Bioenergetic Analysis 2021

In this memoir an experienced psychotherapist describes a fifty-year personal psychotherapy, more than thirty years of this therapy as a patient of Dr. Michael Eigen. The author’s and Michael Eigen’s lived experience of madness and murder is examined for insight into the possibilities of working psychotherapeutically with very damaged psyches and souls. Michael Eigen’s theory and practice are part of the investigation, and questions are raised about what can be enough, if anything, in the successful psychotherapy of people in profound and enduring psychological and emotional pain.

The article describes a work of Bioenergetic Analysis performed in the business sector. The therapists provided group therapy in a company context in a situation of serious grief (an employee had been killed in an occupational accident while several of his colleagues were present). Good results were achieved. Initially, the client requested individual psychological therapy for the thirty colleagues of the deceased man. This request was redefined to cover two approaches: immediate individual therapy (for those employees most affected) and group therapy. This paper describes the group therapy performed in the company environment. The paper also discusses some of the techniques used; the theoretical basis (Lowen’s Bioenergetic Analysis); incorporation of neurological advances on trauma (Porges’ Polyvagal Theory), trauma treatment (Berceli, Levine, Ogden, Rothschild and Van der Kolk); and the concepts that might be most helpful for anyone replicating this work in similar contexts.

Racial issues are increasingly visible in current times and it is essential to speak and listen to the body in relationships, in the face of the suffering caused by racism. Racism causes suffering and can kill. There are many ways to kill and die. The breath and throat are affected by choking or muting the voice, the vehicle of expression and autonomy of thought. Racism is in the air and all bodily senses recognize it. It enters the throat and chokes. It touches the skin and freezes. Racist ideology enters and roots the body and the mind. It registers internal memories that will communicate in gestures and attitudes in the white body and in the black body. In society, the white body will present itself as a place of privilege. Listening attentively to the analyst in race relations involves listening to oneself, being involved in the context, and recognizing the relationship of these socially marked bodies that solidify inequality. Listening is the art of caring, as it leads to transformations toward the rescue of free movements of the breath, the body and the mind.

“Schiz” is a Latinized word-forming element that means split, division or cleavage. In German, the word schizoid, turned up in the 1920’s meaning “resembling schizophrenia”, from the combination of (gr.) schiz + (gr.) oeides, “like”, form eidos, form or shape. In The Betrayal of the Body, The Language of the Body, and Bioenergetics, Dr. Lowen’s works that most thoroughly teach us his views about the schizoid character structure, it becomes evident that the story of the schizoid split is a one of very early rejection and hostile hatred, culminating in profound, many times painfully misunderstood, inner torment. The following article offers some considerations about the schizoid structure illustrated by an analysis of clinical work with a client. Reflecting upon the theoretical proposal of how interaction, in this case, may be felt particularly as an oppressive inner ambivalence, this paper will present considerations about handling with a schizoid client in the therapeutic setting.

This article focuses on the challenges we face as bioenergetic therapists when doing teletherapy. It addresses the difficulty of working with defenses and resistances in a context where the client is not physically present and where we only see part of the body through a screen, in a two-dimensional representation (sessions on video) or not at all (phone sessions). It offers practical suggestions to compensate for what cannot be apprehended directly due to distant communication. It also offers some research data on the level of efficacy and on the quality of the relationship, when teletherapy is compared with face-to-face therapy. Finally, it offers practical suggestions with regards to visual fatigue and as well as some elements of understanding Zoom fatigue.

This article describes how bioenergetic therapists have had to adjust their clinical work due to the pandemic. We discuss factors to consider when working virtually or by telephone as well as the limitations imposed by the pandemic. Specific suggestions designed to assist the therapist in connecting, tracking, and working with clients are described. Ways to adapt bioenergetic techniques are included. We offer specific examples from the authors and our colleagues about how to adapt somatic interventions to the virtual environment. Additionally, therapist self-care, including ways to reduce Zoom fatigue, is addressed.

The article can be defined in two parts. The first concerns a more personal reflection on the meaning of the lockdown experience for me. The second part, on the other hand, represents a more theoretical reflection on online sessions and on those therapeutic factors that affect the possibility of having meaning, transformation and change, even though this modality is quite “new” for me and for many bioenergetic psychotherapists. This article highlights that every therapeutic act starts from empirical experience and then the elaboration allows the transformation of the theoretical and sensory boundaries.

This article presents ten theses containing theoretical considerations for a postgraduate curriculum as currently tested by the Polish Society for Bioenergetic Analysis. The bioenergetic notion of the self, of affect regulation and of mental defense are modified in order to allow for psychodynamic conflict-, structure- and trauma-pathological concepts to be integrated into Bioenergetic Analysis. Among other advantages, this approach facilitates the work with structural disorders (narcissism, borderline personality disorder) in Bioenergetic Analysis.