ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I address some aspects of the question of how the experience of the body is related to those characteristics of it which are researched by natural science. I reason that theories of pathology should allow for circular causalities between the experienced body and the physical body, but because psychotherapy is a communicative, subjective activity, it is not possible to derive a theory of treatment for body psychotherapy from an understanding of processes on the level of the body as an object. With the aid of physiological models of the autonomic nervous system, I show that it is worth our while to draw on natural scientific models for an understanding of psychosomatic illnesses and the consequences of trauma and for a therapy adapted to specific disorders. I also explain why I regard attempts to base body psychotherapy on neuroscience or energy theory as unhelpful. Readers who are in agreement with me on this point can just skip Section 7.2 and 7.3.
