SPT-Fall2014

Several other authors have books
on body psychotherapy coming out
this year. I write this in April and you
are reading it in September. Look for
Ulf Geuter’s book if you speak
German or you might see his keynote
speech if you are at the EABP Lisbon
Congress. He is specifically, “dealing
with the significance of working with
emotions and emotional processes in
body psychotherapy.”
In 2006, a book a came out in
German, a Handbook of Body
Psychotherapy, (Schattauer 2006).
Lucky for all the German
psychotherapists! But being a foreign
-language-illiterate New Zealander I,
Jill, have been waiting on tenterhooks
while this book has been undergoing
translation into English/American
which is close to New Zealandish!
Eight years later and the book is
undergoing a metamorphosis into The
Handbook of Body Psychotherapy
and Somatic Psychology. And it is not
just a translation of the original! It is
a brand-new, up-to-date edition with
many new chapters and new authors.
It is of a similar size, currently about
500,000 words, 94 chapters, and
possibly 1,000 pages. The original
editors, Gustl Marlock and Halko
Weiss, have been joined by
Courtenay Young and Michael Soth,
and the great thing about this
Handbook is that it contains articles
from practitioners and researchers
from many different sub-modalities
of body psychotherapy/somatic
psychology.
I can hardly wait until February
when it will finally appear published
by North Atlantic Books, Berkeley,
CA, who have produced a number of
books on body
psychotherapy.
Those of you who follow the
wonderful LinkedIn discussions
know Courtenay Young!! For
anyone who doesn’t, Courtenay was
the originator of this column and was
the person who created a bridge
between our two Associations and the
two continents. While serving on
the EABP Board as General
Secretary and then President,
Courtenay was the instigator
behind much of the structure of
the EABP such as the EABP
website, the Training Standards,
and Membership Criteria, the
Bibliography and the Science
Committee. He is the publisher
and editor of Body
Psychotherapy Publications
endorsed by EABP and
recognized by USABP, under
which he has edited three
collections of articles, The
Historical Basis of Body
Psychotherapy, About the
Science of Body Psychotherapy,
and About Relational Body
Psychotherapy. He is the editor of the
International Journal of
Psychotherapy ,and in the last two
issues of the International Body
Psychotherapy Journal (these are two
different Journals), we have
published a two-part article by
Courtenay (and Gill Westland)
entitled, Shadows of Body
Psychotherapy. You can find it along
with other wonderful articles and full
issues of both the IBPJ and the
USABP Journal, dating back to 2001
in the IBPJ archive.
Sometimes I look back and think,
Courtenay created all of this singlehandedly.
Does he ever sleep? Well,
he does sleep, and there are many
others in both the US and Europe
who have contributed to creating our
Associations and keeping them going.
New psychotherapists are coming
into our Associations and joining in
this wonderful creative endeavor of
bringing our work to a wider public.
____________________________
Jill has brought some really
exciting publications to our attention.
They are worthwhile the attention of
the wider world also.
Our vision is directed to that
moment when we step into the
elevator and the person next to us
asks us what we do, and we say, “I
Courtenay Young
am a body psychotherapist (or
somatic psychologist). We don’t
need to add the ‘pitch’. In this vision,
the person responds with, ‘Ah, that’s
interesting, I know what it is’. Then
he or she tells us about people [s]he
knows who have experienced the
effects of this kind of therapy before
we get out at level 3.
In order to get there we, body
psychotherapists, have to write more
and more. We have to do research,
write about our theories, and also
about our clinical practice. Hopefully
in a way that mirrors our
profession— writing from our bodies
and minds together.
It occurs to me that a greater part
of professional literature in general
seems to be written from minds in the
first place. That leaves me, as a
reader, somewhat tired and split. And
every time I read a book or article
that allows me to directly enter into
my complete being, into my body and
into my mind at the same time, I
experience an understanding that
makes me happy and enthusiastic.
So, I like to invite us all, when
trying to find the elevator pitch for
body psychotherapy, to let our bodies
start to answer and let our minds find
the right words.
Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall 2014 | Volume 4 Number 2 | page 11