ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at issues around the human body in therapy, both of the client and that of the therapist. It suggests that the therapist’s use of body-self enables a deeper understanding of clients and their issues. The chapter gives examples of ‘gut reaction’ and how therapists need to be aware of their own body signalling in relation to clients. Although therapists from Freud onwards have written and analysed observations of the body, especially the skin, it is at an academic level rather than at a lived, experiential level. The therapist’s use of body-self is increasingly used as a means of understanding the people with whom we work as well as giving pointers for the possible direction of therapeutic intervention. The head-soul leaves the body during sleep and travels to other terrain and souls, and may bring back important information of a new cure or song or where there is good hunting.
