness meditation of Professor of Medicine University of Massachusetts Medical School
 * David Boadella (Biosynthesis)
 * Gerda Boyesen (Biodynamic Psychology)
 * Charles Kelly (Radix)
 * Ron Kurtz (Hakomi)
 * Alexander Lowen (Bioenergetic Analysis)
 * Lisbeth Marcher (Bodynamics)
 * Susan Aposhyan (Body Mind Psychotherapy)
 * Albert Pesso, Diane Boyden-Pesso (Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor, PBSP)
 * John Pierrakos (Core Energetics)
 * Ola Raknes (Character Analytic Vegetotherapy)
 * Jack Lee Rosenberg (Integrative Body Psychotherapy IBP)
 * Ilana Rubenfeld (Rubenfeld Synergy)
 * Christine Caldwell (The Moving Cycle)
 * Pat Ogden & Kekuni Minton (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy)
 * Myron Sharaf
 * Jay Stattman (Unitive Psychotherapy)
 * Lynne Zettl & Edward Joseph (Self-Regulation Therapy)
 * Wilhelm Reich