Body-oriented interventions… - FOCUSING

Leijssen M., Nagels A. & Dekeyser M.: Body-oriented interventions in psychotherapy.
Different theoretic visions on the body will in practice often lead to specific body-oriented
interventions and different experiential psychotherapies draw attention to other physical
components. The complexity of working with ‘the body’ in psychotherapy is approached by
giving a map of body-orientedness in which different approaches are situated on a continuum
from verbal to nonverbal: with on one side therapy that works with mostly verbal
communication and on the other side therapy where the word is hardly used and all attention
goes to body work and bodily expression. The richness of the bodily source can be used in a
more conscious way by validating different aspects of the body: the body sensed from inside,
the body perceived from outside, the body in action in movement and nonverbal expressions,
the body in physical contact with another body usually by touch.
The lecture gives also an idea of a new research project at the university of Leuven
(Belgium): we want to get a hold on body-oriented interventions in the context of verbal
psychotherapies, we try to support empirically the relevance of body-oriented interventions in
psychotherapy, we finally hope to develop a theory on the body in psychotherapy that goes
beyond the different approaches.
2 The theoretical approach of the body in Experiential psychotherapies (Auke Nagels)
2.1 Introduction
Experience is a unity of cognitive-affective functioning. In our research project we focus on
the bodily ground of experiencing.
First I will explain how different Experiential psychotherapies have different approaches of
the body in psychotherapy: Client-Centered psychotherapy, Focusing-Oriented
psychotherapy, Existential psychotherapy, Interpersonal psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy,
Psychodrama and Pessotherapy. I will explain how they consider the relevance of the body
in their theories and how they approach the body in the practice of psychotherapy. At the end
I will propose an integrative model of experience, where I try to bring the different
approaches of the body in experiential psychotherapies together.
2.2 Client- Centered psychotherapy
2.2.1 Carl Rogers
In his theory of personality change, Carl Rogers talks about the ‘the organismic experience’
which is a kind of bodily wisdom further than the intellect. It’s about sensory and visceral
information. The ‘fully functioning person’ is able to contact the organismic experience when
necessary, not at every moment but for instance at moments when he needs to make
important decisions. Psychological problems occur because of conditions of worth in life
history. Then certain feelings and sensations are not accessible, what results in
incongruence between self-concept and organismic experience.
Although Rogers considers the bodily wisdom central in his theory, in the practice of
Rogerian Client-Centered therapy there are no explicit interventions to the body. Rogers
sees the relational aspects of empathy, positive regard and genuiness as sufficient
conditions to become more congruent with the organismic experience. The therapist listens
behind the words (deep empathy). Changing experience is visible in a deepening of verbal
explorations of the client and bodily signs (tears, sights, another gaze in the eyes...).
2.2.2 Gary Prouty
Opposite to Carl Rogers, two Client-Centered authors consider bodily interventions very
relevant in psychotherapy. Gary Prouty, who works with very disturbed clients, states that
psychological contact is a necessary condition before psychotherapy can take place. In his
work with psychotic clients, there are a lot of periods where the client has no affective contact
with himself, no communicative contact with others, or no reality-contact. In his form of
Client-Centered psychotherapy, Prouty developed ‘contactreflections’ to cultivate moments of
© 2003, Leijssen, Nagels & Dekeyser (U. Leuven, Belgium)
Proceedings of the 15th International Focusing Conference 2003 Pforzheim/Germany, ed. by HJ Feuerstein,
FZK Verlag, Weingarten (Baden), Germany
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