Understanding Therapy Through the Body, Relationship, and Embodied Experience
Every experience is embodied.
Joy changes breathing. Fear prepares the body for action. Shame influences posture. Grief affects movement and vitality. Safety allows the nervous system to soften, while uncertainty often appears as tension, vigilance, or withdrawal.
Somatic psychotherapy begins with this simple observation: psychological life is always lived through the body.
Rather than viewing the body as separate from the mind, somatic psychotherapy understands human beings as integrated bodymind organisms whose thoughts, emotions, physiology, relationships, and conscious experience continuously influence one another.
From this perspective, emotional difficulties, attachment patterns, developmental experiences, trauma, and psychological growth are not expressed solely through thoughts or feelings. They are also reflected in breathing, posture, movement, muscle tone, bodily sensation, nervous system regulation, and patterns of interpersonal contact.
Somatic psychotherapy therefore includes the body not as an additional therapeutic technique, but because embodied experience is inseparable from psychological life itself.
While conversation remains an essential part of therapy, somatic psychotherapy also explores how experience is lived, organized, and expressed throughout the whole organism. Therapeutic change involves not only new insight but also new ways of sensing, regulating, relating, and participating in life.
Today, somatic psychotherapy is practiced internationally and continues to evolve through dialogue with body psychotherapy traditions, attachment theory, developmental psychology, trauma studies, affective neuroscience, embodied cognition, interpersonal neurobiology, and contemporary research on emotion and self-regulation.
Although the terms somatic psychotherapy, body psychotherapy, and embodied psychotherapy are sometimes used differently, they all share a common recognition:
Lasting psychological change involves the whole person—body, mind, emotion, relationship, and lived experience.
Figure 1
Core Principles of Somatic Psychotherapy
Although different schools emphasize different methods, most contemporary approaches share several fundamental principles.
Human experience is embodied.
Thoughts, emotions, relationships, memories, and identity are lived through the body rather than existing separately from it.
Body and mind continuously influence one another.
Psychological and physiological processes are inseparable aspects of one living system.
Emotions are bodily processes.
Every emotional experience involves changes in breathing, posture, movement, physiology, facial expression, muscle tone, and autonomic regulation.
Relationships shape embodied development.
Attachment, safety, and interpersonal experience contribute to how individuals regulate emotion, develop resilience, and experience themselves.
Therapeutic change involves the whole organism.
Insight is important, but lasting transformation also involves changes in embodied awareness, emotional regulation, relational capacity, and participation in life.
The Origins of Somatic Psychotherapy
Somatic psychotherapy emerged from a growing recognition that psychological experience cannot be understood independently of the body.
Its historical roots lie in the early development of body psychotherapy during the twentieth century, particularly through the pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich, who observed that emotional conflicts were expressed not only through thoughts and behaviour but also through breathing, muscular tension, posture, movement, and characteristic patterns of bodily organization.
Reich’s observations fundamentally changed the understanding of psychotherapy. Rather than viewing the body merely as a biological organism supporting the mind, he proposed that psychological life is continuously expressed through embodied processes.
His work inspired the development of numerous body-oriented psychotherapeutic traditions, including:
- Bioenergetic Analysis
- Core Energetics
- Biodynamic Psychology
- Biosynthesis
- Bodynamics
- Hakomi
- Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor Therapy (PBSP)
- Postural Integration®
- many contemporary Neo-Reichian approaches
Although these schools differ considerably in theory and clinical methodology, they share a common understanding that human development unfolds through the continuous interaction of body, emotion, relationship, and psychological experience.
Over recent decades, the field has expanded further through dialogue with developmental psychology, attachment theory, trauma research, affective neuroscience, embodied cognition, interpersonal neurobiology, and psychophysiology.
Today, the term somatic psychotherapy is often used as an umbrella concept encompassing both the classical body psychotherapy traditions and newer approaches that emphasise nervous system regulation, trauma integration, relational neuroscience, and embodied awareness.
Rather than representing a single therapeutic method, somatic psychotherapy is best understood as an evolving interdisciplinary field united by one central insight:
Human experience is fundamentally embodied.
Related Articles
👉 Wilhelm Reich and Body Psychotherapy
👉 Major Schools of Body Psychotherapy in Europe
👉 Pioneers of Body Psychotherapy
A central question often asked by people unfamiliar with somatic psychotherapy is:
Why include the body at all?
The answer begins with a simple observation: every psychological experience is simultaneously an embodied experience.
Joy changes facial expression and breathing. Fear prepares the body for action. Grief may soften posture and reduce vitality. Shame can influence muscle tone, eye contact, and the capacity to remain present in relationship. Even quiet reflection involves ongoing changes in physiology, movement, and bodily awareness.
From this perspective, body and mind are not separate systems interacting with one another. They are different aspects of one continuously unfolding human process.
Somatic psychotherapy therefore includes the body not because it is “more physical” than other forms of psychotherapy, but because psychological life is always expressed through embodied experience.
Breathing, posture, sensation, movement, emotional expression, autonomic regulation, and patterns of relationship are understood as meaningful expressions of how experience is being lived in the present moment.
The body is not simply something that responds to experience.
It actively participates in how experience is perceived, organized, regulated, expressed, and transformed.
This perspective represents one of the defining contributions of somatic psychotherapy to contemporary clinical practice.
As neuroscience, developmental psychology, attachment theory, and embodied cognition increasingly demonstrate the inseparability of body and mind, somatic psychotherapy offers practical ways of working with this living integration within the therapeutic relationship.
Figure 2
How Does Somatic Psychotherapy Work?
Somatic psychotherapy explores how present experience is being lived through the whole person.
Conversation remains an essential part of therapy. At the same time, attention gradually expands beyond thoughts and narratives to include breathing, bodily sensation, posture, movement, muscle tone, emotional expression, and patterns of interpersonal contact as they naturally emerge during the therapeutic process.
Rather than asking only What happened?, somatic psychotherapy also asks:
- How is this experience being lived now?
- How is it expressed through the body?
- How does it influence relationship?
- What patterns of regulation or protection have developed?
- What new possibilities may become available?
These questions invite a broader understanding of psychological life.
The therapist does not treat bodily experience as something separate from emotion or cognition. Instead, bodily processes become additional sources of clinical information that enrich psychological understanding.
Different schools of somatic psychotherapy emphasize different methods. Some focus primarily on bodily awareness and interoception, while others may incorporate movement, mindfulness, expressive work, breathing, relational exploration, or, in certain traditions, therapeutic touch.
Whatever the specific approach, the intention remains similar: to support greater awareness of how experience is organized throughout the whole organism.
As awareness increases, patterns that were once automatic may gradually become available for reflection, choice, and change.
Over time, many individuals report greater emotional flexibility, resilience, embodied presence, authenticity, and capacity for meaningful connection with themselves and others.
An Embodied Perspective
Somatic psychotherapy does not work on the body as an object of treatment. Rather, it works with the embodied person. Breathing, sensation, movement, emotion, and relationship become part of a shared exploration through which psychological understanding gradually becomes lived experience.
Embodiment
Perhaps no concept is more central to somatic psychotherapy than embodiment.
Embodiment refers to the ongoing experience of living through one’s body rather than relating to life primarily through abstract thought or conceptual understanding.
It involves sensing, feeling, moving, perceiving, and relating as an integrated living organism.
From an embodied perspective, the body is not merely something we possess.
It is one of the primary ways through which we experience ourselves, other people, and the world.
Every perception, emotion, relationship, decision, and action unfolds through this living participation.
Embodiment therefore extends beyond bodily awareness alone.
It includes the continuous interaction between sensation, emotion, cognition, physiology, movement, relationship, and conscious experience.
When individuals experience chronic stress, developmental disruption, traumatic events, or prolonged relational difficulties, this embodied participation may become restricted.
Some people become disconnected from bodily sensation.
Others remain chronically activated or emotionally overwhelmed.
Still others lose contact with vitality, spontaneity, curiosity, or authentic self-expression.
Somatic psychotherapy seeks not merely to increase bodily awareness but to support a renewed capacity for embodied participation in life.
As individuals gradually reconnect with their lived experience, many discover increased presence, emotional flexibility, resilience, vitality, authenticity, and capacity for relationship.
Embodiment is therefore not simply another therapeutic technique.
It is both the medium through which experience unfolds and one of the central aims of therapeutic development.
Related Articles
👉 Body Psychotherapy and Relationships
Somatic Psychotherapy and Emotional Regulation
One of the central aims of somatic psychotherapy is to support emotional regulation.
Emotional regulation is often understood as the ability to manage or control emotions. From a somatic perspective, however, regulation is something much broader. It reflects the organism’s ongoing capacity to experience, tolerate, express, and integrate emotional life while remaining sufficiently connected to oneself and to others.
This capacity develops gradually throughout life.
Early attachment relationships, developmental experiences, physiological maturation, social interaction, and repeated experiences of safety all contribute to how individuals learn to regulate emotion. Conversely, chronic stress, relational disruption, developmental adversity, or overwhelming experiences may narrow this capacity, leading to persistent patterns of hyperarousal, emotional constriction, dissociation, or instability.
Somatic psychotherapy approaches emotional regulation as an embodied process.
Breathing, physiological activation, bodily sensation, movement, facial expression, posture, and relational contact all contribute to how emotions are experienced and integrated. Rather than attempting to suppress emotional activation, therapy seeks to expand the individual’s capacity to remain present with emotional experience while maintaining sufficient regulation for exploration and integration.
As this capacity develops, individuals often discover greater flexibility, resilience, self-awareness, and emotional freedom.
The goal is not emotional control but greater freedom in how emotions are lived, expressed, and integrated.
Related Articles
👉 What Is Emotional Regulation?
Somatic Psychotherapy and Trauma
The growing interest in somatic psychotherapy is closely related to advances in trauma research.
Traumatic experiences affect far more than conscious memory. They influence physiological regulation, bodily awareness, emotional responsiveness, attention, attachment, and patterns of relationship. Even long after an overwhelming event has passed, its effects may continue to shape present experience through recurring patterns of activation, withdrawal, vigilance, emotional overwhelm, or disconnection.
For this reason, many clinicians have come to recognize that trauma cannot always be understood or resolved through cognitive insight alone.
Somatic psychotherapy explores how traumatic experience continues to be expressed in the living organization of the person.
Rather than focusing exclusively on what happened in the past, attention is directed toward how experience is unfolding in the present moment.
How does the individual breathe while speaking about the event?
What happens within the body when difficult emotions emerge?
How does the person organize safety, connection, or protection?
These questions complement rather than replace verbal exploration.
Working within a carefully regulated therapeutic relationship, somatic psychotherapy helps individuals gradually develop increased capacity for safety, emotional regulation, embodied awareness, and relational connection.
Recovery is understood not simply as remembering or understanding traumatic events, but as expanding the organism’s capacity to participate more freely in present experience.
This emphasis on regulation, embodiment, and relationship explains why somatic psychotherapy has become increasingly influential within contemporary trauma treatment.
Related Articles
👉 Developmental Trauma and the Body
👉 Body Psychotherapy and Attachment
Somatic Psychotherapy and Attachment
Human beings develop in relationship.
From infancy onward, experiences of safety, attunement, responsiveness, and emotional availability shape how the organism learns to regulate emotion, explore the world, and relate to others.
Attachment patterns are therefore expressed not only psychologically but also through embodied processes.
Breathing, muscle tone, movement, physiological regulation, facial expression, posture, and habitual ways of making contact all reflect the ways individuals have learned to organize safety and relationship throughout development.
Somatic psychotherapy recognizes that these patterns are neither fixed nor purely cognitive.
Because attachment continues to be expressed within present experience, it also remains open to development.
Within a safe therapeutic relationship, individuals may gradually experience new possibilities for trust, regulation, emotional expression, autonomy, intimacy, and authentic contact.
In this way, somatic psychotherapy provides a meeting point between attachment theory, developmental psychology, relational neuroscience, and embodied clinical practice.
Rather than viewing attachment as something that belongs only to childhood, it understands attachment as a living process that continues to influence how people experience themselves, others, and the world throughout life.
Related Articles
👉 Body Psychotherapy and Attachment
👉 Attachment and Developmental Processes
👉 Body Psychotherapy and Relationships
Major Approaches to Somatic Psychotherapy
Somatic psychotherapy is not a single therapeutic method.
It is a broad clinical field encompassing numerous schools, each contributing distinctive perspectives on embodiment, psychological development, trauma, emotional regulation, and therapeutic change.
Some approaches emphasise character development and emotional expression. Others focus primarily on attachment, physiological regulation, movement, mindfulness, relational process, or traumatic stress. Although their methods differ, they share the understanding that body and psyche form an integrated whole.
Among the best-known approaches are:
- Reichian Therapy
- Bioenergetic Analysis
- Core Energetics
- Biodynamic Psychology
- Biosynthesis
- Bodynamics
- Hakomi
- Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor Therapy (PBSP®)
- Somatic Experiencing®
- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy®
- Postural Integration®
Each approach contributes unique insights into the relationship between body, emotion, development, and psychotherapy.
Rather than asking which method is “best,” it is often more useful to recognize that these traditions complement one another while reflecting different historical lineages, clinical priorities, and theoretical frameworks.
Together they form a rich and continually evolving field that integrates classical body psychotherapy with contemporary developments in attachment theory, developmental psychology, trauma research, affective neuroscience, and embodied cognition.
Related Articles
👉 Major Schools of Body Psychotherapy
👉 Pioneers of Body Psychotherapy
👉 Somatic Psychotherapy Training Guide
👉 Somatic Psychotherapy Training Comparison
Somatic Psychotherapy and Talk Therapy
Somatic psychotherapy shares many of the aims of traditional psychotherapy. Like other therapeutic approaches, it seeks to reduce psychological suffering, deepen self-understanding, improve relationships, and support personal growth.
Reflection, dialogue, emotional exploration, and the search for meaning remain essential aspects of the therapeutic process.
Where somatic psychotherapy differs is in the breadth of its clinical perspective.
Rather than working exclusively through language, it also attends to how experience is expressed through breathing, bodily sensation, movement, posture, physiology, facial expression, and patterns of interpersonal contact.
These embodied processes are not viewed as secondary reactions to psychological life. They are understood as integral aspects of how experience is organized and lived.
For this reason, somatic psychotherapy is best understood as an expansion rather than a rejection of traditional psychotherapy.
Thoughts, emotions, bodily experience, relationship, and meaning are explored together as interconnected dimensions of one living process.
Many contemporary psychotherapists therefore integrate verbal dialogue with embodied awareness, recognizing that different pathways may support psychological change for different individuals.
The body is not included because words are insufficient.
It is included because human experience is always more than words alone.
Related Articles
👉 Somatic Psychotherapy vs Talk Therapy
Core Strokes®: An Integrative Somatic Psychotherapy Approach
Core Strokes® is a contemporary approach within the broader field of somatic psychotherapy.
Developed by Dirk Marivoet through more than four decades of clinical practice, teaching, and interdisciplinary research, it integrates perspectives from body psychotherapy, attachment theory, developmental psychology, trauma studies, fascial organization, breathwork, phenomenology, and relational practice into a coherent developmental framework.
Rather than emphasizing a single therapeutic technique, Core Strokes® explores how breathing, embodiment, emotional process, fascia, attachment, relational experience, and consciousness continuously participate in the organization of human experience.
Its clinical framework includes models such as the Energetic Breath Cycle™, the Fascia Texture Typology™, and the Neurofascial Transformation Process™, each offering complementary perspectives on embodied development and therapeutic transformation.
Although Core Strokes® represents one contemporary contribution to somatic psychotherapy, it also reflects the field’s broader movement toward integrating classical body psychotherapy traditions with current understandings of attachment, developmental neuroscience, embodied cognition, trauma, and relational process.
Rather than replacing earlier traditions, it seeks to contribute to the ongoing evolution of embodied psychotherapy.
Related Articles
👉 The Living Language of Fascia
👉 Neurofascial Transformation Process™
Who Is Somatic Psychotherapy For?
Who Can Benefit from Somatic Psychotherapy?
Somatic psychotherapy is used across a wide range of clinical, developmental, and personal growth settings.
Individuals may seek this approach for concerns such as:
- anxiety
- trauma and post-traumatic stress
- developmental and attachment-related difficulties
- chronic stress and burnout
- depression
- psychosomatic symptoms
- emotional regulation difficulties
- relationship challenges
- grief and loss
- life transitions
- diminished vitality
- questions of identity and meaning
At the same time, somatic psychotherapy is not limited to symptom reduction.
Many people choose this approach because they wish to develop greater embodiment, resilience, emotional flexibility, authenticity, and capacity for meaningful relationship.
Rather than asking only How can symptoms be reduced?, somatic psychotherapy also asks:
How can people participate more fully in their own lives?
This broader perspective explains why somatic psychotherapy continues to attract not only individuals seeking relief from psychological difficulties but also those interested in ongoing human development.
Related Articles
👉 Body Psychotherapy and Relationships
Is Somatic Psychotherapy Evidence-Informed?
Interest in somatic psychotherapy has increased significantly over recent decades as scientific understanding of embodiment has expanded.
Research in attachment theory, developmental psychology, affective neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, psychophysiology, embodied cognition, interoception, and trauma studies increasingly supports the understanding that psychological functioning involves continuous interaction between body, brain, emotion, relationship, and environment.
These developments have contributed to growing recognition of processes such as emotional regulation, autonomic flexibility, embodied perception, relational attunement, and physiological participation in mental health.
While individual schools of somatic psychotherapy vary in their degree of empirical investigation, many of the principles informing contemporary practice—including embodiment, attachment, emotional regulation, and relational development—are increasingly supported by interdisciplinary scientific research.
As with psychotherapy more generally, the field continues to evolve through dialogue between clinical observation, theoretical development, and empirical investigation.
Scientific research and clinical practice are not opposing perspectives.
Together they contribute to a progressively richer understanding of embodied human experience.
Conclusion
Somatic psychotherapy begins with a simple yet profound understanding:
Human experience is embodied.
Thoughts, emotions, memories, attachment patterns, physiological regulation, and relationships are not experienced solely in the mind. They are continuously lived through breathing, sensation, movement, posture, physiology, and the body’s ongoing participation in the world.
By including these embodied dimensions within psychotherapy, somatic approaches offer a broader understanding of psychological life and therapeutic change.
Rather than separating mind from body, they recognize that awareness, regulation, relationship, and development emerge through the living interaction of the whole organism.
Whether the focus is trauma, attachment, emotional regulation, personal growth, or psychological healing, somatic psychotherapy provides a framework for understanding how experience is organized, expressed, and transformed through embodied life.
Ultimately, its contribution extends beyond the treatment of symptoms.
It invites people not only to understand themselves more deeply, but also to inhabit themselves more fully—to live with greater awareness, vitality, resilience, authenticity, and connection.
👉 Body Psychotherapy and Relationships
Frequently Asked Questions
What is somatic psychotherapy?
Somatic psychotherapy is a form of psychotherapy that recognizes the body as an essential dimension of psychological life. It explores how thoughts, emotions, relationships, attachment experiences, and life events are expressed through embodied processes such as breathing, sensation, movement, posture, physiology, and nervous system regulation.
Rather than treating the body and mind as separate, somatic psychotherapy understands human beings as integrated bodymind organisms whose experiences are continuously lived through the whole person.
Is somatic psychotherapy the same as body psychotherapy?
In many contexts, yes. The terms are often used interchangeably and share many of the same principles.
Historically, body psychotherapy emerged primarily from European psychotherapeutic traditions influenced by Wilhelm Reich and the schools that followed. Somatic psychotherapy became more widely used in North America and often refers to contemporary approaches that integrate trauma research, attachment theory, neuroscience, and embodied awareness.
Today, both recognize that psychological experience is fundamentally embodied.
See also:
Is somatic psychotherapy the same as somatic therapy?
Not necessarily.
Somatic psychotherapy is a form of psychotherapy delivered by a qualified mental health professional and integrates embodied awareness within a psychotherapeutic framework.
The term somatic therapy is broader and may refer to a wide range of body-oriented practices, some of which are psychotherapeutic while others are not. Depending on the country, “somatic therapy” may include approaches offered by psychotherapists, counsellors, bodyworkers, or other health professionals.
For this reason, it is helpful to consider the training, professional qualifications, and therapeutic orientation of the practitioner when choosing a somatic approach.
How is somatic psychotherapy different from traditional talk therapy?
Traditional talk therapy primarily explores thoughts, emotions, memories, and relationships through conversation.
Somatic psychotherapy includes these dimensions while also paying attention to breathing, bodily sensation, movement, posture, emotional expression, physiological regulation, and patterns of relationship as they emerge during therapy.
The body is not viewed as an additional technique but as an essential expression of psychological life.
Can somatic psychotherapy help with trauma?
Yes.
Many somatic psychotherapy approaches are widely used in trauma treatment because trauma affects the whole organism, including bodily awareness, emotional regulation, physiological functioning, attachment, and relationship.
Rather than focusing only on traumatic memories, somatic psychotherapy helps individuals gradually develop greater regulation, resilience, safety, flexibility, and capacity for connection.
See also:
👉 Developmental Trauma and the Body
Does somatic psychotherapy always involve touch?
No.
Many somatic psychotherapists work entirely without touch and focus instead on embodied awareness, breathing, movement, emotional experience, and the therapeutic relationship.
When touch is included, it is used only within clearly defined ethical guidelines, informed consent, appropriate professional boundaries, and according to the therapist’s training and the client’s needs.
Touch is one possible intervention—not a defining characteristic of somatic psychotherapy.
What happens during a somatic psychotherapy session?
Every therapist works somewhat differently, depending on their training and clinical orientation.
Most sessions combine verbal dialogue with awareness of how experience is being expressed through breathing, bodily sensation, posture, movement, emotional expression, physiological regulation, and patterns of interpersonal contact.
The aim is to understand how present experience is being lived throughout the whole person while supporting greater awareness, regulation, and integration.
Is somatic psychotherapy evidence-informed?
Yes.
Contemporary somatic psychotherapy increasingly draws upon research in neuroscience, attachment theory, developmental psychology, trauma studies, affective neuroscience, embodied cognition, psychophysiology, and interpersonal neurobiology.
Although different schools vary in the amount of empirical research available, many of the principles informing somatic psychotherapy—including embodiment, emotional regulation, attachment, and relational development—are increasingly supported by interdisciplinary scientific evidence.
Who can benefit from somatic psychotherapy?
Somatic psychotherapy may be helpful for individuals experiencing:
- anxiety
- trauma and post-traumatic stress
- chronic stress and burnout
- depression
- emotional regulation difficulties
- attachment-related challenges
- psychosomatic symptoms
- relationship difficulties
- grief and life transitions
It is also widely used by people interested in personal development, embodiment, resilience, authenticity, and greater self-awareness.
Is somatic psychotherapy only for people with trauma?
No.
Although it is widely used in trauma therapy, somatic psychotherapy also supports people experiencing anxiety, depression, chronic stress, burnout, relationship difficulties, psychosomatic symptoms, and developmental challenges.
Many individuals seek somatic psychotherapy simply because they wish to deepen their self-awareness, emotional flexibility, vitality, and capacity for meaningful relationships.
How do I become a somatic psychotherapist?
Professional training usually involves several years of postgraduate education combining psychotherapy theory, personal development, supervised clinical practice, embodied awareness, developmental psychology, trauma studies, ethics, and ongoing supervision.
Requirements vary between countries and professional organisations, but becoming a somatic psychotherapist involves far more than learning techniques. It is a developmental process that integrates clinical competence, embodied presence, ethical maturity, and relational capacity.
See also:
- Somatic Psychotherapy Training Guide
- Body Psychotherapy Training in Europe
- How to Become a Body Psychotherapist
References
Foundations of Body Psychotherapy
Boadella, D. (1987). Lifestreams: An Introduction to Biosynthesis. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Boyesen, G. (1980). Biodynamic Psychology. Thorsons.
Lowen, A. (1975). Bioenergetics. Penguin Books.
Pierrakos, J. C. (1987). Core Energetics: Developing the Capacity to Love and Heal. LifeRhythm.
Reich, W. (1942/1973). Character Analysis (3rd ed.). Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Totton, N. (2003). Body Psychotherapy: An Introduction. Open University Press.
Trauma and Attachment
Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books.
Schore, A. N. (2003). Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self. W. W. Norton.
Schore, A. N. (2012). The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy. W. W. Norton.
Siegel, D. J. (2020). The Developing Mind (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. Viking.
Wallin, D. J. (2007). Attachment in Psychotherapy. Guilford Press.
Neuroscience and Embodiment
Craig, A. D. (2015). How Do You Feel? Princeton University Press.
Damasio, A. (1999). The Feeling of What Happens. Harcourt.
Fuchs, T. (2018). Ecology of the Brain. Oxford University Press.
Gallagher, S. (2017). Enactivist Interventions. Oxford University Press.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory. W. W. Norton.
Thompson, E. (2007). Mind in Life. Harvard University Press.
Embodiment and Phenomenology
Csordas, T. J. (1994). Embodiment and Experience. Cambridge University Press.
Gendlin, E. T. (1996). Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy. Guilford Press.
Keleman, S. (1985). Emotional Anatomy. Center Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge.
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (1999). The Primacy of Movement. John Benjamins.
Contemporary Somatic Psychotherapy
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body. W. W. Norton.
Rothschild, B. (2000). The Body Remembers. W. W. Norton.
Professional Organizations
European Association for