Bioenergetic Psychotherapy was originally developed as an individual therapy. I used my experience as a certified  Group Analyst, Family Therapist and knowledge of Psychodrama to work in groups using an integrated model of all three. 

 

There is an increasing acknowledgement amongst verbal psychotherapists that in certain clients working with the body is fundamentally important. However, the majority of verbal therapists lack the knowledge, training and skills necessary to do this. Most of the training programmes lag behind in this respect. There may even be a "resistance" to take this path as doing it would imply having to expose both trainers and trainees to extremely strong emotional work. Something longed for by therapists but at the same time dreaded. Yes. It takes emotional courage to go down this path and sadly many therapists feel safe and protected by their colleagues and institutions. So (if I may be forgiven for making a little caricature of this), therapy sessions often are heavily biased towards  intellectual exchanges where the supposed "role" of the therapist is to make a "smart" observation or interpretation and thats is it. Period. Dont expect anything more. Clients quickly assess their therapists emotional resilience and filter off their strongest feelings "to protect the therapist". Something they probably did in the first place with their own parents-and that is probalby one of the reasons they came to therapy! Sad. Since both therapist and client suffer in this relationship both feeling disappointed and frustrated.

 

Fortunately there is an increasing number of verbally trained therapists who are of their own initiative joining some form of alternative training that involves techniques and skills from such therapies as Gestalt, Psychodrama, Psychosynthesis, Bioenergetics and the Body Therapies.

 

The combination of verbal therapy (digital mode) with body therapy (analogic mode) when applied skilfully has an enormous power for human change.

 

There is a fuller description of theory and method under the article published here on the treatment of Extreme Traumatisation (PTSD).