REVIEW OF:
Body Psychotherapy – an introduction. by Nick Totton (Open University Press) 2003
ISBN 0-335-21038-4 : (paperback) xi,185pp

Nick Totton, who trained originally in a form of neo-Reichian body-oriented psychotherapy but has since broadened his horizons, has produced a very interesting introductory book on Body Psychotherapy.
He examines this growing and complex field of Body Psychotherapy and surveys some of the many forms of Body Psychotherapy, including Reichian Therapy, Radix, Biodynamic, Biosynthesis and Bioenergetics, as well as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Primal Integration and Arnold Mindell’s Process Oriented Psychotherapy.  Somewhat surprisingly he includes Gestalt Therapy, (which he justifies by maintaining that Perls included and addressed bodily awareness), Dance Movement Therapy, Holotropic Breathwork, Focusing, and Rebirthing: the latter four being more therapies than psychotherapies, However this book is not just a brief description of some of the therapies or psychotherapies, as he wisely and with some erudition goes into the history, the basic principles and dynamics of what is unique about Body Psychotherapy.
He gives an introductory flavour by using six imaginary though fairly typical case studies and he looks into some of the goals, applicability and contraindications of Body Psychotherapy, as well as some of the central concepts and unique skills involved in Body Psychotherapy.  
In the last two sections of the book, Totton examines, in some detail, many of the clinical and ethical issues involved in Body Psychotherapy, looking at the contentious issues of touch, re-traumatization, false memory, transference & counter transference, and body language as well as looking into his vision of the future of Body Psychotherapy.  Here he begins to posit some very interesting questions that many Body Psychotherapists currently either shy away from or actively avoid, preferring to stay firmly within their known (and safe) modality.  There is also an excellent bibliography.  
The only real criticism of this book is that his treatment of many of these topics – ‘Grounding’, Facing’, ‘Skying’, ‘Orgasm reflex’, ‘Self regulation’, ‘Body memory’, ‘Armouring’, ‘Sensory-motor amnesia’, and so forth - is just a little ‘lite,’ which may be totally appropriate for the introduction that this book clearly is, but it also unfortunately gives one the feeling of not really ever engaging with the main topic or the flavour of body psychotherapy.  
This is in slight contradiction to what he states (on p. 25) as one of the essential features of body psychotherapy – a conscious focus on relationship, though not just the therapeutic relationship, but  “a practice of embodied relating”.

For body psychotherapists the relationship is primary, and directs the technical unfolding of the therapy.  For certain clients the body is not an acceptable route for exploring their process.  It is too frightening, or too alien, or too ‘irrelevant’; or they cannot yet feel enough trust for their therapist to enter this area of experience; or they sexualize relationship through the body.  Bodyworkers, generally speaking, assume that their clients have come to work with and through the body.  The body psychotherapist, generally speaking, does not.  However, she will probably feel that, whatever the client’s choices, she is still working through the body, if only her own.  To bring our own body to the therapeutic relationship may be the most fundamental move of body psychotherapy.
        
So whilst this is all very appropriate, he seemingly contradicts himself.  And Totton then goes on to say that: “ …’body psychotherapy’ may be better viewed as ‘holistic psychotherapy’ or ‘bodymind psychotherapy’; with more existing mainstream practices  redescribed as ‘verbal psychotherapy’ (only)”, which is where his politics begin to show, somewhat to his detriment. He later describes and defines some of these terms, “bodymind” etc., relatively correctly.  However, as an introduction to body psychotherapy should not either involve an essential critique, nor be involved with a re-defining of terms, so this book, as an introduction, needs to be read with a degree of discernment, which is ultimately something of a pity.
The real strength of the book lies in the critical analysis sections towards the end.  As mentioned, Totton raises pertinent and germane issues about (for example) different levels of touch, regression, re-traumatization, and so forth which one might happen to either agree with or disagree with, but are still very relevant to body psychotherapy.  
In the final section, on the future for body psychotherapy, the political person that Totton is takes flight.  He is right in saying that “The existing frameworks are by no means satisfactory or complete – yet;” but to introduce a “shopping list” for such a new synthesis is perhaps a little “de trop – and that is not to say that any particular items on his wish list are incorrect.  A coherent theory of ‘bodymind’ is needed (perhaps); a “bodymind description of human development” certainly exists in some of Stanley Keleman’s work, but not necessarily incorporating - “a description of how capacities and needs for relationship emerge as aspects of our embodiment.” A “new vocabulary” for describing drive and attachment theories could be nice, but is perhaps not immediately nor necessarily fundamental for body psychotherapy and an “adequate language for discussing vitality affect/affective style/embodied character. (Laban notation could be an important element in this.)” again suggests something more of a personal agenda rather than an introductory perspective.
This is a very thoughtful book, and also a slightly radical or provocative book, excellent in its own right, albeit somewhat biased, and yet very needed in a field that is not well known for its critical analysis, but, in so doing, it does stray somewhat beyond the realms of a mere introduction.  
The section of “Rattling and shaking body psychotherapy” is included for the best possible motives, as is the section on “Does body psychotherapy work?” and whilst there is a certain degree of evidence to this effect, he does not quote it directly but resorts to a critique of Reich’s work of seventy years ago and not to the much more recent, available and pertinent acceptance of the “scientific validity” of Body-Psychotherapy as a mainstream within psychotherapy by the European Association of Psychotherapy, available in full on the EABP website: www.eabp.org
He finally digresses (a little) into “The Dead White Male factor”, which critiques Body Psychotherapy as being deeply conservative and mainly a product of such persona – Reich, Pierrakos, Janet, Statmann, Baker, etc., and there are relevant criticisms of theories which reflect these people’s upbringing.  However I am also sure that Lisbeth Marcher, Gerda, Ebba & MonaLisa Boyesen, Eva Reich, Babette Rothschild, and Pat Ogden (to name just a few that he names) might have something to say in legitimate retort about being classified as DMWs, being responsible for significant developments in body psychotherapy and being anything but ‘dead’ and ‘male’; and this is to say nothing of Bessel van der Kolk, Stanley Keleman, Arnold Mindell, David Boadella, Jack Painter, Al Pesso, Ron Kurtz, and even myself (all of whom are mentioned, amongst many others), who are still alive, and very active in the field of Body Psychotherapy, despite being white and male.  Sometimes the political and polemic Totton overwhelms the analytical, caring and deeply understanding body psychotherapist underneath,