Michael Coster Heller Psychologist Psychotherapist Lausanne Switzerland

Michael Coster Heller
Psychotherapist, Lausanne

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The Flesh of the soul ?

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Michel Heller, psycologue et psychothérapeute, Lausanne, Suisse

Michael Coster Heller, Dr. Phil & Sport
Psychologist & Psychotherapist, FSP/AVP/EABP

Rue du Maupas 10
CH-1004 Lausanne

TEL. 021 683 17 47

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" bordercolor="#111111" width="100%" id="AutoNumber1" class="news"> <tr> <td width="100%"><h5>News</h5></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> <br> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" bordercolor="#111111" width="100%" id="AutoNumber2" class="news"> <tr> <td width="50%"><b><b>Body Psychotherapies: foundations and methods </b> (in French)</b></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%">This manual provides a detailed view of the issues and methods which characterize the field of body psychotherapies. De Boeck (Belgium) should bring this volume out, in its collection on psychotherapies, in <b>October 2008</b> Although interest for how mind and body interact with each other dates back to ancient times, progress in this field has been particularly slow. The list of scholars who have studied body movements reads almost like a Who's Who in the history of science. Nevertheless, for most academics who tried to unravel the secrets of how mind and body interact, the topic has proved to be grossly unrewarding. Although writers defend the relevance of such study, they often introduce the subject as if it were esoteric or unheard of. It is as if a great many serious scientists have shown a fleeting interest for the psychological factors that generate body movement and then gone on. As science has not yet explored this field in a systematic way, issues related to how body and mind are coordinated are mostly left to practitioners in disciplines that work on this coordination. Various forms of psychotherapies have incorporated these methods. This has led to a reformulation on how body techniques and psychotherapy methods can be combined which has led to formulations which constitute the field of body psychotherapies. This manual of Body Psychotherapies describes how this knowledge has constructed itself since thousands of years. Even some of the oldest techniques, such as the exploration of postures in Hatha-Yoga, and of breathing in trance techniques, remain so useful that most physiotherapists and psychotherapists have explored them for a least a short while. These methods developed in most cultures of the planet, discovering an immense variety of ways of dealing with the issue of mind and body, but also confirming some chore observations, that most practitioners “re-discover” all the time, probably because they correspond to basic mechanisms of the organism. A typical example is the frequently observed correlation between anxiety, variability of muscular tone and respiration. The variability of breathing patterns and muscular tone decreases as anxiety becomes more intense. However, attempts to lower the intensity of anxiety by loosening muscular tensions and respiratory constriction have not brought all the results that were expected. The discovery that neurotransmitters connect breathing, muscular tension and experienced anxiety has confirmed this observation, but also brought new insights on how work with these dimensions. Thus, although research has not yet really tried to understand how body and mind interact in an organism, what has been studied often confirms old observations, and brings unexpected insights on the underlying complexities of human experience. In the mean time, Freud and his pupils used methods and concepts derived from hypnosis and yoga schools that thrived at the end of the XIXth century, to forge the tools with which the new founded science of psychology could generate a new form of therapy, called psychotherapy. Psychoanalysis, Freud’s version of psychotherapy was initially founded on the study of hysterical patients who’s suffered from damaging physical symptoms caused by intolerable psychological conflicts. At first, to differentiated psychotherapy from current medical and psychiatric treatments, psychoanalysts focused on forms of intervention that were clearly psychological, using verbal forms of communication. However, an increasing number of psychoanalysts (e.g., Groddeck, Ferenczi, Fenichel and Reich) began to explore ways of using all forms of communication which allows two organisms to share impressions. Psychological dynamics seemed to participate in the regulation of dimensions of the organism such as behavior, body and physiology. This led to the formation of active psychotherapy techniques, which took into account the quality of movements and ways of interacting with others. These developments led Reich, with the support of Otto Fenichel, to develop in the 1930s what is known as body psychotherapies. A wide variety of body psychotherapies have developed since then. They typically combine a standard psychotherapeutic approach (psychoanalysis, gestalt therapy, transactional analysis, cognitive therapy and family therapy) with a variety of behavioral (nonverbal communication, developing skills, etc.) and body techniques (relaxation, physiotherapy, massage, yoga, Feldenkrais, etc.). The aim of these developments is to increase our understanding of how the mind participates in dynamics of the organisms, and of its capacity to interact with its environment. This manual on body psychotherapies describes the main issues and techniques around which body psychotherapies have developed new ways of helping patients and an original form of knowledge. The aim of this volume is to allow colleagues and students to acquire the means to situate particular forms of body psychotherapy with a realm of relevant issues and an ongoing development of methods. To support future developments, the manual presents classical body psychotherapy methods, and relate them to more recent fields such as artificial intelligence, neurosciences and recent philosophical developments. As this book is a manual, it provides a detailed description and discussion of the methods it describes, and relates them to relevant ethical issues. It is mostly designed for students, and colleagues interested in psychotherapy and body-mind issues. It will hopefully also help informed readers from neighboring disciplines to deepen their knowledge of the type of knowledge that is being developed by body psychotherapists. What this manual is not: A dictionary of existing body psychotherapy schools – a manual that allows one to acquire a particular psychotherapy technique </td> </tr> </table> <br> </td> </tr> </table>

Psychotherapy practice centered on individual processes.
Approach: Coordinating verbal and bodily dimensions in function of a patient’s needs.

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Languages spoken : English & French

IMPORTANT : For an appointment, please telephone. I do not respond to emails on therapeutic or supervisory matters.