Webinar Series 23/24: Somatic Resonance by Vita Heinrich-Clauer

To be in living contact with our therapist body, our resonance skill and grounded presence are the basis for any successful work with patients. Our ability to vibrate (resonance) and set boundaries, from a bioenergetic perspective, are both connected to the breath and voice as well as muscle motility.

"People, whose body is so rigid and paralyzed, that it hardly pulses or just pulses a little, lack empathy. If our body is alive, then we sensitive for other people and their feelings and we also feel more love and pleasure" (cf. Lowen 1992, p. 388).

The therapeutic relationship is, a priori and independent of the applied physical interventions, an embodied relationship. This means that our therapist-body represents - apart from technique – both the medium and the agent for the therapeutic process, and is therefore, in terms of self-care as well, the most important "instrument" to be cultivated.

While I was thrilled to have described the phenomena of somatic resonance in the late ‘90s and their potential for work with embodied countertransference in the therapeutic process, the discovery of mirror neurons a short time later validated these exciting phenomena on the neurobiological level. But there are still open questions about what happens in the inter-relational context between therapist and client.

I will present neurobiological findings on the somatic effects of resonance phenomena, empirical results on the respective occupational risks of therapists, and bioenergetic concepts and techniques regarding the subject of self-care.

About Vita Heinich-Clauer: Dr. Vita Heinrich-Clauer, Dipl.-Psych., is a member of the IIBA Faculty. She works in private practice in Osnabrück/Germany, and teaches Bioenergetic Analysis in various European countries. She has published articles in several Journals, including the IIBA Journal, and lectures in Germany. She is the editor of the Handbook Bioenergetic Analysis (2011), which has now been published in six European languages.

• Date: January 25, 2024 (Thursday)
• Time: 07:00 pm - 09:00 pm (CET) - Please click here for your local time ...