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Collaboration . . . Breakthrough Research . . . Colleagues . . .

Education . . . Practice Tools . . .

We are at a singular time of convergence. Virtually every sector of the healing arts today accepts the need for therapeutic approaches that address body, mind and spirit. New findings appear in the media regularly, reporting work in developmental psychology, brain research, and psychoneurology that sheds light on the body's role in human life and bringing new ways of seeing and understanding. For example, somatically attuned treatment of trauma patients, once considered unacceptable, strange, or unprofessional, has become the new wave among mainstream psychotherapists, psychiatric personnel, and other mental health care professionals.

At this exciting juncture in the evolution of psychotherapy, the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy invites you to become a member of the only professional association in the United States totally dedicated to advancing the field of body psychotherapy, and its practitioners and related health care professionals.

We offer rewarding and practical member benefits and a community of colleagues that can support your professional growth, success and deep satisfaction in years to come.

Now you can stay in touch with the future . . . and stay at the leading edge of treatment . . . in trauma work . . . pre- and perinatal psychology . . . brain research and psychoneurology . . . implications for practice from research in early development and mother/infant interaction . . . trends in body psychotherapy techniques and interventions . . . and more.

The United States Association for Body Psychotherapy was founded by a group of practitioners in 1996 as a practitioner-centered and volunteer-run, not-for-profit organization. Since that time, the organization has built a large, growing membership and conducted three successful national conferences. USABP also publishes the quarterly USABP Newsletter, its semi-annual USA Body Psychotherapy Journal, and the first formal Ethical Guidelines to support standards of practice in body psychotherapy. USABP has supported research through its Research Awards given to researchers and students at its conferences. In addition, USABP provides information about body psychotherapy, assistance to the public in finding a body psychotherapist via its Locator Service, and advanced communication tools to members with its web site, www.usabp.org.

USABP's aim is to bring together those psychotherapy traditions that integrate the body/mind connection: the dynamic, somatic psychotherapies originating with Wilhelm Reich and others; movement education therapies; psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approaches, developmental psychology, developmental neurology, the American dance therapy tradition; the ancient traditions of intuitive and natural healing, and the modern traditions of humanistic, existential, and phenomenological psychotherapies. Nowhere else can progressive therapists find such a rich synthesis of disciplines.

Body psychotherapy is a distinct branch of psychotherapy with a rich foundation of clinical literature, and includes a variety of somatically based approaches to addressing psychotherapeutic concerns.

The field of body psychotherapy involves an explicit theory of mind-body functioning and somatic psychology centered on the primary assumption that the person is fundamentally an embodied being and a whole person, and that there is a functional unity between the psychological and somatic aspects of being.

Although some psychotherapies acknowledge this unity of psyche and soma, body-oriented psychotherapy considers this principle to be fundamental, often working directly with bodily aspects of the person within the psychotherapeutic process.

Body psychotherapies all involve a developmental model; a theory of personality; hypotheses about the origins of disturbances and their intervention; as well as a rich variety of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques that may incorporate bodily experience and sensation, bodily processes and movement, body structure, body energy, and bodily resources for experience -- all seen as means to promote more rewarding human contact and emotionally resonant living.

Body psychotherapy is also informed by ongoing developments in the sciences, especially drawing from research in biology, anthropology, ethology, neurophysiology and neuropsychology, developmental psychology, neonatology, perinatal studies and others.

From Classical Therapeutic Tradition To 21st Century Relevance

Body oriented psychotherapy today is based, in great part, on the work of Wilhelm Reich, a psychoanalyst and student of Sigmund Freud's who explored working with the body in psychotherapy. From Reich's early work in pre-World War II Europe and later in the US, other streams of body psychotherapy emerged. In Europe, those modalities have included the work of Ola Raknes, Gerda Boyesen, David Boadella, Paul Ritter, and Lillemore Johnsen. In the US, Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos, students of Reich, developed Bioenergetic Analysis, with Pierrakos going on to include the psycho-spiritual component in his development of Core Energetics. Another Reich student Charles Kelley developed Radix work. With the explosion of interest in encounter groups, humanistic psychology, and the Gestalt Therapy of Fritz Perls at Esalen in the 1970s, focus on the body increased. New body oriented therapies and psychotherapies proliferated, including Rolfing, Hellerwork, Hakomi, Rubenfeld Synergy"!, the Somatic Process work of Stanley Keleman, and others.

Today it is estimated that there are nearly 5,000 practicing body psychotherapists in Europe and an estimated thousands of body psychotherapists across the US, with about an equal number of trainees. Most have backgrounds in traditional psychology, social work or mental health counseling. All recognize that one cannot address the psychic healing of the self without recognizing and engaging the wholeness of the self. [* Adapted in part from the European Association of Body Psychotherapy's definition of body psychotherapy and from the writings of Courtenay Young and Jim Kepner.]

Go where psychotherapy is moving . . .

"Body psychotherapy propels psychology into the 21st century with recognition of the central role of the body in both emotional disorder and health."

Keep company with USABP members

Build . . .

your practice

your professional advancement

your resources

your colleagues and community

your continuing education

your satisfaction and pride

Receive . . .

" National Conferences and registration discounts for members

" Free Ethics Guidelines- Handbook -- the first official guidelines for ethical standards of practice for body psychotherapists, available in members section of the USABP web site

" Listing in and a free copy of the USABP Membership Directory -- distributed to all members (via the USABP web site unless requested otherwise)

" Access to Members Section of the USABP web site and special features including: My Info, including a personal calendar, an e-mail account with @usabp.org, access to your profile, and quick links to software updates; My Profile, for updating your information directly online; and My Links, for setting up links to favorite sites by just checking a box or entering the name and URL of the site

" Free listing in the Locator Service, which provides contact information to members of the public looking for a body psychotherapist (for Clinical members)

Join Us!

Fill out and return the USABP Membership Application today via this web site. You can do everything you need to join online!