Webinar Series 23/24: Aggression as a Life Force and Grounding as a Life Stabilizer by Angela Klopstech

Bioenergetic Analysis has developed some basic concepts that hold significance for broader contemporary psychotherapy, both psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral. 

This webinar will focus on the concepts of grounding and aggression. Together, these two encompass a therapeutic approach which emphasizes presence, self reliance and action orientation, that are essential resources and/or developmental tasks (depending on which therapeutic school you subscribe to). And in this sense, the bioenergetic concepts of grounding and aggression dovetail with the contemporary mainstream concepts of ego strength, resilience and agency.

The concept of grounding includes rootedness and verticality - feet on the ground below, and eyes to the world around. Going beyond these somatic aspects, it also applies to inner support, stability and being present in the world of things and people. The concept of aggression, in its literal meaning of forward movement, is an action oriented force within us that moves us out into the world and then along in it.

In this webinar, we will explore grounding techniques and exercises that can be employed as stabilizing resources in everyday life and in crisis situations. In addition, we will explore techniques that focus on aggression as a positive force, mobilizing us when we get stuck or lose forward momentum in our lives.

Finally, we will discuss the crossovers of these bioenergetic concepts and the ego-strengths concepts of other therapeutic schools, making the case for an inclusion of e.g. standing, walking and other simple movements into the general therapeutic setting and process.

About Angela Klopstech: Angela Klopstech has been a faculty member of the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis for more than 40 years, and has taught in more training groups in both the US and Europe than she can remember. She has major interests in the artful conceptualization of the therapy process, the role and importance of precise and evocative language, the translation and bridging between the various domains of the psychological and the physical and, consequently, in the bridging between different schools of therapy. She is currently in private practice in New York City.

• Date: February 22, 2024 (Thursday)
• Time: 07:00 pm - 09:00 pm (CET) - Please click here for your local time ...