Body psychotherapy

The basic principles of this therapy are humanistic which recognises your own self-healing capacity. It is especially useful if you need help when your life situation becomes too difficult or if you want to deepen your self-understanding and expand your vital capacities. Methods used may include listening, talking, interpretation, bodywork, visualisation, Gestalt or Reichian bodywork, breathing and movement. You will never be asked to do anything you do not want to do. The work is integrative and attempts to bring together several of these approaches. Regular weekly sessions are recommended.

Reichian Bio-psychotherapy

Developed by the Austrian psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich this therapy is the forerunner of many of today’s body oriented therapies. It aims to relieve learned patterns of negative behaviour and chronic muscular tension using breath, sound and movement freeing natural orgone energy.

Reichian Bio-psychotherapy recognises the interwoven nature of mind and body. It can create profound character transformation and somatic wellbeing, reducing both physical and psychological symptoms. With this therapy you can become the instrument of positive change in your life, finding new levels of emotional health, revitalised life energy and authenticity in your relationships.

As we grow and struggle with adversity, we develop repetitive coping strategies to avoid difficult feelings and impossible situations. These strategies may once have allowed us to survive but now as adults hinder our development and enjoyment of life. They can alienate others, keep us from our true feelings, needs and desires, inhibiting our ability to actualize who we really are. Our creativity and success in the world is therefore minimized and problems of depression, anxiety, phobias, insomnia, emptiness, loneliness, eating disorders, and addiction can rule our existence. These patterns have their roots in chronic character styles which have developed throughout our lifetime. As these behaviour patterns are confronted, the character defences are dislodged and the muscle armour melted, allowing the discovery of our true, naturally sexual and spiritual nature.

Biodynamic massage

This form of massage combines talk and touch. Targeting the mind as well as the muscles. It is concerned with the process of making connections in and between mental, emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of yourself. It is truly an integrative therapy, working both at the physiological level of skin, muscle and bone and on the more subtle energy flows in the body. It also looks at the connections between physical symptoms and emotional states.

In the first session time is taken to discuss your life situation and medical history. Biodynamic massage works on the origins and effects of stress in your life, promoting deep relaxation, improved circulation, increased energy and well being. You are likely to feel some benefit after one session, but a sustained change is only made possible by regular sessions over a period of weeks or months.

Somatic trauma therapy

Post-traumatic Stress (PTS) can develop after exposure to traumatic experience. Effective somatic trauma therapy involves both talk and bodywork. It can help you both to remember and psychologically resolve the traumatic situation. It can also restore lost physical reflexes and rebalance your nervous system. This form of therapy can take from a few sessions to several years.

Shamanic counselling

This form of counselling, operating at the interface of shamanism and psychotherapy acknowledges a perception of the world that recognises no separation between mind and matter. This approach to life upholds the importance of personal choice, authenticity, accepting responsibility for one's actions, acknowledging human beings as unique and whole, exploring subjective experience and seeking a meaningful life through personal growth.

During a session traditional psychotherapy techniques may be used alongside shamanic journeying and work with energy. As a client your needs in regards to your entire being and within the context of your environment and circumstances will be addressed.

Cranial massage

Cranial massage therapy uses an extremely gentle quality of touch to assist the body in its healing process. This deeply relaxing therapy is aimed at treating the whole person and can therefore help in almost any condition from the physical to the emotional. It is also very effective in promoting general improvements in health and energy, balancing and integrating the whole person on many levels, and reintegrating it following illness, accident or injury.