Relationship &
Body Psychotherapy
@GlowPraxisBerlin
When you look at your life,
do you see a pattern of unsatisfactory relationships?
“Unsatisfactory” is a broadly descriptive word: it can mean anything from short-term, unhappy, disappointing or unsuitable to transactional, upsetting or downright traumatic. What kind of relationships do you want instead?
In biodynamic body psychotherapy, we assume that people’s issues with relating to others are rooted in the protective mechanisms they learned to adopt during early childhood (birth to 4) in order to be able to adapt to their environment and function as their caregivers and others expected. This survival strategy increased the likelihood that they would be loved, avoid pain and feel safe. Children’s protective mechanisms can be physical, such as breathing as little as possible, literally “bending over backwards” and developing lordosis or scoliosis, or holding muscles tense and at the ready. They can also involve beliefs like “Something about me isn’t right,” “I don’t need anything,” “I can do everything alone,” and “The others are more important than me.” Successful strategies and mechanisms become ingrained over time.
Young adults and other adults might find, however, that their familiar strategies are not particularly successful in the outside world. In their work with the body psychotherapist, they become aware of what they were reacting to and protecting against in their childhood. In the safe setting created by the body psychotherapist, they can finally feel and release old, distressing emotions. Clients recognize the values, beliefs and behavior that are unsuccessful in the present and adjust or replace them in line with their true identity. Along with a commitment to living their true identity, they accept their vulnerability and can relax and show it to other people. Working with the body psychotherapist is a way of learning how to establish contact in the short-term.
A relationship is contact maintained over a longer period of time, and biodynamic body psychotherapy offers clients practice in being in longer term contact with others as a way to share and receive vibrancy and liveliness. At the same time, clients work out what their boundaries are and learn to uphold them in relation to the expectations of others. On this basis, relationship will be a completely different experience.
Appointments are available
Book a 60-minute biodynamic body psychotherapy session in Berlin-Mitte. Biodynamic psychotherapy is available in GlowPraxisBerlin, an oasis of calm in the big city, on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 pm – inquire about other times.
Follow-up psychotherapy appointments also available via Zoom, but of course without massage!
