Jenna Milner

“That was so relaxing,” or “That felt good, but I can’t put into words what happened. It was just very quiet.” Are your biodynamic clients prone to vagueness? 

Awareness of what has shifted helps my clients appreciate and maintain the changes they have achieved in the session. In this post I explore two ways that I help them register the impact of a session: body reading and conversation.

1. BODY READING

I started out as a practitioner of structural integration, a modality in which body readings are routinely conducted before and after a session. Now I’ve integrated body reading into the biodynamic domain. After the table work, I guide the client’s awareness to their embodied experience, either through open-ended questions or by pointing out specific changes that help the client transcend generic observations like “I feel so relaxed.”

For a body reading, the client can still be lying on the table; standing up afterward; or seated. It gives both of us (client and practitioner) an opportunity to feel and see the impact of the work at either a subtle or structural level. Both levels are affected by biodynamic work.

I will occasionally take a photo to offer the client a visual image that conveys the changes in their body. Sometimes, they can see what they can’t feel. Other times it’s compelling or simply fun for the client to see the work translated into the physical dimension.

This photo (which I’m grateful for permission to share) visually captured the effects of an integrative session conducted via Biodynamics and tuning fork. The contacts were concentrated at the neck, jaw, and head. Check out the lengthening of the right neck, arm, and leg — ordinarily the more contracted side:

Although I’m using the term body reading, it is misleading in the Biodynamic context. Sensitively observing the changes in a client’s body is an important perceptual skill; but this is not about the practitioner informing the client about their own body. Instead, a body reading is an opportunity for both practitioner and client to slow down the process of leaping up and departing. It’s a time for both of us to spontaneously investigate how the session is unfolding. Occasionally I myself am unaware of a session’s effect until my client stands up. Sometimes it catches the client by surprise as well.

Clients are often delighted for the chance to pay attention to their body and debrief with me. It’s so helpful for them to have time, not just to feel the effects of a session but to consciously integrate them. Without that buffer, they tend to reenter daily life and return to habitual embodiment patterns. I encourage them to rehearse the changes they want to maintain, much like an actor rehearsing a new role.

2. CONVERSATION

A body reading is essentially a sensitive conversation that may have pauses for the client to feel and observe what’s true. In my experience, no matter how wonderful a session is, it is the debrief after a session that generates much of its impact and sustainability for the client. Without this conversation and the opportunity to sense into the shifts that took place, a client can remain unaware of how powerful a session it was. And even when a session is undeniably affecting, a conversation can bring awareness to specific changes. Conscious recognition helps the client carry those changes forward.

Sometimes, as James Jealous pointed out, our work is like priming a well; the session’s payoff comes later, after the client has left our office. But even then, a post-session conversation can educate the client about how to take stock of their own body. I ask questions such as:

• What is the texture or substance that your body is composed of now?
• How solid or porous is your body?
• Are you occupying the interior of your head/chest/belly (or suspended outside)?
• Are the mind and body unified or separate?
• How wide is your container or what is your spatial dimension?
• And of course: How do you feel, in relation to any pain, discomfort, or place of interest that you came in with?

Sometimes, words will bring the client out of their embodied experience. In that case, it’s essential not to get too wordy after the session. The practitioner must strike a balance between assuring that the client is grounded enough to safely leave and drive away, and not interrupting the therapeutic process that has been initiated in the session.

On the other hand, I find it valuable to verbally unpack the session with the client. I help them to find words for their own perceptions and experiences. I correlate these words with my own perceptions — and with the corresponding biodynamic phenomena. The essential piece is not me naming their experience; it’s them naming their experience.

A recent client brought this topic to mind. For him, the session was profound even before we spoke about it. But as we spoke about his experience, the effects palpably deepened, at least to my observation. (The client has generously allowed me to write about the session here.)

As we talked and lingered with the feelings, the client spontaneously used very precise and evocative language that seemed not only to reflect the process, but also to interact with his body and heighten the effect.

He used phrases such as: mud puddle, bottom of the pond, exquisite fossil, and silty. Powerful, porous, bright. To correlate his language with Biodynamic work, I used a framework or motto that helps me distill Biodynamic work to its essence: Ground, Expand, and Allow.

• Grounding is when awareness settles into the body; it suggests settling or containing.

• Expanding is when awareness coalesces into wider wholes, which could indicate
  • the development of a neutral in the tissue body (i.e. parts unifying into one whole) or
  • expansion from the tissue body into the more comprehensive wholes of the fluid body and potency body.

• Allowing is being without doing; it could indicate a disposition of receptivity or openness, on a spectrum from Neutral to the Dynamic Stillness.

Here I offer you a glimpse of how I applied my client’s post-session language within that biodynamic framework.

GROUND. He said mud puddle (the fluid body). He said silty (denser than air but still porous); like I’m under these nice silky sedimentary layers. He said contours of a fossil. Fossil = embodied, having a body in a way that reverts to a more fundamental and ancient level (i.e. the more undifferentiated body or Fluid Tide). Contours = being contained, having a shape.

EXPAND. He said porous (more space). He said illuminated (more light). He said stardust that is connected to origins (radiant primordial elements, i.e. the blueprint level that precedes form, which is Long Tide).

ALLOW. He said stillness. (This was actually the Dynamic Stillness).

It’s a rare client who is so poetic, but this is the gist of all my work. The states described are states of consciousness. Having a conversation helps the client recognize and stabilize in the new state of consciousness or the physical change. And it allows me to witness and affirm that beneficial shift.

I’d love to hear your examples of how you use language or images to help affirm or solidify the effects of a session. Please share your thoughts below.