Embodied Approaches to Psychotherapy

The importance of applying an embodied approach to psychotherapy

This conversation provides a personal and historical accounting of the gradual reconciliation and integration of somatically-based and psychoanalytic approaches in in-depth psychotherapy. In his talk, Bill Cornell illustrates how the attitudes and techniques of each tradition can deepen and enhance the other. Drawing upon the work of Wilhelm Reich, Donald Winnicott, Christopher Bollas, Muriel Dimen, and Ruth Stein among others, Bill argues for the centrality of one’s body and sexuality in our psychic realities and interpersonal relations. He further argues for the place and function of informed touch as a means of facilitating sensorimotor awareness and nonverbal communication.