| Introduction
Biodynamic psychotherapy is the life work of Gerda Boyesen, the Norwegian
psychologist and physiotherapist. It is based on a profound appreciation
of the oneness of a personís body/mind/spirit, and integrates an
enormously broad range of methods, addressing body and mind as one. We
work not only with talking, but also with movements both subtle
and strong and with many levels of 'hands-on' work,
as well as with meditative and sensory awareness.
We can become ill, says Gerda Boyesen, simply from the repression of joy.
She regards joy, well-being and spiritual connection as our very birthright:
our natural human functioning. Anything less than this positive health
Gerda Boyesen regards as neurosis, which she sees as almost universal
in our culture. She is dedicated to helping humanity recover its birthright.
Coming into a biodynamic therapy room, you'll find a couple of chairs,
a massage table, plenty of room to move about, and a large mattress on
the floor. This setting offers a multitude of possibilities for your session.
You might lie on the big mattress, exploring the gentle movements of biodynamic
orgonomy, with its surprisingly powerful effects. You might spend the
session just sitting talking. As perhaps your hand begins to make some
little movement, and you begin to feel the stimuli impinging from
within, you might recognize an unexpected impulse, feeling or
memory. As the session proceeds, you might discover that some past experience
is still strongly affecting your present life. You might have a treatment
on the massage table, and find afterwards that, although the touch felt
is light, its effect is amazingly profound.
Cautiously
the client explores the impinging impulse to reach out
Softening
the control of the neck tensions gives the impulse more chance
Your session might involve a combination of very different methods, including
what would conventionally be regarded as "psychotherapy" together
with what would conventionally be regarded as "bodywork", such
as movement, massage and exercises.
Biodynamic therapy is unique in embracing within one comprehensive therapeutic
approach such a diversity of therapeutic methods. To regard them as the "psychotherapy" methods on the one hand and the "bodywork" ones on the other, is to miss the true depth of the work.
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Enjoying
the authentic movement
Gerda
Boyesen's Professional Background
Gerda Boyesen developed biodynamic psychology and psychotherapy through
a gradual and radical integration of the three very different strands
of her knowledge and expertise: classical psychology, Reichian body- psychotherapy
and hands-on bodywork, in particular the unique and powerful neuromuscular
techniques developed by Adel Bulow-Hansen, at whose clinic she trained
and then worked for a further two years.
Gerda Boyesen qualified as a clinical psychologist in Oslo in 1951; she
also underwent a training analysis with Dr Ola Raknes, Wilhelm Reichís
closest colleague in Norway. Additionally she qualified as a physiotherapist.
She then had decades of experience working with classical psychodynamic
psychotherapy, both in Norwegian mental hospitals and in private practice,
where she also used and adapted the massage techniques she had learned.
For her own personal psychological development, Gerda Boyesen is convinced
that the treatments from Bulow-Hansen had a far more transformative effect
than all her other personal work. Her persistent searching for adequate
explanations of the remarkable emotional effects of this form of massage
led to her unique appreciation of how body and mind are in constant interaction.
This inseparable interaction of body and mind is the basis of Gerda Boyesen's
psychotherapeutic approach.
Softening
the 'armoured' trapezius
The
Physical Aspects of Emotion and of Emotional Repression
All our emotions involve the responses of our body systems, though mostly
we are unaware of this. As we get angry or scared, our breathing will
change, our muscles may tense up, and with more blood coming into our
action muscles, our digestive system slows down. Biodynamic theory sees
all these changes as the up-going side of a far-ranging emotional cycle:
a natural process of emotional arousal and subsidence, of tension followed
by release, charge followed by discharge.
Gerda Boyesen emphasizes that we are 'designed' to recover
completely from emotional stress: both the stress in our minds, and its
all-pervasive effects in our bodies. According to her theory of psycho-peristalsis,
emotional stress results in fluid pressure in the walls of the intestines.
Once we are out of the emotional situation, and can rest again, our intestines
should naturally discharge this pressure, squeezing the excess fluid out
of the intestinal walls by peristaltic contractions. This completes the
down-going side of the emotional cycle, our most fundamental self-regulation.
Encouraging
intestinal psychoperistalsis by 'polarization'
We may choose not to express an emotion, but if we can come to terms with
our feelings, we can relax, let go of the emotion in our mind, and digest
it also vegetatively, so that all the patterns of arousal leave our body
systems. However, whereas in animals periods of arousal and outward activity
alternate with periods of rest, recuperation and inner metabolic activity,
our own culture vastly overemphasizes activity, effort, striving, 'doing' as opposed to 'being' with far
too little time for rest, reflection and recuperation.
Our natural self-regulation gets threatened very early in life. We learn
to suppress our feelings, we deny them, we fail to resolve the emotional
situation. We interrupt our emotional cycle. To suppress our feelings
we have to use virtually all our body systems, the involuntary (autonomic)
as well as the voluntary. From any one interruption, the distortion that
results is microscopic. Repeated hundreds of times a day, the distortions
build up into body armour. We lose our natural flexibility and self-regulation,
and develop a neurotic structure of body and mind, affecting not just
our muscles and our posture, but our inner organs and the very quality
of our tissue.
Supporting
the client's strength and confidence
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Gerda Boyesen has shown that these vegetative changes have an enormous
effect on our emotional outlook and well-being. Her vegetative massage
methods gradually re-educate the psycho- peristalsis to
reduce the pressure of the energetic fluid in the guts.
If we are working with massage, the minute variations in gut sounds we
can hear through a stethoscope lead us to the psychologically significant
spots in our clients body.
Understanding and working with the psychological effects of vegetative
disturbance is perhaps Gerda Boyesen's most radical contribution
to the world of psychotherapy
.
An
example of Integrative Biodynamic Psychotherapy
Because neurosis is structured into the body, biodynamic psychotherapy
will work with the clients body at the same time as working with
the mind.
When I first met F, her arms seemed to dangle, rather than growing out
from her torso. Her hands were cold and lifeless, her fingers completely
limp, and the coldness went right up to her elbow. This was all part of
a larger pattern of fear, structured into her body. Making contact with
people is one of the primitive functions served by our arms. Difficulties
in making contact lead to major disturbances in the physiology of the
arms. F had a deep-seated fear of contact. When she felt insecure, she
would close down her breathing and cross her arms in front of her, clamping
her elbows tightly to her sides. Probably this is what she did as a child,
hoping to make herself feel more secure. Her body had grown to adulthood
in the grip of her fearfulness and timidity. And now the muscular and
vegetative restrictions in her adult body literally embodied her past
and present fears of the world, her misgivings about showing her real
self. In working to loosen the bodily grip of these neurotic patterns,
I was working directly with her ingrained responses to life.
Loosening
the neurotic self-restriction in the shoulder
Through months of work, her shyness began to ease, and she started
to talk more freely in the sessions, though when feelings from childhood
came nearer the surface she would often fall silent. On the conscious
level F would enjoy the massage, and she trusted me. But, deeper inside,
her body tissue was resisting, so that at first I was unable to warm up
her hands. Eventually, over months of regular biodynamic massage, her
hands began to thaw and her breathing became freer. As her
bodily restrictions began to open, many of the fear patterns governing
her behavior began to ease. She became more tactile, buying herself a
velvet skirt because she liked the feeling. Gradually she got braver in speaking with people, she started going out more, and began a new friendship.
She was beginning to feel more in tune with herself, regaining some of
her primary personality.
Clients come for biodynamic therapy with very different needs and with
very different expectations. Not all bring obvious problems
or are desperately wounded, damaged or distressed. People also come because
they are not getting enough out of life. Some are suffering
from a persistent symptom such as lower back pain, disturbed bowel function,
stiff neck, or digestive upsets. These symptoms often prove to have a
psychosomatic or psychovegetative aspect, and may get much easier as the
person begins to feel more at ease generally.
Encouraging
the client to claim the space she needs
The
Primary Personality
At the very heart of biodynamic psychotherapy is our trust in the unique
potential of each individual human being: what Gerda Boyesen calls their
primary personality. This dynamic essence is potentially impelling the
person towards self-realization, towards a wholeness of being that will
embrace the spirituality inherent in human nature.
Many of us have lost our connection with our primary selves. We don't
really know ourselves at this level. We restrain our exuberance, suppress
our feelings, hide our fantasies, deny our spiritual experience, and repress
our most troubling memories.
Gradually we develop a secondary personality. Though this secondary personality
may serve us quite well in some aspects of life, it tragically limits
the breadth and depth of our inner life, as well as the richness and authenticity
of our relationships.
The core objective of biodynamic psychotherapy is to help a person reconnect
with their primary potential. The more a person is in touch with this
level and able to follow its prompting, the more fulfilling their life
can be.
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Kicking
against restrictions
So biodynamic psychotherapy is a two-handed process. On the one hand we
welcome every tiny sign of the emerging Primary, we trust it, we encourage
it, strengthen it, whilst on the other hand we soften the grip of the
Secondary (armour) overlaying it.
1. We encourage the client to let their hidden, buried primary potential
emerge. We know this exists within everybody, however deeply buried under
the protective secondary personality they have built up. The biodynamic
therapist beholds the vision of this clients primary
potential, and is curious to know more of this person, to see more, hear
more;
2. We work to melt the self-doubt, self-criticism, self-limitation
with which this person undermines their natural potential. We are clearing
the path for the primary energy, getting the secondary out of the way,
getting the fear out of the way.
The
Female Principle Enters Body-Psychotherapy
Though it has many parallels with Reichian approaches, Gerda Boyesen's
work is infused throughout with the female principle,
and this makes it significantly different. For instance, on the bodily
level, her concern focuses more on the innermost vegetative processes
than on the muscular armouring; on the psychological level, she focuses
more on the underlying primary personality than on the overlaying secondary.
The biodynamic psychotherapist works like a midwife to the primary personality
emerging in the client, bringing people in touch with their inner world.
Biodynamic therapy is a deep awakening to one's inner being.
Our therapeutic attitude is one of active expectancy: inviting and receptive
rather than penetrating; accepting more often than challenging. Typically
we speak few words in the session; we avoid asking direct questions, or
making suggestions, or giving interpretations. We simply encourage clients
to say what they are moved to say, to explore their immediate experience,
and find their own way to their own truth, trusting the natural spontaneous
therapeutic process of growth and healing.
For both therapist and client, this is a process of creative unknowing,
being open to the unexpected, willing to be surprised, as the unconscious
comes to expression through the body, and through the images in the mind,
rather than working to a pre-planned therapeutic programme. From second
to second, we try to stay alive to every tiny change that comes in a person's
breathing, face colour, posture, voice tone, as the session progresses,
whether or not we are working directly with the body. These minutiae are
movements of the emotional energy in the client. They all have their significance
in the psychotherapeutic process.
The
client finds her own way to her own truth
Whether our client is lying on the mattress, moving in the room, receiving
a massage, or just sitting talking, the session may involve
the client remembering, re-living, finding a new way through a difficult
emotional experience: a very conscious process of active exploration.
Sometimes, as with F, the therapy may move largely below the level of
conscious awareness. Each of the many different forms of biodynamic massage
makes its particular contribution to the psychotherapeutic journey, whether
strengthening the primary in the client or melting
the secondary, as the distorted or stagnated patterns of behavior
begin to fade, and a new ease of being is established.
The wide variety of methods we use reflects the breadth with which biodynamic
therapy embraces the human individual. The animal or primitive aspects are valued and worked with, as well as the spiritual.
Biodynamic therapy works in the borderlands where physical and psychological,
voluntary and involuntary, conscious and unconscious, practical and transcendent,
meet and meld.
Whichever biodynamic method we are using, the intention and effect are
holistic. The client will be responding on all levels of his/her being.
The more profound the therapist's understanding that all these
aspects are being touched, the more powerful the work will be.
More
About Gerda Boyesen
Gerda Boyesen's work reflects her character: profoundly alive and
respectful of life, deeply intelligent, always ready to explore and be
surprised, responding to the moment rather than to any rigid structure,
and with the simplicity arising from going to the essence of life. She
has a profound wisdom, and an incredible capacity , unique in my
experience , for reaching through to a person's true inner
nature and helping it to flower. Catatonic patients speak, the apparently
unlovely and unlovable become positively beautiful.
To spend time with Gerda is to find oneself lighter in heart, refreshed,
inspired, and enjoyably stimulated. She has a most delicate discrimination
of the very different levels of human life and meaning: what is to be
taken seriously, and what is to be taken lightly; the tragic
and the trivial levels of life. Had she not become a psychotherapist,
she would love to have been a cabaret singer.
Gerda Boyesen's first students were her two daughters and her son.
After she moved to London in 1968 she began teaching her methods more
widely, with students coming from as far afield as Australia and South
America. In 1975 she established the Gerda Boyesen Centre in Acton Park,
London, which was the motherhouse of her work for over
two decades. In the later 1970s her work spread to Holland, France, Germany
and Switzerland, where she and her family established more training groups.
The biodynamic approach is now also taught in Venezuela, Brazil, Australia
and the west coast of the USA.
In 2000, at Gerda Boyesen's request, the independent non-profit
London School of Biodynamic Psychology was established, to take over responsibility
for the five-year diploma level training course in biodynamic psychotherapy.
Gerda herself, 79 this year, works as intensively as ever, giving therapy,
teaching and writing, and is still developing new theories and methods.
About the Author
Clover Southwell is based in London and has been a biodynamic therapist and trainer for 25 years. She has been involved with the Gerda Boyesen Centre since its inception, and is now one of the founder members of the new London School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy. She also works six weeks a year in southern California, and has taught extensively in Europe. Her forthcoming book 'Soul and Flesh' is intended to show the depth, the coherence and the simplicity of biodynamic psychotherapy.
She is a director of The London School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy
Further
Information
Tel: 020 7263 4290 or 0700 0794 725,
e-mail: enquiries@lsbp.org.uk
Write: LSBP, Willow Cottage, off
Wokingham Road, Hurst, Berks RG10 0RU.
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