Somatic psychology, also known as body psychotherapy, is an academic and applied field involving the study of therapeutic and holistic approaches to the body, somatic experience, and the embodied self. The word somatic comes from the ancient Greek somat (body). The word psychology comes from the ancient Greek psyche (soul, mind) and logia (study). Wilhelm Reich is the founder of somatic psychology and all current therapies that work with the emotional life of the body. He was a student of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Somatic psychology has developed over the last seventy-five years. Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... Body Psychotherapy (a. ... Dr. Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897–November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and a member of Sigmund Freuds inner circle. ... Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939; (IPA pronunciation: []) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... // Psychoanalysis is a family of psychological theories and methods based on the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud. ...

Somatic psychology recognizes the continuity and the deep connections that all psycho-corporal processes contribute, in equal fashion, to the organization of the whole person. There is no hierarchical relationship between mind and body, between psyche and soma. They are both functioning and interactive aspects of the whole. Somatic psychology uses the unitary relationship of mind-body as the working model. This holistic model is a key in understanding human development and human problems. Somatic psychology is based in psychological, neurological, developmental, medical, social and cultural science. Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... Look up model in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Holism (from holon, a Greek word meaning entity) is the idea that the properties of a system cannot be determined or explained by the sum of its components alone. ...

The perspective of somatic psychology is that life experiences are embodied. An individual’s past and present whole-body experiences are shaped and expressed in their breathing styles, movement patterns, musculature tensions, cognitive style, emotional expression, and relational patterns. Somatic psychology integrates the mind-body connection with contemporary psychological and developmental theories and practices. It integrates research from related fields such as traumatology, pre- and perinatal psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, and neurodevelopment. Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... Cognitive The scientific study of how people obtain, retrieve, store and manipulate information. ... Traumatology (from Greek Trauma meaning injury or wound) is the study of wounds and injuries caused by accidents or violence to a person, and the surgical treatment and repair of the damage. ... Psychoneuroimunology is the science of studing the connection between body and soul and its influence on the immunal and hormonal systems of the body. ... The study of neural development draws on both neuroscience and developmental biology to describe the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which complex nervous systems emerge during embryonic development and throughout life. ...

Somatic psychology is an emerging, dynamic field within academic and professional psychology. The practice of psychotherapy in general is undergoing a profound paradigm shift in response to discoveries within developmental neuroscience, research in early child development, and the study of infant and parent interaction. Much of this new research points to the psychological importance of body-based and non-verbal experience across one’s life span, particularly in the first three years of life. Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... Look up Psychotherapy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe the process and result of a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Application

A wide variety of techniques are used within somatic psychology, including those involving touch, movement and breathing. An individual records life experience during a pre- and nonverbal period differently than during a verbalized and personal narrative period. Somatic therapists working with client’s early experience and “implicit knowing” are conversant with the non-verbal qualities that mark most human communication, especially in the first years of life. This new understanding of consciousness, communication and the mind-body is changing the current dialogue within the field of psychotherapy. Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ...

Somatic psychology considers bodily states of consciousness, postures and gestures, muscular patterns, chronic contractions and tensions, movement range and shapes, ways of breathing, skin and color tones, somatic habits, energetic qualities, use of space, and body pulsations and rhythms as a potential part of the therapy process. It utilizes a dynamic systems theory approach that considers the whole person and all of their constituent domains as relevant to the psycho-emotional life. Enormous psychological, social, cultural and political forces support the splitting and fragmentation of the mind-body unity. These pressures affect an individual’s mental, biological, and relational health. Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... Systems theory is an interdisciplinary/multiperspectual field of inquiry that studies the theoretical and actual properties of systems as a process by looking at it in terms of relationships from which emerge new properties of wholes. ...

Somatic psychologists are continually broadening and deepening the areas of application within the field. This growth is bringing the body, body processes, and body experience into the foreground of theory and practice into many areas. These areas include psychotherapy practice, trauma treatment, child development, infant-parent mental health and attachment theory based practices, neuro-developmental inquiry, health and wellness, pre- and perinatal psychology, evolutionary psychology, psycho-anthropology, and many others. A psychologist is a researcher and/or a practitioner of psychology. ... Look up Psychotherapy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Trauma can represent: Physical trauma, an often serious and body-altering physical injury, such as the removal of a limb. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Mental health is a concept that refers to a human individuals emotional and psychological well-being. ... Attachment theory is a psychological theory, or group of theories, about the evolved adaptive tendency to maintain proximity to an attachment figure. ... Evolutionary psychology (abbreviated ev-psych or EP) is a theoretical approach to psychology that explains many mental traits as adaptations in the sense of evolutionary biological, as a product of natural or sexual selection. ...

Education

State accredited somatic psychology programs that meet the educational requirements for licensure as a California Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) include John F. Kennedy University (JFKU) http://www.jfku.edu/ and California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) http://www.ciis.edu/ The program that meets the educational requirement for licensure for Colorado's Professional Counselor License (LPC) is Naropa University http://www.naropa.edu/ John F. Kennedy University is a private university located in Pleasant Hill, California, and an annex located in an office park in Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area. ...

There is a growing body of literature and journals in somatic psychology, and there are several international and national organizations, including the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy http://www.usabp.org/ Somatic psychology books include:

• The Body in Psychotherapy by Johnson and Grand
• Getting Our Bodies Back by Christine Caldwell
• Working with the Dreaming Body by Arnold Mindell
• The Body in Psychotherapy by Edward W.L. Smith
• Body Process by James A. Kepner
• Bonding by Stanley Keleman
• The Body in Recovery by John P. Conger
• The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild