What is Bioenergetic Analysis?
Bioenergetic Analysis is a body oriented psychotherapy which combines work with the body and the mind to help individuals resolve emotional problems and to increase their potential for pleasure and joy in living.
Unlike many other body-oriented therapies, Bioenergetics’ experiential nature is based upon a solid foundation of practical theory.
Bioenergetic Therapy seeks to bring about the conscious integration of mind and body by working with the unique relationship that occurs between various levels of experience: cognitive, emotional, physical, spiritual and energetic.
In Bioenergetic Therapy, the focus is on psychological issues and their manifestation in the individual's body, energy and movement. The verbal work focuses on an examination of an individual's past, dreams, associations and current behaviours. It also focuses on the relationship between the client and the therapist.
By addressing conflicts at a cognitive, emotional, spiritual and physical level, Bioenergetic Therapy works with the whole person. It seeks to help the individual:
- gain greater understanding and awareness of old patterns of action and reaction,
- enlarge the capacity to tolerate and resolve old pain and
- increase the ability to experience pleasure and connection in living – feeling connected to oneself, to others and to one's surroundings.
Bioenergetic Therapists work with clients to raise awareness of breathing patterns and chronic tensions which, once helpful, now inhibit self expression. At times, deepening one's breathing, or releasing chronic tension will release held emotions and memories, facilitating the resolution of these emotions and/or memories and results in a deeper sense of self. The person then is more grounded in the self.
Grounding is understood as the quality of one's connection with oneself, one's body and one's surroundings. To be grounded is to have identity and security in who you are. These metaphors express groundedness: "holding one's ground", "having your feet on the ground", "being sure-footed", "having ?standing’ in the community", and the literal meaning of "standing on one's own two feet".
BIOENERGETIC ANALYSIS IN CLINICAL SETTINGS
Bioenergetic Analysis in Child Protection
Stress build-up (from work, family, roles, expectations, finances) has a compounding effect. For parents, this weight can push them into old feelings of inadequacy, even a sense of crisis. These feelings naturally trigger defensive, survival based responses that were used in the past. A need to control, blaming of others, insistence upon immediate responses/solutions, or giving inconsistent descriptions of expectations and setting of limits sporadically, are examples of these defensive responses. These responses add to the problem and to the stress in the family system.
With Bioenergetics, parents can be helped to use & understand physical cues to track and modify a dysfunctional behaviour pattern before it gains momentum. Body cues can add to confidence and guide parents in being consistent & fair with limits. They can help the parent find ways to provide support that promotes cooperation rather than requiring obedience.
Bioenergetic Work with Adolescents & their FamiliesThe arrival of the physical characteristics of adulthood prods the teenager to claim the cognitive and social (behavioural) characteristics as well. The peer group is used as a tool for protection when emotions & perceptions become overwhelming.
These threads weave together to form the base for many of the power struggles in which the adolescent participates. As parents respond from a place of stress, old scripts get played out. Revising the physical component of the script by using the Bioenergetic concepts of grounding and presence allows the teenager and the parent to keep these struggles within manageable bounds for each, and to recognize and minimize power struggles and their impact.
Bioenergetics & Mental Health/Family Counselling
The tangles of daily living touch (sometimes forcefully) human beliefs and emotions. The ability to speak out and to create common ground is often lost. Bioenergetic Analysis provides tools to sidestep becoming judgmental about self-protective responses. The body gives cues that signal what the person (client or therapist) needs: to feel safe, to risk allowing the vulnerability that is required to deepen relationships and to be cooperative without being manipulated or used.
With Bioenergetics clients can be helped to learn to support their intent to be emotionally flexible and open by also being physically flexible and unarmoured. The whole person supports the change. Clients can learn to use tools the body has to help manage anxiety, to modulate flooding, to unhook from toxic shame and to not fear joy.
Bioenergetics & Addictions
Addictive behaviours are often based on cycles of shame and/or trauma. The prevention of relapses and acting out of the addiction pattern depends on healing at a deeper level than just managing the addiction.
With Bioenergetics the person dealing with addiction can become more aware of body cues that shame or trauma are exerting their influence. This awareness can be used to create a different and more effective response. Habit behaviour, beliefs and emotions can work at cross-purposes.Working with body cues can give the client additional tools to integrate divergent impulses, expectations and beliefs - to use what is positive in each & create a more satisfying outcome. It gives the client a way to literally "get a hold of yourself".
Bioenergetics & Corrections
The client in a corrections setting has "broken the rules" in some major way. Learning to develop ways to work with rules without feeling "imprisoned" is an attainable goal. "Rebellion" is a way to organize & define the self. Impulsiveness can stem from a fear of being overpowered or denied. "Get it while you can, before somebody else does" can stem from a history of deprivation.
With Bioenergetics you can help your client learn to move more slowly (more mindfully) allowing the opportunity to feel, reflect and to make new choices. Clients can learn to manage conflict & negotiate mutually workable solutions in a non-violent manner. We can learn to contain impulsiveness in a way that allows for reflection. We can trust the body wisdom of when to honour impulsiveness (spontaneity) and when to wait and to move more slowly and gather more information. These are physical as well as cognitive and emotional tasks.
If you would like more information about Bioenergetic Analysis call...
London: Rita Godon 519-672-4207
Waterloo: Alex Munroe 519-747-9031
• What is Bioenergetic Analysis?
• Bioenergetic Training Program
• The Curriculum
• Find a Bioenergetic Therapist
• Testimonials
• Other Bioenergetic Societies
“To be an integrated individual, [we] must be identified with [our] body and with [our] word... To achieve this integration, one must start with being the body - You are your body... One must end with being the word - You are your word. But the word must come from the heart.” Alexander Lowen, Founder of Bioenergetic Analysis