Somatic Psychology

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Somatic psychology, also known as body psychotherapy, is an academic and applied 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 (soul, mind) and logia (study). Wilhelm Reich is the founder of somatic psychology and all current therapies that work with the emotional life of the body. He was a student of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Somatic psychology has developed over the last seventy-five years.

Somatic psychology recognizes the continuity and the deep connections that all psycho-corporal processes contribute, in equal fashion, to the organization of the whole person. There is no hierarchical relationship between mind and body, between psyche and soma. They are both functioning and interactive aspects of the whole. Somatic psychology uses the unitary relationship of mind-body as the working model. This holistic model is a key in understanding human development and human problems. Somatic psychology is based in psychological, neurological, developmental, medical, social and cultural science.

The perspective of somatic psychology is that life experiences are embodied. An individual’s past and present whole-body experiences are shaped and expressed in their breathing styles, movement patterns, musculature tensions, cognitive style, emotional expression, and relational patterns. Somatic psychology integrates the mind-body connection with contemporary psychological and developmental theories and practices. It integrates research from related fields such as traumatology, pre- and perinatal psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, and neurodevelopment.

Somatic psychology is an emerging, dynamic field within academic and professional psychology. The practice of psychotherapy in general is undergoing a profound paradigm shift in response to discoveries within developmental neuroscience, research in early child development, and the study of infant and parent interaction. Much of this new research points to the psychological importance of body-based and non-verbal experience across one’s life span, particularly in the first three years of life.

[edit] Application

A wide variety of techniques are used within somatic psychology, including those involving touch, movement and breathing. An individual records life experience during a pre- and nonverbal period differently than during a verbalized and personal narrative period. Somatic therapists working with client’s early experience and “implicit knowing” are conversant with the non-verbal qualities that mark most human communication, especially in the first years of life. This new understanding of consciousness, communication and the mind-body is changing the current dialogue within the field of psychotherapy.

Somatic psychology considers bodily states of consciousness, postures and gestures, muscular patterns, chronic contractions and tensions, movement range and shapes, ways of breathing, skin and color tones, somatic habits, energetic qualities, use of space, and body pulsations and rhythms as a potential part of the therapy process. It utilizes a dynamic systems theory approach that considers the whole person and all of their constituent domains as relevant to the psycho-emotional life. Enormous 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.

Somatic psychologists are continually broadening and deepening the areas of application within the field. This growth is bringing the body, body processes, and body experience into the foreground of theory and practice into many areas. These areas include psychotherapy practice, trauma treatment, child development, infant-parent mental health and attachment theory based practices, neuro-developmental inquiry, health and wellness, pre- and perinatal psychology, evolutionary psychology, psycho-anthropology, and many others.

[edit] Education

State accredited somatic psychology programs that meet the educational requirements for licensure as a California Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) include John F. Kennedy University (JFKU) http://www.jfku.edu/ and California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) http://www.ciis.edu/ The program that meets the educational requirement for licensure for Colorado's Professional Counselor License (LPC) is Naropa University http://www.naropa.edu/

There is a growing body of literature and journals in somatic psychology, and there are several international and national organizations, including the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy http://www.usabp.org/ Somatic psychology books include:

• The Body in Psychotherapy by Johnson and Grand
• Getting Our Bodies Back by Christine Caldwell
• Working with the Dreaming Body by Arnold Mindell
• The Body in Psychotherapy by Edward W.L. Smith
• Body Process by James A. Kepner
• Bonding by Stanley Keleman
• The Body in Recovery by John P. Conger
• The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild
• Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton & Clare Pain
• Body, Breath and Consciousness: A Somatics Anthology, ed. by Ian Macnaughton
• Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma : The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences by Peter A. Levine & Ann Frederick