Biodynamic massage

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Biodynamic massage is a complementary therapy developed by Gerda Boyesen in Norway during the 1950s.

Contents

History

"During a massage, if I see any sign of movement trying to emerge in the client, I would always try to encourage it, because my conviction is that this is going to liberate and express much more energy than would result from what I'm going to do with my hands."

— Think Through the Body - Roz Carroll [1]

In 1969, Boyesen set up the Gerda Boyesen Training School at Acacia House in Acton Park. [2] It is both a psychological and energetic therapy which is concerned with the integration of all aspects of an individual. [3] [4] This includes the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of existence. A key concept in biodynamic massage is the belief in a universal life force that connects all of us. [5]

Biodynamic massage is used on its own, as part of body psychotherapy or to support psychotherapy of a different modality. The touch does not attempt to cure, but rather bring the client into relationship with their body. [6] [7]

Biodynamic massage techniques

There are a wide variety of techniques that focuses on skin, bone, muscular, fascia, energy and aura. [8] [9]

Theory

According to Biodynamic massage, the digestive tract has a dual function. It is to digest physical nourishment, but also the emotional digestion of stressful situations. Once away from the stressful situation, the experience can be digested in our guts when rest is possible. Biodynamic therapists use a stethoscope during the massage to listen to the peristalsis and use it as feedback to guide the massage. [10]

Related Research Articles

Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. Numerous types of psychotherapy have been designed either for individual adults, families, or children and adolescents. Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders; other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massage</span> Manipulation of the body through stretching and pressure

Massage is the rubbing or kneading of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet, or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In European countries, a person professionally trained to give massages is traditionally known as a masseur (male) or masseuse (female). In the United States, these individuals are often referred to as "massage therapists". In some provinces of Canada, they are called "registered massage therapists."

Dance/movement therapy (DMT) in USA and Australia or dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) in the UK is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body. As a modality of the creative arts therapies, DMT looks at the correlation between movement and emotion.

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), previously called rational therapy and rational emotive therapy, is an active-directive, philosophically and empirically based psychotherapy, the aim of which is to resolve emotional and behavioral problems and disturbances and to help people to lead happier and more fulfilling lives.

Integrative psychotherapy is the integration of elements from different schools of psychotherapy in the treatment of a client. Integrative psychotherapy may also refer to the psychotherapeutic process of integrating the personality: uniting the "affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological systems within a person".

Person-centered therapy (PCT), also known as person-centered psychotherapy, person-centered counseling, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy, is a form of psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers and colleagues beginning in the 1940s and extending into the 1980s. Person-centered therapy seeks to facilitate a client's actualizing tendency, "an inbuilt proclivity toward growth and fulfillment", via acceptance, therapist congruence (genuineness), and empathic understanding.

The Hakomi Method is a form of mindfulness-centered somatic psychotherapy developed by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s.

Transference is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which repetitions of old feelings, attitudes, desires, or fantasies that someone displaces are subconsciously projected onto a here-and-now person. Traditionally, it had solely concerned feelings from a primary relationship during childhood.

Reality therapy (RT) is an approach to psychotherapy and counseling developed by William Glasser in the 1960s. It differs from conventional psychiatry, psychoanalysis and medical model schools of psychotherapy in that it focuses on what Glasser calls "psychiatry's three Rs" – realism, responsibility, and right-and-wrong – rather than mental disorders. Reality therapy maintains that most people suffer from socially universal human conditions rather than individual mental illnesses, and that failure to attain basic needs leads to a person's behavior moving away from the norm. Since fulfilling essential needs is part of a person's present life, reality therapy does not concern itself with a person's past. Neither does this type of therapy deal with unconscious mental processes.

Emotional reasoning is a cognitive process by which an individual concludes that their emotional reaction proves something is true, despite contrary empirical evidence. Emotional reasoning creates an 'emotional truth', which may be in direct conflict with the inverse 'perceptional truth'. It can create feelings of anxiety, fear, and apprehension in existing stressful situations, and as such, is often associated with or triggered by panic disorder or anxiety disorder. For example, even though a spouse has shown only devotion, a person using emotional reasoning might conclude, "I know my spouse is being unfaithful because I feel jealous."

Existential therapy is a form of psychotherapy based on the model of human nature and experience developed by the existential tradition of European philosophy. It focuses on the psychological experience revolving around universal human truths of existence such as death, freedom, isolation and the search for the meaning of life. Existential therapists largely reject the medical model of mental illness that views mental health symptoms as the result of biological causes. Rather, symptoms such as anxiety, alienation and depression arise because of attempts to deny or avoid the givens of existence, often resulting in an existential crisis. For example, existential therapists highlight the fact that since we have the freedom to choose, there will always be uncertainty - and therefore, there will always be a level of existential anxiety present in our lives.

Vegetotherapy is a form of Reichian psychotherapy that involves the physical manifestations of emotions.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a form of alternative therapy aimed at treating trauma and stress-related disorders, such as PTSD. The primary goal of SE is to modify the trauma-related stress response through bottom-up processing. The client's attention is directed toward internal sensations,, rather than to cognitive or emotional experiences. The method was developed by Peter A. Levine.

Body psychotherapy, also called body-oriented psychotherapy, is an approach to psychotherapy which applies basic principles of somatic psychology. It originated in the work of Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and particularly Wilhelm Reich who developed it as vegetotherapy. Branches also were developed by Alexander Lowen, and John Pierrakos, both patients and students of Reich, like Reichian body-oriented psychotherapy and Gerda Boyesen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerda Boyesen</span> Norwegian psychologist

Gerda Boyesen was the founder of Biodynamic Psychology, a branch of Body Psychotherapy.

Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are related humanistic approaches to psychotherapy that aim to resolve emotional and relationship issues with individuals, couples, and families. These therapies combine experiential therapy techniques, including person-centered and Gestalt therapies, with systemic therapy and attachment theory. The central premise is that emotions influence cognition, motivate behavior, and are strongly linked to needs. The goals of treatment include transforming maladaptive behaviors, such as emotional avoidance, and developing awareness, acceptance, expression, and regulation of emotion and understanding of relationships. EFT is usually a short-term treatment.

Postural Integration is a type of bodywork purporting to draw on "energy" and allow access to the past. It was devised in the late 1960s by Jack Painter (1933–2010) in California, US, after exploration in the fields of humanistic psychology and the human potential movement.

Common factors theory, a theory guiding some research in clinical psychology and counseling psychology, proposes that different approaches and evidence-based practices in psychotherapy and counseling share common factors that account for much of the effectiveness of a psychological treatment. This is in contrast to the view that the effectiveness of psychotherapy and counseling is best explained by specific or unique factors that are suited to treatment of particular problems.

Aadel Bülow-Hansen was a Norwegian physiotherapist. Together with the psychiatrist Trygve Braatøy (1904-1953), she developed psychomotor physiotherapy using psychomotorics, which can be used for the treatment of neuromuscular stress conditions.

Motivational enhancement therapy (MET) is a time-limited, four-session adaptation used in Project MATCH, a US-government-funded study of treatment for alcohol problems, and the "Drinkers' Check-up", which provides normative-based feedback and explores client motivation to change in light of the feedback. It is a development of motivational interviewing and motivational therapy. It focuses on the treatment of alcohol and other substance use disorders. The goal of the therapy is not to guide the patient through the recovery process, but to invoke inwardly motivated change through motivational strategies. The method has two elements: initial assessment battery session, and two to four individual therapeutic sessions with a therapist. During the first session, the specialist stimulates discussion on the patient's experiences with substance use disorder and elicits self-motivational statements by providing feedback to the initial assessment. The principles of MET are utilized to increase motivation and develop a plan for further change; coping strategies are also presented and talked over with the patient. Changes in the patients behavior are monitored and cessation strategies used are reviewed by the therapist in the subsequent sessions, where patients are encouraged to sustain abstinence and progress.

References

  1. ↑ Carroll, Roz. "Think Through the Body". www.thinkbody.co.uk/.
  2. ↑ Young, Cournetay. "In Memoriam: Gerda Boyesen: 1922 - 2005".
  3. ↑ Staunton, Tree (2002). Body Psychotherapy. Runner Routledge. p. 78. ISBN   1-58391-116-2.
  4. ↑ Malloy, Mary. "GBII". www.biodynamic.org/. Archived from the original on 2014-09-16. Retrieved 2014-08-29.
  5. ↑ "Setting up a Biodynamic Massage Practice - Part Two". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2019-09-09.
  6. ↑ ABMT. "Association of Biodynamic Massage Therapists". www.abmt.org.uk/theoretical-principles.html.
  7. ↑ Nunneley, Peg (2000). The biodynamic philosophy and treatment of psychosomatic conditions. Bern: Lang. p. 75. ISBN   3-906763-16-1.
  8. ↑ Staunton, Tree (2002). Body Psychotherapy. Runner Routledge. p. 79. ISBN   1-58391-116-2.
  9. ↑ Hartley, Linda. Contemporary Body Psychotherapy: The Chiron Approach. p. 32.
  10. ↑ Stauffer, Kathrin (2010). Anatomy and Physiology for Psychotherapists. London: Norton. p. 130. ISBN   978-0-393-70604-8.
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