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Somatic psychology:
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Mind-body interventions - edit
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  1. Alternative Medical Systems
  2. Mind-Body Intervention
  3. Biologically Based Therapy
  4. Manipulative Methods
  5. Energy Therapy
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Somatic psychology, also referred to as Body Psychotherapy, is an interdisciplinary field involving the study of therapeutic and holistic approaches to the body, somatic experience, and the embodied self. The word somatic comes from the ancient Greek somat (body). The word psychology comes from the ancient Greek psyche (breath, soul hence mind) and logia (study).

Whilst Pierre Janet can perhaps be considered the first 'Body Psychotherapist' (or 'Somatic Psychologist') due to his extensive psychotherapeutic studies and writings with significant reference to the body (some of which pre-date Freud), it was actually Wilhelm Reich who was the first person to bring body awareness systematically into psychoanalysis, and also the first psychotherapist to touch clients physically, working with their bodies.[1] Reich was a significant influence in the founding of Body Psychotherapy (or Somatic Psychology as it is often known in the USA & Australia) - though he called his early work "Character Analysis"[2] and "Character-Analytic Vegetotherapy"). Several types of American body-oriented psychotherapies trace their origins back to Reich, though there have been many subsequent developments and other influences (ref: entry on Body Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology is of particular interest in trauma work.[3][4]

The establishment of the US Association of Body Psychotherapy (www.usabp.org) and several American university-based Masters & Doctoral programs in Somatic Psychology have aided its growing recognition, though Somatic Psychology has not yet been accepted as a division by the Americian Psychology Association, though Clinical Neuropsychology (which has close parallels) has. In recent years, Body Psychotherapy (Somatic Psychology's European counterpart) has been accepted politically as a mainstream branch of psychotherapy within the European Association of Psychotherapy (www.europsyche.org).

There is increasing use of body-oriented techniques within mainstream psychology (like EMDR) and Mindfulness practice) and psychoanalysis has recognized the use of somatic resonance, embodied trauma, and similar concepts, for many years.

Historically, there are early practitioners, for example, the Persian physician Avicenna (980 to 1037 CE) who performed psychotherapy only by observing the movement of the patient's pulse as he listened to their anguish.[5] This is reminiscent of both traditional Tibetan medicine and current energy therapies that employ tapping points on a meridian. As a contrast to Descartes' "I think, therefore I am", which help reinforce the mind-body separation, some writers describe the "body as a slow mind"[6] and this re-examination of the fundamental mind-body dichotomy has coincided with research into neuroscience,embodiment and consciousness, and an unconscious mind that 'speaks' through the language of body.

Dance therapy or (Dance Movement Psychotherapy) also reflects something of this approach and is considered a parallel to the field of somatic psychology.[7][8][9][10]

Contents

[edit] Principles

The primary relationship addressed in somatic psychology is the person's relation to and empathy with their own felt body[11] and bodily sense of self.[12]

It is based on a belief, grounded in ancient principles of vitalism, that energy will bring healing to the affected parts if sufficient awareness is directed there. Some somatic practitioners believe they are working with a universal human energy field (perhaps as a metaphor of all of the foregoing principles).

[edit] Applications

A wide variety of techniques are used in somatic psychotherapy including sound, touch, mirroring, movement and breath. An individual records life experience during a pre- and nonverbal periods differently than during a verbalized and personal narrative period. Working with the client's implicit knowing[13][14] of these early experiences, somatic psychology includes the non-verbal qualities that mark most human communication, especially in the first years of life. This understanding of consciousness, communication and mind-body language challenges some traditional applications of the talking cure.[15]

Practitioners in this field believe psychological, social, cultural and political forces support the splitting and fragmentation of the mind-body unity. These pressures affect an individual’s mental, biological, and relational health. For example, the writer Alice Miller's in her recent book 'The Body Never Lies'[16] says, Ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, cigarettes or medicine, it usually has the last word because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but is rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality.

Somatic psychologists tend to bring body, body processes, and body experience into the foreground of psychotherapy practice.

[edit] Critique

1. The level of evidence required in psychology and pharmacology for an efficacious treatment is a fraction of that required in physical sciences. 'What criterion', of evidence Stenger asks, 'should be applied to those studies that claim to show some therapy works, when that therapy violates well established scientific principles, such as the conventional laws of physics?'.[17]

2. The concept of body is socially constructed. What has been considered the limits of body has changed significantly throughout the history of medicine and likely will continue to change as mechanisitic principles underlying mind and body are disclosed by the scientific method.

3. The flaws of a theory of vitalism, which gives rise to models of bioenergy in many culture for example, qi and prana, are well argued here as a form of Neurotheology.

4. Wilhlem Reich's pre-eminence as founder of the modern field is open to question. His teacher and the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud explored the role of body in neurosis as well as undertaking research on the therapeutic effects of cocaine (beginning on April 24, 1884 when he ordered his first gram of cocaine from the local apothecary).[18][19] Freud also showed an interest in the nasal reflex neurosis and in vital periodicity, explored during a significant relationship with Wilhelm Fliess between 1887 and 1902.[20] Wilhelm Fliess believed that the nose was the centre of all human illness through its structural deviations to the passage of breath.[21][22] Freud ordered all his correspondence with Fliess be destroyed. Princess Marie Bonaparte ensured that it wasn't.

5. In addition the early history of clinical psychology points to somatic psychotherapy first practiced in Persia around 930 CE.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Boadella, D. (1985) Wilhelm Reich: The evolution of his work. Arkana: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 1-85063-034-8
  2. ^ Reich, W. (1933/1974) Character Analysis, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, ISBN 374-50980-8-1045
  3. ^ Moskowitz, A., Schafer, I., & Dorahy, M.J. (Eds)(2008) Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation: Emerging Perspectives on Severe Psychopathology. Wiley, Blackwell.ISBN 978-0470511732 (See esp. Chap. 7., re P. Janet on hallucinations, paranoia, & schizophrenia.)
  4. ^ Ogden, P., Minton, K. & Pain, C. (2006) Trauma and the Body: A sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-70457-0
  5. ^ Afzal Iqbal & Arberry A. J., 'The Life and Work of Jalaluddin Rumi' page 94
  6. ^ Friedman, L., Moon, S.I.S. & Friedlander, L. (1997) Being Bodies: Buddhist women on the paradox of embodiment. Second Story Press, ISBN 978-1570623240
  7. ^ Meekums, B. (2002) Dance Movement Therapy: a Creative Psychotherapeutic Approach. London: Sage, ISBN 978-0761957676
  8. ^ Chodorow, J. (1991) Dance Therapy and Depth Psychology. London: Routledge, ISBN 978-0415041133
  9. ^ Lewis, P. (1991; 1988) Theoretical Approaches in Dance Movement Therapy. Vols I & II, USA: Kendall/Hunt, ISBN 978-0840339942 & 978-0840346483
  10. ^ Payne, H.(ed).(2006)Dance Movement Therapy: Theory, Research and Practice (2nd edn). Tavistock/Routledge, ISBN 978-1583917039
  11. ^ Gendlin, E 'Focusing-oriented Psychotherapy' Guilford Press 1996
  12. ^ Willberg P.,'Soma psychology, soma sensitivity' retrieved from [1] May 17 2007
  13. ^ Rolf 'Two Theories of Tacit and Implicit Knowledge' retrieved from [2] May 20 2007
  14. ^ Knowledge (Implicit Explicit) Philosophical aspects retrieved from [3] May 20 2007
  15. ^ Wilberg, P 'From Psycho-somatics to Soma-semiotics' New Gnosis Publications 2003
  16. ^ Miller A. 'The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effect of Cruel Parenting' W. W. Norton & Company (May 2, 2005) ISBN-10: 0393060659 ISBN-13: 978-0393060652
  17. ^ Stenger,V.J. 'The Energy Fields of Life' retrieved from [4] May 21, 2007
  18. ^ Freud and Cocaine -- The Deal retrieved from [5] May 22, 2007
  19. ^ Freud and cocaine: [6]
  20. ^ Chiriac J translated by Mihaela Cristea retrieved from [7] May 22, 2007
  21. ^ Louis Breger. Freud: darkness in the midst of vision. John Wiley & Sons, 2000
  22. ^ Dominic Streatfeild. Cocaine: An unauthorized biography. Dunne Books, June 2002

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_psychology"



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