Atlas›Domain IV · Body-oriented psychotherapy›Guide 030
Guide IV-030

Contemporary body psychotherapy (Chiron)

Bernd Eiden, Jochen Lude, Rainer Pervoltz, Kristiane Preisinger1983London
A 38 · L 24 · M 3820 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Chiron approach as the Chiron Centre described it in its 1993 centre profile (Self & Society 21:3), Bernd Eiden's 1998 paper on touch, and the later "integral-relational" form presented in Hartley (ed.) 2009, Contemporary Body Psychotherapy: The Chiron Approach. The 2009 book itself is not drawn on. Its contents are known here only from the publisher's table of contents, the chapter abstract and a published review [uncertain].

What it is. The Chiron approach is not a manualised therapy. It is an integrative body psychotherapy and training tradition from the Chiron Centre for Body Psychotherapy in London, originally called the Chiron Centre for Holistic Psychotherapy. Six people set it up in 1983. Three of them, Bernd Eiden, Jochen Lude and Rainer Pervoltz, became its directors; the other three were Kristiane Preisinger, Jochen Encke and Rita Maag. The three directors had been students and left-wing activists in Berlin in the early 1970s and belonged to a self-help growth group there called Seterap. They trained with Gerda Boyesen in London in 1977–78, then with John Pierrakos, David Boadella, the Jungian analyst J.W.T. Redfearn, and Gestalt and bioenergetic teachers. Pervoltz had taught Feldenkrais and Eiden had taught massage [source: Centre profile 1993]. The approach combines biodynamic psychology and massage, Gestalt-body therapy, biosynthesis, core energetics, Reichian vegetotherapy, transpersonal psychology and analytic work [source: Centre profile 1993]. From the 1990s it took in object relations, attachment theory and affect-regulation neuroscience, and Michael Soth describes a move from "humanistic holism" toward "integral-relational body psychotherapy" [source: Lamb 2009 review; Routledge contents]. The Centre stopped training professionals around the time Eiden and Lude retired, c. 2008 [source: Hartley 2009 introduction abstract]. Chiron-trained therapists still practise and teach, for example in the Minster Centre's Certificate in Body Psychotherapy, led by a Chiron-trained relational body psychotherapist [source: Minster Centre course page].

How change happens. Healing is located in the present-moment relationship between client and therapist, which matters more than any technique. Transference is felt in both bodies, so it can be worked with directly [source: Centre profile 1993]. The therapist holds the client's experience, and this builds the ego strength needed to feel strong emotion. The client gradually takes in more of the relationship and learns what their own body sensations mean. Emotion is aimed at "energetic re-owning", not discharge for its own sake. The hoped-for outcome is a person who is more integrated, more at peace and more able to direct their life [source: Centre profile 1993]. Self-regulation, the organism's capacity to restore its own balance (from Reich and Boyesen), is the central organising concept. Later Chiron writers revised it in relational and neuroscientific terms (Carroll, drawing on Allan Schore) [source: Lamb 2009 review; Routledge contents]. Energy language such as "life force" and "energetic contact" is the school's own theory, not established physiology.

2. Framework

Format. The work is individual, in a room with chairs and a mattress. The client may sit face to face and talk, or lie down for body-focused work [source: Centre profile 1993]. There is no homework, there are no in-vivo tasks and there is no fixed session agenda: the process is "not goal-oriented" [source: Centre profile 1993].

Frame and contract. Agree session time, frequency, notice for cancellations and confidentiality, plus a working contract, before deeper work starts [source: Centre profile 1993].

Duration. Short-term work runs about six months, weekly. Longer-term work runs two to five years [source: Centre profile 1993]. Session length is not given in the sources [uncertain]; the usual 50–60 minutes is an assumption [synthesis].

Phases. The Centre stresses that the process "never unfolds sequentially", but it describes a typical arc [source: Centre profile 1993]:

  1. Touching and being touched. Goal: contact. The therapist lets themselves be affected by the client on physical, emotional, energetic and spiritual levels and starts where the client is.
  2. Holding. Goal: safety and ego strength. The therapist holds whatever is present, verbally, energetically and sometimes physically, until the client is ready to be aware of it.
  3. Bodily opening. Goal: self-perception. The client can take in more of the relationship. At first, sensations come alive only with the therapist present; later the client learns what their own body signals mean.
  4. Outside the room. Goal: transfer. The client notices their body and energy in relationships outside therapy.
  5. Being. Goal: presence. Once the client has an observing ego, simply being with another person, without talking or doing, can be enough.
  6. Completion. Therapy ends when one of three things is true: the presenting reason is resolved; the client can live with the awareness gained; or the relationship has reached its limits. Referral to another therapist may follow.

When to move between phases. The sources give only qualitative markers [uncertain]. Landale's chapter is reported to put containing distress before opening up the psychotherapeutic material [source: Lamb 2009 review]. Read together with the profile, this suggests practical gates [synthesis]:

  • Holding to opening. Go ahead only if the client can notice a sensation, stay with it and come back to talk about it, without dissociating or becoming flooded, and is still able to reflect.
  • Opening to outside the room. The client spontaneously reports body or energy awareness from their life between sessions.
  • Into the being phase. The client can watch their own process (an observing ego) while feeling it.
  • Stepping back. Return to holding whenever arousal outruns the client's ability to reflect.

3. Guiding principles

  • The relationship is paramount. The present-moment relationship heals; technique serves it. In practice: when a technique and the contact pull in different directions, follow the contact [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Create security first. A clear frame (time, frequency, cancellations, confidentiality, contract) is part of the treatment. In practice: settle the frame before any body or touch work [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Methods are flexible and never forced. Methods are chosen for the individual. In practice: if a method feels unacceptable to the client, drop it and find another way to the same material [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Presence plus witness. Enter the client's state but keep a slight observing distance. In practice: avoid both colluding and being under-involved [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Equality. The client is not more neurotic than the therapist; the difference lies in the therapist's trained self-awareness. In practice: do not pathologise from above [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Here-and-now transference. Work with transference and countertransference as they happen in the room. In practice: help the client see their fixed patterns and how they give away power [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Negative transference hides life force. Following Reich, hostility and negativity are welcomed as energy that can become constructive. In practice: invite the negative material and do not smooth it over [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • The body as instrument. Transference is felt in both bodies, which gives the therapist a "palpable" check. In practice: track your own breath, tension and autonomic shifts as data [source: Centre profile 1993; Eiden 1998].
  • Process, not goals. No homework and no agenda. In practice: follow what emerges rather than steering toward targets [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Catharsis always integrated. Emotional release is used at some stages but always balanced with putting it into words. In practice: after any expression, slow down and help the client make meaning of it [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Contain before opening. In practice: stabilise distress before uncovering material, especially with developmental trauma [source: Lamb 2009 review of Landale].
  • Touch needs a rationale. Deciding to touch requires a fine-grained sense of the contact and a consistent theoretical reason; timing is weighed against the transference. In practice: name to yourself why this touch, why now [source: Eiden 1998].
  • Touch contactfully. The therapist processes touch through their own nervous system and feels whether the client's tissues are saying "yes" or "no". In practice: notice and respond to tissue resistance immediately [source: Eiden 1998].
  • No sexual touch, ever. Eiden states that excluding sexual touch is an absolute guarantee. In practice: when sexual feelings arise, explore the needs underneath them, such as wanting to be held, and do not act on them [source: Eiden 1998; Centre profile 1993].
  • Touch may be excluded for some clients. In practice: decide case by case, and never assume touch is part of the work [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Self-regulation, relationally understood. Trust the organism's own regulating rhythms, understood as developing within relationships, not in isolation. In practice: support the client's own pace instead of pushing release [source: Lamb 2009 review of Carroll and Soth] [uncertain: chapters].
  • Don't polarise body against mind. Soth found that siding with the body against the client's ego could make the therapist the "enemy of the client's ego". In practice: respect the client's defences and their thinking as part of the whole [source: EABP 2016 Soth abstract].
  • Hold alliance and enactment together. The work keeps the "paradoxical tension between the working alliance and enactment" at its centre. In practice: expect to be drawn into the client's old relational patterns and use that, while keeping the alliance in view [source: EABP 2016 Soth abstract].
  • Two people, each wounded and whole. The relationship is a body-mind process between two people. In practice: acknowledge your own part in what happens [source: EABP 2016 Soth abstract].
  • Diversity and the body. Power, difference and "othering" are lived in the body and in the room. In practice: notice embodied power differences, for example race or disability [source: Routledge contents (Ablack, Keary); Minster Centre course page] [uncertain: chapters].

4. Intervention inventory

The sources name each Chiron method but give little step-by-step procedure. The Centre's profile says so directly about breathing exercises, body-reading protocols and vegetotherapy. Steps below therefore combine what the sources state [source] with clearly marked practical scaffolding [synthesis]. The Chiron tradition gives no fixed timings or repetition counts; any durations given are [synthesis]. All example language is illustrative.

4.0 Touch safety and consent (applies to every touch intervention)

  • What the sources give.
    • Touch may be excluded entirely for some clients.
    • The therapist distinguishes kinds of touch and weighs timing against the transference.
    • The therapist feels whether the client's tissues are saying "yes" or "no".
    • Sexual touch is absolutely excluded.
    • Touch needs a consistent theoretical rationale.
    • [source: Centre profile 1993; Eiden 1998]
  • Steps to add [synthesis].
    1. Explain first. Before the first touch session, say what kind of touch you might offer, where (hands, back, shoulders, feet, arms; never the breasts, genitals or buttocks) and why.
    2. Ask each time. Ask for explicit agreement every time, naming the place and the kind of touch.
    3. Offer a no-touch alternative. For example, the client places their own hand there, or you hold a cushion against them.
    4. Agree a stop signal. Agree a word or a raised hand, and stop instantly when it is used.
    5. Check in during. Check briefly in words during the touch, and watch the tissue and breath for a non-verbal "no".
    6. Debrief after. Afterwards, ask what it was like, including anything uncomfortable.
    7. Record it. Note in the client record what touch was used and the consent given.
  • Training and law. Touch requires specific training and supervision. Check what your licence, professional body, insurer and jurisdiction allow; many verbal-therapy codes restrict or forbid touch [synthesis].

4.1 Contracting and setting the frame

  • Purpose. Build security, which the Centre treats as part of the healing [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps.
    1. Agree session time, frequency, cancellation notice and confidentiality.
    2. Explain that the work may include talking, lying on the mattress, body awareness and, only with consent, touch.
    3. Agree a working contract about what the client wants to explore [source: Centre profile 1993].
    4. Find out about touch history, trauma and medical issues, and screen before any body work (see 4.12 and 4.13) [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative). "We'll meet weekly at this time. Sometimes we'll just talk; sometimes I may suggest noticing your body, or lying down. Nothing physical happens without you agreeing to it first."
  • Watch for. Whether the client keeps the frame, and their reactions to it, such as testing limits or excessive compliance. These are transference material in their own right [synthesis].

4.2 Face-to-face dialogue ("chairs and words")

  • Purpose. Talking face to face on chairs whenever that suits the client. It is the default mode with clients who find body work threatening [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps.
    1. Sit facing each other at a distance the client chooses [synthesis].
    2. Talk about the client's concerns while tracking breath, posture and gesture (4.3).
    3. Weave in body references lightly. Do not demand them [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative). "As you tell me this, I notice your shoulders lift a little. Do you notice anything there?"
  • Watch for. Talking as a way of avoiding feeling, versus talking that holds the client together. Soth's warning applies: respect verbal defences and do not set the body against the ego [source: EABP 2016 Soth abstract].

4.3 Body reading: tracking breath and micro-movement

  • Purpose. Notice the subtle bodily signs of the client's process as it happens [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • What to look for.
    • Holding the breath.
    • Muscles tightening.
    • A long out-breath with release.
    • Tiny spontaneous movements.
    • [source: Centre profile 1993]
  • Character structure. Reichian character structure, shown in body-type diagrams, is part of Chiron theory (Eiden in Staunton 2002) [source: Silver-Leigh 2002 review]. Exactly how it is used for reading in session is [uncertain].
  • Steps.
    1. Observe quietly, with soft attention [synthesis].
    2. When a shift coincides with a theme, reflect it tentatively, as an observation and not an interpretation [synthesis].
    3. Invite the client's own sensing of it [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative). "Just then your breath seemed to stop for a moment. What happened inside?" / "There was a long out-breath. How is that for you?"
  • Watch for. Clients who feel scrutinised or shamed by being "read": slow down and ask permission to comment on their body [synthesis]. Signs it is working: the client starts to notice these shifts on their own.

4.4 Embodied countertransference (somatic resonance)

  • Purpose. Use the therapist's own bodily responses as information about the relationship [source: Centre profile 1993; Eiden 1998].
  • What the sources describe.
    • Transference is felt bodily, giving a "palpable" way of checking oneself.
    • Autonomic responses in both client and therapist are discussed, because the autonomic nervous system is not under voluntary control.
    • [source: Centre profile 1993; Eiden 1998]
  • Steps.
    1. Notice your own breath, belly, heat, sleepiness or tension during the session.
    2. Ask yourself privately whether it belongs to you, to the client, or to the field between you.
    3. Use it. Let it inform your stance, or disclose it briefly and tentatively when that serves the client.
    4. Explore together what was going on autonomically in each of you [source: Centre profile 1993 (step 4); steps 1–3 synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative). "I notice I've gone quite still and held my breath as you talk about your father. I wonder what's happening in you?"
  • Watch for. Disclosures that burden the client or shift the focus onto you. Take strong or persistent reactions to supervision [synthesis].

4.5 Here-and-now transference work (including negative and sexual transference)

  • Purpose. Help the client see their fixed relational patterns and how they give their power away, as these patterns appear with the therapist [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Negative transference. Following Reich, treat hostility as hiding life force that can be freed and become constructive [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Sexual transference.
    • Touch may be excluded for that client.
    • Explore the feelings beneath the sexual charge, such as the need to be held.
    • Body work and touch can bring regression and yearning, especially when touch is withheld; name these and work with them.
    • [source: Centre profile 1993; Silver-Leigh 2002 review of Staunton]
  • Steps.
    1. Notice the pattern as it shows up between you.
    2. Name it in the present tense.
    3. Invite the client's bodily experience of it.
    4. Link it to their history only after it has been felt [synthesis on sequence].
  • Example language (illustrative). "It sounds like you're angry with me right now. Can we let that be here? Where do you feel it?" / "Wanting me to hold you makes a lot of sense. Let's stay with how that longing feels, rather than act on it."
  • Watch for. Any pull, in you or the client, toward physical expression of sexual feelings. Stop body work, use supervision, and keep the boundary absolutely [source: Eiden 1998; synthesis].

4.6 Mattress work: lying-down awareness

  • Purpose. Deepen contact with breath and spontaneous movement, below the level of verbal control [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps.
    1. After consent, the client lies on the mattress, on their back or on their side, clothed [position: synthesis].
    2. The therapist sits beside them at a distance agreed with the client [synthesis].
    3. The client attends to their breathing and to "tiny body movements" without trying to change them [source: Centre profile 1993].
    4. The therapist tracks these and reflects them occasionally [synthesis].
    5. Close by asking the client to open their eyes, feel the floor and sit up slowly, then talk through what happened [synthesis].
  • Duration. 10–30 minutes within a session [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative). "Just let the breath come and go by itself. If any small movement wants to happen, let it, and tell me if you want to."
  • Watch for.
    • Spacing out, numbness, or eyes going glassy (dissociation): sit up, orient to the room, and talk (see section 5).
    • Lying down may evoke regression or a sense of vulnerability with the therapist sitting above; offer to sit at the client's level or to have them sit up [synthesis].
    • Signs it is working: sensations become more differentiated and the client can describe them.

4.7 Wordless, dance-like interaction

  • Purpose. Contact that goes past the rational mind, for moments when words get in the way. Words can be dropped in favour of a wordless, dance-like interaction [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps.
    1. Notice when language is blocking contact.
    2. Suggest pausing words.
    3. Respond to the client's movement, breath or gaze with your own small, matching responses (attunement), at a distance, with no touch unless agreed.
    4. Come back to words to reflect on what happened [synthesis on steps].
  • Example language (illustrative). "Shall we drop words for a moment and just see what happens between us?"
  • Watch for. Awkwardness or a sense of performance: name it lightly, and it can become material [synthesis].

4.8 Holding and containing touch

  • Purpose.
    • Safety and comfort.
    • A boundary around overwhelming emotion.
    • A possible corrective emotional experience, conveying "I am present with you".
    • Especially for clients deprived of touch in infancy.
    • Physical holding is a phase, later replaced by other kinds of holding.
    • [source: Eiden 1998]
  • Steps.
    1. Follow the consent steps in 4.0.
    2. Offer still, gentle contact: for example, a hand on the upper back between the shoulder blades, or on the forearm, or holding the hand, with the client sitting or lying [placements: synthesis].
    3. Keep the contact still and quiet. Feel the tissue's "yes" or "no" [source: Eiden 1998].
    4. Withdraw slowly, telling the client before you do.
    5. Talk through what it was like [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative). "Would it help to have my hand on your back while this is so strong? You can say no, or stop it at any point."
  • Watch for.
    • Dependency on physical holding.
    • Erotisation.
    • Holding that cuts off feeling instead of containing it.
    • Plan, together with the client, to move from physical holding to verbal and relational holding [source: Eiden 1998 (phase idea); synthesis].

4.9 Grounding

  • Purpose. Help the client experience the body as an anchor and container, which supports managing strong emotion (Lowen's idea, adopted by Eiden). Skin contact can help the client feel grounded and "in touch" with reality [source: Eiden 1998; Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps.
    1. No-touch version. The client sits or stands and feels their feet on the floor and their weight in the seat. They let the out-breath drop toward the belly and look around the room, naming what they see [synthesis].
    2. Touch version, with consent per 4.0. Place a hand firmly and still on the feet, the lower legs or the back of the shoulders, as an anchor [placements: synthesis].
    3. Ask what changes. Close by orienting to the room [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative). "Feel your feet. Push them gently into the floor. What happens to the feeling in your chest when you do that?"
  • Watch for. Grounding is working when the client's breathing slows and settles, their eyes become present, and they can reflect while still feeling [synthesis].

4.10 Gentle touch to bring out autonomic responses (vegetotherapy-informed work)

  • Purpose. Contact that goes past the rational mind by working with the autonomic nervous system.
    • Gentle touch may bring a deeper breath, spontaneous movement of the limbs, or an inner trembling or shaking.
    • Eiden likens these responses to free association. They lead either to relaxation or to heightened awareness.
    • At Chiron the autonomic nervous system is monitored during gentle touch.
    • "Vegetotherapy" is Reich's term for physical intervention aimed at loosening muscular "armour". Reich held that armour binds emotion; that is the school's theory.
    • [source: Eiden 1998; Centre profile 1993; Silver-Leigh 2002 review]
  • Steps.
    1. Screen the client (see 4.13) and follow the consent steps in 4.0.
    2. The client lies on the mattress.
    3. Place a light, still hand where agreed, for example the upper chest below the collarbone, the belly or the back [placements: synthesis].
    4. Track breath, skin colour, temperature, trembling and gut sounds in the client, and your own autonomic responses [source: Eiden 1998 (monitoring); details synthesis].
    5. Let spontaneous responses happen without pushing them.
    6. Invite the client to describe what they feel, like free association.
    7. Remove the hand slowly and allow time to integrate and talk [synthesis].
  • Detailed procedure not found. The Centre profile says it does not describe vegetotherapy procedures in detail [uncertain].
  • Example language (illustrative). "Just notice what your body does with my hand there. Any trembling or warmth or movement is welcome. Tell me whatever comes."
  • Watch for.
    • Good signs. Shaking that settles into a softer breath.
    • Warning signs.
      • Escalating trembling with fear, or spacing out.
      • Breathing faster and faster, or tingling hands, which suggest over-breathing.
      • If these appear, stop the touch, help the client sit up, orient to the room and slow the breath [synthesis].

4.11 Touch to link sensation and feeling, and to body memories

  • Purpose.
    • Help clients notice how they are overwhelmed in the body and explore what their sensations mean emotionally.
    • Eiden quotes Montagu: touch is "the authentic voice of feeling".
    • Touch can help spontaneous memories come back, especially in dissociation after childhood trauma.
    • Some clients gain stronger contact with themselves, so that a fragmented bodily experience becomes a unified one.
    • [source: Eiden 1998]
  • Steps.
    1. With consent (4.0), offer still contact where the client reports a sensation.
    2. Ask what the sensation is like: its quality, size and movement.
    3. Ask what feeling or image goes with it.
    4. Let meaning emerge, without interpreting it for the client.
    5. Treat any memory that surfaces as material to explore, not as proven fact [synthesis on steps and the memory caution].
  • Example language (illustrative). "Stay with the tightness under my hand. If it had a feeling, what might it be?"
  • Watch for. Recovered memories carry a risk of suggestion. Do not lead the client toward specific abuse content [synthesis]. If flooding begins, return to containment (4.8, 4.9).

4.12 Biodynamic massage

  • Purpose.
    • Build kinaesthetic self-awareness and a sense of the inside and outside of the body.
    • Can be used within body psychotherapy, on its own, or alongside another therapy.
    • Rationales given:
      • relax tissue, improve posture and help circulation
      • ease tension-type pain such as headaches
      • lower autonomic arousal (Eiden mentions depression and panic)
      • help the client feel soothed and nurtured
    • It can lead to a "somato-emotional" experience when the therapist supports the emotional process.
    • [source: Centre profile 1993; Eiden 1998; Wikipedia: Biodynamic massage]
  • Background.
    • The method comes from Gerda Boyesen, with whom the Chiron founders trained.
    • A Chiron chapter (Schaible) presents it both as a body therapy and as a tool in body psychotherapy; that chapter is not drawn on [source: Routledge contents] [uncertain].
    • Boyesen held that the gut "digests" emotional stress ("psychoperistalsis") as an internal self-regulating mechanism. Practitioners listen to gut sounds with a stethoscope and use them as feedback to guide the massage.
    • These are the school's own theoretical claims, not established physiology [source: Wikipedia: Biodynamic massage; GBP information leaflet (German): "körpereigenes Biofeedback"].
  • Steps.
    1. Screen and get consent (4.0). The client lies clothed or partly clothed, as agreed, on a mattress or couch, under a blanket [synthesis].
    2. If using a stethoscope, explain it first, then place it on the belly [source: Wikipedia (use); placement synthesis].
    3. Begin with slow, light strokes over large areas such as the back, arms and legs.
    4. Adjust pace and depth to the tissue's response and to the gut sounds.
    5. When gut sounds increase, the practitioner takes this as integration and continues gently. When they stop, the practitioner slows or changes the touch [rationale: biodynamic theory; specifics: synthesis] [uncertain].
    6. Keep the client talking only as much as they want to. Support any feeling that arises.
    7. Close with a few minutes of rest, then sitting up and talking it through [synthesis].
  • Named techniques not described. Boyesen's named massage techniques were not described in any source. Do not improvise named techniques; train in them formally [uncertain].
  • Example language (illustrative). "I'll start with slow strokes on your back. Tell me if anything is too much, or if you'd like it lighter or firmer."
  • Watch for.
    • Sleepiness, which may mean relaxation or withdrawal; check which.
    • Emotional waves; welcome them.
    • Erotisation; stop massage work and explore it verbally (4.5).
  • Contraindications [synthesis].
    • Recent injury, surgery or fracture.
    • Thrombosis, skin infection or inflammation.
    • Pregnancy without medical clearance.
    • Acute psychosis or severe dissociation.
    • A trauma history involving touch, until the client is stabilised and explicitly chooses it.
  • Not a treatment for physical disease. Do not present massage as treating any physical illness.

4.13 Armour-reducing pressure (classic Reichian) — high risk

  • What it is. In the Reichian method the therapist palpates and presses a muscle group to dissolve tension and free inhibited impulses [source: Eiden 1998].
  • Chiron's position. Eiden names the risks: the method can be "intrusive and possibly traumatising", with uncontrolled catharsis and exaggerated emotional release [source: Eiden 1998]. The later Chiron literature moves toward containment, imagery and relational work instead of pushing release [source: Lamb 2009; Silver-Leigh 2002 reviews].
  • Use only if you are specifically trained in it, the client is stable, has a strong working alliance and explicitly consents, and gentler routes have been considered [synthesis].
  • Steps (if used) [synthesis].
    1. Follow the consent steps in 4.0 and agree a stop signal.
    2. Apply moderate, gradual pressure to one agreed area, such as the shoulder ridge or jaw muscles, never the neck front.
    3. Ease off at any tissue "no" or rising alarm.
    4. Keep pressure brief.
    5. Follow with containment and talking through.
  • Contraindications and screening [synthesis].
    • Pregnancy.
    • Cardiovascular or respiratory illness.
    • Epilepsy.
    • Recent injury or surgery; osteoporosis.
    • Anticoagulant use (bruising).
    • Psychosis.
    • Severe dissociation.
    • Active suicidality.
    • Recent trauma without stabilisation.
    • A history of physical or sexual abuse, unless the work is explicitly negotiated and stabilised.
  • Watch for. Pain, panic, freezing, a sense of being invaded, or the client complying beyond their limits. Stop at once and repair (see 5.5).

4.14 Catharsis with integration ("energetic re-owning")

  • Purpose. Emotional expression is used at certain stages, always balanced with putting it into words and integrating it. The aim is "energetic re-owning" of emotion, not being ruled by it [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • History. The early Seterap group used anger exercises such as pounding a mattress with fists. The Centre presents this as predating the Chiron approach [source: Centre profile 1993]. Later Chiron writers saw catharsis as having drawbacks and used imagery as a gentler route (Landale) [source: Silver-Leigh 2002 review].
  • Steps [synthesis unless tagged].
    1. Only when expression is already emerging and the client can still reflect: invite a small, contained expression, such as a sound on the out-breath, pushing hands against a cushion the therapist holds, or saying a sentence louder.
    2. Keep it brief.
    3. Pause, slow the breath and ground (4.9).
    4. Ask what was released and what it means.
    5. Link it back to the relationship and the client's life [source: Centre profile 1993 (integration)].
  • Example language (illustrative). "Let that out as a sound if it wants to come … now pause. Feel your feet. What was that anger about?"
  • Contraindications [synthesis].
    • Cardiovascular disease, pregnancy, epilepsy or recent injury.
    • Psychosis or mania.
    • Severe dissociation.
    • Active suicidality or self-harm.
    • Recent unstabilised trauma.
    • A history of violence where expression may escalate.
  • Watch for.
    • Repeated release without change, which suggests discharge has replaced integration.
    • Shame afterwards.
    • Feeling worse between sessions.

4.15 Gestalt-body work and imagined dialogue (cushion work)

  • Purpose. Gestalt-body therapy is one of Chiron's roots (a chapter by Reynolds) [source: Routledge contents; Centre profile 1993]. The profile names imagined dialogue: speaking to a cushion that stands for a parent, if the client is comfortable with it [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps [synthesis unless tagged].
    1. Check the client is willing [source: Centre profile 1993].
    2. Place a cushion opposite the client and invite them to imagine the person there.
    3. Ask them to speak directly, in the present tense, while noticing their body: voice, breath, posture.
    4. The therapist points out the body signs that go with what is said.
    5. Optionally, the client moves to the cushion and answers as the other person.
    6. Close by setting the cushion aside, coming back to the room and reflecting.
  • Example language (illustrative). "If your mother were on that cushion, what would you want to say to her? … And as you say it, what happens in your throat?"
  • Watch for. Clients who feel silly or exposed: offer to talk about the person instead (methods are never forced) [source: Centre profile 1993]. With abuse survivors, imagining the abuser can overwhelm. Contain first (see 5.8) [synthesis].

4.16 Imagery as a gentler route

  • Purpose. Landale, a Chiron trainer, links imagery (drawing on Jung, Assagioli and Winnicott) to a gentler way of working with released bodily tension than catharsis [source: Silver-Leigh 2002 review of Staunton]. Her 2009 chapter illustrates work with psychosomatic distress and developmental trauma, with containment before opening [source: Lamb 2009 review]. The procedure itself was not found [uncertain].
  • Steps [synthesis].
    1. When a sensation is strong, invite an image for it: "if it were a shape, colour or creature".
    2. Let the image develop and dialogue with it.
    3. Notice the body changing as the image changes.
    4. Close by returning to the room and discussing the meaning.
  • Example language (illustrative). "If that knot in your stomach had an image, what might it look like? … What does it need?"
  • Watch for. Images that turn frightening. Slow down, add resources such as a safe place or the therapist's presence, and ground [synthesis].

4.17 Being together without doing

  • Purpose. In later phases, once the client has an observing ego, simply being with another person, without talking or doing, can be enough [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps [synthesis].
    1. Propose a period of shared quiet, a few minutes, sitting.
    2. Each attends to breath and to the sense of the other.
    3. Afterwards, share what it was like.
  • Example language (illustrative). "Shall we just sit together for a few minutes, with nothing to achieve?"
  • Watch for. Silence felt as abandonment, especially in early phases or with attachment trauma. If so, it is not yet the time for this [synthesis].

4.18 Bringing awareness outside the room

  • Purpose. Phase 4: the client notices their body and energy in relationships outside therapy [source: Centre profile 1993]. There is no homework, so this happens through spontaneous noticing and is then explored in session [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps [synthesis].
    1. Show interest in the client's reports of bodily moments in daily life.
    2. Explore them in session as you would in-session material.
    3. Do not set tasks.
  • Example language (illustrative). "You noticed your jaw tighten in the meeting with your boss. Can you feel that a bit now, as you remember it?"

4.19 Ending and referral

  • Purpose. Completion comes when the presenting reason is resolved, when the client can live with the awareness gained, or when the relationship has reached its limits. Referral may follow [source: Centre profile 1993].
  • Steps [synthesis].
    1. Raise ending well in advance.
    2. Review the process, including bodily changes.
    3. Work with feelings about ending in the here and now, as they appear in the body.
    4. If the relationship has reached its limits, name this honestly and arrange a referral.
  • Example language (illustrative). "I think we may have gone as far as we can together. I'd like us to think about who could take this further with you."

5. Handling problems

The Chiron sources give principles rather than troubleshooting protocols. Responses are tagged [source] when they follow directly from the sources and [synthesis] otherwise.

  • 5.1 Stuck client: "nothing happens" in the body.
    • The approach is process-oriented, so "nothing" is the material [source: Centre profile 1993].
    • Shift mode: from mattress to chairs, from body to relationship.
    • Ask what it is like to be with you when nothing is happening.
    • Check whether you are pushing the body agenda and have become the "enemy of the client's ego" [source: EABP 2016 Soth abstract; synthesis].
  • 5.2 Resistance and defences.
    • Do not polarise body against mind. Respect thinking and control as protective, and get curious about them [source: EABP 2016 Soth abstract].
    • Treat hostility toward you as life force to welcome (negative transference) [source: Centre profile 1993].
    • If a method is unacceptable, find another route [source: Centre profile 1993].
    • Example (illustrative): "Part of you really doesn't want to go into your body today. Let's respect that and hear from that part."
  • 5.3 Overwhelm, flooding, dissociation.
    • Contain before opening [source: Lamb 2009 review of Landale].
    • Stop any touch or deepening work. Help the client sit up, eyes open. Ground through the feet and orient to the room (name objects). Slow and lengthen the out-breath, and use your calm voice [synthesis].
    • Offer holding touch (4.8) only if it was agreed earlier and the client asks for it [source: Eiden 1998 (containing function); synthesis].
    • Afterwards, review the pacing together. Return to the holding phase.
  • 5.4 Over-breathing or panic during body work.
    • Stop. Sit the client up. Encourage slow nasal breathing with a longer out-breath and grounding.
    • If chest pain, fainting or ongoing symptoms appear, seek medical help [synthesis].
  • 5.5 Ruptures, including touch-related ruptures.
    • Work with the rupture in the here and now as transference and countertransference [source: Centre profile 1993].
    • Own your part; the relationship is between two people who are each "wounded and whole" [source: EABP 2016 Soth abstract].
    • After a touch went wrong: stop touch, acknowledge it without defending yourself, ask what it was like, and agree what (if anything) happens next. Record it and take it to supervision [synthesis].
    • Example (illustrative): "I think my hand on your shoulder felt intrusive just then. I'm sorry. Can you tell me what happened for you?"
  • 5.6 Non-adherence.
    • There is no homework, so non-adherence shows up as frame problems: lateness, missed sessions, unpaid fees.
    • Return to the contract (time, cancellation notice) [source: Centre profile 1993].
    • Explore the meaning of the behaviour in the transference [synthesis].
  • 5.7 Sexual transference or erotisation.
    • Sexual touch is absolutely excluded [source: Eiden 1998].
    • Touch may be suspended for this client [source: Centre profile 1993].
    • Explore what lies beneath the sexual charge, for example a need to be held [source: Centre profile 1993].
    • If the pull is yours, take it to supervision promptly, and to personal therapy where needed [synthesis].
  • 5.8 Abuse survivors.
    • Clark's chapter addresses facing "the abuser in the abused", that is, the abuser internalised by the client and its enactment in the therapy; procedure not drawn on [source: Lamb 2009 review] [uncertain].
    • Heitzler proposes an integrative trauma model that includes EMDR [source: Lamb 2009 review] [uncertain].
    • In practice [synthesis]:
      • Stabilise first, and use no-touch work unless the client explicitly chooses touch.
      • Expect the abuser–victim dynamic to appear between you, and name it.
      • Avoid suggestive memory work (4.11).
      • Refer for trauma-specific treatment when indicated.
  • 5.9 Disturbances of the self and borderline organisation.
    • Soth notes that many current clients present with disturbances of the self rather than repression, which a body-first approach may not suit [source: EABP 2016 Soth abstract].
    • Warnecke's chapter addresses "the borderline relationship"; its contents are not drawn on [uncertain].
    • In practice [synthesis]:
      • Put the relationship and the frame ahead of release work.
      • Introduce touch, if at all, only within a stable alliance.
      • Expect intense enactments and hold the alliance–enactment tension.
  • 5.10 Touch hunger, or touch refused.
    • Clients may long for touch when it is withheld; work with the yearning itself [source: Silver-Leigh 2002 review].
    • For clients who refuse touch, use body awareness, breath and grounding without contact. Touch-free work is a full approach [source: Silver-Leigh 2002 review (Rothschild, non-Chiron); synthesis].
  • 5.11 Dependence on physical holding.
    • Physical holding is a phase to be replaced by other forms of holding [source: Eiden 1998].
    • Agree openly how to taper it, and process the loss [synthesis].
  • 5.12 Suicidality or self-harm.
    • Pause catharsis and deep body work. Carry out a standard structured risk assessment and collaborative safety planning; this includes lethal-means counselling (safe storage or removal).
    • Liaise with GP or crisis services as indicated. Resume body work only once the client is stabilised [synthesis; not addressed in Chiron sources].
  • 5.13 Settings without a mattress, or where touch is not allowed.
    • Use chairs-and-words, body reading, grounding without touch, breath awareness and embodied countertransference.
    • A body psychotherapist working in an NHS GP surgery relied on voice, eyes and quieter breathing work [source: Scott 2009 (non-Chiron); synthesis].
  • 5.14 Diversity and disability.
    • Notice how difference and power are lived in both bodies. Ask openly about the client's experience of being looked at and touched [source: Routledge contents (Ablack, Keary); synthesis] [uncertain: chapters].
  • 5.15 Therapist overwhelmed by somatic countertransference.
    • Ground yourself, slow your breath, and separate your material from the client's.
    • Bring it to supervision and personal therapy. Chiron treats the therapist's self-awareness as the core skill [source: Centre profile 1993 (equality principle); synthesis].
  • 5.16 Medical presentations.
    • Never present body work as treatment for physical disease.
    • Refer somatic symptoms for medical assessment before treating them as psychosomatic [synthesis].

Sources

Sources

Further reading (not drawn on)

  • Hartley, L. (ed.) (2009). Contemporary Body Psychotherapy: The Chiron Approach. London: Routledge. Chapters by Eiden, Schaible, Reynolds, Soth, Carroll, Asheri, Ablack, Stauffer, Landale, Keary, Heitzler, Warnecke, Clark and Waterston. Known here only from the contents page and reviews. Treat claims attributed to individual chapters as [uncertain].
  • Staunton, T. (ed.) (2002). Body Psychotherapy. Hove: Brunner-Routledge. Includes chapters by Eiden, Carroll and Landale. Known here only from a review.

Gaps. The sources do not give:

  • step-by-step Chiron protocols for vegetotherapy, breathing or body reading;
  • Boyesen's named massage techniques;
  • Asheri's principles of touch;
  • Landale's imagery procedure.

The procedural steps for these are marked [synthesis] or [uncertain]. A pirated full-text copy of the 2009 book was found online and deliberately not used.

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