Body Psychotherapy (BP) is a relatively new form of psychotherapy. At times BP is combined with the concept of the mind; hence, Mind-Body Psychotherapy is form of BP. I would also group Mindfulness Psychotherapy into the same realm as BP. Therefore, I have reviewed literature from these three camps in an attempt to have a more comprehensive view of BP. Even though BP is a comparatively new form of psychotherapy, some of its roots can be traced as far back as the 1800s.
Around the years 1893 to 1895 when Freud and Breuer were publishing their works on patients with hysteria, Pierre Janet and Charles Richer combined efforts for two years in a psychology lab to study the breathing patterns of patients who were neurotic (Janet, 1895). Prior to this time, there was not written documentation illustrating the relationship between a person’s body and psychotherapy. Forty years after Janet’s work with breathing patterns, Wilhem Reich released his work on hypoventilation and hyperventilation which present day body psychotherapists are trained to observe and analyze emotional contact with themselves as well as others (Boadella, 1997).
A closer look at Janet’s work illustrates the relationships he made between impaired circulation, congested tissues, cardiovascular functioning, changes in blood pressure and emotional imbalance. Janet’s connections laid the ground work for Reich’s work with somatic anxiety states which he found expressed through disruptions of pulsations in the fluids in tissues. Despite these early findings, psychosomatic therapies are less respected in the hard sciences; however, current authors are once again making the connection between physical illness and suppressed emotions (Leader & Corfield, 2007). I am hopeful th...
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International Journal of Psychotherapy, 2(1), 45-56.
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The main characters, the Hmongs, are a culture of refugee families that supported CIA efforts in Laos. Their culture embeds deep spirituality into its health care, by the doctors of the Merced County hospital. The notion that herbs were strictly to heal the spirit was of course a source of contention for the physicians of the hospital, though nurses might feel that the symbolic effect alone is worth seizing. In other words, whether the physicians ...
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Noyes, Arthur P. M.D. and Kolb, Lawrence C. M.D. Shock and Other Physical Therapies. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Text and Criticism: The Viking Press. New York. 1973. Page 499.
Autogenic training is a method of stress reduction developed in the early 20th century by physiologist Oskar Vogt. While working with a group of hypnotic subjects, Vogt realized that when they went into a hypnotic state, they had a significant decrease in tension, fatigue and headaches. Inspired by this newfound information, a psychiatrist named Johannes Schultz decided to expand Vogt’s research in order to learn more about the workings of autogenics (Olipin & Hesson, 2010). Schultz was able to discover that through self-directed hypnosis, subjects were able to experience sensations of heaviness and warmth, primarily through their arms and legs. From these observations, “Shultz developed a system designed t...
...ng symptoms”. The use of physiology hadn’t exactly transformed society, but it opened up new doors for the study of human behavior.
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2017). Complementary and alternative healing (C. Eliopoulos, Ed.). In Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends & management (7th ed., pp. 205-206). St Louis, MO: Elsevier, Inc.
When comparing the healing philosophy that underpins healing practices of the indigenous tribes it’s evident that all cultures share similar beliefs.
Ross defines and differentiates between the terms healing and curing. She recognizes the fact that healing and curing are very intertwined and it can be hard to distinguish between the two terms. There are differences between the definitions in scholarly and general settings. She references an ethnographic study of healing versus curing conducted by anthropologists Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart in 1999 with native groups in New Guinea. The results of the study looked at how energy used by the different types of tribal healers to either cure or heal a patient. Eastern medicine focuses on how energy interacts with the healing process in connection within the mind. Whereas Western medicine is focused on the mind and the body separately. The practice is considered a holistic approach to finding cures. According to Ross (2013), healing is more a therapeutic process targeting the whole body and specific illness including emotional, mental, and social aspects in the treatment. The act of curing is a pragmatic approach that focuses on removing the problem all together. The life experiences of a person playing into how well certain treatments will heal or cure what is ailing them. These aspects can not be defined with textbook definitions. The interaction that the healing process has with energy is a variable in the success rate. Uncontrolled emotions can have a greater impact on the inside the body than a person can realize. The exploration of energy interaction within the body can be used for greater analysis of health care systems. (21-22). Are Western healthcare facilities purposely “curing” patients just so that they return are few years later? Is Western Medicine built upon a negative feedback loop? The terminolo...
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Anderson et al. (2010) viewed the healing setting as shared beliefs between the client and the practitioner about what healing means (p. 148). They state “the setting in which a treatment occurs imbues the process with power and prestige while simultaneously reminding the participants of the predominant cultural beliefs regarding effective care” (p. 148). In this sense, whatever is acceptable treatment within a specific culture is valid so long as patients believe in the treatment. Thus, what happens in...
The overall history of psychology is a short one in comparison to the other fields of medicine and this is because things considered to fit into psychology today were put in other categories throughout history. They were passed off as other ailments or labeled as nerves or stress (Tracy, 2013). Anxiety disorders were seen as a woman’s problem and unimportant. This is a misconception though, because both men and women suffer from anxiety disorders (Tracy, 2013). As time progressed many things were tried and most failed due to the little to no understanding of the cause. Many early treatments involved bloodletting, hydropathy, herbs and balms, bathing in very cold rivers or streams, and health spas (Tracy, 2013). The a...
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This paper will discuss the mind-body connection and it's relevance to health care professionals and to the public. It will explore the history of the mind-body connection, as well as state research that has been done on the subject. The reader will gain an understanding of the various techniques used in mind-body therapy, as well as their effectiveness.
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Oshita, D., Hattori, K., & Iwakuma, M. (2013). A Buddhist-based meditation practice for care and healing: An introduction and its application. International Journal Of Nursing Practice, 15-23. doi:10.1111/ijn.12040