Somatic Movement incorporates a range of approaches to the body & movement. It comes from a perspective of how movement feels on the inside. It acknowledges that we each have an individual experience of our body and movement that gives valuable insight into our development, health & well being.
Somatic Movement Therapy acknowledges how we feel affects how we move or behave, and how we move or behave affects how we feel. It values what goes on in the body, our emotional experience and our thoughts and meanings we make of life. The relationship between our bodies, feelings and mind are explored.
Given the conditions (the space, time, contact and relationship), and the opportunity to be received and accepted, to feel, to explore, to let go and evolve, we can ‘right’ ourselves.
Somatic work is supported by a belief in the body, valuing what our physicality has to offer us by way of resources for our life.
My approach values our own individual experience of being ourselves in our bodies. This is central to the work, in contrast to a traditional stance of medicine/healing, where the practitioner’s perspective can have greater weight than the client/patient. Somatic approaches bring equally into the picture, the clients understanding and perception.
The work is based on the belief that our body is evolving and changing. It holds our history, but also in its flexibility and potential to change, as a living thing, can also help us feel happier and healthier, more able to enjoy and appreciate our lives, through our living bodies. It helps us to change our current state and so our future and potential.
My work with people is strongly influenced by my training in Integrative Bodywork & Movement Therapy. This is a holistic approach to Somatic Movement Therapy and Education based on principles of Body-Mind Centering®, Authentic Movement and Somatic Psychology.
The sessions I offer draw on the following:
- a body of knowledge based in anatomy & physiology – so the stuff of our bodies. Having a sense of what is beneath our skin and the nature of all the systems of the body can support our health and development.
- Somatic Psychology. This offers a number of ‘maps’ that can help us understand the stories and experience that may be held in our bodies, and affecting our lives now. They include developmental and birth psychology, and process work.
- Developmental Movement. These are the movement patterns that we all go through from conception, in utero, birth and beyond. They form the foundation of all our movement and can lead to greater integration and comfort in our movement.
- Humanistic Counselling and person-centred approaches.
- Play and creative ways of working.
Somatic Movement sessions can:
- help us to feel more comfortable in our own skin.
- bring more insight and awareness, and be an opportunity for support and healing, physically and emotionally.
- support adults and children’s developmental process.
Paul’s approach includes:
- dialogue, verbal and non-verbal, to enable a person to tune into their body & movement as a reference point.
- supporting, responding, following how a person moves, giving feedback or offering hands-on contact.
- bringing the theme/issue into the room, through movement or play.
- using a range of props (body balls, fabric etc).
Sessions are confidential and he receives professional supervision.