This PowerPoint presentation provides an overview of the field of somatics as it is taught in various training programs such as the Master's of Counselling and Applied Psychotherapy degree at the Jansen Newman Institute (Think Education) in Sydney. This presentation has been initially developed for the 'Foundations of Wellbeing' course at the School Of Biomedical and Health Sciences (University of Western Sydney) and then modified for the 'Learning for Sustainable Living' online learning program (Course 5).

1. Learning for Sustainable Living
Introduction to Somatics
Dr Werner Sattmann-Frese

2. Table of contents
• Definition
• Origins of the term
• View of a range of scholars
• Muscular tensions
• Tissue consistencies
• Crying
• Burping and farting
• Sounds of the guts (borborygms)
• Loss of streamings
• Laughing

3. Table of contents
• Breathing
• Orgasm
• Yawning
• Sneezing
• Pain
• Postures
• Phrenology
• Touch

4. Werner Sattmann-Frese
Cert. IV T&A, Cert. Holistic Psychotherapy (Chiron-London)
M.App.Sci (Social Ecology), PhD (Social Ecology)
• Werner Sattmann-Frese studied medicine and
psychotherapy from 1977 to 1984 and completed social
ecology degrees in 1998 and 2006. He is currently working
as a Senior Lecturer and Program Manager at the Jansen
Newman Institute (Think Education Group) at Pyrmont
(Sydney). Subjects Werner teaches include:
• Introduction to somatics
• Body-psychotherapy
• Working with psychosomatic signs and symptoms
• Ecologically aware counselling and psychotherapy
• Psychotherapy in context

5. Definition of somatics
www.seishindo.org/somatics.html
• Somatics is a re-emerging field of study in the
Western world and a path that has been followed in
Oriental and traditional cultures worldwide for
thousands of years.
• Most, if not all somatic practitioners follow an
integrated approach to learning and change that
often includes some form of a martial art,
hypnosis, meditation and trance, prayer, intuitive
arts, various flavors of psychology, and various
forms of bodywork.
• Somatic practitioners believe that the body is
highly intelligent and that we will do well to
encourage our somatic intelligence to organize a
significant portion of our life's activities.

6. The origin of the term
• Soma is the Greek word
for the body. We all
have a somatic reality!

7. Key aspects of somatics
• Muscular tensions (armouring) - Wilhelm Reich
• Tissue armouring – Gerda Boyesen
• Bodily expressions such as breathing, pain, crying,
burping, farting, yawning, laughing, itching,
sneezing, and the need to scratch oneself
• The sounds of the guts (borborygmi)
• The meaning of body postures and movement
patterns
• The associations of the above with physical health,
mental health, trauma, stress, and environmental
influences

8. Signs and symptoms
• A symptom denotes a subjective state or
a subjective experience, whereas a sign
denotes an objectively verifiable
pathological manifestation of an illness,
that is something that can be measured
and identified by an external observer.

9. Scholars
• Per Henrik Ling
• Walter B. Cannon
• Wilhelm Reich
• Otto Fenichel
• Ola Raknes
• Alexander Lowen
• Dan Siegel
• David Boadella
• Trygve Braatøy
• Edmond Jacobsen
• Henri Wallon
• Gerda Boyesen
• Nick Totton
• John Pierrakos
• Jaak Panksepp
• Colin Trevarthen

10. Per Henrik Ling
• The Swede Per Henrik Ling (1776-1839) blended
gymnastic movements, massage and
physiotherapy into a technique that became
world famous. His main inspiration came from
Turkish methods that originated from across the
whole empire, including regions that are now
located in parts of Russia, China, Iran and
Egypt.-
• Source: Heller - The Golden Age of the Body, p.3

11. Walter B. Cannon
• Inspired by William Beaumont‘s 1833
publication on the influence of extreme
anger upon gastric digestion, Cannon
observed that emotional perturbation
blocked the stomach’s activity while serenity
restored the peristaltic waves promptly.
(Cannon, 1945, p.38)

12. Walter B. Cannon (2)
• Tying his findings to the notion of
homeostasis, Cannon made the assumption
that global physiological regulation systems
coordinate mental, nervous, cardio-vascular,
muscular, and hormonal systems in order to
regulate the main variables in the internal
fluid systems of the body.

13. Henri Wallon
• The psychologist Henri Wallon (1942)
assumed that intestinal movements and
emotions were permanently associated.
After the Second World War, this topic
disappeared from the literature because of
the assumption that the only physiological
support of the mind was the brain.

14. Henri Laborit
• Henri Laborit (1975, 1979), a researcher on
the biology of emotions described in great
detail forms of coordination between
physiological regulation systems, inter-
personal communication systems, and
social mechanisms such as culture and
economy.

15. Edmond Jacobson
• Edmond Jacobson developed one of the
first relaxation methods and showed that the
association between emotions and the guts
also involved the duodenum, the esophagus
and the colon, as well as the stomach
(Jacobson, 1967, p. 140).

16. Gerda Boyesen
• In the 1950‘s, Gerda Boyesen developed
some therapeutic applications based on the
Cannon-Jacobson observations on the
interaction between the behaviours of the
guts and the experience of feelings. She
coined the term ‘psycho-peristaltism’ or
‘psycho-peristaltics’ to describe the
psychological and emotional functions of the
intestinal tract. Gerda assumed that the the
interaction between the two has two layers:

17. Gerda Boyesen (2)
• Peristaltic movements play a central role
in the regulation of organismic fluids and
feelings and can be used to harmonise
emotional agitation and reduce excessive
arousal levels.
• The dynamic movements of body fluids in
the connective tissues influence the
regulation systems of human bodies.

18. Muscular tensions and body language
• Wilhelm Reich was the first professional who
viewed muscular tensions as a kind of body
language.
• "Body Language" - the term is now
commonplace. It wasn't always that way. With
Freud and psychoanalysis everything was the
mind. Reich was the first to bring the body into
psychoanalysis, and to physically touch the client.
www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/
reichlecture.html

19. Muscular armour
• As a physio-emotional defence mechanism
muscular tensions serve to repress unmanageable
feelings (Reich, 1942).
• By creating chronic muscular tensions, our
‘bodyminds’ (Dychtwald’s term) permanently waste
precious life energy without achieving anything
apart from keeping us ‘comfortably numb’.
• Muscular armour leads to the fragmentation of
energetic flow in our bodyminds, which then
makes emotions more manageable.

20. Tissue consistencies
• Gerda Boyesen observed that certain tissue
consistencies serve as another physiological
mechanism to regulate the conscious
awareness of developmental traumas through
the flow of energy and feelings. She
acknowledged the existence of three
consistencies:
• Natural tissue tonus
• Hypotonic (undercharged) tissue
• Hypertonic (overcharged) tissue

21. Loss of streamings
• Chronic energetic blocks combined with the
reduced emotional charge resulting from
shallow and disconnected breathing diminish
our natural self-experience as ‘streaming
beings’. With the loss of these internal
streamings we also lose our energetic
connection and the experience of oneness with
the creation because this connection is mainly
experienced through the flow and conscious
experience of subtle energy.

22. Laughing (1)
• Laughter is an expression or appearance of
merriment or amusement. Laughter is a
sound that can be heard. It may ensue (as a
physiological reaction) from jokes, tickling
and other stimuli. Inhaling nitrous oxide can
also induce laughter; other drugs, such as
cannabis, can also induce episodes of
strong laughter.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughing

23. Laughing
• Research has shown health benefits of laughter
ranging from strengthening the immune system
to reducing food cravings to increasing one's
threshold for pain. There's even an emerging
therapeutic field known as humor therapy to help
people heal more quickly, among other things.
Humor also has several important stress
relieving benefits.
• http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/laughte
r.htm

24. Crying
• The physiology of crying is not well
documented or understood. The act of
crying seems to be an important
precipitating factor for primary headaches
and it should be studied further.
• www.scielo.br/scielo.php?
script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-
31802003000100008

25. Crying
• One of the saddest things in western culture in
particular, is the judgment that crying is something
to train a child not to do, that it is weak.
• Most adults in our society do not even remember
receiving this judgment, it's so deeply ingrained.
We hold the belief that crying is babyish, weak, and
that once a child reaches a certain age, they
should stop indulging in baby behavior (crying).
• This puts unnatural pressures on the body, and
begins the process of learning to deny how we feel.
• www.cyquest.com/pathway/lies_about_crying.html

26. Crying
• Crying our feelings allows the emotion to
express and move through our bodies, and
once fully moved, they are transformed. This
transformation is not something that can be
forced upon the emotions. They must be
allowed to move fully and organically through
the body, until they naturally reach healing and
transformation.
• www.cyquest.com/pathway/lies_about_crying.h
tml

27. Burping and farting
• Burping and farting are two of our modern
taboos:
• “Burping at the table is simply not the done
thing. If you absolutely have to, either excuse
yourself from the table, or do it as discreetly
as possible. Don't belch loudly under any
circumstances”.
• www.mountainx.com/dining/2005/0316blackfo
rest.php

28. Burping and farting
• Upon finishing his meal, my
uncharacteristically unpicky companion
leaned back in his chair, rested his hands on
his full, satisfied belly, and recited a quote
sometimes attributed to the German
reformer Martin Luther: "Warum ruelpset und
furzet ihr nicht, hat es euch denn nicht
geschmecket?" (Why don't you belch and
fart - did you not enjoy the meal?)
• www.mountainx.com/dining/2005/0316blackf
orest.php

29. Views on burping and farting
• What does it say about modern people and
societies that we accept living daily with
exhaust fumes and poisons emitted from
industry stacks but deny ourselves the
important expressions of physio-emotional
self-regulation such as burping and farting?

30. Sounds of the guts
• Definition: Rumbling sounds caused by gas
moving through the intestines (stomach
"growling"). Also Known As: stomach growling
(www.ibdcrohns.about.
com/library/glossary/bldef-borborygmi.htm)
• This definition is wrong: The noises are actually
caused by tissue fluids moving through the walls
of the intestines after muscular tensions in the
intestines ease.

31. Sounds of the guts
• Borborygmi are noises indicating that energy
is flowing freely throughout the bodymind, and
that we are in a state of relaxation (Boyesen,
1976, 1985).
• The sounds of the guts constitute an important
biofeedback system and can thus be used as
“markers of psychic work during analytical
sessions” (Heuer, 2002, International Journal
of Psychoanalysis, 83 (5), pp. 1181 - 1189).

32. Sounds of the Guts
• Biodynamic Massage works
across a wide spectrum from
deep muscular work, to
connective tissue massage, to
light energetic touch and work in
the aura. And it also puts
particular emphasis on the
psychological understanding of
the body. –
• www.positivehealth.com/permit/A
rticles/Massage/mccroh33.htm

33. Breathing
• Breathing is a key function of living. We can be
weeks without food, days without water, but only
a few minutes without oxygen.
• Shallow or disconnected breathing are part of our
emotional coping system and prevent
unconscious feelings from reaching
consciousness (Reich, 1933; Lowen, 1958;
Dychtwald, 1986).

34. Symptoms of hypertonia
• Do you have any of the following: chronic, stubborn
high blood pressure, head pressure, dizziness,
headaches, numbness, dizziness, (especially upon
standing quickly), chronic fatigue, memory problems
(possibly bordering on amnesia), nervous irritability,
chest pressure or heart palpitations, sexual
impotence, constipation or more? Do you have to
take drugs to keep them under control? Maybe
there’s another answer or collateral that will work for
you.
• http://hubpages.com/hub/Shallow-Breathing--Its-
Effect-On-Health-And-A-Simple-Exercise

35. Suffocation
• All of the above can also be symptoms of
suffocation. By far the largest majority of
people are shallow breathers. Stress and
tension contribute to shallow breathing.
• http://hubpages.com/hub/Shallow-
Breathing--Its-Effect-On-Health-And-A-
Simple-Exercise

36. What is adequate breathing?
• To return to our question - what is really adequate
breathing? - we may answer that healthy, relaxed
breathing is deep and full. This means that there
are no chronic blocks to the pulsatory waves that
originate with each breath in the diaphragmatic
region and undulate headward and footward along
the axis of the body.
• Adequate breathing is both extensive (it is not
restricted in its expansive movement in either
direction) and deep (it engages the core of the body,
reaching the vital organs).
• http://www.reichian.com/breath.htm

37. Conscious connected breathing
• Conscious connected breathing is
communication with the source of life and a
deep peace within ourselves. With proper
breathing the physical body feels lighter, freer
and we are clearer in our thinking. We will
experience a more joyous outlook, emotionally
we will be calmer and more serene in dealing
with the situations that arise in our daily lives.
• http://www.energybalancing.com/health/breath.
html

38. Orgasm
• He [Reich] argued that unreleased
psychosexual energy could produce actual
physical blocks within muscles and organs,
and that these act as a "body armor,"
preventing the release of the energy. An
orgasm was one way to break through the
armor. These ideas developed into a general
theory of the importance of a healthy sex life
to overall well-being, a theory compatible with
Freud's views.
• www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich

39. Orgasm
• Reich agreed with Freud that sexual
development was the origin of mental
disorder. They both believed that most
psychological states were dictated by
unconscious processes; that infant sexuality
develops early but is repressed, and that this
has important consequences for mental
health. –
• www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich

40. Itching
• Itching and scratching represent an unconscious self-
regulation system that contributes to the maintenance
of our physio-emotional homeostasis.
• It is often a psychosomatic expression of impatience.
• The loosening of rigid muscular attitudes produced
peculiar body sensations in the patient: involuntary
trembling and twitching of the muscles, sensations of
hot and cold, itching, the feeling of having pins and
needles.
• www.thinkbody.co.uk/body-psych/integr-musc-
work.htm)

41. Pain
• Physical discomfort caused by an injury or illness
• Galen’s signs of inflammation: Rubor, dolor, tumor, and
functio laesa
• Result of a ‘psychosomatisation’ of emotional pain and
stress
• Often no physical causes can be found for the
experience of pain
• Pain resulting from energy accumulation or deficiency
• The passion of the soul
• Aristotle: Pain is only experienced in the heart

42. Psychosomatics of pain
• “The biopsychosocial model of illness was first
presented in 1977 by George Engel. His landmark
idea described a dynamic interaction between
psychological, social and pathophysiological
variables, and highlighted the hypothesis that, the
workings of the mind, could affect the body, as
much as the workings of the body, could affect the
mind”
• Wordsworth – The History of Biopsychosocial Pain
– A tale of gladiators, war, papal doctrine, and a
wrestler

43. Models on pain
• Psychosomatic model of pain: Szasz, Engel
• Psychosocial (cognitive-behaviourist) model
of pain: Keefe, Dunsmore & Burnett)
• Resurgence of a focus on emotions and
stress (Keefe, Lazarus)

44. From stress to pain
• Interpersonal stress can lead to immune
changes, which are then often followed by
increased inflammation and pain within a
few days.

45. Yawning
• Yawning is not only an indicator of tiredness, but
also an expression of the movement of biological
and emotional energy in the bodymind.
• “Yawning is an involuntary action that causes us to
open our mouths wide and breathe in deeply. We
know it's involuntary because we do it even before
we are born. Research shows that 11-week-old
fetuses yawn”.
• www.howstuffworks.com/question572.htm

46. Yawning
• The Physiological Theory - Our bodies induce yawning to
drawn in more oxygen or remove a build-up of carbon
dioxide. This theory helps explain why we yawn in groups.
Larger groups produce more carbon dioxide, which means
our bodies would act to draw in more oxygen and get rid of
the excess carbon dioxide. However, if our bodies make us
yawn to drawn in needed oxygen, wouldn't we yawn during
exercise? - www.howstuffworks.com/question572.htm
• We often spontaneously yawn when we engage in activities
that dissolve muscular and tissue armouring, such as
Biodynamic Massage, Martial Arts, and Chi-exercises.

47. Sneezing
• Sneezing occurs when a particle (or sufficient
particles) passes through the nasal hairs and
reaches the nasal mucosa. This triggers the
production of histamines, which reach the nerve
cells in the nose, which then send a signal to the
brain to initiate the sneeze. In certain individuals,
sneezing can also be caused by exposure to bright
light. This is called the photic sneeze reflex. -
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneeze

48. Sneezing
• Probably few modern people are aware that sneezing is
one of the most powerful mechanisms of physio-
emotional self-regulation. Besides being a physio-
emotional overflow valve that we often unconsciously
use to maintain a natural level of physiological and
emotional charge, repeated sneezing also has the
capacity to harmonise energies to the extent that many
of us experience strong energetic streamings and a
strong sense of peace and harmony (Sattmann-Frese,
Sustainable Living for a Sustainable Earth, 2005).

49. Phrenology
• phreno-, phren-, phreni-, phrenico-, phrenic-, -phrenia,
-phrenic, -phrenically (Greek: mind, brain; the midriff or the
diaphragm; mental disorder)
• aphrenia, aphrenous: An early term for insane
• Aristophrenia: Superior thinking or intellect
• Bradyphrenia Slowness of thought or fatigability of initiative,
resulting from depression or central nervous system disease. It is
used by some psychiatrists as the equivalent of mental retardation,
by others as the equivalent of psychomotor retardation.
• Cacophrenia: Bad or dysfunctional thinking, having a mental
illness.
• See: www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/2619/?
letter=P&spage=6

50. Phrenology
• Euneirophrenia: A peaceful state of mind following a
pleasant dream
• Gastrophrenia: A reference to the stomach and to the
diaphragm
• Hebephrenia: 1) Disorganized schizophrenia, 2) A
form of insanity incident to the age of puberty, 3)
Applied to the insanity of pubescence
• Schizo-phrenia: The split soul and (contracted)
diaphragm

51. Touch
• There is no better way to demonstrate the
importance of touch than by examining what
happens when we are deprived of it. Most of
us have experienced the sensation of touch
deprivation at some point – the need to feel
the benefits of touch. But touch deprivation
can also have more serious consequences.
• http://www.unilever.ca/ourbrands/beautyand
style/Morearticles/Science_of_touch.asp)

52. Marasmus
• In the 19th century, infants in their first year
of life commonly died from a disease called
Marasmus, a Greek word for “wasting
away”. Doctors later discovered that this
disease was caused by a lack of touch:
babies not touched on a regular basis would
literally starve themselves to death (ibid.).

53. Touch deprivation
• Montagu describes in his book ‘Touch’ how
children deprived of loving touch suffer the
consequences in their bones – small lines of
retarded growth, also known as Harris lines,
appear at the ends of the tibia and the radius
(ibid.).

54. The need for touch
• And the need for touch doesn’t diminish as
we age. In fact, research on adults has
proven that touch is essential for physical and
emotional well-being: regular touch can
lengthen life and cut down on doctor’s visits.
Touch provides solace, safety, tenderness
and soothing (ibid.).

55. References
• Boadella, D. (1987). Lifestreams. New York: Routledge &
Kegan Paul
• Boadella, D. (ed.) (1976). In the wake of Reich. London:
Coventure
• Boyesen, M.L. (1974). ‘Emotional repression as a somatic
compromise: Stages in the Physiology of Neurosis’, Energy
and Character, 5 (2)
• Boyesen, G. (1976). ‘The Primary personality and its
relationship to the streamings’, in D. Boadella (ed.) In the
wake of Reich. London: Coventure
• Dychtwald, K. (1986). Bodymind. Los Angeles, CA: J.P.
Tarcher

56. References
• Keleman, S. (1975). Your body speaks its mind.
Berkeley, CA: Center Press
• Lowen, A. (1975) Bioenergetics. New York:
Penguin Books.
• Lowen, A. (1980) Fear of life. New York: Collier
Macmillan Publishers.
• Reich, W. (1933). Character Analysis, reprinted
1969. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.
• Reich, W. (1942). The function of the body.
Rangeley, ME: Orgone Institute Press.
•

57. References
• Reich, W. (1946). Mass psychology of fascism.
Rangeley, ME: Orgone Institute Press,
• Reich, W. (1968) The function of the orgasm.
London: Panther Books
• Sattmann-Frese, W.J. & Hill, S.B. (2007) Learning
for sustainable living: Psychology of ecological
change, Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com.
• Thinking through the body
www.thinkbody.co.uk/body-psych/integr-musc-
work.htm