Eric Servat

Body-mind therapy (Eng/Fr)

member of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy

'The body is the shore of the ocean of being'. Sufi saying

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Do you frequently feel overwhelmed by emotions or physical tensions? Do you feel "empty" or a lack of meaning in your life? Do you have difficulty getting over a breakup, a bereavement, an illness or a professional failure? Do you want to better define your place in the family? 

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Your body/mind has a unitary function. Your body as your mind has "a living memory" and holds traces of your personal experience and family heritage. Our autonomic nervous system, often in fight or flight mode, tries to maintain our survival in demanding modern societies. That constant struggling often leads to difficulty shifting to appropriate relaxation responses. The somatic can manifest itself without and before you become conscious of it. A suffering, a disorder, an intimate, relational or existential conflict: one feels something, without understanding it or knowing how exactly to put it into words. You will accept to consider your body, from this perspective, no longer as a tool, as a machine at the service of your mind - for you to recover mobility and dynamic interaction with the world so you can surrender to your nature where love is really felt. 

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 Thanks to this holistic body psychotherapy, you will 

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 - explore at your own rythm these interactions between your body,

 emotions, thoughts and spoken words,

 - enhance your awareness on your lived experience,

 - release your own tensions towards healing in particular of addictions,

 and reduction of anxiety,

 - free your energy and enhance your health,

 - consolidate your identity towards personal growth.

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The principles are as follows:

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• I recognize the importance of the intelligence of the body for healthy psychological functioning.

• I help you welcome what is, your own sensory experience, which is strange and unexpected and consider it as emerging knowledge.

• I will provide a mirror for you, and also mirror to the patient what I see and will share what I feels without making any intellectual analysis for you.

• I help you embrace and contain one’s subconcious forces, to master them, not to control them, as part of your own path of growth, integrating all aspects of the person, body and mind.

• Touching your body is also touching your mind i.e. your mental attitudes and emotions. This intimate touch and also movement can be confrontational insofar as it reveals in the body areas that are more painful than others, which are different for each person. It is then that emotions and memories can emerge and manifest the link between the experience of the present and the old trauma.

• I provide a touch support point to help you rely on this contact (my hand on your body and connective tissues) and be present in a more conscious and sensitive way, to move with and not to endure.

• My ethical obligation is the greatest respect for the other and for myself.

 

Body-psychotherapy allows you to meet your deepest needs in a clearly defined therapeutic framework scientifically validated by the European Asssociation for Psychotherapy - EAP).  It provides a fulcrum for a new start towards a life more in tune with your aspirations.

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You will embark on a singular journey, exploring and finding the path to become who you are with renewed life energy.

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Which knowledge and theories does bodymind psychotherapy rely upon?

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• Zen, Yogi masters have understood that oneness, as have other Eastern martial arts experts (Tai-Chi).

• C.G. Jung defined the individuation process of structuring the forces of the unconscious in order to contain them.

• F. Perls insisted in Gestalt therapy on this whole process of listening to the body so as to help patients adjust and reunite in themselves the mind that thinks and the body that moves. 

• W. Reich developped the concepts of energetic body and of muscular and character armor. 

• J. Painter further codified Postural Integration with breathing, work on fascias and body posture.

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