The Therapy of the Seven Movements

Madlen Algafari

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ABSTRACT

            The present publication is a synthesis between the basic theoretical postulates in the “Therapy of the Five Movements” created by Prof. Waldo Bernasconi, further development of his ideas, and an addition of two more directions of movement (behavioural models) – product of my contemplations based on my twenty years of practical experience. The overall theoretical concept is represented in a specific graphic scheme. The latter summarises the area of health and pathology, the character types, and their specific pathological risks from a psychic and a somatic point of view. The article describes the five fundamental character types as perceived by the Neo-Reichian body psychotherapy with their corresponding traumatic basic factors, as well as the inevitable for the body-psychological paradigms somatic part containing a neurophysiological reasoning and a description of the specific techniques in body psychotherapy. The types of auto-regulation are emphasised – from the cognitive to the emotional level and from the somatic to the emotional level. The accent is not placed on the analytical part of the therapy as it is similar to that of all analytical therapeutic approaches. This text provides an illustrated, summarised and simple from a didactic perspective presentation of the most essential elements of the psychosomatic approach in a new, positive and a much more detailed form. New is also the spiritual dimension of the movements in the multidimensional coordinate system of life, added by me. This describes the psychosomatic model as a holistic approach, aiming at the achievement of integrity and complete health – psychic and physical.

Key words: graphic scheme, body psychotherapy, character, movements – behavioural models, humbleness/acceptance, attraction, self-assertion, grounding, spirituality, auto-regulation, somatisation, neuroses, borderline conditions, psychoses, neurophysiology, integrity