Bioenergetic Analysis is a form of psychotherapy that works directly with the body as well as the mind. When we are young most of us grow up in families that have good and bad parts. The good parts enhance our happiness, the bad parts diminish it. For example, if we are told not to cry as a child, or get made fun of for crying, we may swallow our tears, tighten our upper lip, and make our breath more shallow to keep from crying. If this keeps happening, these body defenses against crying (or other unsafe feelings) become automatic. This injunction over expressing feelings gets locked in a vault of chronic muscular holding patterns in the body that protect us, but also diminish our overall energy and zest for life.
Bioenergetic therapy works to bring awareness to these chronic muscular holding patterns and provides exercises and techniques to re-open that vault. Working directly with the body to shift these patterns, makes Bioenergetics a sophisticated somatic psychotherapy. Bioenergetics is psychoanalytically based. This means the therapist explores the past for clues as to early childhood wounds. Bioenergetic therapists are trained in attachment theory, which means they become aware of and provide what is the most healing stance in their relationship with each client.
Recent research in neuroscience has increased our knowledge about the nervous system and the brain. Managing the regulation of the energy, particularly in trauma has been one area of study. Bioenergetic Analysis is at the forefront of working somatically with the energetic systems of the body and the regulation of emotional affect. Bioenergetics is a somatic, psychoanalytic, relational and neuro-biologically informed psychotherapy.