What is Body Psychotherapy?
Body psychotherapy focuses on the psyche through its expression in the body to enhance awareness on all levels of being. This can include body sensations, thoughts and thinking patterns, feelings, and movements of energy. Through the process of bringing awareness to “how it is” it becomes possible to make different choices and to reconnect with the “essential self”, which is intrinsically healthy. Body psychotherapy is derived from the work of Wilhelm Reich, and the influences of Eastern philosophy in the 1960s. The term Body Psychotherapy was coined in 1991 by the European Association for Body Psychotherapy(EABP).
The body reflects a person’s current state and previous life history, in health mind and body function in a relatively integrated manner. When this is happening breathing, movement, mood, speech and sense of wellness are harmonious. More often full health is not evident. Outwardly there can be success – perhaps there is a secure, well paid job, a family and a pleasant home, but the individual has persistent headaches, or feels constantly tired in the absence of illness, is bored, or feels that something indefinable is missing. Every trauma, shock, difficulty in life, every unexpressed joy is embodied. These experiences manifest as aches and pains, tight or slack muscle, shallow breathing, inability to relax and sleep, low or high arousal levels, feeling hot or cold, disturbed thinking, inability to concentrate or make decisions, and lack of vitality. When these phenomena persist for a long time they develop into more or less fixed states, illness and general malaise become habitual and normalised. Most of us barely know what it could feel like to be really well and certainly have little idea of how to go about feeling more alive.
Good resolutions and will power have only minimal impact on the body. In body psychotherapy the psychotherapist works with the client to discover the meaning of unskillful patterns of behaviour, how it is that relationships are maintained, which are not satisfying and the meaning of the messages that the body is communicating. Gradually a story unfolds about what makes for greater or lesser well being. Perhaps protective ways of being developed for survival in past circumstances are no longer necessary and are self defeating. As awareness of oneself develops, it becomes possible to be more in touch with what is healthy in terms of behaviour and lifestyle. Consequently the individual is more in tune with him or herself, there is more connection with the wider world.
What can Body Psychotherapy help with?
Relationship problems and personal difficulties such as unstable relationships, low confidence and self esteem, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, stress, which may be experienced as emotional outbursts, exhaustion, burnout, body pain, and emotional withdrawal.
Body psychotherapy can also help with bereavement, loss of direction or purpose in life, intimacy issues and chronic illness.
All problems and difficulties will exist in the physical body as well as the thoughts and feelings.
Kate has experience working with abuse, addiction, bereavement, intimacy, spiritual development, chronic illness, pain, relational difficulties, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, PTSD, identity crisis, emotional regulation, life transitions, self-awareness, and self-expression.
Sessions
In-Person
Change is a process that happens over time, often in small increments that eventually evolve into significant shifts in the way one thinks, feels, moves, and breathes. Body Psychotherapy is effective because it works at depth, using subtle cues that are exchanged between us, beyond the words spoken.
It is most effective on a regular basis for an agreed period of time, allowing the process of change to unfold at its own pace and fully integrate. The therapeutic relationship provides a consistent anchor to the individual as they embody change.
Online
Online sessions are available for clients who have met Kate at least once in person. Hybrid options, where some sessions are in person and others online, may be possible depending on the initial assessment and identified needs.
This is a helpful option for clients who live outside the United Kingdom and still wish to work with Kate and her method of Body Psychotherapy. Kate also offers intensive weekends, weeks, and longer-term support in your country of residence, with follow-up sessions available online.
To inquire about this option, please contact for more details.
Breakthrough sessions
The therapy process is deeply valuable, and one of the ways that successful therapy works is through the consistency of the relationship that is built over time. Within this relationship, new ways of approaching old patterns can be forged through a trusted and familiar bond.
In modern-day living, many people do not have the time or the desire to attend weekly therapy. They may have even done therapeutic practices and feel they have a foundation but have a particular problem that is difficult to shift.
In these cases, breakthrough sessions can be a supportive alternative. Essentially, we look at a life theme, pattern, or problem from a holistic perspective over the course of several hours, deeply getting to know it through the mind, body, and spirit in a compassionate inquiry until we reach the insight required to break through the pattern. This is the start of the change process.
Change is only possible when we are seeing something clearly as it is. Once we can see and accept the problem as it is, only then is it possible to invite a new perspective on how to do things differently.
Breakthrough sessions do exactly this: bring awareness and create the fertile soil for acceptance. For many people, the process of change has begun, and some may choose to continue on their own for a while. However, for all breakthrough processes, it is recommended to return for one or a series of integrating sessions, depending on the level of support needed.
The sessions focus intensely on the concern in question, yet are held in a spacious way over the course of the day to allow what arises to be digestible and supported without urgency.
Options for two- or three-day breakthrough sessions are available if appropriate. This is assessed during our initial consultation.
Session Fee
Session fee £70