ICPIT : The International Council & Community of PsychoCorporal (Bodymind) Integration Trainers and Practitioners

Theoretical Concepts used in Bodymind Integration are derived from....

• Existentialism: The Humanistic thoughts of S. Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and F. Nietszche (1844-1900)
  • The „awakening of the individual”
  • The confrontation with the myriad of „self-soothing defenses” by which individuals preserve their „sleepy complacency”
  • The transformation of all values into authentic values, the realisation of the human capacity to create the shape of one’s own life.
• Phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Binswanger, Boss, Laing,…), we integrate in the training that:
  • The human being is a “being-in-the-world”, that is, as an entity whose very fabric involves an immersion and openness to the surrounding world
  • The body is the primary site of knowing the world
  • The body and that which is perceived cannot be disentangled from each other
  • Through intentionality human beings “co-create” phenomena, rather than just passively register what is there
• The Thesis of Dialogical Existence, developed by Martin Buber.  We integrate in the training that:
  • Within the unfolding relationship of an ‘I’ to a ‘Thou’, the human person is born and unfolds to its full potential. When one human being addresses another human being as an “it,” both the other and oneself are diminished
• The concepts developed by C.G. Jung. We integrate in the training:
  • The collective unconscious and the archetypes (animus; anima; persona(e), shadow, the self….)
  • The postulate of the reality of the soul
  • The process of individuation as a lifelong process of psychic growth, becoming and realization of the self.
  • The vision in which psychic suffering is not reduced to a pathology, but is seen as a passage in the process of individuation of the individual
• Kurt Goldstein’s Holistic Theory of Organism. We apply:
  • The figure-ground principle from perception to the whole organism, presuming that the whole organism serves as the ground for the individual stimulus forming the figure.
• Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory. In agreement with this theory, we suggest that neither nature (inborn tendencies) nor nurture (how experiences in life shape individuals) alone can account for individual’s behavior and personalities, but rather that both nature and nurture interact to shape each person.
• The Gestalt-psychology / therapy of Frederick Perls:
  • The existential dimension and the notion of the present „here-and-now”,
  • The existentialist responsibility for one’s own choices as well as many creative means that are useful help in dealing with conflict situations, inner disunity and fragmentation.
•  Wilhelm Reich (and diverse post-reichian developments (Alexander Lowen’s Bio-Energetic Analysis, John Pierrakos’ Core-Energetics, Stephen Johnsons additions on Character Analysis, Stanley Keleman’s Formative Psychology, etc.):
  • The notion that the body is the living memory of the experience and family heredity, as well as keeper of withheld wounding and hereditary suffering. Specialized and original work is done with what in this tradition is called character armoring. A spiritual dimension is recognized herein.
• The Concepts and Practices developed by Somatic Practitioners like Elisabeth Dicke (Bindegewebsmassage), Ida Rolf (Structural Integration): a protocol for releasing chronic myofascial contractions, Tom Myers (Anatomy Trains: detailed anatomical insights of myfascial meridians), etc. the practical know-how and know-where of deep holistic bodywork, and from Somatic Disciplines like Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais’ Functional Integration, Judith Aston Patterning, Bioenergetics, Yoga, Eastern traditions: 1) work with acupressure points and 5-elements theory for stimulating, sedating, self-regulating, etc. purposes 2) certain techniques to work with ‘fine energy’, based on polarity therapy., etc.)
• L. Moreno (Psychodrama), Virginia Satir (Family Reconstruction and Sculpting), Albert Pesso (PBSP), Jack Painter (Bodymind Drama), and others:
  • The use of dramatization, roleplaying and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into ones life. A variety of action methods may lead to enactment, depicting, for example, memories of specific happenings in the client’s past, unfinished situations, inner dramas, fantasies, dreams, preparations for future risk-taking situations, or unrehearsed expressions of mental state in the here and now. These scenes either approximate real-life situations or are externalizations of inner mental processes. Other members of the group may become auxiliaries, and support the protagonist by playing other significant roles in the scene in specified ways.
• The field of Transpersonal Psychology:
  • The notion of "development beyond conventional, personal or individual levels": the exploration of "experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos".
• Other fields: We are influenced by
  • Inter-subjectivity (Relational Psychoanalysis (e.g. Daniel Stern), Applied to newborn infants (e.g. Colwyn Trevarthen ), theory of embodied simulation (Vittorio Gallese – mirror neurons)
  • Somatic Psychotherapies (e.g. Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (Pat Ogden), Somatic Experiencing (Peter Levine), NARM (Laurence Heller)
  • Acceptance and Commitment therapy
  • Strengths based therapy (e.g. emotionally focused therapy, play therapy, narrative therapy
  • Elements of CBT
  • ‘Mindfulness’
  • Contemporary relational themes in counseling and psychotherapy
  • Cranio-Sacral therapy
• Raffaele Cascone, in the collective book "Transforming the Self with Bodymind Integration"* suggests that P.I. may be further improved by taking in consideration and integrating :
  • Chaos Theory (Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers – Order out of chaos)
  • Vinciane Despret's psychology and philosophy,
  • the current shift of focus in the scientific world from genetics to epigenetics and to epigenetic reprogramming;
  • the shift from Hans Selye’s old stress concept to Henri Laborit's discovery of the inhibition of action syndrome (l'inhibition de l'action) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD7lMDXDvt8) and to behavioral epigenetics,
  • The discovery of the social engagement system. (see e.g. The listening project) (S.W. Porges)
  • The anticholinergic anti-inflammatory reflex (K.J. Tracey)
• Of influence is also Aaron Antonovsky’s (1923-1994) concept of “salutogenesis” as formulated in his theory of “sense of coherence”, which states that the healthy person has a sense of coherence – inwards towards life and inner self making him alive, and outwards towards the world, making him real. Being alive and real is what a sound person is, and loss of health is loss of the sense of coherence making the person emotionally dead, mentally delusional, and spiritually aloof.
• Broader descriptive terms for this work are: humanistic, holistic, integrative, existential and trans-personal.

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