We are cognitive beings, and yet we experience the world first and foremost through the body. Our senses constantly tell us what they perceive; we often have a direct “gut feeling”, we feel how grounded we are, or we sense when something comes too close. Alongside all its other tasks, the body always serves as a bridge: to experience, to the next impulse, to expression, and to learning new capacities.
Especially when our thoughts go in circles, or when we’ve thought everything through and still feel stuck, the body can show us new paths and open doors. Working with the body is often far more immediate than staying purely on the verbal, cognitive level.
Over the course of the process we can learn to sense more precisely, to feel more connected to our bodies, to grow steadier, and gradually to trust the body again — to draw on its wisdom and strength and so become more fully ourselves.
Body psychotherapy has a living, rich tradition and offers many ways to work directly with breath, grounding, centring, stabilisation, posture and interaction. Through awareness exercises, expressive and movement work, enactments and creative processes, a field opens for direct, felt, whole and alive experiences in relating to oneself and others.
An article on working with inner parts — how we can get to know and integrate the more challenging parts of ourselves.