Body Psychotherapy

Body psychotherapy, also called body-oriented psychotherapy, is an approach to psychotherapy that applies basic principles of somatic psychology. It originated in the work of Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud, and particularly Wilhelm Reich, who developed it as vegetotherapy, with further branches developed by Reich's patients and students Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos, including Reichian body-oriented psychotherapy, and by Gerda Boyesen. Reich's central contribution was the idea that muscular tension reflects repressed emotion, which he called body armor, and he developed techniques using pressure to produce emotional release in clients; though initially marginalized, the approach saw renewed academic interest in the early 2000s.