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Competencies Based in the Somatic Psychotherapy Tradition
A) Holistic Somatic Psychotherapy
A person is competent in holistic somatic psychotherapy when they:
1. Experience the whole spectrum of the experiential range, including thoughts, images, feelings,
emotions, intuition, and sensation
2. Recognize that when working directly on the body the psyche is affected in ways not available by
verbal or interpersonal techniques
3. Are aware that experiencing this whole range is the definition of healthy human functioning
B)
Psychoenergetic Somatic Psychotherapy
A person is competent in psychoenergetic somatic psychotherapy when they:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
C)
Have worked through the chronic physiological and psychological rigidities which stop them from
fully experiencing the breadth of emotion
Have worked through defensive musculature utilizing such techniques as deep breathing, vocal
expression, stress positions and direct physical contact on the body, called ‘vegeto therapeutic
treatment’ by Wilhelm Reich
Understand the therapeutic benefit of both nurturing touch, and more psychically evocative touch,
called ‘catalytic touch’ by Malcolm Brown
Can use dramatic enactment, guided visualization and exercise as a means of increasing body
awareness
Experience a healing of psychological problems which manifest in somatic bodily distortions
according to Alexander Lowen
Experience a ‘creative disintegrative regression’ (Brown) in which traumas from early life are
integrated into a more alive psychic dynamism
Experience a change in their functional dynamism, including: skin colour, body posture, eye quality,
voice tone, sense of contact, and groundedness
Existential-Phenomenological Somatic Psychotherapy
A person is competent in Existential-Phenomenological somatic psychotherapy when they:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Experience the benefits of ‘being in the here and now’ (according to Fritz Perls), or simply ‘being
there’ (according to Martin Heidegger)
Are able to follow a close phenomenological awareness of their immediate experience, called
‘process’ by Eugene Gendlin
Understand the organismic orientation of being aware of hand movements, facial expressions,
postures, and the kinesthetic sense and awareness of physiological reactions as having a
psychological dimension
Experience the healing power of physical expression, such as yelling and pounding a mat (for e.g. in
Gestalt), or kicking, hitting, crying, twisting, shaking, and laughing (according to Gendlin)
Understand how body movement is a necessary part of the process of communicating
Have experience on reliving and healing parts of self from infancy, birth, and intrauterine life as
given in Primal Therapy, Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Holotropic Breathwork
Become aware of the potential for spiritual opening which accompanies these deep bodily mediated
experiences
D) Psychodramatic Somatic Psychotherapy
A person is competent in psychodramatic somatic psychotherapy when they:
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1.
2.
E)
Understand and can utilize the benefits of interpersonal role playing focused on bodily expression
Understand the relevance of role playing events of a person’s life not ordinarily addressed such as
unspoken thought, or portrayals of fantasies
Jungian Based Somatic Psychotherapy
A person is competent in Jungian oriented somatic psychotherapy when they:
1.
2.
3.
Enliven the feeling and sensate functions
Understand how bodily oriented feelings and sensation create a balance to cognition, and thoughts
Assimilate a ‘Somatic Unconscious’ (according to Nathan Schwartz-Slant), which is a transformation
of the psyche into a ‘feeling centre’
4. Fully Experience how the unconscious ‘speaks’ (according to Arnold Mindell) through the particular
language of the body
5. Recognize how the integration of body, soul and spirit is the key to the organismic drive to
Individuation