Exploring Body-Mind Centering

Author: Gil Wright Miller
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1556439687
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 490

Book Description
Exploring Body-Mind Centering features 35 essays on Body-Mind Centering (BMC), an experiential practice based on the application of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical, and developmental principles. Using the work of BMC founder Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen as a springboard, the book showcases diverse situations—from medical illness to blocked creativity—in which this discipline is applied with transformative results. Exploring Body-Mind Centering is divided into three sections, preceded by an introduction framing BMC as a pathway to becoming aware of relationships that exist throughout the body and mind and using that awareness to act. The first section lays the groundwork for this process, with real-life experiences and exercises that encourage readers to interact with the text. Section two contains valuable case stories describing the experiences of BMC students and practitioners as they work with clients. Section three shows how BMC can be integrated with other disciplines and practices that include the arts, medicine, and yoga. The book concludes with a biography of Cohen, a profile of the School for Body-Mind Centering, and a history of BMC.

The Basic Neurocellular Patterns

Author: Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780990833932
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

Sensing, Feeling, and Action

Author: Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9780937645031
Category : Body-mind centering
Languages : en
Pages : 171

Book Description

Wisdom of the Body Moving

Author: Linda Hartley
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781556431746
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Book Description
This comprehensive guide introduces Body-Mind Centering, the internationally recognized field pioneered by dancer and occupational therapist Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Devoting thirty-five years to a systematic investigation of the relations between bodily experience and the anatomical maps of science, Bainbridge Cohen independently discovered many of the principles that underlie Feldenkrais work, cranial osteopathy, Rolfing, dance therapy, and Zero Balancing. Experienced BMC practitioner Linda Hartley demonstrates the basic philosophy and key elements of Body-Mind Centering. Drawing on animal and infant movements, she takes readers through the wondrous realms of Bainbridge Cohen’s pantheon—from the 'minds' of the skeletal and muscular systems to the quite different inner lives of digestive, lymphatic, urinary, respiratory, vocal, circulatory, endocrine, and reproductive organs. Her choreography ultimately brings us into the states of consciousness of skins, cells, blood, fat, cerebrospinal fluid, nervous system, and brain. Hartley’s explorations of the images, feelings, sensations, and intuitions of the diverse organs and cells lead to exercises that gently guide students in ways of discovering and integrating their bodies’ multidimensional aspects.

Somatic Psychology

Author: Linda Hartley
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1861564309
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
This book brings attention to the interface of psychotherapy and psychological theory with the somatic practices of bodywork and movement therapy. To offer a client only psychotherapy, or only bodywork may subtly or directly reinforce the body-mind split from which so many of us suffer; in some cases this will be a reinforcement of a dilemma central to the client's problems. Hartley views body psychotherapy and transpersonal psychotherapy as building bridges between the once separated processes of psyche, soma, and spirit. Today the emerging field of somatic psychology is also contributing to the expanded field of psychology a subtle differentiation of bodymind process, developed through almost a century and a half of research and practice in somatic therapy and education. Originally trained as a dancer, movement therapist and bodywork practitioner, Hartley continues to use movement and somatic process as an important foundation for her own work. Training in Dance Movement Therapy, the transpersonal psychotherapy of Psychosynthesis, and Process-Oriented Psychology have further deepened Hartley's awareness of the relationships between psyche, soma and spirit, and the need to respond to all levels of experience in therapeutic work.

Body and Earth

Author: Andrea Olsen
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819579475
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
"Body is our first environment," writes Andrea Olsen. "It is the medium through which we know the earth." In a remarkable integration of environmental science, biology, meditation, and creative expression, Olsen, a dancer who teaches in the environmental studies program at Middlebury College, offers a guide to a holistic understanding of person and place. Part workbook, part exploration, Body and Earth considers the question of how we can best, most responsibly inhabit both our bodies and our planet. Olsen displays an easy command of fields as diverse as geology, biochemistry, ecology, and anatomy as she explores the ways in which our bodies are derived from and connected to the natural world. But Body and Earth is not just a lesson, it is also an investigation. Arranged as a 31-day program, the book offers not only a wealth of scientific information, but also exercises for both exploring the body and connecting with place; illustrations and works of art that illuminate each chapter's themes; and Olsen's own meditations and reflections, connecting the topics to her personal history and experience. Olsen insists that neither body nor landscape are separate from our fundamental selves, but in a culture which views the body as a mechanism to be trained and the landscape as a resource to be exploited, we need to learn to see again their fundamental wholeness and interconnection. Through hard data, reflection, exercises, and inspiration, Body and Earth offers a guide to responsible stewardship of both our planet and our persons.

Knowledge and the Body-mind Problem

Author: Karl Raimund Popper
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415115049
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Power of the Mind to Heal

Author: Joan Z. Borysenko, Ph.D.
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1401933068
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
The authors have intergrated their considerable knowledge of medicine, metaphysics, spirituality, and alternative forms of healing into a beautiful book that reveals how we can use the amazing power of the mind to heal the physical and emotional ailments that afflict us. This is truly a transformational work!

Body-Mind Psychotherapy: Principles, Techniques, and Practical Applications

Author: Susan Aposhyan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039371361X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Book Description
Body-mind psychotherapy (BMP) takes the basic tools of mind-body integration and joins them with an awareness of emotional development. Working with techniques such as body awareness, touch, breath, and movement, BMP reintroduces the body and its innate wisdom to the theory and practice of psychotherapy. This alternative practice is one of the exciting frontiers of therapy and will enrich the work of therapists, medical practitioners, and bodyworkers.Body and mind are functionally inseparable. The cultural separation of body and mind, however, has confused our thinking and created obstacles for psychological health. This separation is itself firmly planted in the practices of standard psychotherapy. In the first part of the book, Aposhyan discusses this false division and goes on to articulate the theoretical basis for the unity of body and mind. Drawing on research in neuroscience and developmental conceptions of human attachment, bodily processes including nonverbal attunement, processing, and regulation are shown to be basic to what transpires in therapy. This account culminates in a chapter on the links between biology and consciousness that are critical for therapeutic that addresses the whole person.Part 2 provides an overview of the basic form of BMP. Beginning with the tasks of therapy, the chapters in this part describe the format of therapy in terms of a cycle of interaction between body and mind concluding with a consideration of the primary goal of BMP--i.e., a synchronization of body and mind founded in body awareness. The therapy professional is also offered methods to cultivate his or her own embodiment. For the psychotherapist, personal embodiment is the single most important key to integrating the body into psychotherapy practice.The body systems are reviewed in Part 3. Aposhyan takes the reader on a detailed tour of various important systems including the muscular, skeletal, and nervous systems as well as the skin, fluids, viscera, and endocrine systems. The result is an articulate picture of an integrated set of body functions all of which have their distinct roles and yet communicate with and have a bearing upon the functioning of each other. The specific techniques of BMP are grounded in this detailed picture of the various body systems. In Part 4 Aposhyan instructs readers in how to anchor in the body the change affected by BMP. Discussions here consider change at the cellular level and address specific clinical issues critical to BMP. Body-Mind Psychotherapy offers a simple, user-friendly, and safe approach to integrating the body into therapy and psychological exploration. The techniques involved are consistent with research from neuroscience, psychological development, and traumatology. As a result, the reader will find BMP both an effective and research-based therapeutic approach.

A Guide to a Somatic Movement Practice

Author: Nancy Topf
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813072336
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
An introduction to embodied movement through the work of a dance education pioneer In this introduction to the work of somatic dance education pioneer Nancy Topf (1942–1998), readers are ushered on a journey to explore the movement of the body through a close awareness of anatomical form and function. Making available the full text of Topf’s The Anatomy of Center for the first time in print, this guide helps professionals, teachers, and students of all levels integrate embodied, somatic practices within contexts of dance, physical education and therapy, health, and mental well-being. Hetty King, a movement educator certified in the Topf Technique®, explains how the ideas in this work grew out of Topf’s involvement in developing Anatomical Release Technique—an important concept in contemporary dance—and the influence of earlier innovators Barbara Clark and Mabel Elsworth Todd, founder of the approach to movement known as “ideokinesis.” Featuring lessons written as a dialogue between teacher, student, and elements of the body, Topf’s material is accompanied by twenty-one activities that allow readers to use the book as a self-guided manual. A Guide to a Somatic Movement Practice is a widely applicable entry point into the tradition of experiential anatomy and its mindful centering of the living, breathing body.