The Bodynamic Foundation Training
The Character Structure Model and Developmental Trauma
The Foundation Training is the basic training of the Bodynamic therapist education.
Alternatively, this training can be used as a separate education in the Character Structure Model and in the somatic work on developmental trauma.
In a 25-year study Bodynamic developed and contributed the most comprehensive and precise model of Character Structure of all the modern psychotherapy schools. It describes the child psychomotoric development in 7 phases from the second trimester in utero until the age of 13 (adolescence).
These Character Structures portray the psychomotoric development of a child as a resource and defense, shaped according to the type and timing of nurture and circumstances children experience affecting them differently in the earlier and later time of the developmental phase.
Developmental trauma plays a crucial role in the development and fixation of these Structures.
An early trauma caused for example by abandonment, neglect or an existential threat will severely compromise the persons sense of a safe existence and his capability to make and maintain contact with people later in life. A later trauma on the other hand, e.g. caused by rigid toilet training, emotional coercion and physical violence will tend to massively affect the child`s sense of autonomy, self-determination and will.
Since infants and young children have only limited ways of coping with traumatic experiences and very little or no language to communicate, the body and its movements (the Body Ego) are of prime importance in coping with the intensity they experience. Growing up the child will develop through the 7 Character Structures with resources and defenses of a physical and a psychological nature, integrating and coming to term with the learning and the adverse conditions in his or her environment. These Structures shape the developing personality of the child and determine how they will think, feel and interact with others later in life.
The Bodynamic Approach makes use of these individual structures and uses them as resources in dealing with traumatic experience. A later structure for instance might be of help in containing and supporting a younger structure impacted by Developmental Trauma. This is also why the resolution of muscle armor at the wrong time can have a destabilizing or even damaging effect on clients.
Specifically, the conscious movement of the related muscles along with conscious body sensation will strengthen our Body Ego and generate in the individual a sense of self confidence and agency. The muscles activated in that process correspond to a specific developmental phase, theme and structure.
In the therapeutic intervention it is of crucial importance that the client has these experiences in contact with the therapist and later with people in their everyday life in order to be able to integrate it. As a direct result their capacity for stress and affect regulation will increase accordingly.
In this training you will learn how the child responds in the different developmental phases on the psychological/emotional and muscular level in relation to adverse conditions or traumatic experience. On the muscular level hypertonic or hypotonic responses will lead to the formation of a characteristic body posture with a corresponding expression, mimics, gestures, believe systems, behavior and etc.
To recognize and treat Character Structure and the underlying Developmental Trauma we will specifically train body reading in different settings.
Furthermore, a variety of body exercises and therapeutic tools as well as the knowledge to work more precisely and effectively with the Developmental Traumas of your clients will be taught. An important part of this teaching is the understanding of how to include the resources of the different Character Structures in the therapeutic healing process with your client.
The foundation training is an ongoing, theoretical as well as practical education in the Bodynamic Method. It is taught in 4 modules of 5 days spread out over a year and is of great benefit for everyone working as a psychotherapist, bodyworker, physiotherapists and whomever wants to expand their somatic understanding in the healing professions.
The training will be held on:
1. Module March 17-22, 2020, Wrocław
2. Module June 23-28, 2020, Wrocław
3. Module September 22-27, 2020, Wrocław
Teachers: Inna Gavriluk (1st and 3rd module) and Wolfgang Brandt (2nd module).
To Register please contact: Marta Ułaszewska-Żuk marta@interp.pl