Four relational modes of attending to the body in psychotherapy

In this chapter provides an overview of the contributions made by psychoanalysis, attachment theory, and neuroscience. The author elucidates both what contemporary body psychotherapy has to offer whilst also recognising the complex tensions of the history of ideas in psychotherapy. Some in the field of psychotherapy "bodies" or "the body" has meant literally, and simply, sex and the erotic. Relationality involves the capacity both to think and hold multiple perspectives, and to perceive the other's body and to feel one's own body as a source of emotional aliveness and engagement. There has been a sea change in the field towards recognising the importance of the body in psychotherapy fuelled by interdisciplinary dialogue and advances in science. Grounding is a term long associated with body psychotherapy: it means connecting to feelings and sensations in the body, and being in strong contact with the ground through the legs and feet.