Embodied Psychotherapist’, discusses this in some depth. “In order to capture the essence of the experience of the therapist’s body in the therapeutic encounter I have coined the term psychotherapist embodiment’. This is a complex subject and I have tried to tackle the issue of mind-body dualism which is inherent in our western society. In a sense embodiment is an attempt to address this mind-body dualism and introduce a holistic method for viewing the therapeutic relationship – or put another way, my research has from a clinical theoretical point of view tried to collapse the mind-body dualism present within psychotherapy culture. I am aware, too, that an inextricable aspect of this work has been the necessity to look at language and the types of interpretation we as therapists use to describe the variety of physical reactions we feel while working within the therapeutic relationship. This has been challenging for me and I suspect for the reader. My solution to this particular language problem has been to advocate the incorporation of narrative methods into the therapeutic relationship. This at least allows for psychotherapist embodiment to become an overt part of the relationship, and not become hidden in the murky waters of countertransference, a term which I do not think captures the essence of psychotherapeutic embodiment. (Shaw, 2003, 156) Allan Schore spoke well about the affect involved in, and the effectiveness of, the therapeutic alliance: “It does not in and of itself represent an intervention or technique; rather it is the vehicle within which therapeutic progression is facilitated – a growth-facilitating environment.” (Lisbon, Biosynthesis Congress, 2006) Over half of the beneficial effects of psychotherapy are linked to the quality of the therapeutic alliance. It accounts for more of the variance between the treatments than any other factor. The primary component of the alliance is the emotional bond between the patient and the therapist. This is a psycho-biological bond: it is an empathy. It has nothing to do with touch: it has everything to do with presence. Touch, or the wrong sort of touch, may very well disturb this, rather than enhancing it. Can you take this risk? Are you sure? How about establishing an alliance first – and then seeing if touch is appropriate? The therapist’s tone and volume of voice, their patterns and speed of verbal communication, and eye contact also contain a multitude of elements of subliminal communication. The client reads these – all the time. These are subliminal, moment-to-moment, background, subconscious, intuitive, empathic, implicit, listening and receptive. We can help the client (or patient) to re-pattern their right-brain hemisphere using the therapeutic contact. This is also the process of embodiment, or perhaps (more accurately) re-embodiment. The client’s right-brain listens to the therapist’s right-brain – and heals. The relational unconscious is where one unconscious mind communicates with another unconscious mind. (Schore, 2006) The quality of the interaction is what is quintessentially important. This is not a process whether the skills or techniques of the (body) therapist change the client’s awareness, their emotions, and thus their relationship with themselves. This is an interventionist perspective. I am not saying that sometimes interventions are not justified: they are – but they should be the exception rather than the rule. The relationship is more effective and it allows the client to develop their own path or heal their own aspects. Furthermore, instead of having a particular model of wholeness: a check-list with which we can assess our client’s progress towards healing – or embodiment, or a muscle-tone type of diagnostic so that we can assess how well the body scores, I want to suggest to the client a new relationship with their body: perhaps a less conscious one. It is not pre-conscious; it is more subconscious. Thomas Moore speaks about the “acorn of the soul”: the sense the acorn has of its potential to grow into an oak tree. Somewhere deep within us there is that ‘knowledge’ of our potential. We can only find that potential through a process of embodiment – and more than embodiment. But that potential was denied us, often through forces of circumstance, often both as clients and therapists, and it is a long, hard journey to re-find it. Scott Peck (1986) calls this “The Road Less Travelled”. We are still trying to find it again – and so are our clients. We need to feel this in ourselves, in our bodies, so that they can resonate with this, and we need – as therapists – to have this sort of consciousness in order for the client to have this consciousness. If we deny this unknown potential in them, as well as in ourselves, then we are repeating the process of, or the experience of, becoming dis-embodied. Other Influences: From the perspective of health studies and health economics, we are concerned as to what illnesses are prevalent in which sections of society and what are 44 Courtenay Young Doing Effective Body Psychotherapy without Touch: Part II: The Process of Re-embodiment
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