Aposhyan Now

I was going to propose that Susan Aposhyan’s Body-Mind Psychotherapy is a body psychotherapy classic, equivalent to Reich’s Character Structure or Lowen’s Language of the Body. But it’s more than that, its actually a contribution to the field of contemporary psychotherapy as a whole. It heralds the arrival of a complex, body-oriented, systems aware psychotherapy for the 21st century. Aposhyan illustrates throughout how bodymind integration is the ability “to touch deeply enough to include the body, but lightly enough so that the mind opens and releases its fixed identity and view of the world.”

The psychotherapy outlined in this book is grounded in very up to date neurophysiology, affective neuroscience, attachment theory and body systems theory. Complicated, dense and difficult to relate to actual practice? Not at all. The principles of work, and the theoretical and research basis from which they are derived. are very clearly formulated. The level of integration between theory, practice and clinical example is a testament to the actual nature of psychotherapeutic work being described. This is an approach which is sensitive to development, congruence, context and relational nuance. Its also incredibly practical and the case illustrations show how the application of these bodymind principles can be effective in working with early disturbance, severe depression and anxiety, trauma and somatic symptoms.

Aposyhan starts with an overview of the history of bodymind psychotherapy: Reich, the founding father, whose influences continues to permeate and Jung, an analytical cousin, with a different emphasis. She highlights the contributors to the third and fourth generations – Lowen, Keleman, Mindell, Rosenberg. Central to Aposhyan’s own development is the wonderfully creative synthesiser, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, who developed and expanded the discipline of experiential anatomy and movement repatterning. She also draws on the work of Peter Levine and Lisbeth Marcher, key figures in developing somatic trauma therapy.

In addition to this broad base of modern body psychotherapists, Aposhyan introduces us to the line up of the Neuroscience All Stars – Schore, Damasio, Trevarthen, Panksepp, Porges, Llinas. Neuroscience is confirming the basic premise of body psychotherapy: that the sense of self is rooted in the body and catalysed by relationships. So she takes the new research findings in her stride and goes farther than others who have strived to translate the implications of neuroscience for therapy. (Cozzolino, Pally, Gerhardt) Aposhyan communicates her root and branch understanding of the ‘brain-mind-body’ and the range of technical skills to work with it.

The interdisciplinary tempering of one perspective by another – for example evolutionary models by attachment theory – is vital to progress and balance in understanding. Aposhyan’s formulations are clear distillations of this: "As mammals we all have an innate capacity to read certain key aspects of others’ physiolology.” This capacity is enhanced by bodymind trainings, where “the clinicians’s sensitivity to their own bodies is vitalised and naturally generalises to an increased sensitivity to the nonverbal experience of others.“

The book explains how trauma – an intense physiological reactivity – is different from developmental deficiency. Carefully titrated work with this intensity enables stabilisation of neurosphysiology which supports the fabric of the self. Furthermore paying attention to the physiological levels of attunement allows therapists “to work more authentically with development of positive affect “. The critical marriage between cognitive, relational and embodying techniques means that clients can develop resources, experience well-being, and be empowered in an integrated way. In other words, a therapeutic process which is NOT about overlaying cognitive statements that are dissonant with body, nor catharting out pain only to maintain fixed inner patterns of relating, nor about staying stuck for years in a therapy that does not progress or change anything.

From a bodymind perspective, a therapist has many tools for observing how any ‘psychological’ disturbance is actually manifest throughout a client’s bodily organisation and orientation in space. Aposhyan gives the example of a client, Hank, whose conflict around reaching out, unresolved after years of psychotherapy, is visible in “the strong spinal push that came through head, eyes and voice” whilst reaching through the arms is held back. She describes how she worked with “constant negotiating” in order to meet and contain his rage, to help him find the ability to push through his arms and hands into her hands. With the rage comes the terror, and the need to allow and acknowledge the involuntary quivering of his jaw, as well as containing his impulses to explode. She supports him by allowing it to emerge incrementally through practising looking at her “with a sense of power in his eyes”. What comes across is Aposhyan’s almost methodical meeting and processing of layers of embodied internal conflict and distress, each layer being met through movement, contact, understanding and exploration.

Bodymind Psychotherapy sparkles with insight, humour and gentlessness, It also encapsulates a wealth of learning. The body systems approach of recognising the innate functions of different systems – the muscle as structuring, the fluids communicating, the cells transforming and the brain as modulating and co-ordinating is presented for the first time as part of a model of psychotherapy. The traditional body psychotherapy themes of working with breath (“Often the tail end of breath holds the pith of emotional intensity”) meet the newer skills of conscious psychobiological interactive regulation through attunement and tracking body process. Aposhyan defines sequencing as “the uninhibited flow of energy within all parts and aspects of the bodymind and between ourselves and the environment”. Here Reich meets systems thinking, ecopsychology meets movement repatterning, and ancient energy models are grounded in neurophysiology. In terms of psychotherapy, sequencing means the initial perception/identification with the client’s state and subsequent allowance of that state to evolve and develop in the therapist’s body. This is the basis for creative, attuned interventions which are both precise and open-ended.

Bodymind Psychotherapy includes some brief guided experiential excercises, many short and longer case histories, and a wholly uptodate primer of body psychotherapy principles. References to transference and countertransference are minimal but it is evident that this a psychotherapy with a very sophisticated and flexible perspective on the nature of the therapeutic relationship. One which is marked by a very contemporary common sense and an intimate awareness of paradox and polarities.

Roz Carroll is a body psychotherapist with an interest in neuroscience