Body psychotherapy

Body psychotherapy, also called body-oriented psychotherapy, is a branch of psychotherapy which applies basic principles of somatic psychology. It originated in the work of Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and particularly Wilhelm Reich who developed it as vegetotherapy.

History

Wilhelm Reich and the post-Reichians are considered the central element of body psychotherapy. From the 1930s Reich became known for the idea that muscular tension reflected repressed emotions, what he called 'body armour,' and developed a way to use pressure to produce emotional release in his clients. Reich was expelled from the psychoanalytic mainstream and his work found a home in the ‘growth movement’ of the 1960s and 1970s and in the countercultural project of 'liberating the body.' Perhaps as a result, body psychotherapy was marginalised within mainstream psychology and was seen in the 1980s and 1990s as ‘the radical fringe of psychotherapy'. Body psychotherapy's marginal position may be connected with the tendency for charismatic leaders to emerge within it, from Reich onwards.