Body-centred psychotherapy IKP

1. Introduction

Version followed: Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie IKP (KZPT IKP) «nach Maurer» as taught today by the IKP Institut für Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie (IKP Dr. Yvonne Maurer AG, Zurich/Bern). This guide uses the current PsyG/FMH curricula and the 2025 seminar programme, the theory as Künzler (2002) summarises it from Maurer (1993, 1999), and the IKP reader edited by Künzler et al. (2010). Maurer's own books are not drawn on here. Where the guide relies on second-hand summaries or on curriculum headings alone, it says so.

What it is. An integrative humanistic psychotherapy school, not a single manualised protocol. Its founder is Dr. med. Dr. theol. Yvonne Maurer, who also publishes as Maurer-Groeli. The institute says the approach rests on Gestalt therapy and adds a body-oriented and a systemic perspective. It describes the work as process- and resource-oriented, emotion- and need-centred, experience-activating, and focused on the here and now [source: IKP FMH curriculum; IKP Wissenschaftlichkeit page; IKP homepage]. In-house authors call the label «body-centred» incomplete; Künzler proposes «multidimensional therapy» instead [source: Künzler 2002, p. 16]. The institute has trained physicians since 1983 and claims a research tradition of over 40 years. The exact founding year of the institute is [uncertain] [source: IKP FMH curriculum; Fortbildungsprogramm 2025].

Core idea of change. The model treats the person as a unity of six life dimensions, set out in the «Anthropologisches Würfelmodell IKP» (anthropological cube model): physical, psychological-mental, social, spiritual/meaning-giving, spatial and temporal. Illness counts as imbalance between these dimensions, or as a narrowing of them, and recovery as restoring balance [source: Künzler 2002, pp. 16–19; Reich, ch. 2.3, citing Maurer 2006]. The model names «Fixierung» as a central mechanism: a painful current life and feeling situation freezes inwardly and narrows every dimension (Maurer 1999, cited in Künzler 2002, p. 31). Change comes from four things: (a) bringing the body into the conversation, actively or passively; (b) making experience conscious in the here and now; (c) activating resources and unmet needs; (d) anchoring new, corrective experience in multisensory body memory so that it becomes available later as a resource [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025; Maurer-Groeli 2004 abstract; Künzler 2002, p. 27]. After each body or creative step, client and therapist talk the experience through together, with the aim of integrating psychic, bodily and relational experience [source: IKP FMH curriculum].

2. Framework

No published phase manual found. None of the sources sets out a fixed phase model or session count for the course of therapy. The curriculum names four things without describing them: «Sitzungsphasen» (session phases), «Erstgespräch» (first interview), a «Modell der therapeutischen Tiefung» (model of therapeutic deepening, which governs regression work) and a module on ending therapy [uncertain] [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. The framework below combines what the sources do state with my own clinically conventional ordering, marked [synthesis].

Maurer's three-phase illness model. This model guides timing and prevention; it is not a model of therapy phases [source: Reich, ch. 2.3.1, citing Maurer 2006]:

• Energetic predisposition: a vulnerable state before symptoms set in. Full prevention is possible only in this phase.
• Disturbing reaction formation: symptoms and coping patterns develop.
• Completed restructuring: the pattern has become a stable structure.

Practical meaning [synthesis]: the further along the phases, the more the work needs stabilisation and repetition before it can deepen.

Working sequence used in this guide [synthesis, built from the sourced elements]:

Format. Individual therapy is the default. The institute also teaches couples work (body interventions in couple counselling; «Paare und Familien im Raum»), group work, and child and adolescent work [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025; Künzler et al. 2010 table of contents]. Sources give no session length or typical number of sessions [uncertain]. Assume ordinary 50–60-minute outpatient sessions; body work on the treatment couch (breath and diaphragm work) may need longer slots [synthesis].

Session shape [synthesis, built from the curriculum's statement that experience is followed by joint discussion]:

1. Check-in, both verbal and bodily: «What are you noticing in your body right now?»
2. Choose a focus within one dimension.
3. Offer an experiential entry: a body, breath, imaginative or creative step.
4. Stay with the experience in the here and now.
5. Talk the experience through together and link it to needs and resources.
6. Shift or ground before leaving.
7. Agree a small transfer exercise for daily life.

3. Guiding principles

[source for principles 1–9: IKP FMH curriculum; IKP Wissenschaftlichkeit page; Fortbildungsprogramm 2025; Künzler 2002; Reich; Gerber & Maag]

1. Holistic and multidimensional (cube model). Look at all six dimensions, not only the psyche. In practice: every assessment and every review asks about body, psyche, social life, meaning, space and time.
2. A process, not a fixed image of the person. Maurer speaks of a «Menschenprozess» rather than a static «Menschenbild» (Maurer 1993a, cited in Künzler 2002, p. 30). In practice: diagnoses describe current states, and you re-map them as therapy proceeds.
3. No simple causality. In practice: do not trace a symptom to a single cause. Look for how the dimensions interact.
4. Resource orientation (Salutogramm alongside Pathogramm). In practice: look for usable resources in every dimension and test whether each one can work in the current process (Künzler 2002, p. 21). Treatment planning grows out of the resources; goals grow out of the deficits.
5. Need-centredness (Bedürfniskonzept). In practice: behind a symptom strategy, such as disordered eating, look for the primary need it serves, and help the client meet that need more directly (Maurer 2015, cited in Reich, ch. 3.1.4). Attend to needs early (Künzler 2002, p. 14).
6. Here and now, awareness, phenomenology (Gestalt base). In practice: work with what is present in the body and the relationship now. Describe before you interpret.
7. Experience activation with the body in the conversation. In practice: when talk circles, bring in the body, either actively (the client moves, breathes, uses the voice) or passively (the client is guided or touched), and then talk it through.
8. Shift when one-sidedness or fixation threatens. Maurer holds that shifting is always indicated when one-sidedness or fixation looms (Maurer 1999, cited in Künzler 2002, p. 32). In practice: if a session gets stuck in one dimension, actively move attention within that dimension or across to another.
9. Anchor change in body memory, through many senses. Memory is multisensory and recalled best through the senses in which it was stored (Maurer-Groeli 2004). Small successes should include bodily perception (Künzler 2002, p. 27). In practice: let every insight be felt and located in the body, and repeat it across the visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and olfactory channels (the «VAKO» channels in Gerber & Maag).
10. Make inner self-dialogue conscious. Maurer regards conscious inner dialogue as the greatest resource (Maurer 1999, cited in Künzler 2002, p. 27). In practice: invite the client to notice how they speak to themselves and how their body responds.
11. Rogerian stance; the client is the expert on themselves. In practice: be empathic, congruent and accepting. The therapist offers experiments; the client decides and interprets [source: IKP FMH curriculum, module on the first interview; Gerber & Maag, p. 2].
12. Nähe-Distanz: work at the contact boundary. In practice: closeness and distance are always both a theme and a variable, so calibrate physical distance and touch to the client's attachment pattern (Reich, ch. 3.1.3; IKP FMH curriculum, Nähe–Distanz module).
13. Indication before technique. Each of the 15 groups of experiential exercises has its own indications and contraindications, and so do imagination and regression. In practice: choose exercises by diagnosis and current state, not by habit [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. The exercise-group taxonomy (Zimmerli 2010) is not drawn on here [uncertain].
14. Small steps and pacing. In practice: increase body awareness gradually, because many clients fear being flooded by feelings (Reich, ch. 3.1.2 and 3.3.3).
15. Transfer into everyday life. In practice: practise body exercises in session and weave them into daily routine. Self-performed action is remembered better (the «Tu-Effekt», after Engelkamp) [source: Casanova 2012].
16. Spiritual dimension as a resource. In practice: ask about values, meaning, meditative experience and basic trust, and use them as resources without imposing beliefs (Maurer 2010, chapter title; Künzler 2002, p. 18). Principles 16 and 17 are taken from chapter titles and summaries; The chapters are not drawn on here [uncertain].
17. Ethics, supervision and self-care. In practice: follow professional codes and ethics guidelines, and use supervision, especially with personality disorders [source: IKP FMH curriculum; Gerber & Maag, p. 1].

Maurer and IKP speak of «Energieprinzipien» (energy principles) and of «energetische Prädisposition» (energetic predisposition). These belong to the school's own theory and are not established physiological facts. The sources name them but do not define them [uncertain].

4. Intervention inventory

What this inventory is and where it comes from. It lists every technique that the IKP sources name as part of KZPT IKP or of its in-house training, so it is a list of named methods, not a manual. Those sources name techniques but rarely describe how to carry them out. The IKP's own catalogue of 15 experiential exercise groups, each with its indications (Zimmerli 2010, «Körperzentrierte Erfahrungsübungen im Überblick»), is not drawn on here [uncertain]. Each entry below therefore states what the sources say. The steps are my reconstruction from the source description, from the parent method (Gestalt, Sensory Awareness, Autogenic Training and so on) and from standard body-psychotherapy practice. Steps are marked [synthesis] wherever they are not given in an IKP text. All example language is illustrative.

Before any body work: consent and safety protocol (applies to every entry that uses touch, breath intensification, couch work or expression). None of the IKP sources gives a touch-consent procedure, so this whole protocol is [synthesis]:

1. Explain first. Say what the exercise is, why you suggest it now, where the hands would go and for how long, and what the client may feel.
2. Ask explicitly and offer a real alternative. For example, the client places their own hand there, or you guide in words only. Make clear that saying no has no consequences.
3. Agree a stop signal (a word or a raised hand). Also agree that the client may stop at any moment without explaining.
4. Check in during the exercise («How is the pressure? Still OK?») and afterwards («How was that for you, including the touch itself?»).
5. Document consent and the client's response.

Further conditions:

• Touch only clothed, non-intimate regions, such as the back, shoulders, hands and feet, and the sternum or upper abdomen only with explicit agreement for diaphragm work. Never use sexual or genital touch; it is never a technique.
• Skin-contact work with oil (Atemmassage) belongs to the specialised IKP breath-therapy training. Do it only with that training, a clear contract, and attention to undressing and draping.
• Touch requires specific training and supervision. Check what your licence, professional code and jurisdiction allow.
• Be especially cautious with trauma survivors, borderline and psychotic presentations, and clients who cannot say no. With them, prefer self-touch or no-touch variants.

Screening before breath-intensive, couch, deep-fascia or cathartic work [synthesis, standard body-psychotherapy screening]. The IKP sources say only that each exercise group, imagination and regression have contraindications; they do not list them [uncertain]. Screen for:

• pregnancy
• cardiovascular or respiratory illness (including asthma and COPD)
• epilepsy
• recent injury or surgery, especially abdominal or spinal
• osteoporosis, for pressure work
• acute psychosis
• severe dissociation
• active suicidality
• recent trauma without stabilisation
• panic disorder, if you plan breath work
• intoxication

Seek medical clearance where in doubt. Never present any body method as a treatment for physical disease.

4.1 Holistic diagnosis with the Anthropologisches Würfelmodell (Dimensionen-, Saluto- and Pathogramm)

• Purpose and when to use: Assessment at intake and at each review. It shows which life dimensions are narrowed (the Pathogramm, used for goal-setting) and which carry resources (the Salutogramm, used for treatment design) [source: Künzler 2002, pp. 17–23; IKP FMH curriculum].
• What the sources say: There are six dimensions: physical; psychological-mental; social; spiritual/meaning-giving (including values, meditative experience and basic trust, «Ur-Vertrauen»); spatial (body interior, intimate space, close social space, wider space, and the relation to the ground); and temporal (subjective and existential time, tempo and rhythm, orientation to past, present or future). Each dimension has four headings, giving 24 criteria in all; those criteria are not given here [uncertain]. The ideal profile is drawn as an equilateral cube or hexagon, and deviations count as deficits (Künzler 2002, pp. 18–22). A simplified hexagon-circle version dates from 1993 [source: IKP FMH curriculum].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Draw a hexagon with one axis per dimension.
  2. Go through the dimensions one at a time. For each, ask about current state, problems and resources, and note the bodily signs you observe (posture, breath, tempo, use of space).
  3. Have the client rate each dimension twice on 0–10: once for strain and once for resource.
  4. Draw both profiles.
  5. Agree goals from the most collapsed dimensions, and pick the first interventions from the strongest resource dimensions.
  6. Repeat every 10–15 sessions.
• Example language (illustrative): «Let's look at six areas of your life, starting with your body. How is your body these days, and what in it still works well for you?» … «And time: does life feel rushed, stuck, or mostly lived in the past or the future?»
• Watch for: Clients who rate only deficits. Prompt them for at least one resource per dimension. The work is going well when the profile becomes more even over time and the client starts naming resources spontaneously.

4.2 Need clarification (Bedürfniskonzept)

• Purpose and when to use: Find the primary need that a symptom or coping strategy serves, so that the client can meet it more directly. Use it early and whenever a pattern repeats [source: Reich, ch. 3.1.4, citing Maurer 2015; Künzler 2002, p. 14]. Maurer's systematic needs model is not drawn on here [uncertain].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Take a recent episode of the symptom and slow it down to the moment just before it.
  2. Ask what the client felt in the body at that moment, and what they were longing for (rest, closeness, control, being seen, safety).
  3. Let them locate that need in the body and give it a gesture or a posture.
  4. Explore other ways to meet the need.
  5. Test one alternative as a small experiment before the next session.
• Example language (illustrative): «Just before you reached for food, what did your body want? If that wish could speak, what would it ask for?»
• Watch for: Intellectualising. When the client stays in explanation, come back to sensation. The work is going well when the client can feel the need and name it before the symptom appears.

4.3 Back diagnostics (Rückendiagnostik, breath-therapy strand)

• Purpose and when to use: In the IKP breath-therapy strand, the therapist reads the shape, skin texture, colour and mobility of the back as information about the client's state, disposition and resources, and feeds what they see into the process [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 280-115]. Use it only after specific training. It is a hypothesis-generating observation, not a medical diagnosis [synthesis].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Explain the observation and obtain consent (see the protocol above). Agree whether it happens clothed or with the back uncovered, and offer to drape.
  2. The client sits or stands relaxed. Observe posture, breath movement and areas that move or do not move.
  3. Share observations tentatively and ask the client what they notice in those areas.
• Example language (illustrative): «I notice your upper back moves less with the breath than your lower back. What do you feel there?»
• Watch for: Shame about the body and exposure. Offer the clothed version by default.

4.4 Resource-oriented and idiolectic-holistic conversation (Gesprächsführung)

• Purpose and when to use: The conversational backbone of every session. It combines a Rogerian stance with resource-oriented questioning [source: IKP FMH curriculum; Fortbildungsprogramm 2025]. A chapter by D. Grubenmann on «idiolektisch-ganzheitliche Gesprächsführung» exists, but only its title was seen (Künzler et al. 2010, ch. 4) [uncertain]. The term idiolectic generally means working with the client's own words and images; the IKP adaptation could not be verified [uncertain].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Reflect the client's own key words exactly, rather than translating them into your terms.
  2. Ask open questions about the client's own metaphors, for example about the client's own word «heavy».
  3. Track bodily signs that accompany key words and name them gently.
  4. Steer towards resources: exceptions, times when things went better, and what helped.
• Example language (illustrative): «You said ‘a stone in my chest’. Tell me more about that stone. And as you talk about it, what does your chest do?»
• Watch for: You are leading the client with your own vocabulary. The method is working when the client elaborates their own images and the body joins in, for example with a sigh or a change in posture.

4.5 Provocative work with humour (Provozieren mit Humor)

• Purpose and when to use: An in-house further-training method. It uses targeted, respectful provocation, building on client-centred conversation, to draw out resources and loosen rigid patterns. Its tools are exaggeration, the devil's-advocate role and destabilising entrenched patterns [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 600-027]. Use it only with a solid alliance and clients who can tolerate playfulness. Avoid it in acute crisis, with paranoid presentations, or with clients prone to shame [synthesis].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Check the alliance first.
  2. Exaggerate the client's own pessimistic stance or argue for the problem, with visible warmth and a smile.
  3. Watch for the client's protest, which brings out their own resource.
  4. Step out of the role, reflect on what happened, and anchor the client's counter-position in the body.
• Example language (illustrative): «You're right, why would you ever say no to your boss. Better to keep carrying everything until your shoulders reach your ears…» (then, out of role) «What happened in you just now when you protested?»
• Watch for: Hurt instead of amusement. If you see it, step out of role immediately and repair (see 5.5).

4.6 The three zones of perception (drei Zonen der Wahrnehmung)

• Purpose and when to use: A Gestalt awareness exercise listed in the opening module of the IKP training. Use it to train the difference between outer perception, inner bodily perception and the middle zone of thoughts and fantasies [source: IKP FMH curriculum, kick-off module]. The IKP's own description is not drawn on here; the procedure below follows the general Gestalt version [uncertain].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. The client sits upright with feet on the floor.
  2. For about a minute, the client names what they perceive outside, starting each sentence with «Now I am aware of…» (sounds, light, objects).
  3. Then about a minute of inner sensations: breath, pressure, warmth, tension.
  4. Then notice thoughts, judgements and images.
  5. Alternate between the zones a few times.
  6. Talk through which zone is easy or hard for them and what happens when they shift between zones.
• Example language (illustrative): «Now I'm aware of… Just continue that sentence with whatever you notice outside you… now inside your body… now in your thoughts.»
• Watch for: Dissociative drift during the inner zone. If it appears, return to the outer zone and orientation. The exercise is working when the client can tell sensation apart from interpretation.

4.7 Mindful body perception and Sensory Awareness

• Purpose and when to use: A core IKP skill. It anchors feelings in the present moment through body and sense perception so that they become more bearable [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 180-103; IKP FMH curriculum: Sensory Awareness, phenomenology]. Use it from phase B onwards and as the entry to most other techniques.
• Steps [synthesis, in the Sensory Awareness tradition of slow, unhurried, non-judging exploration]:
  1. Choose a simple act: sitting, standing, lifting a hand, lying down.
  2. Invite the client to do it very slowly and to notice contact, weight, breath and small changes, without correcting anything.
  3. Ask open questions instead of suggesting sensations.
  4. After 3–10 minutes, ask what they noticed, what changed, and which feeling or memory appeared.
  5. Link what they report to the theme of the session.
• Example language (illustrative): «Notice how the chair supports you, without changing anything. Where do you feel contact? What happens if you let it carry a little more of your weight?»
• Watch for: Rising anxiety in clients unused to bodily attention. Keep it brief, keep the eyes open, and use external anchors. The practice is working when emotions become nameable and tolerable while the client stays oriented.

4.8 Body scan

• Purpose and when to use: A mindfulness exercise. One IKP diploma thesis on eating disorders introduced it only in later phases, because earlier bodily attention raised too much anxiety [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.3]. The thesis gives no instructions; the steps below are standard [synthesis].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. The client sits or lies, with eyes open or closed as they prefer.
  2. Guide attention region by region, from the feet up to the head, for 5–15 minutes. Use neutral wording and invite the client to notice without changing anything.
  3. Finish by sensing the whole body.
  4. Re-orient to the room.
  5. Debrief what they noticed.
• Example language (illustrative): «Bring your attention to your feet… just noticing what is there, or that you notice nothing, which is fine too.»
• Watch for: Body-image distress in eating disorders. Skip loaded regions or keep them brief. The exercise is working when there is less avoidance and more neutral description.

4.9 Sensory Awareness partner exercise: back to back

• Purpose and when to use: Exploring the body through back-to-back contact. It is named in an IKP diploma thesis without a procedure [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.1]. It is mainly a group or training exercise; in individual therapy the therapist would be the partner, which makes it a touch exercise [synthesis].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Follow the consent protocol. A no-touch alternative is leaning against a wall.
  2. Both sit back to back on the floor or on stools.
  3. Each notices contact, the partner's breath moving against their back, and the support they give and receive.
  4. Each varies how much they lean.
  5. Separate slowly and debrief: who was carrying whom, and what that recalls.
• Example language (illustrative): «Notice how much you lean on me, and how much you hold yourself. Is there a balance that feels right?»
• Watch for: Discomfort at the closeness. Stop and offer the wall variant.

4.10 Intracorporeal dialogue (Intrakorporeller Dialog, Maurer 1993a)

• Purpose and when to use: A non-verbal technique of self-communication that anchors positive self-perceptions in body memory [source: Künzler 2002, pp. 27–28, citing Maurer 1993a; IKP FMH curriculum]. Maurer's own instructions are not drawn on here. The steps below are a cautious reconstruction from that one-line definition [synthesis] [uncertain].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. The client recalls a moment of competence or well-being.
  2. They notice where in the body it is felt most clearly.
  3. Without words, they let that region make contact with another region, for example a strained one: through attention, breath, or the client's own hand resting there.
  4. They stay with this inner contact for a few breaths.
  5. They notice any change and give it a word or a gesture.
  6. Repeat it daily as a short self-practice.
• Example language (illustrative): «Let the warmth in your belly get in touch with your tight shoulders, without words, just by attention and breath. What happens between them?»
• Watch for: Clients who cannot find any positive sensation. Start from a neutral one, such as the feet on the floor. The technique is working when the client can call up the positive state faster with practice.

4.11 Active shifting (Aktives Shiften)

• Purpose and when to use: The central IKP resource technique. Attention is actively moved, either within one dimension (intradimensional) or to another dimension (interdimensional), whenever one-sidedness or fixation threatens. The move is guided by client-specific reasoning and diagnostic knowledge [source: Künzler 2002, pp. 31–32, citing Maurer 1999; IKP FMH curriculum; IKP Wissenschaftlichkeit page]. Use it when a session loops, when affect floods, when rumination takes over, and to close a session.
• Steps [synthesis, operationalising the sourced definition]:
  1. Notice the fixation, for example ten minutes of the same complaint, collapsed posture and shallow breath.
  2. Name it neutrally and ask permission to shift.
  3. Choose the target from the Salutogramm. Intradimensional: from a painful body region to one that feels alright. Interdimensional: from body to space (look around, feel the ground), from present to time (a future self, a past resource), or to the social dimension (who would support you?) or the meaning dimension (what matters to you here?).
  4. Stay with the new focus long enough to feel its effect.
  5. Return to the original theme if that is useful, and notice whether it has changed.
• Example language (illustrative): «We've been circling this for a while and your breath has become very short. May we leave it for a moment? Look around the room and find one thing that is pleasant to look at… What happens in your body now?»
• Watch for: Shifting used to avoid needed affect. Shift to regulate, not to dodge. The technique is working when the client becomes able to shift on their own between sessions.

4.12 Vegetative and muscular eutonisation (Eutonisieren)

• Purpose and when to use: Brings both muscle tone and autonomic arousal to a balanced middle level rather than to slackness. The curriculum lists it among the IKP methods [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. The IKP procedure is not drawn on here. The word recalls Gerda Alexander's Eutonie, but how far IKP draws on it is [uncertain]. Use it in phase B, and with agitated, tense or hypo-aroused clients [synthesis].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Have the client scan themselves and pick the most over-tense region and the most slack one.
  2. For the tense region, gently increase the tension for about 5 seconds, then let it go a little more than before. Repeat 2–3 times.
  3. For the slack region, bring a little more presence and uprightness into it, for example by lengthening the spine and pushing the feet slightly into the floor.
  4. Look for the tone that feels «just right» for the whole body. Have the client name it or give it an image.
  5. Debrief, then practise it at home for a few minutes a day.
• Example language (illustrative): «Not as loose as possible, and not as tight. Look for the tension that feels just right for sitting here with me.»
• Watch for: Pain from tensing. Skip the tensing step with injuries and do not tense the abdomen during pregnancy. You know it is working when the client describes feeling both relaxed and present.

4.13 Relaxation procedures, including Autogenic Training

• Purpose and when to use: For stress, sleep problems and psychosomatic complaints, and as a base for imagination work. The curriculum covers states of consciousness, procedures, the clinician's responsibility, and contraindications [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. IKP teaches Autogenic Training after J. H. Schultz, which uses autosuggestion to induce sensations of calm, heaviness and warmth [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 180-035].
• Steps [synthesis, standard AT basic level]:
  1. The client sits in the relaxed «coachman» posture or lies down.
  2. They repeat inwardly a calm formula, then a heaviness formula (starting with the dominant arm), then a warmth formula, over several weeks of practice.
  3. Each practice ends with a «taking back»: make fists, bend the arms, breathe deeply, open the eyes.
  4. They practise 2–3 times a day for a few minutes.
  5. Review the practice log together.
• Example language (illustrative): «Just repeat it inwardly and notice. You can't do it wrong. The heaviness comes on its own or it doesn't.»
• Watch for: Relaxation-induced anxiety, dissociation, and the emergence of trauma imagery. Do not leave out the taking-back step. Standard AT contraindications include acute psychosis and severe dissociation; be cautious with cardiovascular disease when using the heart formula [synthesis]. You know it is working when the client can reach relaxation on their own.

4.14 Panorama technique and meditative techniques (spiritual dimension as a resource)

• Purpose and when to use: The curriculum names a «Panoramatechnik», meditative techniques, meditation and mindfulness, and Maurer wrote a chapter on the spiritual life dimension as a resource [source: IKP FMH curriculum; Künzler et al. 2010, ch. 5 title]. No procedure for the Panoramatechnik was found. I do not describe it, to avoid inventing it [uncertain].
• Steps for meditative resource work [synthesis]:
  1. Ask about the client's own sources of meaning, values, prayer or meditation practice, and their experiences of basic trust.
  2. If the client wants to, begin with a short silent sitting practice of 3–10 minutes in a form familiar to them, or with breath counting.
  3. Have them notice where in the body trust or meaning is felt.
  4. Anchor that feeling with a gesture.
  5. Use it as a resource in difficult moments.
• Example language (illustrative): «What gives your life meaning, even now? When you think of it, where do you feel it in your body?»
• Watch for: Imposing your own beliefs, and religious or spiritual material in psychosis. Stay with the client's own frame. You know it is working when the client can call up the meaning or trust resource in a crisis.

4.15 Active imagination (Aktive Imagination) and imaginative rehearsal

• Purpose and when to use: Used to rehearse alternative behaviour, to reach all sensory channels, and especially the client's preferred one [source: Künzler 2002, p. 28, citing Maurer 1993a]. The curriculum notes responsibility and contraindications for imagination [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. Use it in phases C and D.
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Relax briefly (see 4.12 and 4.13).
  2. The client imagines a concrete upcoming situation.
  3. Build it up in all channels: what they see, hear, feel in the body and smell, with the most detail in their preferred channel.
  4. They imagine the new behaviour and notice their posture, breath and voice as they do it.
  5. Have them take that posture physically in the room.
  6. Return, re-orient and debrief.
  7. Agree a real-life trial.
• Example language (illustrative): «See yourself at that meeting. What do you see? What do you hear? Now say no in the scene and notice your feet and your spine as you say it. Stand up and take that posture here.»
• Watch for: Intrusive trauma imagery, and loss of reality testing in psychosis (contraindicated in that case [synthesis]). You know it is working when the imagined posture becomes reproducible in real situations.

4.16 Breath work (Atemarbeit): breath awareness, sound-oriented breathing, Buteyko

• Purpose and when to use: IKP uses the link between psyche and breath to support self-regulation. It runs a separate training strand in Ganzheitlich-Integrative Atemtherapie IKP [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025; IKP FMH curriculum]. The seminars include sound-oriented breathing exercises (280-117) and the Buteyko method (280-111). In Buteyko, the client becomes aware of their breathing pattern and works towards adequate, not excessive, breathing, with daily life, nutrition and sport included [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025]. Use breath awareness broadly. Use the specialised methods only after the relevant training.
• Steps for basic breath awareness [synthesis]:
  1. The client sits or lies down and notices the breath without changing it. Where does it move: chest, belly, flanks, back?
  2. They notice the pause after the out-breath.
  3. They let the out-breath become slightly longer than the in-breath for a few minutes.
  4. For sound-oriented work, they exhale on a soft hum or vowel and notice where the vibration is felt (see 4.19).
  5. Debrief what they noticed and which feelings accompanied it.
• Example language (illustrative): «No need to breathe correctly. Just notice where the breath goes on its own… and the little pause before it comes back.»
• Watch for: Hyperventilation, dizziness, tingling and panic. Return to normal breathing and orient to the room. Screen for asthma, COPD, cardiac disease, pregnancy and panic disorder before any breath-holding or intensification [synthesis]. Do not use breath intensification for catharsis; the sources do not describe it as an IKP technique. You know it is working when the breath settles more freely and affect becomes regulated.

4.17 Diaphragm work (Zwerchfellarbeit), on the couch

• Purpose and when to use: Breath and body exercises release tension. Fascia at and around the diaphragm is worked on the treatment couch, with the Polyvagal theory as the framing [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 280-107]. This is touch work for therapists trained in the breath-therapy strand.
• Steps [synthesis]: The hands-on procedure and fascial technique are not reconstructed here [uncertain].
  1. Use the full consent protocol. The client stays clothed and is draped if they wish. The no-touch alternative is the client's own hands resting on the lower ribs.
  2. With the client lying on their back, knees supported, start with breath awareness.
  3. Only hands trained in this method do any contact work, and only with the client's ongoing agreement and a stop signal.
  4. Finish with resting time, slow sitting up and a debrief.
• Example language (illustrative): «I'd suggest placing my hands lightly on your lower ribs, at the sides, to support the breath there. Or you can place your own hands. Which would you prefer?»
• Watch for: Contraindications: recent abdominal or thoracic surgery, hernia, pregnancy, rib injury, osteoporosis, cardiac or respiratory disease. Trauma-related reactions to touch in the trunk area need extra care [synthesis]. Signs it is working: a freer breath excursion and a sense of calm.

4.18 Breath massage (Atemmassage), with back diagnostics

• Purpose and when to use: A massage usually done directly on the skin with oil. It uses the psyche–breath connection to promote self-regulation and is linked with back diagnostics (4.3) [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 280-115]. It is a specialised breath-therapy technique and not standard in psychotherapy sessions [synthesis].
• Steps: The stroke sequence is not described [uncertain]. Framework steps [synthesis]:
  1. Hold a separate contract for the body treatment.
  2. Use the full consent protocol, with explicit agreement about undressing and draping. Offer a clothed alternative without oil.
  3. Agree a stop signal and check in regularly.
  4. Keep a clear time frame.
  5. Debrief what the client felt and any memories that arose.
• Example language (illustrative): «You can stay dressed if you prefer. You can stop at any moment. Just say 'stop' or lift your hand.»
• Watch for: Blurring of boundaries and erotic transference. Consider whether a psychotherapist should massage at all, or whether a separate breath therapist should do it [synthesis]. Contraindications: skin conditions, fever, thrombosis, recent injury or surgery.

4.19 Sound contact and vibration (Klangkontakt und Vibration), voice work

• Purpose and when to use: Voice, sound and vibration are used as access to mental and emotional states, together with sound-oriented breathing exercises [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 280-117]. The homepage also lists sounds among the creative media [source: IKP homepage].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. The client sits upright.
  2. On the out-breath, they hum softly on m or n, then on vowels such as a, o, u.
  3. They notice where the vibration is felt: head, chest, belly.
  4. They vary pitch and volume.
  5. Optionally, they find a sound for their current feeling.
  6. Finish with silence, then debrief.
• Example language (illustrative): «Let a soft hum come on the out-breath. Where does it vibrate? Is there a sound that fits how you feel right now?»
• Watch for: Shame about the voice. Have them hum together with you or quietly. Signs it is working: the voice and breath deepen and the client reports feeling present.

4.20 Active and passive body work, expression exercises, movement experience

• Purpose and when to use: The curriculum lists active and passive body work, expression exercises (Ausdrucksübungen), and personality development through movement experience [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. The body is included actively or passively in the therapeutic conversation [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025]. A module on aggression and depression covers body-related interventions, but these are not described [uncertain]. A chapter on a practice-based therapy programme for depression (Dold, in Künzler et al. 2010) was seen only as a title [uncertain].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Pick up a bodily cue the client shows, such as a clenched fist or sunken chest.
  2. Invite them to exaggerate it slightly, then to do its opposite.
  3. Explore movement: let the gesture continue into movement through the room at their own tempo.
  4. For expression of anger, use controlled forms: pushing against a wall or a cushion held by the client themselves, or saying a firm «no» with the feet planted.
  5. Return to stillness and sense the after-effects.
  6. Debrief and link to needs.
• Example language (illustrative): «Your hand keeps making a fist. Would you let it become a little stronger, slowly… What does the fist want to do? And what is it like to open it?»
• Watch for: Cathartic escalation. Hitting, kicking or screaming is not described in the IKP sources. If used at all, keep it contained and screen first, especially for cardiovascular disease, recent injury, psychosis, poor impulse control, and trauma without stabilisation [synthesis]. Signs it is working: expression leads to a felt sense of agency and calm, not exhaustion or flooding.

4.21 Grounding (Erdung, relationship to the ground)

• Purpose and when to use: In the spatial dimension, the client's relationship to the ground («Bezug zum Boden») is one of the diagnostic questions [source: Künzler 2002, p. 19]. The IKP sources give no grounding exercise. The steps below are generic [synthesis]. Use it for anxiety, dissociation, end of session, and before standing up for oneself.
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. The client stands or sits with feet flat and hip-width apart.
  2. They feel the soles of the feet and press them gently into the floor for a few breaths, then release.
  3. They shift their weight slowly forward and back, and left and right, until they find the centre.
  4. They notice the legs as support and the spine rising from the pelvis.
  5. They name three things they can see in the room.
  6. Debrief.
• Example language (illustrative): «Feel your feet on the floor. Press gently, and let the floor push back. What changes in your legs, in your breath?»
• Watch for: Dizziness when standing. Use a seated variant. Signs it is working: the client becomes more oriented, their voice steadier and their breath slower.

4.22 Rope exercise for personal space (Seilübung)

• Purpose and when to use: A boundary exercise in the spatial dimension. The client lays a rope on the floor to match the space they feel they need; its length is then compared with their measured body circumference [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.4]. The diploma thesis notes that Zimmerli (2010) does not recommend this boundary exercise for compulsive (obsessive-compulsive) personalities. The thesis author deviated from that advice with an eating-disorder client [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.4].
• Steps (rope and comparison from Reich; the rest is [synthesis]):
  1. Give the client a rope several metres long.
  2. They lay it around themselves on the floor as their felt personal space.
  3. They stand inside it and notice how it feels.
  4. The therapist approaches the rope slowly from different sides. The client says «stop» where it feels right and adjusts the rope if needed.
  5. Optionally, compare the length with their body measurement (Reich used this with eating disorders).
  6. Debrief what their space and their boundary mean to them.
• Example language (illustrative): «Lay the rope so it matches the space you need around you, not the space you think you should need.»
• Watch for: Compulsive clients adjusting the rope endlessly; this is the contraindication cited above. Distress when the therapist approaches; stop and let the client set the distance. Signs it is working: the client can say stop clearly and feels entitled to their space.

4.23 Closeness–distance, trust and letting-go exercises (Nähe-Distanz-, Vertrauens- und Loslassübungen)

• Purpose and when to use: These exercises address attachment, contact patterns, and fear of attachment or loss. The training module that covers them focuses on narcissistic and borderline disorders [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. A diploma thesis names trust, letting-go and closeness–distance exercises after Zimmerli (2010) [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.1]. The IKP procedures are not drawn on here [uncertain].
• Steps for the closeness–distance exercise [synthesis]:
  1. Client and therapist stand at opposite ends of the room.
  2. The client directs: «come closer», «stop», «go back». The therapist moves slowly.
  3. At each distance, the client notices breath, belly, shoulders and impulses.
  4. The client finds the distance that feels right and also tests the distance that feels too close.
  5. Swap roles if useful, with the client approaching the therapist.
  6. Debrief and link to current relationships.
• Steps for letting go [synthesis, low-touch variant]:
  1. The client lets the weight of their arm be held in their own other hand, or by a cushion.
  2. With consent, the therapist instead holds the client's forearm lightly. The client notices how much they hold on and how much they can let go.
• Example language (illustrative): «You decide the distance. Tell me to stop whenever it's right. What tells you in your body that it's right?»
• Watch for: Freeze responses and compliant «it's fine». Read the body, not only the words. Do not use trust falls or similar exercises with traumatised clients [synthesis]. You know it is working when the client sets the distance more clearly and with less guilt.

4.24 Chair technique and role dialogue (Stuhltechnik, Rollendialog)

• Purpose and when to use: A Gestalt technique and part of IKP's foundation. The homepage lists role dialogues among IKP's methods [source: IKP homepage; IKP FMH curriculum]. In one IKP diploma thesis, the eating-disordered part sits on a separate chair and is given a shape and a name, so that the client experiences it as foreign to the self (ego-dystonic). The client is then guided into dialogue with it. For the inner critic, the dialogue works out the part's original «job» and reframes it, for example as pointing out problems kindly instead of criticising. The goal is a calmer, kinder part [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.2 and 3.3.5].
• Steps (structure from Reich; detailed steps [synthesis]):
  1. Name the part. Give it a chair and a shape or image.
  2. The client speaks to it from their own chair. Have them notice their body as they speak.
  3. The client switches chairs and answers as the part, taking its posture and voice.
  4. Ask the part what it is trying to achieve: what its job is and what it protects against.
  5. Negotiate a new way for it to do that job.
  6. The client returns to their own chair and notices any change in the body.
  7. Debrief.
• Example language (illustrative): «Sit in the critic's chair for a moment. Critic, what are you trying to protect her from? … Could you do that job in a gentler way?»
• Watch for: The client getting stuck in the critic's hostile role. Return to the self-chair and ground (4.21). With fragile clients, use objects on the table instead of chair-switching [synthesis]. You know it is working when the client gains distance from the part and the body softens in the self-position.

4.25 Creative media: drawing dialogues, Somatografie, Thymografie, analogue painting and modelling

• Purpose and when to use: Verbal and non-verbal interventions are complemented by creative action, such as sketches, images and sounds, and then discussed together [source: IKP FMH curriculum; IKP homepage, «Zeichnungsdialoge»]. Somatografie and Thymografie are listed as «exercises of wholeness» (Übungen der Ganzheit) [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.1; IKP FMH curriculum]. Their exact procedures are not drawn on here [uncertain]. From the names, Somatografie appears to depict body experience and Thymografie to depict mood or feeling; this is inference only [uncertain]. The seminar «Analoges Malen und Gestalten» uses wax crayons, watercolours, clay, collage, wooden and animal figures and sand figures. It follows a standardised sequence and works as an exchange «auf Augenhöhe», at eye level [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 180-122]. That sequence is not drawn on here [uncertain].
• Steps for a body-drawing exercise [synthesis]:
  1. After a body-perception exercise (4.7), give the client paper and crayons and an optional outline of a body.
  2. They draw where and how they feel sensations, using colours and shapes, not artistic skill.
  3. The therapist asks phenomenological questions: what is here, what is it like, what is next to it.
  4. Optionally, the client draws a second picture of how they would like to feel.
  5. Discuss the step between the two pictures as a goal.
• Example language (illustrative): «No art needed. Just put on paper what you feel and where. … What do you notice when you look at it now?»
• Watch for: Over-interpretation by the therapist. Let the client interpret their own image. You know it is working when the image makes something sayable that wasn't before.

4.26 Ego-state work (Ego-State-Arbeit)

• Purpose and when to use: Understanding inner personality parts through a dynamic parts model. Two techniques are demonstrated and practised in the seminar, aimed at self-regulation [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 180-115]. The two techniques are not named in the programme [uncertain]. This is an integrated adjunct method (Ego State Therapy after Watkins), not an IKP original [synthesis]. Use the chair technique (4.24) as the IKP-native route to parts work.

4.27 Systemic constellations in individual sessions; couples and families in space

• Purpose and when to use: An adapted constellation method makes relationships and entanglements bodily perceptible, and links the solution with IKP's need-centred approach [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 180-108]. A chapter on «Paare und Familien im Raum» (couples and families in space) exists [source: Künzler et al. 2010, ch. 23 title]. Couple counselling combines systemic questions, body interventions and hypnosystemic elements [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 580-001].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. The client chooses objects, floor markers or cushions for themselves and for the important others.
  2. They place them in the room at distances and in directions that feel true.
  3. The client stands on each position in turn and notices posture, breath and impulses.
  4. Experiment with changing one position and notice the bodily effect.
  5. Find a placement that meets the client's needs better.
  6. The client stands in their own position, takes that experience into the body, and anchors it.
  7. Debrief.
• Example language (illustrative): «Stand where you've put your father. How does your body feel from here, looking at you?»
• Watch for: Being overwhelmed by intense identification on others' positions. Have the client step out, shake off the role and ground. You know it is working when the new placement is felt as relief.

4.28 Recall-Change method (Recall-and-Change, working with body memory)

• Purpose and when to use: An IKP-specific method for working with body memory [source: IKP FMH curriculum, «IKP-Recall-Change-Methode»; Maurer-Groeli 2004, references: Maurer 1998, «Psycho-physiologische Grundlagen der ‘Recall-and-Change-Methode’»]. Its stated rationale: memory is multisensory and recalled best in the state and through the senses in which it was stored. Therapy should therefore work with existing memories and build new, corrective memories as resources [source: Maurer-Groeli 2004 abstract]. The procedure itself is not drawn on here [uncertain]. The steps below follow only that rationale and should be checked against Maurer (1998) before use [synthesis].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Stabilise first: grounding, plus a resource state anchored in the body (4.10, 4.21).
  2. Choose a bounded memory, not the worst trauma.
  3. Recall it through the senses involved at the time: place, light, sounds, smells, posture, the felt sense in the body.
  4. At the point of difficulty, introduce a corrective element. This might be the needed resource, person or action. It can be imagined, enacted in posture or movement, or contributed by the adult self.
  5. Let the client experience the changed scene in all channels until the body registers it, for example as a deeper breath, warmth or uprightness.
  6. Return to the present and orient.
  7. Debrief and repeat the anchor at home.
• Example language (illustrative): «You're back in that kitchen. What do you see, hear, smell? Where do you feel it in your body? … Now let the grown-up you step in. What does she do? How does the child's body feel now?»
• Watch for: Flooding, dissociation and abreaction without integration. Stop, shift (4.11) and ground. It is contraindicated in acute psychosis, severe dissociative disorder, and with unstabilised recent trauma. For trauma, prefer the stabilisation-first approach the IKP also teaches (4.33) [synthesis]. You know it is working when recalling the original memory evokes less arousal and the corrective state is spontaneously available.

4.29 Regression and progression work, inner-child work; the model of therapeutic deepening

• Purpose and when to use: The curriculum's regression module covers indication and contraindication, the «Modell der therapeutischen Tiefung» (model of therapeutic deepening), Recall-Change, and inner-child work. Progression work is listed alongside it [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. The deepening model is not drawn on here [uncertain].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Decide whether to deepen by checking ego strength, the alliance, whether the client is free of crisis, whether there is time left in the session, and whether there is support between sessions.
  2. Deepen step by step: present sensation, then an earlier similar feeling, then the image of the younger self.
  3. The adult self, or the therapist, meets the child's need: protection, comfort, permission.
  4. For progression work, the client imagines their future self having resolved the issue and brings that posture and knowledge into the present.
  5. Close with orientation in the present and in the adult body.
• Example language (illustrative): «How old do you feel right now? … What does that little one need? … Can you, as the adult you are today, give it to them?»
• Watch for: Malignant regression, dependency and loss of adult perspective, particularly in borderline presentations. Keep the adult self present throughout. Avoid deep regression in psychosis and in active crisis [synthesis].

4.30 Dream and creative work (Kreativ- und Traumarbeit)

• Purpose and when to use: Listed in the curriculum [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. The IKP procedure itself is [uncertain]. In the Gestalt base, a dream element is typically re-experienced in the present tense and given a voice [synthesis].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. The client tells the dream in the present tense.
  2. They notice where in the body the most charged moment is felt.
  3. They take the posture of a dream element and speak as it.
  4. Optionally, they draw it (4.25).
  5. Link it to current needs.
• Example language (illustrative): «Tell it as if it's happening now. … Be the locked door. What do you say?»
• Watch for: Nightmares in PTSD. Stabilise before working with them.

4.31 Transfer: body exercises in everyday life; embodiment with ZRM motto goals

• Purpose and when to use: Body exercises are practised in session and woven into everyday life [source: Casanova 2012]. Self-performed action is remembered better (the «Tu-Effekt», cited from Engelkamp) [source: Casanova 2012]. IKP teaches embodiment using the Zürcher Ressourcen Modell (ZRM). Posture and movement are used deliberately to influence the psyche (bodyfeedback), and a «Motto-Ziel» (motto goal) is formulated [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 180-113; Künzler et al. 2010, ch. 14, Tschacher and Storch]. ZRM is a separate method developed by Storch and Krause and integrated by IKP [synthesis].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Select the one or two exercises that helped most in session.
  2. Shorten each to a 1–3-minute everyday version.
  3. Tie it to a cue: a doorframe, the phone, the start of a meeting.
  4. For embodiment, formulate a motto goal as an image-rich phrase, find a matching posture or micro-movement, and practise it in daily situations.
  5. Review at the next session.
• Example language (illustrative): «Which of today's moments would you like to take home? Let's make it so short you can do it at every red light.»
• Watch for: Over-ambitious homework, and non-adherence (see 5.4). You know it is working when the client reports using the exercise spontaneously.

4.32 Stress management and burnout work: nature, movement, slowing down

• Purpose and when to use: IKP stress management uses nature experience, movement, deceleration, mindfulness and the experience of inner calm [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 180-030]. A chapter on burnout appears in the IKP reader [source: Künzler et al. 2010, ch. 16 title].
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Map stressors and resources across the six dimensions, paying particular attention to the temporal dimension (tempo, rhythm).
  2. Agree small slowing-down practices, such as a slow walk or a pause before transitions.
  3. Add regular movement and time outdoors, without performance targets.
  4. Add a daily relaxation or breath practice (4.13, 4.16).
  5. Review the effects on the body.
• Example language (illustrative): «What is your body's own tempo? Where in your week could you live at that tempo for ten minutes?»
• Watch for: Turning recovery into another performance task.

4.33 Integrated adjunct methods taught at IKP (not IKP originals)

The IKP programme also teaches the following [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025]. They are listed for completeness. Use their own manuals and trainings.

• EMDR (seminar 180-033): bilateral stimulation, mostly eye movements, used to reprocess distressing memories.
• Trauma work in body therapy (seminar 280-114): stabilisation and regulation when trauma reactions appear during body work, including explanation and orientation for clients. This is relevant whenever 4.16–4.20 or 4.28 trigger trauma material.
• Non-violent communication (Gewaltfreie Kommunikation) (seminar 180-104): structuring complex topics through needs.
• Buteyko breathing: see 4.16.
• Autogenic Training: see 4.13.

5. Handling problems

The sources say little about handling problems. The curriculum has a module on defence mechanisms and resistance, covering their origins, transference and countertransference, and contact disturbances. It also requires supervision and attention to ethics [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. One diploma thesis reports a few concrete responses [source: Reich]. Everything else below is my own synthesis and is marked as such.

5.1 Stuck clients and circling

• Sourced response: active shifting (4.11). Maurer treats one-sidedness and fixation as the indication for shifting (Maurer 1999, cited in Künzler 2002, p. 32).
  1. Name the loop.
  2. Move attention to a resource dimension, for example from rumination (psyche) to the feet on the floor (space) or to a future self (time).
  3. Return and check whether the theme has changed.
• [synthesis] Re-map the cube (4.1). Stuckness often means one dimension has been neglected for a long time, most often space, time or meaning.
• [synthesis] Move from talk to experience. Offer one small body experiment. If the session is all body, move to words and meaning.
• [synthesis] Ask what need the stuckness serves (4.2). Not changing can protect a need, for example loyalty or safety.

5.2 Resistance and defence

• Sourced frame. The curriculum treats defence, resistance and contact disturbances, together with transference and countertransference, as material to work with [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. IKP's specific techniques for this are not drawn on here [uncertain].
• [synthesis, Gestalt-consistent] Treat resistance as a form of contact.
  1. Describe it in bodily terms: «When I suggest standing up, your arms fold.»
  2. Invite the client to exaggerate it slightly, and let the folded arms speak.
  3. Respect what they protect.
• [synthesis] Resistance to body work as such.
  1. Drop the body method. Start from the outer zone of perception (4.6) or from drawing (4.25).
  2. Offer choices, keep exercises short, and always offer no-touch versions.
  3. Never persuade a client into touch.
• [synthesis] Provocation (4.5). Use it only when the alliance is secure, and never with a client who is already ashamed.

5.3 Overwhelm, flooding and dissociation

• Sourced. One IKP therapist describes clients fleeing the here and now and bringing them back, working in very small steps. She also avoids going too fast because many clients fear being flooded by feelings [source: Reich, ch. 3.1.1–3.1.2 and 3.3.3]. IKP offers specific training in stabilisation and regulation for trauma reactions arising in body work [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025, seminar 280-114].
• [synthesis] In-session steps:
  1. Stop the exercise.
  2. Ask the client to open their eyes and sit up.
  3. Have them name five things in the room.
  4. Have them press their feet into the floor (4.21).
  5. Lengthen the exhale gently. Do not deepen the inhale.
  6. Shift to a resource (4.11).
  7. Explain what happened as a normal protective reaction.
  8. Resume only at a lower intensity, or not at all that session.
  9. Leave time to reach a stable state before the client leaves.
• [synthesis] Prevention.
  • Screen before breath, couch, regression and Recall-Change work.
  • Titrate: touch a difficult theme briefly, then return to a resource.
  • Agree a stop signal.
  • Stabilise before any confrontation with memories.

5.4 Non-adherence with home practice

• Sourced rationale. Transfer into everyday life is part of the method [source: Casanova 2012].
• [synthesis] Shrink the exercise and attach it to a cue (4.31).
  1. Ask what got in the way, in body and in circumstances.
  2. Check whether the exercise was the client's own choice.
  3. Consider a ZRM-style motto goal, which raises intrinsic motivation.
  4. Treat skipped practice as information about needs, for example perfectionism or fear of feeling, not as failure.

5.5 Ruptures

• [synthesis] Rogers-based repair. The Rogerian stance is sourced [source: IKP FMH curriculum]; the repair steps are synthesis.
  1. Notice withdrawal or confrontation, including in the body: averted gaze, a closed posture.
  2. Name it tentatively.
  3. Take your share of responsibility.
  4. Invite the client's experience of what happened.
  5. Adjust distance, tempo or method.
• [synthesis] Ruptures from touch or closeness exercises.
  1. Stop at once.
  2. Acknowledge the client's experience without defending the technique.
  3. Review consent: was the no-touch option real?
  4. Agree that future body work will be no-touch unless the client asks otherwise.
  5. Document, and take it to supervision.

5.6 Modality-specific difficulties [synthesis unless marked]

• Erotic transference or sexualisation in body work. Keep touch non-intimate and brief. Name the boundary clearly and kindly. Move to no-touch methods. Seek supervision. Never act on it. The curriculum has a module on taboo topics and sexuality [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. No IKP guidance on boundaries in touch is drawn on here [uncertain].
• Body-image distress and shame (for example in eating disorders). Start with neutral or peripheral regions and functions, such as hands, feet and breath. Avoid scanning loaded areas early. Defer the body scan to later phases [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.3]. The rope exercise has been used to compare felt and actual size [source: Reich, ch. 3.3.4]. Give no weight or calorie targets.
• Physical symptoms emerging in body work. These include pain, dizziness, palpitations and tingling. Stop, sit the client up and normalise the breath. If symptoms persist or are new, refer for medical assessment. Never interpret a physical symptom as only psychological, and never present body work as a treatment for physical illness.
• Hyperventilation in breath work (4.16). Slow the breath and use a gentle, longer exhale. Ground the client. Do not continue breath work that session.
• Psychosis and schizophrenia. The IKP lists schizophrenia among its fields of application [source: IKP FMH curriculum]. The IKP reader and literature include body-centred group therapy for acute schizophrenia; I saw only titles [uncertain]. Keep work structured, reality-oriented and brief, with eyes open, grounding and boundary and space exercises (4.21, 4.22). Avoid imagination, deep relaxation, regression and Recall-Change, and use the spiritual dimension cautiously.
• Borderline presentations. The IKP stresses supervision and therapist self-care [source: Gerber & Maag, p. 1]. Make closeness–distance explicit and stable (4.23). Use predictable session structure and skills-like regulation exercises. Avoid deep regression. Keep touch minimal and clearly framed.
• Suicidality and self-harm. Pause experiential deepening. Carry out a structured risk assessment following current standards: ideation, intent, plan, history, protective factors. Make a written safety plan with the client. Use lethal-means counselling (safe storage or removal), and involve others and crisis services as indicated. Resume body work only for stabilisation, such as grounding and breath awareness. The IKP diploma curriculum covers crisis intervention and suicidality but is not drawn on in detail [source: IKP FMH curriculum] [uncertain].
• Clients who take the energy concepts literally. Present «energy» language (Energieprinzipien, energetic predisposition) as the school's metaphor, not as physiology. Translate it into felt experience: tension, aliveness, tiredness.
• Working beyond your training. Back diagnostics, breath massage, diaphragm and fascia work, the Buteyko method, EMDR and constellations each have their own IKP or external trainings [source: Fortbildungsprogramm 2025]. Without that training, use only the low-risk awareness, grounding, space and dialogue techniques, and refer onward or co-treat.

Sources

Sources:

• IKP Fortbildungsprogramm 2025 (IKP Institut für Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie)
• Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie IKP: Weiterbildung (FMH and PsyG curriculum)
• Künzler, A. (2002). Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie unter der Ressourcenperspektive (IKP diploma thesis)
• Reich, O. Diplomarbeit Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie IKP (eating disorders)
• Gerber & Maag. IKP Diplomarbeit Borderline (pp. 1–31 only readable)
• Casanova, C. (2012). Körperarbeit in der Psychotherapie (IKP blog, final part)
• IKP Institut homepage
• IKP: Wissenschaftlichkeit
• Maurer-Groeli, Y. (2004). Neurophysiologische Hintergründe für ganzheitliches psychotherapeutisches Arbeiten … Psychotherapie Forum 12(2), 98–103 (abstract page)
• Künzler, Böttcher, Hartmann, Nussbaumer (Eds.) (2010). Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie im Dialog (Springer book page, table of contents)
• Gassmann, D. (2009). Allgemeine Wirkfaktoren und körperorientiertes Vorgehen (BORIS record)
• Geuter, U. (2015). Körperpsychotherapie (publisher reading sample; cites Maurer 1993)

Further reading (not drawn on) [uncertain where content is attributed via secondary summaries]:

• Maurer, Y. (1993). Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie. Stuttgart: Hippokrates. The exact subtitle or edition is [uncertain].
• Maurer, Y. (Ed.) (1999). Der ganzheitliche Ansatz in der Psychotherapie. Vienna: Springer. Seen only as a search listing.
• Maurer, Y. (1998). Psycho-physiologische Grundlagen der «Recall-and-Change-Methode» (zur Arbeit mit dem Körpergedächtnis). Cited in Maurer-Groeli 2004.
• Maurer, Y. (2006; 2015). Cited in Reich. The titles are [uncertain].
• Künzler, A., Böttcher, C., Hartmann, R. & Nussbaumer, M.-H. (Eds.) (2010). Körperzentrierte Psychotherapie im Dialog: Grundlagen, Anwendungen, Integration. Der IKP-Ansatz von Yvonne Maurer. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer. This includes Zimmerli, R., Körperzentrierte Erfahrungsübungen im Überblick; Maurer, Y., Die spirituelle Lebensdimension als Ressource; Grubenmann, D., Idiolektisch-ganzheitliche Gesprächsführung; and Tschacher, W. & Storch, M., Embodiment und Körperpsychotherapie.
• Hausmann, D., Künzler, A. & Schwarzkopf, (2017). Wissenschaftlicher Hintergrund der Körperzentrierten Psychotherapie IKP. Zurich: IKP. The author's first name was not given on the page.