Body Psychotherapy

Rating:
Summary: A Welcome Addition to books on body psychotherapy
Review: "Body Psychotherapy" is the second offering in a series that aims to bring the post-graduate student/professional up to speed on the latest advances in theory and therapeutic practice. This anthology of articles by qualified professionals in the field of body psychotherapy brings together a diverse number of contemporary voices to illuminate the various issues and themes that dominate thinking on body psychotherapy. The contributors include Tree Staunton (also editor), Nick Totton (author of the newly released; Body Psychotherapy, An Introduction), Babette Rothschild, Margaret Landale, Rose Cameron, Roz Carroll, Phillipa Vick, Bernd Eiden, and Roger J. Woolger, with a foreword by Andrew Samuels. With the exception of Babette Rothschild (an American), all of the contributors have a British background of training or currently practice in Britian. This would seem to give the reader primarily a perspective on contemporary currents of body psychotherapy in Britian. However, most of the articles are of general enough interest to not suffer the drawback to be expected from specialized treatment on a theme. Most memorable is Totton's article on the historic development of body psychotherapy from the psychoanalytic tradition, from which it has been severed, and his other article on "The future of body psychotherapy", which is the best brief introduction to body psychotherapy I've read. Also notable is Bernd Eiden's article on Reichian charcter structure, Tree Staunton's piece on "Sexuality in Psychotherapy", and Roger J. Woolger's discussion of somaticly anchored past-life memories. Each of the articles was specifically written for this work so that their unavailability elsewhere makes this book a must.