Bodynamic International Directors: Lisbeth Marcher, Erik Jarlnaes Struenseegade 13A DK-2200 N Copenhagen Denmark Tel: +45-3535-4321 Canada: www.bodynamic.ca Denmark: www.bodynamic.dk/ Netherlands: www.bodynamic.nl Scandinavia: www.bodynamicbrantbjerg.dk/ USA: bodynamicusa.com
School history
Bodynamic International has been formally based in Denmark since 1982 but also has institutes in Vancouver Canada, California, The Netherlands, Greece, Russia, Japan, Norway and Sweden. Members of the institutes actively pursue the development and refinement of the Bodynamic theories. The institutes provide workshops and training in Bodynamic Analysis to professionals in mental health and body therapies, and workshops for general interest as well as personal growth for interested people. They also have programs for Bodynamic therapists to become trainers. They regularly address international conferences on the methods employed working with character structure, shock trauma (PTSD), and birth trauma, as well as issues such as communication, social and psychological education and team building.
Basic theory and concepts
Biodynamic Analysis is a unique style of somatic developmental psychology that evolved from 25 years of research into psychomotor development by Lisbeth Marcher and her colleagues. They called their systematic approach Bodynamic Analysis and founded the Bodynamic Institute. Their key insights include the belief in mutual connection and individual dignity as the primary human drives and the discovery that each muscle, as it awakens in the developmental process, also acquires a psychological imprint. Adult behavioural disorders are often rooted in the disruption of healthy connections, which the client experiences during one or more stages of childhood development. Marcher and her colleagues recognized seven distinguishable stages of development that form a map of childhood. Every muscle in each stage is correlated with its corresponding psychological function. From this map a precise assessment of healthy, collapsed, or held back developmental resources is made. A qualified therapist trained in this comprehensive discipline can determine which age-appropriate resources a client needs to learn, and work with specific movements to activate muscles within a developmental age level. This resourcing supports the resolution of past injuries and increases the client's capacity for making healthy choices.
These words from Rev. Martin Luther King speak to this:
In a real sense all life is interrelated.
All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a
single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be,
and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.
This is the interrelated structure of reality.
Bodynamic theory contains the following models: character structure, aspects of the ego, functions of the ego, the bodymap, the bodyknot, a model of differentiation between five levels of interaction and therapeutic work, post-traumatic stress models, the womb and birth model, life-mode analysis and socialization, different modes and modalities of touch and movement, levels of human consciousness, connected to an understanding of energy fields, principles of understanding and integrating peak-experiences, active sensing, tracking transference and counter-transference in interaction and team building.
Training description
There are three professional training programmes in the Bodynamic System; the Foundation, Practitioner and Analyst Training, which are sequential and lead to two levels of certification. There is also a specialised program in PTSD/Shock Trauma. Bodynamic Institute, Denmark also offers teacher training in the Bodynamic system: graduation from the Foundation and Practitioner levels are pre-requisites.
The Foundation Training is the first year of the four-year training and is suitable for professionals who work with people. Students achieve a greater knowledge of the interaction between psychological, social, emotional, and sensory development. Previous trainings have included somatic psychologists, counselling therapists, physicians, teachers, chiropractors, physical therapists, massage therapists and business personnel seeking a deeper understanding of healthy human development and its application to people's lives.
The teaching method includes mini-lectures, group discussion, exercises for personal exploration, movement, body reading, and demonstration. It is both theoretically structured and deeply experiential. This combination affects the self-understanding and personal process of the participants. However, this is not a therapy workshop and personal processing mainly occurs through group check-in, peer therapy exercises and the occasional demonstration or intervention.
The Foundation Training is presented in a modular format, which differs from country to country – 4 x 5, 13 x 2, 8 x 8, 3 x 6, and 5 x 4 days. This training focuses on the development of character structure.
The Practitioner Training
This advanced training in Bodynamic Analysis - the last three years - is designed to give trainees a deep working knowledge of the Bodynamic system of body-psychotherapy. Completion of the Bodynamic Foundation Training is a pre-requisite. The training is held in a residential format and presented in twelve modules of six days over three years (a total of sixty-seven days). The training also includes ninety hours of supervision and eighty hours of personal therapy from a recognised Bodynamic analyst or psychotherapist.
Some of the main topics on the Practitioner Training syllabus are: in-depth exploration of the Bodynamic developmental character model, in-depth study of muscle anatomy, bodymapping, body reading, body awareness, bodynamic massage, shock work, boundary development and boundary formation, group psychology and group training experience.
The Analyst Training can be completed after the fourth year and certification, as a Bodynamic analyst is possible.
The PTSD / Shock Trauma Training
The Bodynamic system makes a distinction between developmental trauma, which develops over time within a character structure and shock trauma (PTSD), which is the result of becoming stuck in the normal shock response. Here the trauma becomes specifically associated with a shock. The training teaches the differences between developmental trauma and shock trauma and the differences in working with crisis. The aim of therapy is not only to work with the cause of the shock trauma, but also to help the client develop new cognitive and body-oriented resources for action.
Pre-requisite: Graduation from the Foundation Training in Bodynamic Analysis and/or previous professional training and practice in working with trauma clients.
Trainers
Lisbeth Marcher, Erik Jarlnaes, Merete Holm Brantbjerg (Sweden and Norway), Ditte Marcher, Otto Krag, Michael Gad, Steen Jorgensen.
State of recognition
The Bodynamic Institute was accredited as a Body-Psychotherapy Training Institute by the EABP FORUM in September 1999. The Bodynamic method was scientifically validated by the EAP European Association of Psychotherapy in 2001
EABP Members
Lisbeth Marcher, Erik Jarlnaes, Merete Holm Brantbjerg
Literature - publication - research
Body, Breath, & Consciousness A Somatics Anthology – A collection of articles on Family Systems, Self-Psychology, The Bodynamics Model of Somatic Developmental Psychology, Shock Trauma, and Breathwork.
Edited Ian Macnaughton, North Atlantic Books, 2004
Erik Jarlnaes and Lisbeth Marcher