Jennifer James
Body Psychotherapy
Body Psychotherapy
What is Body Psychotherapy?
The Body Reflects a Person’s Current State and Past Life History:
I work with adults over 18 years of age, of any nationality or sexual orientation. Body psychotherapy, sometimes called somatic psychotherapy or body-orientated psychotherapy focusses on the psyche through its expression in the body. The body reflects a person’s current state and previous life history.
Every trauma, shock, difficulty in life, every unexpressed joy, is embodied, or recorded in some way at a cellular level in the body. These experiences manifest as aches and pains, tight or slack muscles, shallow breathing, inability to relax and sleep, low or high arousal levels, feeling hot or cold, disturbed thinking, inability to concentrate or make decisions, gastrointestinal disturbances, and lack of vitality. When these persist for a long time, they can develop into chronic states, and illness, or just feeling constantly low becomes habitual and normalised.
Body psychotherapy can help you develop more awareness of what is blocking you or holding you back in life, then help move you towards healing, and wholeness.
About Me: Jennifer James:
I am a body psychotherapist, (sometimes called a body-oriented psychotherapist, or somatic psychotherapist), registered with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). My work is supervised and I adhere to the code of ethics of UKCP. I have a Diploma in Body Psychotherapy from Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre. I work with adults aged 18 years and over.
Why Body Psychotherapy? What’s the Difference with this and ‘Talking Therapies?’
The main difference is that it involves talking but could also include exploring difficulties through gentle exercise, guided visualisation, biodynamic massage and other methods.
The Experience that Needed to Happen
The therapist does not ‘heal’ the client, it is a collaborative process. Both therapist and client will affect and be affected by each other and each will grow through the experience. It is relational and each therapist will bring their own unique experience to bear on the process. The client is often assisted to have ‘the experience that needed to happen’. Although collaborative, the therapist is directional when necessary in order to move the therapy process along.
Body Psychotherapy Works with Pre-Verbal Trauma
Body psychotherapy is part of a wider movement in terms of therapeutic care and research, that recognises and values embodied experience and especially how the body’s non-linguistic /unspoken intelligence can be accessed for healing and helping improve relationships with oneself and others.
Much of what happened to us happened pre-verbally, i.e. before we developed speech. This means that if it was traumatic it can only be accessed by working with the body. We do not develop in isolation. How we experienced early life, our childhood, shaped our bodies, our minds, and helped set up the patterns of early year ‘defence systems’, which are ways we coped with how we experienced life at that time. As adults, the coping strategies, which involved holding our bodies in certain patterns, may no longer serve us and yet we still retain them, usually unconsciously.
Methods of Working in Body Psychotherapy
There are various ways of working, and each way will be right for one individual and not others. Some of these include:
Physical work: e.g. Biodynamic Massage (a way of working with the body that can help bring it into balance), talking; creativity such as art/poetry, where you would draw or write a poem/ piece of writing which we would discuss. Movement and bioenergetics may be used to help unblock energy. Gestalt methods are another option, e.g. objects or empty chairs may be used to represent people in your life, as you are guided into exploring more about your relationship to various people.
Wild therapy/Working with Nature as Part of the Therapeutic Journey
If you wish, some of our sessions could explore your connection to Nature. This connection/disconnection/response to Nature can shed light on many things in your life. You may be invited to spend some time outdoors by yourself in a wood/other place in Nature, and whatever happens or whatever you discover about yourself can be brought back into the therapy room for discussion and processing. Many people are reviewing their connection with Nature, and this is an opportunity to discuss many other related things, e.g. Climate emergency/sustainability/ animal welfare/food security/de-forestation/living in community with others.
The Natural World can also be a useful doorway to help begin to find the answer to many questions, including those related to spirituality or connectedness.
Please note: the above is not obligatory, and may not appeal or be right for everyone.
Body psychotherapy does not use techniques. It is both relational and embodied. Each person is treated as an individual, and each session begins where you are, right at that moment in time, taking into consideration how you are feeling in the body and mind, together with how I am experiencing you.
Types of things helped by body psychotherapy:
Stress & Trauma
Stress – often experienced as irritability, weepiness, aches and pains, exhaustion sleeplessness (insomnia), lack of interest in life.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Survivor guilt, anger, insomnia, flashbacks, nightmares.
Anxiety
Depression
Confidence and Self Esteem Issues:
Coping with Covid-19 pandemic: fears/anxiety about health, other issues e.g. thoughts about death/spirituality/lack of faith/meaning of life
Relationships:
Attachment issues – e.g. fears of abandonment, overstaying in relationships, fear of intimacy or commitment, bereavement, chaotic relationships, repeating patterns (always picking the ‘wrong person’, Intimacy, sexuality, gender, LGBTQ+.
Individuation
Family dynamics
Peer relationships
Sibling rivalry/competition with sister/brothers/family members
Workplace problems/workplace bullying
Domestic Abuse:
Changes in Life:
Mid-life crisis/navigating menopause
Post menopause
Identity/transitions
Career, redundancy, burn-out/job change
Parenting, motherhood, fatherhood
Infertility, miscarriage, abortion – dealing with the aftermath/struggling to cope
Illnesses:
Cancer diagnosis
IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
Chronic illness
Health Anxiety
Death & Dying, End of Life Issues/thoughts
Finding meaning in life
Spiritual Crisis
Existential Crisis
Exploring Spirituality
Spiritual Emergency
Autism/Autistic Spectrum
Autistic Spectrum/Autism/Asperger’s and Coping with everyday life.
Cassandra Syndrome
Personal Development for All:
Creativity/creative blocks: writer’s blocks/unlocking creativity: painters/musicians/writers/film-makers/innovation for business/executives/scientists/designers.
Actors: unleashing the power of who you are at your core, finding your true voice.
Developing resilience, self-nurturing, self-care.
Terms & Conditions
FEES: I charge £60/hour. I prefer payment by BACs or cheque. I increase my fees annually in line with inflation, usually on 1st September.
TIMES: Body psychotherapy works with the body’s innate rhythms and so sessions are organised on the same day at the same time each week. Usually clients come for weekly sessions of 1 hour.
LOCATION:
The Wellbeing Centre, Manor House, Bank Street, Chepstow, Monmouthshire, NP16 5LL.
CANCELLATIONS:
Cancellations at short notice:
Cancellations at short notice (less than 24 hours) will require payment of full fee.
Planned cancellations:
For times when I am available but you choose not to attend your appointment, for whatever reason, I require you to pay a fee of £10 to cover some of the cost of having an absent client for part of that day. This is because I pay for my room as a block booking. Thank you for your understanding.
If I need to cancel a session - this is unusual, you will not be charged for this.
CONTACT BETWEEN SESSIONS:
Please do not contact me between sessions via text, email or ‘phone. Any changes to appointment times should be discussed face to face in our sessions. I will not contact you between sessions. The exception to this would be in the event of illness or unexpected life events.
DURATION AND REVIEWS:
Depth exploration in psychotherapy can take anywhere between 2 and 5 years, although shorter periods, e.g. anywhere between 3 months and 2 years is possible. It is not easy to predict how long anyone may wish or need to continue having body psychotherapy but regular reviews will clarify as much as possible. Generally, reviews will be every 3-6 months.
CONFIDENTIALITY:
Our sessions are confidential. My work is supervised and so I will talk about what happens in our sessions to my supervisor. My meetings with the supervisor are confidential and the supervisor will not know your name. The exception to the confidentiality would be if I felt you or anyone else was at serious risk. I would discuss this with you (if possible) before talking to anyone else about my concerns.
COMPLETION OF BODY PSYCHOTHERAPY:
You may stop your sessions of body psychotherapy at any time, but you are asked to allow a period of time for the ending of sessions. This enables the completion, where possible, of what we have been exploring. Endings in relationships are often problematic, and so a planned ending gives time for the exploration of this. In general, the longer that we have been meeting, the longer the ending needs to be. The time needed will be mutually agreed. A rough guide is to allow a month if we have been meeting for 6 months, or a year if we have been meeting/working for several years.
HOW TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT:
If you feel that body psychotherapy might be for you, we can make an initial appointment for you to discuss what you would like help with and explore if working together would be right for you. This costs £60 and I will be able to advise you of the suitability of body psychotherapy for you. There is no obligation to continue with any further sessions, if you felt it not right for you.
This session lasts one hour.
If you wanted to start body psychotherapy then we would agree a set time and start date and this would then be your appointment time going forward. This time would be kept just for you, as it is a requirement to attend, whether virtually or in person weekly. I do not offer fortnightly or monthly sessions.
VIRTUAL SESSIONS:
I am able to offer Virtual sessions for those clients who prefer, and this will normally be via Zoom. If you would like help to work out how to use Zoom then I can offer some help with this or provide you with the contact details of someone who can assist with this.
The Body Reflects a Person’s Current State and Past Life History:
I work with adults over 18 years of age, of any nationality or sexual orientation. Body psychotherapy, sometimes called somatic psychotherapy or body-orientated psychotherapy focusses on the psyche through its expression in the body. The body reflects a person’s current state and previous life history.
Every trauma, shock, difficulty in life, every unexpressed joy, is embodied, or recorded in some way at a cellular level in the body. These experiences manifest as aches and pains, tight or slack muscles, shallow breathing, inability to relax and sleep, low or high arousal levels, feeling hot or cold, disturbed thinking, inability to concentrate or make decisions, gastrointestinal disturbances, and lack of vitality. When these persist for a long time, they can develop into chronic states, and illness, or just feeling constantly low becomes habitual and normalised.
Body psychotherapy can help you develop more awareness of what is blocking you or holding you back in life, then help move you towards healing, and wholeness.
About Me: Jennifer James:
I am a body psychotherapist, (sometimes called a body-oriented psychotherapist, or somatic psychotherapist), registered with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). My work is supervised and I adhere to the code of ethics of UKCP. I have a Diploma in Body Psychotherapy from Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre. I work with adults aged 18 years and over.
Why Body Psychotherapy? What’s the Difference with this and ‘Talking Therapies?’
The main difference is that it involves talking but could also include exploring difficulties through gentle exercise, guided visualisation, biodynamic massage and other methods.
The Experience that Needed to Happen
The therapist does not ‘heal’ the client, it is a collaborative process. Both therapist and client will affect and be affected by each other and each will grow through the experience. It is relational and each therapist will bring their own unique experience to bear on the process. The client is often assisted to have ‘the experience that needed to happen’. Although collaborative, the therapist is directional when necessary in order to move the therapy process along.
Body Psychotherapy Works with Pre-Verbal Trauma
Body psychotherapy is part of a wider movement in terms of therapeutic care and research, that recognises and values embodied experience and especially how the body’s non-linguistic /unspoken intelligence can be accessed for healing and helping improve relationships with oneself and others.
Much of what happened to us happened pre-verbally, i.e. before we developed speech. This means that if it was traumatic it can only be accessed by working with the body. We do not develop in isolation. How we experienced early life, our childhood, shaped our bodies, our minds, and helped set up the patterns of early year ‘defence systems’, which are ways we coped with how we experienced life at that time. As adults, the coping strategies, which involved holding our bodies in certain patterns, may no longer serve us and yet we still retain them, usually unconsciously.
Methods of Working in Body Psychotherapy
There are various ways of working, and each way will be right for one individual and not others. Some of these include:
Physical work: e.g. Biodynamic Massage (a way of working with the body that can help bring it into balance), talking; creativity such as art/poetry, where you would draw or write a poem/ piece of writing which we would discuss. Movement and bioenergetics may be used to help unblock energy. Gestalt methods are another option, e.g. objects or empty chairs may be used to represent people in your life, as you are guided into exploring more about your relationship to various people.
Wild therapy/Working with Nature as Part of the Therapeutic Journey
If you wish, some of our sessions could explore your connection to Nature. This connection/disconnection/response to Nature can shed light on many things in your life. You may be invited to spend some time outdoors by yourself in a wood/other place in Nature, and whatever happens or whatever you discover about yourself can be brought back into the therapy room for discussion and processing. Many people are reviewing their connection with Nature, and this is an opportunity to discuss many other related things, e.g. Climate emergency/sustainability/ animal welfare/food security/de-forestation/living in community with others.
The Natural World can also be a useful doorway to help begin to find the answer to many questions, including those related to spirituality or connectedness.
Please note: the above is not obligatory, and may not appeal or be right for everyone.
Body psychotherapy does not use techniques. It is both relational and embodied. Each person is treated as an individual, and each session begins where you are, right at that moment in time, taking into consideration how you are feeling in the body and mind, together with how I am experiencing you.
Types of things helped by body psychotherapy:
Stress & Trauma
Stress – often experienced as irritability, weepiness, aches and pains, exhaustion sleeplessness (insomnia), lack of interest in life.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Survivor guilt, anger, insomnia, flashbacks, nightmares.
Anxiety
Depression
Confidence and Self Esteem Issues:
- Low self-confidence/lack of confidence
- Body image issues, sexuality, gender, LGBTQ+
- Coping with loneliness and isolation
Coping with Covid-19 pandemic: fears/anxiety about health, other issues e.g. thoughts about death/spirituality/lack of faith/meaning of life
Relationships:
Attachment issues – e.g. fears of abandonment, overstaying in relationships, fear of intimacy or commitment, bereavement, chaotic relationships, repeating patterns (always picking the ‘wrong person’, Intimacy, sexuality, gender, LGBTQ+.
Individuation
Family dynamics
Peer relationships
Sibling rivalry/competition with sister/brothers/family members
Workplace problems/workplace bullying
Domestic Abuse:
- Coercion & Control
- Emotional Abuse
- Controlling relationships
- Cycle of abuse
Changes in Life:
Mid-life crisis/navigating menopause
Post menopause
Identity/transitions
Career, redundancy, burn-out/job change
Parenting, motherhood, fatherhood
Infertility, miscarriage, abortion – dealing with the aftermath/struggling to cope
Illnesses:
Cancer diagnosis
IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
Chronic illness
Health Anxiety
Death & Dying, End of Life Issues/thoughts
Finding meaning in life
Spiritual Crisis
Existential Crisis
Exploring Spirituality
Spiritual Emergency
Autism/Autistic Spectrum
Autistic Spectrum/Autism/Asperger’s and Coping with everyday life.
Cassandra Syndrome
Personal Development for All:
Creativity/creative blocks: writer’s blocks/unlocking creativity: painters/musicians/writers/film-makers/innovation for business/executives/scientists/designers.
Actors: unleashing the power of who you are at your core, finding your true voice.
Developing resilience, self-nurturing, self-care.
Terms & Conditions
FEES: I charge £60/hour. I prefer payment by BACs or cheque. I increase my fees annually in line with inflation, usually on 1st September.
TIMES: Body psychotherapy works with the body’s innate rhythms and so sessions are organised on the same day at the same time each week. Usually clients come for weekly sessions of 1 hour.
LOCATION:
The Wellbeing Centre, Manor House, Bank Street, Chepstow, Monmouthshire, NP16 5LL.
CANCELLATIONS:
Cancellations at short notice:
Cancellations at short notice (less than 24 hours) will require payment of full fee.
Planned cancellations:
For times when I am available but you choose not to attend your appointment, for whatever reason, I require you to pay a fee of £10 to cover some of the cost of having an absent client for part of that day. This is because I pay for my room as a block booking. Thank you for your understanding.
If I need to cancel a session - this is unusual, you will not be charged for this.
CONTACT BETWEEN SESSIONS:
Please do not contact me between sessions via text, email or ‘phone. Any changes to appointment times should be discussed face to face in our sessions. I will not contact you between sessions. The exception to this would be in the event of illness or unexpected life events.
DURATION AND REVIEWS:
Depth exploration in psychotherapy can take anywhere between 2 and 5 years, although shorter periods, e.g. anywhere between 3 months and 2 years is possible. It is not easy to predict how long anyone may wish or need to continue having body psychotherapy but regular reviews will clarify as much as possible. Generally, reviews will be every 3-6 months.
CONFIDENTIALITY:
Our sessions are confidential. My work is supervised and so I will talk about what happens in our sessions to my supervisor. My meetings with the supervisor are confidential and the supervisor will not know your name. The exception to the confidentiality would be if I felt you or anyone else was at serious risk. I would discuss this with you (if possible) before talking to anyone else about my concerns.
COMPLETION OF BODY PSYCHOTHERAPY:
You may stop your sessions of body psychotherapy at any time, but you are asked to allow a period of time for the ending of sessions. This enables the completion, where possible, of what we have been exploring. Endings in relationships are often problematic, and so a planned ending gives time for the exploration of this. In general, the longer that we have been meeting, the longer the ending needs to be. The time needed will be mutually agreed. A rough guide is to allow a month if we have been meeting for 6 months, or a year if we have been meeting/working for several years.
HOW TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT:
If you feel that body psychotherapy might be for you, we can make an initial appointment for you to discuss what you would like help with and explore if working together would be right for you. This costs £60 and I will be able to advise you of the suitability of body psychotherapy for you. There is no obligation to continue with any further sessions, if you felt it not right for you.
This session lasts one hour.
If you wanted to start body psychotherapy then we would agree a set time and start date and this would then be your appointment time going forward. This time would be kept just for you, as it is a requirement to attend, whether virtually or in person weekly. I do not offer fortnightly or monthly sessions.
VIRTUAL SESSIONS:
I am able to offer Virtual sessions for those clients who prefer, and this will normally be via Zoom. If you would like help to work out how to use Zoom then I can offer some help with this or provide you with the contact details of someone who can assist with this.
Fees
I charge £60/hour. (my website will be updated in due course) You may pay me monthly, fortnightly in advance or weekly at the beginning of each session. I increase my fees annually in line with inflation, usually on 1st September.
I charge £60/hour. (my website will be updated in due course) You may pay me monthly, fortnightly in advance or weekly at the beginning of each session. I increase my fees annually in line with inflation, usually on 1st September.