Winter 2016

Dear Readers,

Welcome to this the packed Winter issue of 2016. We particularly welcome the broad cultural diversity in this issue. While we all share a similar physiology, the many ways in which we relate is informed and shaped by cultural contexts and experience. This time the journal covers a range of interconnecting themes such as reverie and therapists’ looking inwards, body narrative and identity, the significance of vitality affectivity, body awareness and affect amongst others.

Both Body Psychotherapy and Dance Movement Psychotherapy are uniquely placed to address these themes since they work with physiology and body-in-process as the primary source of unconscious processes. The articles in this issue focus on the above themes from either body or dance movement psychotherapy perspectives.

The first article called ‘Psychic fragments and changing bodies: Theoretical and clinical applications of Bodily-Reverie’ by body psychotherapist Shinar Pinkas, from Israel, explores the art of looking inwards to utilise the therapist’s body to inquire and probe the inter-subjectivities of the unconscious, for example when one person’s intra-psychic phenomena or psychic fragments may become metabolised within someone else’s body. Pinkas examines three somatic aspects of reverie, sensory, resonance and somatic-indwelling. She offers further developments to reverie and suggests that the therapist’s body can be used not only as a diagnostic tool and self-object.

The second article is by Christine Caldwell, a well-known body and dance movement psychotherapist from the USA, with the title ‘Body identity development: Definitions and discussions’ which articulates a theory of body identity that aims to conceptually bridge body psychotherapy and dance movement psychotherapy. Caldwell charts the concept of body identity from historical and developmental roots mapping it onto a current developmental theory called Narrative Identity, resulting in a more inclusive discourse of multiple selves and non-conforming identities. The concept of body narrative is introduced, and seen as the mechanism for the development of body identity for which clinical implications are discussed.

The third article called ‘Belly dance and its links to body psychotherapy’ is by Ruth Cowan a UK body psychotherapist who developed a therapeutic approach that utilises the ancient art of belly dance. Cowan reflects on a range of theoretical aspects and with the aid of a case vignette. The article illustrates how belly dance therapy can empower women to serve themselves in their pleasure and pain by awakening the dissociated, traumatised parts of the body and non-verbal body memories through sensing and feeling the body and verbally articulating this.

The next article is entitled ‘Body awareness and mental health: A body psychotherapy case study’ and is offered by body psychotherapist Haruo Fujino, from Japan. The author reviews the treatment of a patient with depression-related psychiatric symptoms using Dohsa-hou, a Japanese body psychotherapy approach, in a psychiatric out-patient setting. As the therapy progressed, the patient became aware of her tenseness and learned to self-regulate her bodily rigidity resulting in the alleviation of her severe depressive symptoms. Body psychotherapy is rarely practiced in psychiatric settings and alongside psychotropic medication so this article makes a welcome exception and a good case for the potential benefits of body awareness in such circumstances.

The article, entitled ‘Demonized body, demonized feelings: Languaging the affective body’ by Sandra Kay Lauffenburger, a body psychotherapist from Australia, explores the transition from the client’s sublinguistic world of dynamic somatic/motoric experience to verbal, abstract language. Through a case study the author proposes that the most therapeutically effective transition requires attention to the client’s affectivity from an experience-near point of view. The article highlights the crucial role of vitality affects for a client’s well-being, or indeed well-doing, and the bridge building between the non-verbal and the verbal in the therapeutic process.

An article by Zuzana Vasicak Ocenasova from Slovakia with the title ‘Where one cannot speak, there, one can dance: A comparative analysis of dance movement theory and process work’ charts the author’s engagement a dance movement psychotherapist with process-oriented psychology developed by Amy and Arnold Mindell (2000, 2006). In the process the article outlines a comparison of the primary theoretical roots, concepts and frameworks, principles, attitudes, typical interventions, phases of development and scope of practical use of dance movement therapy and process-oriented psychology.

The final article is by Giovanni Ottoboni, Marco Iacono and Rabih Chattat, from Italy called ‘Body-oriented techniques, affect and body consciousness’. They analysed responses before and after two classes of body oriented techniques aimed to enhance wellbeing from 36 adults familiar with body-oriented works with reference to that which they reported about their affective state and their body consciousness levels. Outcomes suggest that specific techniques in body oriented approaches effect different psychological domains.

We have three book reviews in this issue. The first one is by Céline Butté who examines France Schott-Billmann’s book ‘Primitive Expression and Dance Therapy: When Dancing Heals’. The second by Suzi Torora who writes about the book’ Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in Psychotherapy’ by Gill Westland, and finally Shaily Wardimon reviews ‘Talking Bodies’ by Kate White.

We hope you enjoy this packed issue.

Helen Payne
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
[email protected]
Tom Warnecke
Re-Vision Centre for Integrative Psychosynthesis, London, UK