The BodyMind Approach™, medically unexplained symptoms and personal construct psychology

Abstract

This article outlines how the body produces medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). The BodyMind Approach™ (TBMA™) is a suggested therapeutic intervention for disrupting the expression of MUS. This is discussed in three main sections, each section relating to the previous one. First, the models of dissociation and conversion are expanded from a basis of personal construct psychology in which the body is related to psychological activities. Second, the way to release physical symptoms is to raise the levels of the awareness, in which preverbal constructs and suspended events effecting the generation of MUS are embodied. Third, TBMA™ is proposed as an appropriate treatment intervention. The reasons for this are discussed by explaining how the therapeutic process breaks down dissociation and conversion models.

Keywords::

• medically unexplained symptoms
• personal construct psychology
• trauma
• The Bodymind Approach™
• levels of awareness
• preverbal constructs
• suspended events

Acknowledgements

YuChi Lin, the first author, thanks her supervisors, Professors Helen Payne and David Winter, for their tremendous help and support in the research. She also thanks the research participants, Meng-Ying Hsieh, for facilitating the TBMA group in Taiwan, and Ming-Fong Liu, for discussing the conceptual framework of this article.

Notes

^1. For more description of AM and the use of it as a technique of active imagination, see the work of Chodorow (1991).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

YuChi Lin

YuChi Lin worked as an actress and a dancer for more than 10 years before completing a master's degree in Dance Movement Psychotherapy at Goldsmiths College in 2011. After graduating, she became a Ph.D. student at the University of Hertfordshire where she is researching the use of The BodyMind Approach as an intervention for culturally related depression in Taiwanese women.

Helen Payne

Professor Helen Payne, Ph.D. is a The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)-accredited psychotherapist; fellow the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK (ADMP.UK) and senior registered dance movement psychotherapist who helped to pioneer Dance Movement Psychotherapist (DMP) in the UK, leading the professional association, post graduate-accredited training, research and publications. She conducts research, supervises Ph.D. students, teaches and examines nationally and internationally. She is a Director of The University of Hertfordshire spin-out social enterprise company ‘Pathways2Wellbeing’ which trains facilitators in TBMA™ for patients with persistent, physical symptoms which have no medical explanation.