Body-oriented psychotherapy - what is it? Body-oriented therapy

Body-oriented psychotherapy (BOP) is a group of psychotherapy methods focused on

study of the body, the patient’s awareness of bodily sensations,
to explore how needs, desires and feelings manifest themselves in different bodily states, and
to teach realistic ways to resolve dysfunction in this area.

Body-oriented psychotherapy is a therapeutic practice that allows you to work with the client’s problems and neurosis through procedures of bodily contact.

The original, more precise and capacious term “body work” is translated simultaneously as “work with the body” and “work with the body.”

The purpose of body-oriented psychotherapy, like any other therapy, is to achieve emotional and physical comfort.

This is possible by understanding your problem, perceiving new ideas and information about possible ways her decisions, free expression of feelings.

Body-oriented psychotherapy helps:

restore contact with own body, its sensitivity (when the body is there, but the person does not feel it);
restore sensitivity of individual parts of the body;
recover from injuries that lead to impairment motor activity, especially during the rehabilitation period;
for problems with coordination of movements, sense of boundaries;
with obsessive states;
with delayed physical and mental development (the body seems to be stuck at a certain age and does not want to grow);
with emotional imbalance (difficulty in containing or expressing emotions);
when rejecting oneself, one’s external image, problems with weight;
with a visible lack of stability in life;
having experienced violence, including sexual violence;
with acute grief, unexperienced grief, fear of death and fear of losing loved ones;
when it is impossible to rest, fear of stopping, inability to live “here and now.”

Body-oriented therapy also helps with many other psychological and psychosomatic difficulties.

In Body-oriented psychotherapy - they work with

Sensations: pain, cold, pressure - their detection and differentiation;
Feelings: grief, joy, fear, etc.;
Emotions, like bodily tension;
Processes: breathing as an indicator of quality of life, heartbeat;
Structure: thinness, fullness, lethargy, activity, knowledge of the psychological meaning of movements
By impulses: study of the chain impulse - desire and emotions - plan and decision - action - assimilation (body signals that arise suddenly and encourage action).
Creating bodily resources

The “key” to entering a person’s problems is his body; this is the main feature of body-oriented psychotherapy. It is real, “always with you” and the body remembers everything.

TOP studies the mechanisms of interaction and restores connections between the body, feelings, thoughts, in other words, between sensations, emotions, and actions.

From the history of Body-Centered Therapy:

This direction became widely known and systematized thanks to the works of W. Reich, starting in the late 30s. Reich believed that defensive forms of behavior, which he called the “characteristic armor,” are manifested in muscle tension, forming a protective “muscle armor,” and constricted breathing. Therefore Reich used various procedures contact with the body (massaging, controlled pressure, soft touch) and regulated breathing, the purpose of which was to analyze the structure of the client’s character, identify and work through muscle tension, leading to the release of repressed feelings. Respectively common basis TOP methods, which historically determined their separation from psychoanalysis, is the use in the process of therapy (body-mind therapy) of the therapist’s contact with the client’s body, based on the idea of the inextricable connection between the body (body) and the spiritual-psychic sphere (mind).

A great contribution to the development of TOP was made by: bioenergetic psychoanalysis (A. Lowen); somatic therapy - biosynthesis (D. Boadella); primary therapy, or therapy of the primary cry (A. Yanov); motor exercises related to identifying and improving habitual bodily postures (F. Alexander), as well as awareness and development of bodily energy (M. Feldenkrais), etc.

Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich is the founder of the European school of body-oriented psychotherapy. Born March 24, 1897 in Galicia. Subsequently, he entered the university at the Faculty of Law, but by the end of the first semester he was disappointed and transferred to Faculty of Medicine. He received a medical degree, and then continued his training as a psychiatrist for another 2 years.

During his first year, he attended a lecture on psychoanalysis. And from that moment on, a turbulent period of his psychoanalytic life began. He was Freud's clinical assistant, conducted educational seminars, and practiced. And, in fact, he created his own concept - vegetotherapy, therapy through the body.

A notable contribution to psychoanalytic theory was the shift from talk to body therapy. Reich began to pay attention to the patients' bodies, analyzing in detail postures and physical habits in order to make patients aware of how they suppressed life's feelings. He asked patients to strengthen a certain clamp in order to become more aware of it, feel it and identify the emotion that is connected in that part of the body. He noticed that during similar experiences, similar tensions arise in the body. This observation gave him the idea of a direct connection psychological problems with certain sensations and movements in the body.

Reich creates a special therapeutic technique, the idea of which is to pay attention to bodily sensations and explore how needs, needs and feelings are encoded in the body.

Reich introduced the basic concepts into body-oriented psychotherapy:

Support.
Energy (bodily energy - orgasmic energy - orgone energy)
Basic (nuclear issue)
Muscle clamp, block, secondary blocking
Muscular armor and armor of character
Shell structure and character structure
Psychosomatic medicine
Body pattern and personality type formation
Psychological growth.

The goal of therapy is to achieve a state in which the patient spends as much energy as it has been accumulated.

Reichian therapy consists primarily of unraveling the shell in each segment, from the eyes to the pelvis. Each segment is more or less independent and can be dealt with separately.

According to Reich, there are three ways to open the shell:

accumulation of energy in the body through deep breathing;
direct impact on chronic muscle tension (through pressure, pinching, etc.) to relax them;
expression - a bright exaggerated expression of feelings.

Reich believed that defensive forms of behavior, which he called “characteristic armor,” are manifested in muscle tension, forming a protective “muscular armor,” and constricted breathing. Therefore, Reich used various body contact procedures (massaging, controlled pressure, soft touch) and controlled breathing, the purpose of which was to analyze the client’s character structure, identify and work through muscle tension, leading to the release of repressed feelings

During the scientist's lifetime, the bulk of his revolutionary ideas were not accepted by the majority of his colleagues. All his life he was surrounded by misunderstanding, slander, speculation, persecution by authorities and bans on conducting experiments in different countries.

Reich invented orgone batteries that restore human energy. American court banned the sale. Reich went into conflict, for which he was sentenced to two years in prison, where he died in 1957. at the age of 60 years.

“Patients who come to an orgone therapist are filled with problems. A trained eye detects these problems through the expressive movements and emotional displays of their bodies. If you allow the patient to say what he wants, the conversation will lead away from the problems, it will, one way or another, camouflage and cloud them. In order to correctly assess the situation, it is necessary to ask the patient to remain silent. This method is very fruitful. When the patient stops talking, his body shows emotions much more clearly. After a few minutes of silence, it is usually possible to identify a prominent character trait or, more precisely, a plasmatic emotional manifestation. If the patient seemed to be smiling friendly during the conversation, now that he has fallen silent, his smile turns into an empty grin, the mask-like character of which will soon become noticeable to him. If the patient seemed to be talking very seriously about his life, then as soon as he became silent, an expression of repressed anger appeared through his chin and neck.”

“...Armor blocks anxiety and energy that has not found a way out, the price of this is impoverishment of the personality, loss of natural emotionality, inability to enjoy life and work...You can get out of the trap. However, to get out of prison, you need to understand that you are in prison. The trap is emotional structure man, his characteristic structure. There is little use in inventing systems of thought about the nature of the trap; the only thing you need to get out is to know the trap and find a way out.”

“Healthy sensuality and the ability to satisfy your desires generate a natural sense of self-confidence.”

“Your conscious actions are just a drop on the surface of a sea of unconscious processes about which you cannot know anything, which you are afraid to know.”

Wilhelm Reich.

Alexander Lowen

Alexander Lowen is a famous American psychologist, founder of bioenergetics analysis (bioenergetics) and researcher of sexuality problems.

Wanting to become a professor of law, A. Lowen studied to become a lawyer, then worked as a teacher at a college.

In search of solutions to personal problems, he became interested in bodily work and the relationship between mind and body.

Alexander Lowen became a student of courses on character analysis, which at that time were taught by Freud's student Wilhelm Reich at the New School social research. Lowen was fascinated by Reich's ideas, in which he found answers to many questions that worried him.

What is the essence of bioenergetic psychoanalysis by A. Lowen:

Work with a client consists of two sources - analysis of personal history and work with chronic tensions in the body.

From the point of view of the bioenergetic approach, chronic tension in the human body is a consequence of an internal conflict that cannot be resolved. This conflict arises from the contradiction between the principle of pleasure, which underlies the biological nature of man, and reality, in which restrictions and even prohibitions are encountered.

What is pleasure?

Lowen believed that a living organism functions only if there is a balance between charge and discharge energy that maintains an energy level consistent with our needs and capabilities. The amount of energy a person consumes will correspond to the amount of energy released during activity. The leading factor coordinating the processes of energy charging and discharging is the principle of pleasure.

The goal of bioenergy therapy according to Lowen is to restore the integral functioning of the human body.

The emphasis is on breathing, feeling, movement, correlating with the client’s life story.

Bioenergetics proposes a therapeutic metaphor: “You are your body, and your body is you.”

Lowen attached great importance to the symbolism of the body, non-verbal signs through which the body tries to communicate its own distress or an unconscious problem.

A healthy person is connected to the earth (“grounded”) and enjoys life. In a sick body, free circulation of energy does not occur, which is hampered by bodily rigidity, which manifests itself in the form of muscular tightness and forms zones of tension in the body.

Lowen has written 14 books and numerous articles. His works have gained worldwide popularity and recognition. In his books, he teaches a person to hear and understand his body, talks about the need to restore natural bodily spontaneity and the ability to express one’s feelings in order to establish harmony with oneself and the world.

In December 2007, Alexander Lowen turned 97 years old. Alexander Lowen died on October 28, 2008.

“There is only one indisputable reality in the life of every person - this is his physical existence, or the existence of his body. His life, his individuality, his personality are contained in his body. When a body dies, its human existence in this world ends. No person can exist separately from his body. There is not a single form of human mental existence that would be independent of his physical body.”

"The idea that thought processes belong to one field, the so-called psychology, and physical processes to another, the so-called organ medicine, are not consistent with the model of the fundamental integrity of the human personality. This view is the result of the separation of the spirit from the body and its limitation to the sphere of consciousness. This gap crippled psychiatry and exhausted medicine. The only way to cope with this violation of human integrity is to return the psyche to the human body. This was her original place. The unity of body and spirit is expressed in the Greek root psychein, which means breath. A holistic view of human body would lead to the recognition that the body is permeated by a spirit which animates the psyche and controls its functioning.”

Therapists about body-oriented therapy:

Ulyanova Larisa

For me, body-oriented psychotherapy began the moment I recognized and accepted that I was a “body girl.” This was the first step: “I am the body.”

Now that this method is central to my work, it's always an interesting experiment.

What kind of... client is he? What does he say about himself? What is his body telling me? Which is true. And we begin a dialogue - an exciting, meaningful, purposeful dialogue in which bodies communicate. After all, everything we touch touches us.

At the first meetings, asking the client “What is happening in the body, what sensations do you distinguish?” is usually useless.

First, of course, we get to know each other. By placing my hand on the client’s body, I tell him with this touch; “I’m here, I’m with you, I’ll be careful and careful.” The body, over time, the appearance of heat, micro-trembling, “thawing”, answers me: “I trust you, just a little, a little.” After some time, the client notes with surprise: “goosebumps ran down my legs”, “heaviness” in my hands, and my shoulders “raised up”...

My acquaintance with the client, the client with me, the client with my body - it took place.

We can continue to communicate, live and experience everything that happens when we are close, or happened a long time ago, but “surfaced” now.

Then, “suddenly,” feelings wake up that he didn’t seem to have or didn’t know about. He begins to try to express them - emotions appear, and, behind them, thoughts.

And, over time, he can already tell me, and in fact admit to himself, how this relates to his life.

Body therapy helped me gain stability both in a moving minibus and in constantly changing life circumstances.

In my therapeutic practice there are real achievements - leading, together with Olya Shpilevskaya, groups to get acquainted with body-oriented psychotherapy and in working with clients. After psycho-emotional work with her face, one client was asked the question: “Have you done Botox?” Another - bodily psychotherapy helped get rid of attacks of uncontrollable overeating. The woman received an answer to her question about how she feels about her partner. The young girl managed to realize and accept her love.

Shpilevskaya Olga

How did I come to body-oriented psychotherapy?

I had a lot of questions about my appearance and my health. And she began to rediscover herself. I stopped being scared strange sensations, I was wondering: what is this?, where is it from? and for what? Now, in moments when I don’t understand what’s happening, I listen to myself, I understand my emotions, which means I can control my actions and satisfy my desires.

Having been engaged in body-oriented psychotherapy for more than 10 years, I still never cease to be amazed at its capabilities and admire the results obtained.

You've probably heard more than once that a person may experience headache due to unresolved problems, a “hole” in the throat if you cannot say something, or a spasm appears in the stomach when anxiety arises. Now there are many recommendations on how to easily get rid of unnecessary troubles and pain.

It's actually not that simple. For those who are starting to engage in psychotherapy, I want to say that everything is much deeper and more interesting.

The body is very wise: when our “genius brains” give us seemingly insurmountable problems, the body knows how to solve them.

My experience working with people of different ages and different problems gives grounds to assert that knowing body language 1, we can realize our needs, understand our emotions and feelings, and express them without harming ourselves and the world around us.

1 E. Gazarova “... body language (so-called bodily impulses): these are sensations that are often perceived by us as an unexpected guest who came with unclear intentions. Sensations can be embarrassing (for example, “untimely” sexual impulses) or frightening due to their “coloring,” speed of passage through the body, strength, complexity of structure, causing negative feelings or feelings of pleasure and bliss.”

In general, only you can choose - in your life you control your emotions or your emotions control you.

One day, when I was just starting to try my hand at psychotherapy, teenagers came to my class. “Hello,” they said, “we’re going to see a psychiatrist for aerobics.” It’s funny, but this is exactly how young people perceived the program, based on the use of body-oriented psychotherapy methods. Since then, my colleagues and I jokingly call our classes psychiatric aerobics.

Meanwhile, body-oriented psychotherapy is one of the most effective areas in modern psychotherapy. Its origins go back to late psychoanalysis, and its founder was Sigmund Freud’s student Wilhelm Reich. For Reich, working with the body became one of the ways to restore peace of mind and comfort to his patients. He introduced the concept of protective “armor”, or “shell”, character - the totality defense mechanisms that block the experience of a particular emotion. “Armor” is formed as we grow up, when we learn to behave in accordance with the requirements of society.

As a result, we have to suppress our primary – instinctive – impulses. However, their energy does not disappear anywhere - we simply drive it inside ourselves, compacting our shell. In the future, with the help of armor, we seem to extinguish the anxiety associated with external and internal manifestations that cause fear. The armor of character allows us to remain within socially acceptable boundaries, but at the same time we often cease to feel contact with our inner self, we show our emotions less and less, which ultimately deprives us of the opportunity to enjoy life and work. As a result of research, Reich came to the conclusion that the shell has not only a psychological, but also physiological basis. In other words, it exists not only at the mental level, but also at the body level, where it manifests itself in constant muscle tension - clamps. Our physical shell is a reliable repository of a wide variety of and often contradictory experiences. The body, like the brain, stores the experiences we receive throughout life.

Take for comparison the body of a child and the body of an adult. The child is relaxed, his movements are spontaneous and natural. An adult is more tense, plus he already has a whole set of developed movements and habits: gait, posture, gestures... These are what are set by the muscular shell, which becomes tougher and tougher over the years.

The connection between body and soul is inextricable. So, staying in good mood, we are either relaxed or in a state of pleasant activity - we feel good both mentally and physically. At bad mood we are usually tense, which is especially noticeable in the face. Hence the discomfort, both physical and psychological. And vice versa - if we feel bad, then there is no peace in our soul; if everything is in order with the body, the soul is calm. Thus, by influencing the body, you can influence the soul.

Reich identified seven bodily levels (belts) at which the muscular armor is formed: the level of the eyes, mouth, neck, chest, diaphragm, abdomen and pelvis. Reich's method, called character-analytical vegetative therapy, involves a gradual elaboration of all levels from top to bottom; it is believed that each subsequent one (the one below) holds back deeper and more significant unfinished emotional experiences. Working through special manipulations (Reich himself used massage) and special exercises makes it possible to relive the unexperienced experience, forever get rid of the emotional negativity associated with it and restore the free flow of energy in the body. In general, Reich was a tireless researcher; there were no formal prohibitions or boundaries for him.

Having worked in Austria for a long time, in 1939 he received an invitation from the American Psychosomatic Movement. By that time, Reich had created his laboratory of “orgone energy” (with this term he defined the universal energy that moves objects in the universe and at the same time is the bioenergy of living beings). According to Reich himself, he managed to construct the so-called orgone accumulator - a device that generates orgone energy. Studies have shown that patients who used batteries were magically cured of their - sometimes serious - ailments. But, despite the success of the practice, Reich’s activities were banned. Due to violating a court order prohibiting the production of orgone accumulators, Reich was convicted. He died of a heart attack in a US federal prison.

Bioenergetics by A. Lowen

The baton of development of body-oriented psychotherapy was taken over by the American psychotherapist Alexander Lowen, who created the bioenergetic concept. In Lowen's bioenergetics, unlike Reich's vegetative therapy, the work is not based on working out the muscle armor belts one after another, but varies depending on the information that the therapist receives while examining the client's physical and mental state.

Lowen's classic session began with breathing exercises performed in a standing or sitting position, leaning back in a chair. He also actively resorted to the method of tense poses, during which there was an active release of adrenaline and muscle tension arose. Muscle tension affects mobility, so in a tense state you can find out which parts of the body are constrained and which are free. The main strenuous pose Lowen used was the arch, a standing backbend. If, when performing a pose, you can draw an imaginary perpendicular line from the point between the shoulder blades to the point between the feet, then the energy in the body moves freely. If the body is rigid or, conversely, too flexible, then achieve correct position in the arch is almost impossible. This pose helps to identify blocked areas in the body where energy accumulates. But massage of these areas or pressing on them allows you to release it.

In his book Body Language, Lowen gives the following example. Once a young woman, a mother of two children, came to him for a session. She was a good housewife, but complained of irritability and that her relationship with her husband did not bring joy. She couldn't be more specific, but she felt that therapy could help her. This is how Lowen describes her appearance: “She was short, with a graceful figure, but a head too large for her complexion and a large, expressive face. Lively eyes, a straight small nose, a slightly irregular mouth and a heavy lower jaw. A short neck connected the head with a fragile body, quite proportionate, except for the too narrow shoulders. She had a doll-like appearance. The shoulders were not only narrow, but also tensely pushed forward, so that when walking it seemed as if the arms were dangling on artificial hinges. The legs left the same impression.”

It turned out that the woman was the only child in the family. The mother wanted the girl to always be liked by everyone, and inspired her daughter that if she was not sweet, gentle and affectionate, no one would love her. As a result, the girl turned into a doll with an angelic appearance and an easy-going character. She suppressed her anger and irritation in every possible way. All this, as Lowen diagnosed, led to the fact that the chest, back and pelvis became rigid, and the clenched jaw, in his opinion, indicated the woman’s intention to always remain a good girl at all costs.

The analysis also showed that, while carrying out her daily activities (she, by the way, did an excellent job with them), the patient directed all her energy to doing everything right and not making a mistake anywhere. In the first session, Lowen managed to get her to relax her jaw. As soon as this happened, the woman burst into tears: resentment and tension, held back by tightly clenched teeth, burst out. Then, with the help of special exercises, he helped her release the anger that had been suppressed for years. “With each session, the doll came to life,” writes Lowen, “and the patient’s appearance changed accordingly. The arms and legs became stronger, the shoulders widened and straightened, and features of mature femininity appeared in the face. The complaints that the woman came to me with stopped.”

Cry, cry, dance, dance

Dance movement therapy is an exploration of your body and self, as well as your stereotypes and relationships with others through dance and movement. The development of this direction is associated with such dancers as Frederick Mathias Alexander, Rudolf von Laban, Isadora Duncan, Mary Wigman and others. The main thing for them was the expression of the unique individuality of the dancer, the direct emotional life of the human personality. In dance therapy trainings, much attention is paid to the nature of movements. The point is that in movement, as in everything else, there is something that we cannot accept. Thus, quite often women subconsciously consider “masculine” – sharp and strong movements – unacceptable, while men consider “feminine” – smooth and slow. At the same time, the source of our strength is often located where we are afraid and unusual to go. By overcoming this fear and accepting what previously seemed alien, we are freed from restrictions and stereotypical behavior. And this, in turn, gives us a more powerful resource for overcoming life’s difficulties.

Dance therapy is not about performing formal dance steps, but about a natural, spontaneous flow of movement. It is ideal for those who, for some reason, are unable to express their emotions otherwise. Moreover, it is believed that spontaneous dancing stimulates energy channels, and therefore releases blocked energy and promotes its even flow throughout the body. The most important thing is to feel free and relaxed while dancing, so that you feel relaxation in movement. In this case, the dance will affect not only the muscles, but also the consciousness, completely transforming the emotional and spiritual spheres of the dancer.

It does not matter

Another direction in body-oriented psychotherapy is Rolfing, or structural integration. It bears the name of its founder Ida Rolf, a biochemist and physiologist. Rolf believed that the body needed to restore evenness and symmetry. The main methods of structural integration are massage and stretching. According to Rolf, relaxing connective tissue, more than anything else, brings to the surface memories of early traumatic experiences that are very important to survive. At the same time, you can verbalize it, but you cannot get hung up on its analysis. As a result, a person regains his lost peace of mind.

Find and neutralize

So, body-oriented psychotherapy uses many methods and techniques, but what they have in common is working with the body. It can be called a homeopathic method of working with psychological problems through active interaction of the body with external environment, which includes both a psychotherapist and available means of psychotherapy. When, through sensations in the body, we understand what is happening to our psyche, awareness becomes more specific, material, which allows us to quickly detect the problem and cope with it.

“Not all body-oriented psychotherapy is good for health” - I want to build on this phrase in my article and describe the various distortions and problems that I see in the use of body-oriented psychotherapy (BOP) at the moment. And only in order to increase critical thinking among consumers of these services, and maybe specialists will learn something new for themselves.

What prompted me to write this article is that clients often come to me and want me to rid them of something in their body; they didn’t go to the doctor, and if they did, there was no diagnosis. They are often disappointed that I explain that I am a psychologist and work with psychological material and if you are not ready to work with it, then I cannot give any guarantee that the cause of “your high blood pressure” is in the psyche, and this is not an insufficiently high-quality diagnosis doctors. Of course, I believe that many diseases come from the head and from the head, but this does not mean that medicine can find any source of illness in five minutes, provided that the problem is only somatic. Many good diagnosticians cannot determine the causes for a long time various symptoms, since medicine is now symptomatic, there may be thousands of options. Is the psyche really simpler? And if you have already decided that you have psychosomatics, now a trend in the psychological environment, then without your personal history it is impossible to establish the cause or provide quality help. And, besides, a psychologist or psychotherapist does not determine the cause, but works with you to find possible ones. And if the client is not ready to go into the depths of himself, and this happens through conversation, but wants a magic button, then most likely he is not coming to me. This button just doesn't exist. By the way, a psychosomatic problem can be solved without using body-oriented methods of work, but by working only verbally. It seems to me that there is some confusion that psychosomatics is the same as body-oriented work, but this is not so. A psychosomatic problem can be solved only by verbal methods of work or by supplementing them with body-oriented psychotherapy.

The second reason is the wide spread of body practitioners who, without psychological education, try to solve from more or less supposedly simple psychological problems to working with childhood developmental trauma, shock trauma, PTSD using body practices or body work methods collected by them. Unfortunately, on this moment this is dangerous only for the client, it is dangerous due to re-traumatization or the triggering of more serious pathological mental processes: various reactive and affective states, PTSD, the onset of schizophrenia and other psychotic states and reactions.

Now many psychotherapists have begun to call themselves body-oriented. On the one hand this fashion trend, on the other hand, this is the development and implementation of body-oriented directions in the psychotherapeutic environment. I think this is great because dividing a person into a “brain” and a “body” is not helpful. Our industrial environment is full of these kinds of divisions, so in the psychotherapeutic process it is more effective to connect. Yes, this is the goal of a deep psychotherapeutic process - the integrity of the individual. But I believe that in order to be called a body-oriented psychotherapist, you need to master some body-oriented method of psychotherapeutic work. And then it turns out that you sat down, stood up during the session and are already body-oriented, and then tell me what’s wrong. Were you moving? An exception, perhaps, is Gestalt therapy, which is more about feelings, emotions, the body and their phenomenological manifestations in the session. Also, bodily interventions are allowed in Gestalt sessions. Institutes teaching Gestalt have their own special courses, which are prepared and conducted by specialists who have completed a full course of training in any body-oriented method. A certificate may be obtained for this individual training.

And this “sit down, stood up” is the most harmless thing that can happen. It’s just that this has little to do with body-oriented psychotherapy. In general, there are a lot of body-oriented directions, the most famous are: Bioenergetics or Lowen’s Bioenergy Analysis, Bodynamics, Biosynthesis, Reichian Analysis of Character Structure, Hakomi, etc., many of them have their own theory of personality. What is also very interesting is that recently in Austria TOP entered the register of psychotherapy areas as a separate area and can be paid for by insurance. The European Association for Body-Oriented Psychotherapy (EABP) has a special course on TOP. Until recently, in Russia there was also such an association, accredited by the European association, where one could take a course and receive a certificate. In such courses, a combination of methods is usually used for training, and the areas I listed above have their own, what are called proprietary programs from their school. In general, in order to understand what method a specialist uses for work, it makes sense to look at the historical aspect. How it arose, from which previous direction it grew, who was the founder, then we can more or less determine that this is not a complete gag, but a proven method. Although the proven directions were once a gag, several generations of psychotherapists and clients have already tested them before you, and I think it will be possible to form some opinion. The areas listed above are well represented in Europe and the USA, as well as in Russia. By the way, in Russia there is one domestic method of body-oriented psychotherapy - this is Thanatotherapy, although in general it was also created on the basis western directions. Historically, psychotherapy developed in Europe and the United States.

Separately, I want to say a few words about the “West”. There is no need to assume that everything that came from the West is useful; many Western specialists have long understood that Russia is an excellent market for all kinds of techniques, techniques, etc. and they come to show themselves and earn money. However, I can say with confidence that not all yoghurts are specialists, much less directions, are equally useful. I became convinced that many are a profanation of psychotherapy while attending conferences on Bioenergetic analysis and Body-oriented psychotherapy.

I believe that a good and profound method of body-oriented psychotherapy must have a personality theory or ideology, otherwise it will be a set of exercises that either lead to something or not. A set of exercises dictated by a trainer is not psychotherapy. By the way, there are methods of work that involve both exercises and following the client’s process; they are not TOP, but they occupy a separate niche and solve a lot of problems. Can complement the psychotherapeutic process. For example, the Feldenkrais method, founded by Moshe Feldenkrais, is one of the most powerful rehabilitation methods of work, built on the awareness of movements that include all muscles, and not just those that a person “remembers,” and the return of memory about muscles that a person “forgets” in the course of life. On its basis, other directions have already emerged for working with cerebral palsy, rehabilitation after somatic and traumatic brain injuries. The Berzeli “TRE®” method, founded by David Berzeli, is built on enhancing vibration and releasing energy trapped in bodily blocks. The method combines well with Lowen's Bioenergetic Analysis. Actually, among other things, David Berzeli is a certified trainer of Lowen's bioenergetic analysis. I would also include here Rolfing, founded by Ida Pauline Rolf in the 20s of the previous century, the method is based on deep tissue massage and the Rosen method, founded by the American physiologist Marion Rosen, built on soft touches and awareness of tension in the process of these touches, I believe there is and domestic methods of work developed by physiologists.

Body-oriented psychotherapy is called so because it is focused on working through the body with the psyche, but recently psychologists have begun to forget the word “psychotherapy”. I even began to think that the name had become harmful because it was invented in opposition to only verbal methods, and now any work with the body began to be called body-oriented psychotherapy. I am not against an adequate combination, because any of the methods described above can be introduced into the psychotherapeutic process. It is true that it is important that the work is done with psychological material, and not just with the tissues and subcortical structures of the brain, and for this you also need to have a psychological education, which, despite its availability in our country, many bodily practices do not strive to receive.

Now there are a lot of bodily practices and bodily practitioners that, at a minimum, promise lightness in the body, and, at a maximum, relief from psychological problems. They are also brought either from the West or from the East, as are specialists who also come from abroad, or some techniques are collected by bodily practitioners here. They are doing well because people are looking for relief from their problems. Unfortunately, most of them do not solve psychological problems, since they are not called upon to do so, but they pretend that they do, because for a while it may actually become easier. Therefore, if they tell you that they will “get rid of you,” it is better to take this critically. I in no way want to say that bodily practices are harmful or should not be done, my idea is that you need to know the limits of your competence and not deceive people, do not replace one thing with another. Now there are a lot of practices that shake up the psyche, just as there were once many similar trainings. In an altered state of consciousness, ideas or new behavioral reactions are easily introduced, in fact, this is what the build-up took place at those trainings, because the trainings were designed to quickly change behavior, for results. Modern practices designed rather for temporary relief from bodily tension and to obtain endorphins. Perhaps good ideas are being broadcast somewhere, I don’t know about it. Or cathartic techniques, dancing or exercises like OSHO meditation, which also lead to ASC. Firstly, all this is for a while, secondly, you can get addicted to it, thirdly, it does not solve psychological problems, but on the contrary creates the illusion of solving them and people waste time, often coming again and again, like many others to a disco, in bar or fitness. Why are they so common? Unfortunately, this is how it happened historically and perhaps climatically. In the culture of our country there is little physical contact, but both the body and psyche require and want it. There is a lot of research and it is no longer a secret that deprivation of physical contact in childhood leads to serious mental disorders. And in our culture they don’t know how to relax or take care of themselves, there are even popular jokes about this, but the popular unconscious is not mistaken.

In my opinion, bodily practices are everything that is done with the body and with the body, massage, walking, running, dancing. Why not bodily practices? If you want to strengthen it, there is race walking, there is yoga, Pilates, swimming pool, tai chi and others various methods work with the body and, to varying degrees, including the subcortical layers of the brain. Is it possible to realize something from such practices? Of course, a person can realize something even while lying on the couch, and motor processes stimulate the body, physiological processes in it, various subcortical structures of the brain are activated, which consequently increases the activity of the cerebral cortex. Is this useful? I think so, but of course it is better to check this on a case-by-case basis, since, for example, running is unlikely to be beneficial for people with a knee injury. Are these techniques or methods psychotherapy? I think not, since psychotherapy is work with psychological material, with the psyche and personality. Massage therapists, osteopaths and other bodywork practitioners do not work with them. However, I repeat, purely bodily techniques and practices perform their function, and, I hope, more often than not useful - health-improving, social. Or they can complement the psychotherapeutic process.

One of the most important topics In any psychotherapy, there is a study of the psychological boundaries of the client’s personality. This is probably one of the most difficult topics that permeates the entire course of psychotherapy and the entire life of the client and the psychotherapist, in fact, of any person. It is probably due to the inability to set boundaries or constant violation of them that the client has today’s problems. In TOP, the therapist must be extremely careful about the client’s boundaries; there is even special literature on this topic. Therefore, if you see that the psychotherapist has not had problems with touching for a long time and he can grab your face or other parts of the body without warning, this most likely means that either the psychotherapist never understood what psychological boundaries are, or he has developed a deformation personality due to his favorite direction and he is not aware that other people may not have such experience of touch. Either this is not a psychotherapist. It’s worth thinking about whether you need it if the psychotherapist asks you to do something you don’t want, causes pain and insists on it, persuading that it is for the good, touches without permission. We must not forget that a body-oriented psychotherapist works with the client’s psyche, and not just with the body. Find out what kind of method the psychotherapist uses and why you need it. Although many may use different methods or combined techniques or even something of their own, the psychotherapist must be grounded in the understanding that he is working with the psyche, with the client’s personality, and that this is a process between two people. He's not a surgeon.

And one more fact that I often see and which I have tested on myself, since I studied in an imported international program. Often psychotherapists come in raids and conduct either several sessions or one and leave; I believe that this approach is only suitable for training, but not for the therapeutic process. Professional psychotherapists will always ask the client whether he has a permanent psychotherapist, whether he can cope with what may appear after sessions, and body-oriented work has a cumulative and delayed effect. Exercises or processes are done either based on some assumptions of the psychotherapist, or based on the situation in order to develop psychological process, then this is psychotherapy. But someone will have to help the client wind down, complete and integrate, because the effect may overtake the client after the therapist leaves the program. By analyzing such situations, you can draw conclusions about the therapist or the training program as a whole.

Finally, I want to tell you one of my dialogues with a German follower and trainer of the Feldenkrais method. I once asked him, “What do you do if psychological material comes up, because it will definitely appear?” and he replied, “In cases where this happens, since I am not a psychologist and do not work with psychological material, I refer the client to my colleague, a psychotherapist.” So, I believe that a professional in his field, be it a massage therapist, an osteopath, a body practitioner, or a psychotherapist, or a body psychotherapist, should feel the boundaries of his competence, and if there is such a specialist, he feels confident in his direction and goes deeper into it, and This means it can provide quality assistance.

Each of us during our lives notes periods of extraordinary lightness and cheerfulness, but sometimes, on the contrary, sadness and melancholy rolls in, productivity drops, and the reason is completely unclear. A person begins to look for symptoms of the most various diseases, which are not confirmed by medical examinations, the quality of his life decreases, and his career may be in jeopardy. Moreover, even the classic psychological help may turn out to be powerless, because a person cannot explain what is happening to him. But where client-centered therapy techniques have proven ineffective, body-oriented therapy exercises can help. Today we want to look at the simplest and most accessible, but at the same time very effective exercises, which, when used systematically, can help you change your life for the better and get rid of many serious problems.

What is body-oriented therapy

First of all, we need to tell you a little about what the direction that Wilhelm Reich discovered is. Body-oriented therapy, the exercises of which sometimes overlap with the teachings of yoga, is based on the belief that the mental and physical “I” of a person is in more close connection among themselves than we think. Accordingly, any changes can be achieved by influencing the body, which will then entail a change in the psychological state. This is despite the fact that classical psychotherapy takes the opposite route, influencing the psyche, so the therapist has to overcome numerous psychological defenses. At the same time, a well-chosen body-oriented therapy exercise can give excellent results much faster.

Basic principles of body-oriented therapy

The reader probably really wants to get to the point and choose a practical exercise of body-oriented therapy for himself. However, we will dwell quite a bit on the theory so that you can understand how this system works in practice. Wilhelm Reuch believed that mechanisms psychological protection and the associated protective behavior with which we compensate for our tension, fear, pain, uncertainty and much more, result in the formation of a “muscular shell”, or “clamp”. That is, a repressed, unrecognized or unprocessed emotion is expressed in unnatural tension various groups muscles, which makes the gait angular, disrupts posture (hunched over or, conversely, a straight back and gait like a robot), and restricts breathing.

Novelty of the approach

Reich proposed an innovative method of solving the problem by targeting a tense muscle group. Special techniques have been developed to reduce chronic tension in each muscle group and release repressed emotions through physical stimulation. Usually they use And so, moving down the body, the patient is helped to break the “muscle shell”. That is, the basis of this teaching is the concept of organ energy. Energy must move freely from the core of the body to the periphery and leave. Blocks, or clamps, interfere with its natural flow, they serve to distort and destroy natural feeling, this also applies to the suppression of sexual feelings.

Problems locked in the body

We would like to tell you more specifically what problems body-oriented therapy deals with. Breathing exercises, special massages and gymnastics help you get rid of a huge burden and move on with life cheerfully and at ease. This may be a loss of contact with your body, that is, it is there, but we don’t feel it. By the way, the problem excess weight also often has the same reason: a person does not know how to hear the signals of his body. This may include loss of sensation in certain parts of the body, severe tension and pain. If you experience problems with movement coordination, often fail to make turns, or miss the target when throwing objects, then this is your therapy. This also includes poor posture and obsessive states, delayed physical and mental development, when the body gets stuck at a certain age. Such therapy will help those who find it difficult to control their emotions, who have experienced violence, acute grief and fear. If you reject yourself, your external image, and cannot enjoy sexual relationships, then come to body-oriented therapy. This also includes sleep disturbance and chronic stress, syndrome chronic fatigue, inability to live “here and now.”

This is how Reich describes the segments of the protective shell. The eyes are the segment that stops crying. Typically, tension is revealed by two components - a motionless forehead and empty eyes. A jaw that is too clenched or, conversely, relaxed (these may be other grimaces) reveals a suppressed scream, crying or anger. In general, the head is an area of super-control, that is, the inability to let go of oneself, to turn off the control of consciousness in moments of creativity, relaxation, in sex, at any moment when sincerity and intuition are needed.

The neck, shoulders and arms are an area of responsibility; fears and obligations are locked here. This is the boundary between “taking” and “giving” in which harmony must be achieved. There is resentment in the chest that prevents you from breathing freely. Anger and greed are localized in the stomach. Legs are our support; uncertainty is localized here.

The basis of success is proper breathing

Any body-oriented therapy exercise begins with proper breathing. All our diseases are caused by nerves, and strong tension stimulates the formation of a “muscular shell”, from which all our problems begin. And such a simple exercise as breathing can work wonders. In just 3-4 days a person begins to feel better, he has a surge of strength, his health improves, and the need to constantly take medications disappears.

Body-oriented therapy, exercises for beginners

Statistically, almost 50% of all people do not use the largest, lower part of the lungs. That is, only the chest works, and the stomach remains motionless. When starting a workout, you need to lie on the floor and put your hand on your stomach. You will need to breathe through your nose. Exhale completely and feel the front wall of your abdomen descend. If necessary, push it down slightly. Now you need to work while inhaling as much as possible, as if it had become a ball. In this case, the chest does not rise or expand; the air goes only into the stomach.

It is very important to fully concentrate on the exercise. Disconnect from external worries and be in harmony with yourself - this is body-oriented therapy. The exercise should be performed twice a day on an empty stomach. Don't forget to ventilate the room first. Start with one minute and gradually add 20 seconds at a time until you reach 5 minutes.

Once you have fully mastered the belly breathing technique, move on to chest breathing. To do this, also sit on the floor, but now inhale and increase the volume of your chest. This will cause the ribs to move up and out. As you exhale, your ribs should move down and inward. While breathing, do not fill your stomach. In terms of time, this exercise is performed in the same way as the previous one.

Finally, you can move on to You need to inhale slowly, first with your stomach and then with your chest, so that the air completely fills your lungs. Exhale emptying first chest, and then the stomach. At the very end of the exit, make an effort with your muscles to completely remove the remaining air.

Different types of breathing

It would seem that we all know how to breathe, but it turns out that we usually breathe incorrectly. - this is a consequence of fear. When a person is afraid, his breathing almost stops. Body-oriented therapy works with this. The “nose doesn’t breathe” exercises boil down to learning to breathe properly and defining personal boundaries. You need to work very delicately with people who have this type of breathing, because they do not have the “right to life.” The second group is people who have difficulty breathing. They do not know how to accept, they deny themselves a lot and always “owe everyone.” They work with these people specifically to provoke a deep breath. The third group is people who have impaired exhalation. Finally, the fourth group are people who breathe easily and freely, full breasts and belly.

Warm-up

It is very important to prepare yourself for subsequent work, because smoothness and lack of violence towards your body is the main goal of body-oriented therapy. The exercises (warm-up) at the very beginning are aimed at immersing yourself. Sit comfortably and start by massaging your fingers and palms. Slowly work through each point. Now do this to get ready for work. Now curl up in it and stay in it for as long as your body requires. Now you need to work with everyone. In turn, you need to strain each muscle group, moving from head to heels. Work all the facial muscles, tensing and relaxing each of them. Then move on to the muscles of the neck, shoulders, arms, abs and legs. Note which one is the most difficult to relax. The warm-up ends with the sprout exercise. To do this, sit on all fours, close your eyes and imagine a small sprout that reaches towards the sun. Rise up, slowly stretching out. The entire growing process should take a few minutes. Extend your arms as far as possible and stretch well. Now you can move on to more complex and specialized exercises that will help you live a more harmonious life.

Depressive states

What it is? Depression does not happen on its own. This is the result of prolonged exposure to stress, which leads to a distortion of the worldview, as well as a change in the image of oneself in this world to a negative one. All these changes are registered in our body in the form of a gloomy grimace and an uncertain gait. And these are signals, reading which, those around us do not want to make acquaintances with us. In this case, body-oriented therapy can be of great help. Exercise (depression is treated not only with pills) will help you find harmony with yourself, and therefore with the world.

First of all, it is important to work with supports and boundaries, that is, the help of a therapist. The client needs to be placed on the couch and his stay as comfortable as possible, covered with a warm blanket, and pleasant music turned on. The therapist performs support for both feet alternately, for about 10 minutes. At the same time, you can be interested in how the person feels. Then the legs alternately bend and unbend until the person completely relaxes them, and then begins to feel them. Then you can move on to your hands. The support is performed simply, the therapist's palm is placed under the foot or the patient. After performing the support, the arms are also flexed and extended until the patient no longer controls their movement. The last support is performed under the head. In this case, the patient's head lies on the pillow, the therapist sits behind and puts his hands under his shoulders. A light massage is possible.

Self acceptance

Depression is a very multifaceted condition, and one of its components is the need to accept yourself as you are, to let go of all muscle tension. And one of the best ways This is achieved through body-oriented therapy. Self-acceptance exercises begin with breathing exercises and warm-ups. The next exercise you can do is to define your own boundaries. To do this, try to plot the width of your shoulders and hips and your height on the wall with your eyes closed. Now measure the resulting silhouette and your own. This knowledge is only the first step. Now your goal is to explore all the contours of your body. To do this, you need to sit on the floor and slowly walk with your palm pressed tightly over every centimeter of your body. If you are trying to skip the area of the abdomen, chest, and genitals, then this is where you should pay the most attention. And dance serves to consolidate this. Stand against a wall and wait until movement arises in your body. Don't interfere with it, let your body do what it wants. After some time, you will feel that you are moving in a very strange and bizarre way, while a thought appears in your head. great amount images, emotions suddenly come to life. It can be laughter and crying, anger and rage. Keep moving as long as you want and try to give free rein to your emotions.

Body-oriented therapy, exercises for panic attacks

What's happened panic attack? This is severe anxiety, which results in rapid heartbeat, sweating, and weakness. A person becomes afraid of these sensations, anxiety grows, and they are repeated. Now he is already sure that he has a heart disease, but doctors deny this diagnosis, and the patient begins to look for incurable illnesses, each time becoming even more entangled in his fears.

In fact, a person only needs help to break the vicious circle, and auto-training and relaxation are perfect for this. Rebirthing works great in this case - it is essentially a combination of special breathing technique and suggestions. However, unlike auto-training, which can be performed at home, rebirthing can only be carried out by a specialist.

Therapy for children

This is a separate direction - body-oriented therapy for children. Exercises in this case are aimed at increasing self-confidence, developing creativity and the ability to accept oneself as a person. They are usually carried out in groups. Don't forget where body-oriented therapy begins. Breathing exercises must be included in the lesson plan. After a breathing warm-up, you can play “cake”. One child is asked to lie on the floor. We will make a cake from it. All other children are eggs, sugar, milk, flour. The presenter is the cook; he alternately covers the future cake with ingredients, pinching and stroking it, “sprinkling”, “watering” and “kneading”. Then all the participants, led by the cake, breathe like dough in the oven, and then decorate the cake with flowers. They can be painted on hands and feet. Now everyone is telling me how beautiful and delicious the cake turned out.

Now you need to move a little. The presenter invites the children to climb high and steep mountain. As the children march around the room, he tells them the path they are taking. As they walk along the sunny path, they notice many fragrant flowers. At the same time, the sun's rays touch the hair and bring peace and relaxation. As the mountain gets steeper, the breeze blows across your face, and with every step you feel the joy of anticipation of something new. One more step and you are at the top. A bright light embraces you and you feel like you can now do anything. A great feeling of joy, happiness, love and security comes over you. You yourself are this light, everything is in your power. You can finish the lesson with the “sprout” exercise.

Body psychology. Body Therapy Exercises

Even in ancient times, man began to look for sources of strength and energy that determine his health, success and well-being, the ability to achieve his goals and find a way out of difficult situations. A person began to look for ways to manage his strength, his condition, his energy. This led to the emergence of traditional systems of self-regulation, such as yoga, Taoist alchemy, tai chi chuan, and shamanic practices. Initially, this knowledge developed within the framework of their cultures and was ignored by European science, but since the beginning of the 20th century, Europeans in their scientific quests are beginning to increasingly reach out to it. As a result, body-oriented psychotherapy emerged, based both on classical psychological principles and on ancient practices of managing the body and energy.

Body psychology allows you to track the clamps that accumulate in the body, and body therapy exercises originally designed for quick withdrawal body clamps and blocks.

The Origins of Body Psychology

However, for the sake of science, we must start with something else. Bodily psychology arose at the beginning of the twentieth century, within the framework, paradoxically, of psychoanalysis. Almost immediately it separated from it and formed its own, diametrically opposite direction. Sigmund Freud's student Wilhelm Reich noticed that, lying on the couch during a psychotherapy session, the client always accompanied emotions with certain bodily manifestations. Therefore, the patient’s body can often tell much more about his problems than words. The body captures all our experiences and feelings, significant events and life experience. The body can even say what the consciousness is not yet aware of.

Today, body-oriented psychotherapy is one of the main directions of modern psychological practice. This is a way to heal the soul through working with the body, working with human experiences and problems imprinted in the body. By the way, it is within the framework of a body-oriented approach scientific world“remembered” about ancient energy practices and self-regulation systems. Everything that happens in a person’s soul leaves an imprint on his body, everything that happens in the psyche affects energy. Healthy energy determines physical health, physical health creates the conditions for mental well-being, which, in turn, provides healthy energy.

The concept of bioenergy was introduced into scientific circulation by A. Lowen, the founder of bioenergetic analysis and one of the classics of body-oriented therapy, showing that managing energy potential activates the internal resources of the individual, which promotes self-knowledge, self-expression, and self-realization. This gave impetus to the development of all kinds of energy schools and directions, many of which went beyond the scope of not only body-oriented therapy, but also any kind of science in general.

Body psychology: general principles

The postulate of bodily psychology is extremely simple: by working with consciousness, we can influence the body, and by influencing the body, we can work with consciousness. This echoes one of the basic postulates of NLP: consciousness and body are elements of one system. What does the unconscious have to do with it? - you ask. Elementary - the influence on consciousness through the body is carried out bypassing consciousness itself. That is, the resources of the unconscious.

Therefore, methods of working with a problem in body-oriented therapy, as a rule, practically do not touch the problem itself. We work with the physical manifestation of this problem. For example, with fear or irritability, certain muscle groups become overstrained, which leads to tension. By relaxing these clamps, the problem that caused them is worked through. Leaving aside the issues of identifying underlying problems and methods for solving them as more suitable for training courses for practicing body specialists, let us dwell on how an ordinary person can use this in everyday life.

Based on the fact that any unconscious tension is a manifestation of some problem or mental imbalance, let’s take a simple approach: the more relaxed the body is, the more harmonious a state a person is in, and the more resources are available to him to solve everyday problems. And the healthier the body becomes due to the development of psychosomatic causes of diseases. It follows from this that you need to relax everything that can be relaxed.

Someone will object: but muscle tension provides a certain protection and is associated with safety! And this will be one of the very common misconceptions. Muscle tension can only create a feeling... not even of safety, but of a certain readiness for danger. That is, tension in anticipation of a threat. As you know, being in a tense state for a long time inevitably leads to stress and disruption of the nervous system, as well as “burnout” of the body. Is this the result we expected? On the contrary, a relaxed muscle is always faster than a tense one, which is why in many hand-to-hand combat systems one learns not so much to tense, but rather to properly relax the muscles. This, by the way, helps to increase the range of motion, optimize the expenditure of strength and energy, and minimize bodily injury. A simple example: what will suffer more from an ax blow - a wooden board or a cloth thrown into the air? And most importantly, a relaxed body indicates that a person can allow himself to be relaxed (and therefore confident in his abilities), which provides a deep sense of security.

Someone will say that he is always relaxed. This is also a common misconception - in human body There are always enough tensions, and total relaxation can be equated to total enlightenment. It is quite natural that in a “normal” state a person does not perceive his stress and, often, does not imagine how it could be different. Moreover, there is such a concept as the “social body” - a set of bodily clamps that we must “put on” while in society, which shape our adequacy, controllability and compliance with role stereotypes in certain situations. Therefore, relaxation is an art that is mastered gradually. And the more they master it, the more tensions they notice in themselves.

What promotes relaxation? The simplest meditative techniques that help slow down the psyche, which leads to general relaxation of the body. It contributes, no matter how trite, to general peace, conflict-free behavior, goodwill, and the ability to maintain a positive emotional attitude. By the way, all these skills are perfectly trained and developed. Traditional relaxation methods such as massage and sauna are effective, especially in combination with an optimal psychological mood. Physical contact with another person is of great importance, on which many body therapy exercises are based. And most importantly, you need to feel your body and monitor the changes that occur in it.

Body Therapy Exercises

Active muscle relaxation

The idea is very simple: in order to relax a muscle as much as possible, you need to tense it as much as possible. And in order to evenly relax the whole body, you need to give it a uniform load. To do this, we consistently strain all parts of the body: face, neck, shoulders, arms, abs, hips, legs and feet. For each part of the body, we try to create maximum tension and hold it for 10-20 seconds, and then focus on relaxation.

Resetting Clamps

To begin with, pay attention to the processes that occur in the body. To those pockets of tension that exist in it. And... try to find the position that will be most comfortable. To do this, just listen to your body: what position would it like to take? And then you can allow yourself to relax. Even deeper. And, covering the entire body with your inner gaze, you can notice how pockets of tension gradually melt away, and the inner space becomes more and more relaxed and light.

Figurative breathing

This practice allows you to combine the effect of meditative trance and targeted work with the body. To begin, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. You will notice how you can feel a slight coolness as you inhale and a slight warmth as you exhale. And let there be nothing in the world except inhalations and exhalations. You can then imagine that you are breathing through the middle of your chest, continuing to feel the coolness of your inhalation and the warmth of your exhalation. Then we breathe through solar plexus, lower abdomen, palms and feet (you can add the top of the head, but be careful - don’t get carried away), and then across the surface of the entire body. For each part of the body we take 10-15 inhalations and exhalations.

Developing Body Awareness

For 5 minutes, without interruption, talk (out loud!) everything that happens in your body .

Allow yourself for a few minutes have no goals. Let the body do whatever it does really wants do, and let me him to do this. Just be an observer and allow me body to find the way of self-manifestation that is relevant Here and now.

And then, remaining in this state, allow the body to find the position in which it will be truly comfortable at this moment in time.

And, while remaining in this position, go through your entire body with your inner gaze: pay attention to the tone in which each part of the body is, what is happening in your inner space. Track the clamps that are in your body and let me them to relax.

Alexey Nedozrelov