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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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Frequently Asked Questions

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GENERAL QUESTIONS

Postural Integration® is a holistic method, created in the 1970’s by Jack Painter, Ph.D., that supports you in dealing with the challenges in your life, in a more creative manner. It helps you to change in every part of yourself -- in your body feelings and thoughts as well as your capacity to act and be satisfactorily in your daily life environment. The uniqueness of this method lies in the simultaneous integration of deep tissue and breath work, body movement and awareness, as well as emotional expression within a relational context.

According to Wikipedia Postural Integration is a process-oriented body-based therapy originally developed in the late 1960s by Jack Painter (1933–2010) in California, US, after exploration in the fields of humanistic psychology and the human potential movement. The method aims to support personal change and self development.

Jack Painter in "Deep Bodywork and Personal Development" wrote that :”Postural Integration is not only a specific process that I have developed, it is a unique, holistic synthesis – it is a singular approach to the whole being – not just a collection of methods of breathing, deep bodywork, Gestalt, Reichian work and movement awareness. All these aspects are facets of a central view of the individual as an energetic élan exhibiting physical, emotional, and cognitive dimensions which are all part of an energetic wave.” 

Its ultimate goal is to achieve personal change and transformation. He distanced himself from classifying his method as “therapy” in the clinical sense or “psychotherapy”, stating it was bodymind or mindbody work.

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Energetic Integration® is the second holistic method that Jack Painter, Ph.D. developed (this one championed in the 1980’s), that supports you in dealing with the challenges and experiences of limitation in your life, in a more creative manner. 

Energetic Integration uses the same central methods and concepts with variations only in the areas of focus as the other methods of Bodymind Integration. Postural Integration focusing on the softening and organization of planes of fascia and Energetic Integration focuses on the blockages in the energetic wave and energy flow as manifest in bands of ‘armor’, where bodymind energy is in tension and conflict with itself.

Energetic Integration helps you to change in every part of yourself -- in your body feelings and thoughts as well as in your capacity to live fully in your social environment. While Postural Integration (for more details see section on Postural Integration) - in the process of release and integration of the defense mechanisms laid down in your muscular armor - is more focussed on the reorganization of the myofascial planes, Energetic Integration is more focused on the reorganization of breath and life energy as it moves through a self-regenerating energetic wave. Energetic Integration helps you to explore, claim and be creative in the energetic expressions of your existence.

Bodymind Integration has applications in various fields and has different heuristics amongst which four basic orientations of intervention/therapy:

1. an orientation on personal growth, with the aim to support and to stimulate the individual in the use, cultivation, and development of his/her sources and potential through selfexploration and systematic selfrealisation.
2. a salutogenic orientation, that promotes health, wellness and fitness, consciousness of health and a healthpromoting lifestyle through counseling and healthcoaching.
3. a clinical orientation, that is curative and palliative, trying to restore health and/or to diminish pain and suffering through clinical methods and therapeutic interventions
4. a critical contribution to the culture, for postural integration is an emancipatoric discipline.

Bodymind Integration takes a biopsychosocial position and a lifelong developmental one, as well as a context-oriented vision. It follows a multiperspective complex paradigm, rooted in the longitudinal oriented life- or biosciences (biology, medicine with the important subspecialities of neurosciences, psychiatry and immunology), in “scientific psychology” (developmental, clinical, social) and in relevant social sciences. The background metatheory is strongly rooted in modern philosophy (epistemological and anthropological visions), in cultural critique and has a clear position in regards to general and professional ethics.

If you are looking for a deeper life fulfillment, and you want to engage in a deeper commitment towards your body in order to get rid of the tensions and belief systems you hold in your body and mind as a result of intentional or unintentional conditioning, acquired from early childhood on, Bodymind Integration is good for you.
If you want to look into the way you have been frustrated in your natural development in your early upbringing and schooling at the level of your energetic, emotional and postural expression of self, and you want to transform that frustration into a sense of fulfilment, go get some Bodymind Integration sessions.
If you want to improve your physical and cognitive sense of fulfilment, if you want greater flexibility… increased breathing capacity … elongation of the torso … greater muscular co-ordination … increase of sense of self …. more centredness … more dynamism …. Increased creativity …. freedom of chest …. increased height …. a from stress freed voice … a from aches and pains removed body … an enhanced quality of your life : Go for it: Find yourself a Bodymind Integration therapist.
If you want to resolve personal problems.... become ‘unstuck’...look for the simple pleasure of touch... get to know yourself better... build or re-build your self-esteem...work at relationship/intimacy difficulties.....diminish or resolve symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ....restore energy balance if you lack energy and movement in life ...to learn that there are many different paths you can take and many alternative decisions you can make in life....Bodymind Integration is a wonderful treat.
If you want to free yourself of old burdens....discover new future prospects and have better happy relationships...and be capable of freely experiencing and expressing your feelings: then Postural and/or Energetic Integration are ideal for you.

 

 

Jack Painter, the founder of Bodymind Integration claimed that Postural Integration and Energetic Integration (Bodymind Integration Methods) are neither a psychotherapy, nor a physical therapy, but a synthesis of both and a scientific field in its own right. His Postural Integration method (1987) is an original synthesis - not an eclectic combination - of Reichian Therapy, Gestalt Process Work, Rolfing, Psychodrama, Movement Awareness and the theory of the 5-elements. He later also developed Energetic Integration. These two  methods of Bodymind Integration are regulated by The International Council of PsychoCorporal (Bodymind) Integration Trainers (ICPIT), the sole representative umbrella organisation of Bodymind Integration and founded in 1988. ICPIT is a member of WAPCEPC (The World Association of Person Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy). Depending on the legislation in different countries, it is practiced by some practitioners within the context of body Psychotherapy, by others in the context of counselling, or even coaching. The French Institute in Strassbourg made an adaptation of the approach, and called it Psychotherapeutic Postural Integration, with a more important inclination to Gestalt psychotherapy, and a lesser focus on structural hands-on bodywork.

OTHER QUESTIONS

In twelve paradigm steps the client can experience in an analytical and global way the relaxation of his/her various muscle groups and learn at the same time to get in touch with his deepest emotions, feelings and thoughts. Postural Integration helps a person break free from old physical and emotional armor that inhibits the free flow of vitality, and psychophysical balance. It is a powerful tool for increasing a sense of well-being, the capacity to feel and express yourself in all your relationships. The approach can open up new perspectives in your life improve insight, consciousness and overall clarity.

What differentiates PI from other myofascial intervention series is the integration of the physical work on muscles with raised energy (through breathwork), emotional work (through a range of expression), and mental work (through gestalt awareness dialogue).

Postural Integration practitioners are highly skilled facilitators. They can come from diverse backgrounds. Certification as a Postural Integrator is awarded after successful completion of a minimum of 700 hours theoretical studies, practical work and case studies that takes place over 3-5 years. Amongst other things, the curriculum includes the theory and practice of: Anatomy; physiology; applied pathology and psychopathology; body and movement awareness; deep myofascial release and organisation; energetic and breath therapy; the natural energy cycle; body reading and dialogue; therapeutic touch, contact and boundaries; verbal and non-verbal communication skills; developmental processes; character styles; the nature of charging and discharging energy; emotional release and integration; body transference and countertransference; and a supervised internship.

Holism is often described as the contrary of reductionism. A form of reductionism is the current view of man in conventional medical science, also known as the biomedical model, in which disease is reduced to a problem in biological processes. In the biomedical model, the therapist has the task to restore the out of balance processes back to their original equilibrium. This model found its origin in the 16-17th century with Descartes, which also initiated the birth of modern science. Here a distinction was mad between body and soul. This distinction allowed the christian church to allow medical research. According to the church the body was the seat of the soul. The soul was important, the body was...
"…a weak and imperfect vessel for the transfer of the soul from this world to the next".

For this reason the church could agree with the opening of bodies, for scientific reasons. This is where the modern insight in the inner workings of body started, but also of a mechanistic view on the body.
Holism is related to complexity. Each part owes certain characteristics to its constituing parts, but also (and possibly more) to the relationship (zusammenhang) or ordering of its parts and their interaction.

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