Prospectus
Background:
The London School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy (LSBP) has its origins in the Gerda Boyesen Centre, which was founded in 1975 by Gerda Boyesen. In 2000 she asked a number of her associates to establish a new independent school to take over the professional training in Biodynamic Psychotherapy. The London School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy (LSBP) got underway in September 2000.
Biodynamic Psychotherapy is now taught also in Holland , France , Germany , Switzerland , Australia , Brazil , Venezuela and USA .
LSBP is a member of the Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy section of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and also of the British Massage Therapy Council (BMTC) and the Association of Humanistic Biodynamic Massage Therapists (AHBMT).
Through its membership of UKCP/HIPS, LSBP is directly involved in maintaining the standards of the psychotherapy profession, having a seat on the UKCP registration board.
The history of Biodynamic Psychotherapy:
Biodynamic Psychotherapy is the life work of Gerda Boyesen, who was born in 1922 in Norway . Her studies in Oslo had given her three very different realms of expertise: Reichian body-psychotherapy, classical psychology, and the powerful neuro-muscular massage technique developed by Adel Bulow-Hansen.
Intent on finding an explanation for the remarkable psychological effects of this massage, Gerda Boyesen developed her own understanding of how body and mind continuously interact. Through her clinical practice and drawing from her eclectic background she developed her unique therapeutic approach, Biodynamic Psychotherapy.
When Gerda Boyesen moved to London in 1968 she began
training therapists, psychotherapists and other professionals in her theories and methods. She established London 's first body psychotherapy training school in 1969, which she named the Centre for Bioenergy. In 1975 this became the Gerda Boyesen Centre for Biodynamic Psychology and Psychotherapy, at Acton Park in London .
What is Biodynamic Psychotherapy?
Biodynamic Psychotherapy is a humanistic body psychotherapy, based on a profound appreciation that body, mind and spirit function as a unity. It aims to help people reconnect with their true nature - their 'Primary Personality' - and recover their link to the life force within.
Every emotion is a complex event in the body. Therefore emotions will always be experienced in the body as well as in the mind. When we are afraid to express or experience our feelings and to remember the events that first gave rise to them, tension becomes a way of life. The biodynamic understanding of emotional health and disturbance is based on the concept of the emotional cycle: emotional arousal and its subsequent "digestion", both in the mind and in the body. We need to be able not only to feel and express our emotions, we need also to be able to 'digest' our emotional experiences, physically as well as mentally. If we have disconnected from our feelings we cannot 'digest' them. Instead, we may develop 'coping mechanisms' which at the time seem to help, but which can become chronic. This makes us less flexible in our attitudes and emotional responsiveness, as well as less flexible in our bodies. We lose touch with our essential nature. This state we call the 'Secondary Personality'.
Biodynamic Psychotherapy helps us to reconnect with our primary resources, to let go of the rigidity of our secondary personality and begin to trust our inner wisdom. Then we are better able to face and work through our emotional turmoil, and eventually digest it, not just in our minds but in our guts.
Biodynamic Psychotherapy embraces a wide variety of methods, involving language, body awareness, and touch. The power of the biodynamic methods is that they are all designed to communicate with the whole person, helping the client stay in contact with their immediate emotional and physical experience. Some of the exercises and movements are devised to stimulate underlying emotions or to help the client open to new levels of consciousness. The aim is always to reach below the 'secondary' level of personality and encourage the client to allow their 'primary personality' to emerge and express itself.
Biodynamic Massage embraces a range of differing "hands on" techniques developed to soften ("melt") the chronic tensions in the muscles and also to work with the subtler disturbances at the 'vegetative' level which often prevent us fully digesting our emotions. Some clients may choose to have biodynamic massage as a treatment on its own. More often the massage is used to facilitate and support a client's psychotherapeutic journey towards deeper self-knowledge.
To guide the massage, the therapist may use a stethoscope to hear how the client's intestines are responding to the work. The varying peristaltic sounds in the guts tell us when emotional tensions are being softened and emotional pressure is being released. Gerda Boyesen named this psychological function of the intestines 'psychoperistalsis'.
TRAINING with LSBP
Introduction:
The London School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy (LSBP) offers a post-graduate training in Biodynamic Psychotherapy. This course is approved by the UKCP, and leads to the LSBP Diploma in Biodynamic Psychotherapy, certifying that the student is now fully competent to practise as an independent biodynamic psychotherapist. People holding the LSBP Diploma are therefore eligible for registration with UKCP, that is, their names are added to the UKCP public register of psychotherapists.
The LSBP code of ethics is based on respect, humanity, confidentiality and straightforwardness. This code applies to therapeutic practice, supervision and to all relations with the School itself. Teaching is given in a spirit of interchange and sharing. The trainers are all psychotherapists with many years clinical experience. Groups are small, allowing plenty of individual consideration and group interaction. Students are encouraged to develop a reflective and exploratory approach to what is presented, and to value and trust their own findings. The 4-year workshop programme is strongly experiential, and students find this a challenging and enriching process of personal growth. The aim of the training is to ground students in a deeply embodied understanding of the biodynamic view of the human individual as a unity of mind-body-spirit.
Biodynamic Psychotherapy helps people recognise and value the workings of their individual life-force. Biodynamic therapists need to know this depth in themselves in order to reach their clients at the most fruitful levels. Therefore students are required to take weekly biodynamic psychotherapy throughout the years of training, as the students personal development is the basis of their training. Dedication to one's own growth, fulfilment and well-being, and a compassionate acceptance and appreciation of oneself, are seen as the prerequisite for offering help to another.
Theory and practice are constantly interrelated in the workshops; students develop an embodied understanding of the biodynamic concepts and principles and have ample practical experience in working with the various biodynamic techniques. They gain a profound insight into the processes influencing a person's capacity to make satisfying relationships and to live a productive and enjoyable life.
Course Description:
The Diploma course consists of 11 three-day weekend workshops and a six-day residential per year.
A typical workshop day might include:
- Personal sharing and emotional interaction among members of
the group
- Presentation of the theory underlying a particular biodynamic
technique
- Description of the method, and any counter-indications
- Demonstration of the method, the trainer working with a
student "client"
- Detailed reflection on this session, discussing with the group
how the therapeutic process evolved, what changes could be
observed in the client during the session, and how biodynamic
theory was underpinning the work
- Practising the demonstrated method, the students working with
each other as "client" and "therapist" under supervision
- Feedback on this work, and discussion of themes arising
Year I
Year I covers the basics of biodynamic psychotherapy with emphasis on the physiology of emotional experience, and the psychological significance of the various areas of the body. Several different forms of biodynamic massage are taught, with discussion of their application to the specific needs of different clients. Students are expected to practice these methods between workshops, keeping notes of these sessions. From their own experience they will develop an understanding of the cumulative effect of the massage on a client's state of mind. Students also learn various orgonomy exercises, which stimulate the movement of subtle energy throughout the body and can open new levels of consciousness.
Students will learn how to help a person stay deeply connected with themselves ("rooted") as they speak. They are taught to listen to a client not with their ears alone, but also with their eyes, watching how the person is holding themselves, how they are breathing, and to understand the significance of these processes. The particular quality of therapeutic presence used in biodynamic work is emphasised, with discussion of why it is so effective. (Other levels of the therapeutic relationship are explored in more detail in the following years.) The concepts of transference and countertransference, projection and introjection, are introduced.
Students will study Anatomy and physiology. An overview of the most common psychosomatic conditions is given, and also of eating disorders, depression, trauma, addictions, and chronic conditions such as ME, diabetes, HIV. Diversity in ethnicity and sexual orientation are discussed. The ethics and limits of clinical practice are explored.
After the first year, students may be eligible to apply for the LSBP Certificate of Competence in Biodynamic Massage.
Years II and III
Years II and III study the biodynamic therapeutic process as a whole, in relation to clients with very different needs. Biodynamic massage skills are further developed. More provocative forms of massage are taught, which can 'melt' the armour in the body so as to enable some of the client's repressed emotional energy to come to the surface. We discuss the suitability of the different forms of massage for specific clients, and the contribution such massage can make to a client's psychotherapeutic process. During Year II students who have gained the LSBP massage certificate will start working with biodynamic massage clients.
Students learn to recognise fluctuations of breath and to appreciate its significance for a person's emotional connectedness. As Gerda Boyesen says, "the diaphragm is the gateway to the unconscious". Students learn when to respect and when to challenge a client's breathing defences. Exercises are taught which can stimulate underlying feelings.
The more 'psychological' methods are now emphasised. Although biodynamic psychotherapy may use fewer words than other schools, the biodynamic use of language is subtle. Students learn to appreciate the nuances in the different ways of addressing a client, which can help the person enter new realms of experience and gradually embrace it as their own.
Students learn to work more deeply; they have ample practice working with the client lying on a mattress, helping the client use their body sensations as a pathway in free association. They learn to work with the client's 'stimuli impinging from within', helping the person revisit past experience in order to complete old emotional cycles and so move forward towards self-actualisation.
The biodynamic attitude to 'resistance' is explored and the deep conflicts, needs and fears which may be holding a client back. The multiple levels of relationship between a biodynamic psychotherapist and client are discussed, including the importance of transference and counter-transference as aids or impediments in the process.
The suitability of the various biodynamic techniques to particular clients is studied in detail. Students learn to assess a client's resources and areas of difficulty and to discern profitable modes of working. Some students will be ready to start working under supervision with psychotherapy clients by the end of Year III.
Academic study in years II and III includes child development and the main streams of psychotherapeutic thought: Freud , Reich, Jung and the analytic stream including Klein, Winnicott, object relations theory; the humanistic stream including Maslow, Gestalt, Carl Rogers, Transactional Analysis; transpersonal psychology and existentialism; other schools of body psychotherapy: Lowen, Pierrakos, Keleman, Boadella etc. This course is continued in Year IV.
Year IV
In Year IV the emphasis is on professional clinical practice, including the writing of case reports, managing referrals and other interactions with involved professionals.
We discuss the various forms of major psychiatric disturbance and how to recognise them, and we review current provisions for th e care of people with such conditions. We discuss what makes a client suitable or unsuitable for weekly biodynamic psychotherapy.
Academic study continues with the main streams of psychotherapeutic thought started in Year III: phenomenology; family systems therapy including Hellinger, psychodrama;
cognitive and behavioural therapies, NLP. We then take an overview of all the schools covered, discussing the place of Biodynamic Psychotherapy within the whole range of psychotherapeutic thought and practice.
Research modalities applicable to psychotherapy are explored, and students undertake their own research project. Issues of diversity are studied in depth, including conscious and unconscious value systems, race, colour, ethnicity, religious belief and practice, also major trauma and its impact on subsequent generations. Students present case studies and papers on their reading.
Themes opened up in the academic seminars may be explored further in the experiential group. In practice sessions, student 'therapists' will work several times with the same student 'client', so that their sessions can be considered in the light of the client's ongoing process, and with special attention to transference and counter-transference. Students who are already working with psychotherapy clients will attend small supervision groups on Fridays, bringing the same two 'training clients' for discussion at each meeting.
Requirements for the LSBP Diploma:
Personal therapy:
A student is required to be in weekly biodynamic psychotherapy with an LSBP-approved therapist, for a minimum of 36 hours per year, until qualification.
Clinical practice:
For the full diploma qualification, students should have worked with two training clients: one client for two years, and the second client for at least 30 sessions, under close supervision.
Students must complete at least 450 hours clinical practice and do a psychiatric placement of at least 20 days.
Supervision:
Initially, one supervision hour, with an LSBP-approved supervisor, is required for each client session given, gradually reducing to one supervision hour per six sessions given.
Written work:
Students must write two papers per year of 1000-4000 words. One paper each year will include reflections on the student's clinical work. For the diploma, students are required to write a case study dissertation of 9000 -10,000 words and a paper of 3,500 - 4000 words on their own personal development.
Yearly evaluation:
Towards the end of each year the training staff will discuss with each student how they are progressing in terms of their personal development, their practical and theoretical grasp of the work and their ability to communicate this understanding simply and clearly. This evaluation will be based on their essays and on their observed practical competence.
The LSBP Diploma in Biodynamic Psychotherapy:
Students will progress at different speeds, and so will be ready at different times to apply for the LSBP Diploma.
To qualify for the Diploma students are required to attend the full workshop programme, to fulfil the academic requirements, to have had individual biodynamic therapy throughout their training, to complete the clinical requirements and the psychiatric placement.
They must then satisfy the LSBP Training Committee and a panel of independent assessors that their work is of the required standard of ethical care and professional maturity and competence.
People holding the LSBP Diploma are eligible to apply for full membership of LSBP and thereby can be nominated for registration with UCKP. Their names are then added to the UKCP public register of psychotherapists.
The LSBP Certificate of Competence in Biodynamic Massage:
Students may be assessed for the LSBP Certificate of Competence in Biodynamic Massage any time after the end of Year I.
They will need to have completed the required practice sessions and have written an essay and two case studies on two of their practice clients. The LSBP massage certificate is recognised by the British Massage Therapy Council (BMTC) and the Association of Holistic Biodynamic Massage Therapists (AHBMT).
Admission to the Diploma Course:
Entrants usually have a relevant university degree or a professional qualification in the helping professions. However, others should not be discouraged from applying, as their life and work experience may be seen as adequate qualification for entering the course.
People interested in applying for the Diploma course are asked to attend an Introductory workshop or some Experiential evening groups first. They will then be invited to an interview with two members of the Training Committee. We are looking for people with an enquiring and open attitude and with some experience of self-development. Care is taken to see that candidates have the emotional balance, maturity, flexibility and resilience to benefit from the course, as well as the capacity to work at a post-graduate academic level.
Fees
For the workshop programme, the current (2004) year fee is £3,300. Personal therapy, most of the requisite supervision,
the assessments and the residential charges are NOT included in the workshop fee, and are arranged and paid for separately.
More about LSBP:
In addition to this full professional training in Biodynamic Psychotherapy, leading to the LSBP Diploma and to UKCP registration, LSBP offers:
• Programme of workshops and meetings for the continuing professional development of qualified biodynamic psychotherapists and those of other schools
• Courses in biodynamic massage and other aspects of the Biodynamic approach for qualified professionals who want to extend the range of their work
• Experiential "taster" weekends in Biodynamic Psychotherapy and a weekly Experiential group
• Referral for individual biodynamic psychotherapy in UK and abroad
The London School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy (Gerda Boyesen Method) Ltd. is a Non-profit Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England No. 4104224. Registered address: 73 Marylebone Lane , London W1 2PN
How to contact us:
For more information, Telephone LSBP on:
020 7263 4290 or 07000 794 725
email: enquiries@lsbp.org.uk
or write to us at:
London School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy
Bickerton House Unit 5-6,
25-27 Bickerton Road,
London, N19 5JT
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