Article or website name: Careing for the caregiver

Author: Caldwell, Christine

Institution: Naropa University, Boulder, CO

Country: USA

Type: Body-Psychotherapy Education & Courses

URL:

The Moving Cycle has its influences in dance, bodywork, and contemplative psychology. As a modality, it is a natural healing process that has four stages: awareness, owning^ appreciation, and action. This article describes an important aspect of the therapy, therapist self-care.There is 'freestanding self-care', which involves the renewal process that we tend to outside of the therapy session. Then there is 'embedded self-care' and this calls for action within the session, for example, being attentive to the client and to ourselves at the same time. This 'oscillation of attention' is the central way to take care of ourselves, which is to say our body, our mind, spirit, our psyche, our selves. ^aldwell utilizes an actual session to exemplify this essential part of good body psychotherapy. (CCB)

(from article) ... We've all experienced what happens when get tied up in our clients' knotted lives. But how do we attune to our clients' experiences and not get knotted up ourselves? Good supervision always helps, and it's a relief to untie some of our own twisted history while we do it. Through supervision, we can discover the common threads between our historical material and that of our clients. It helps us avoid unwittingly weaving our stories into theirs.
But what about my headache? Research has shown that part of what happens in empathy is that we, literally, take on something of what another feels, down to the racing heart, the tight shoulders, and the sinking chest. The key word here is something. If we feel too much of what our clients feel, it can be as if we're imprisoning our bodies in their scenarios.
For therapists then, self-care becomes more than just taking enough time off, balancing our practice, and getting good supervision. It involves getting our bodies back.'

Author's institution:
Contact: www.naropa.edu/faculty/caldwell.html
Language: English
Country origin: USA

Entry number: 3345
English version:

Entry source: Colleen Campbell Barshop
Entered by: Courtenay Young
Entry date: 2 January 2006

Key Phrases: Body Psychotherapy - Caldwell - Moving C ycle
References:
Other information: see article in USABP Journal 4: 2 : 2005 (2365):