The Psychology of the Body

by Elliot Greene and Barbara Goodrich-Dunn

Book Overview

This book has been designed to provide massage therapists with a greater understanding of the psychological issues that can arise from using touch in their therapy sessions. It describes the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0781737826
• ISBN13: 9780781737821
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
• Length: 274 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.5" x 10.9"

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Informative

It's a fact that body and mind are not separate entities and an eventuality that massage therapists will encounter their clients' emotional expression in some sessions. This book shares Elliot Greene?s and Barbara Goodrich-Dunn's expertise, drawn from over thirty years experience each in dealing with body/mind phenomena and teaching why it comes about, what can happen, how it manifests in different forms, and other information about feelings and emotions that can arise during body work. The Psychology of the Body, written for massage therapists and anyone who works with the body, is a clear and concise book about a large and complex subject -- the human organism. Because of its acuity, I think it is also a good book on the subject of Somatic Psychology in general."Our entire mind is reflected in the body. Not only our conscious thoughts, but also our unconscious anxieties, insecurities, desires and other feelings, beliefs, thoughts and values are reflected in our bodies?. The activity in the unconscious ranges from material that we either cannot or do not need to be aware of, to material of which we do not want to be aware." (Page 101). This is the central issue. Mental repression and resistance can hold uncomfortable or unwanted thoughts and feelings at bay from conscious awareness. However, feelings are an integral part of being human and will find bodily expression even when we use our minds to control bodily impulses and functions or feelings we think are negative (page 98). If held in resistance, feelings can exhibit in different ways outside our awareness and this shows in our bodies. Understanding how our psychological state is expressed in the body and how working with the body affects our psychological state as well as how our work is affected by the interaction between the mind and body is imperative for massage therapists.This book also addresses the problem of the massage therapist who does not know what to do or feels uneasy when a client has an emotional release. The massage venue is a logical place to experience and move through emotional expression because the somatic practitioner is releasing tension and working into the soft tissue, which sometimes also leads naturally to release and processing of held emotion. However, the therapist?s discomfort may reflect societies? perplexity with emotional expression, concluding, "it's bad, it's wrong, it's too much, it will lead to insanity, etc." This discomfort might cause the massage therapist to have an inappropriate reaction or "invalidating response" (page 114) to the client, which can reinforce the client's blocking of his or her feelings. For example, if the massage therapist is uncomfortable or impatient with emotional expression, then that is what they impress on clients. They either discourage the client from a richer relationship with self or they loose the client to a more empathetic body worker.The other problem regarding dealing with emotional release is the mass