ISP's Guiding Assumptions, Concepts and Values

Basic Assumptions

The most fundamental assumption of ISP is that people have all the resources they need to heal and grow. The major issue that individuals face is gaining fuller access to their potential. The development of character structure leads to a limiting of resources that are available to the individual. ISP focuses on this important task of expanding access to a person's broader potential.

Opportunities are supported, created or sometimes given to patients to help them make fuller contact with their resources. First, the person's attention is expanded to include their body sensations. In addition, their breath is deepened, raising their consciousness of their inner experiences. Touch work elicits patient experiences that are often related to early traumas. Spontaneous movement is elicited and supported, which often surfaces deeper aspects of the self, new ways of looking at their experience, and new behavioral capabilities. Dream work deepens self-perception and opens persons up to novel perspectives about themselves. These are some examples of how ISP enhances access to inner resources.

The Therapeutic Relationship

This is a complex area in body psychotherapy. We can only cover some of the highlights in this overview.

The therapist usually intervenes early in sessions to increase the energy level and self-awareness of the patient. This enables the patient to play an important part in structuring their session and, ultimately, the course of their psychotherapy.

The ISP therapist responds empathically to the here-and-now experience of the patient. The therapist also helps to deepen this experience by fostering a fuller awareness of the experience as well as the greater meaning that the experience has for the patient. Often, for example, experiences that occur together do so because the patient sees their meanings as related to each other. The therapist deepens the self-awareness of character by stimulating her patient by using touch work, the expansion of spontaneous movement etc. She helps the patient to identify the basic themes that these experiences reflect, the recurring assumptions they are based upon, their etiology, and the basic somatic underpinnings of these experiences.

Thus the therapist supports the patient to look at the pattern of the experiences the patient has been exploring. This helps the patient to develop broader perspectives of herself. This additive process of connecting experiences into patterns is called induction; this is the primary approach of ISP.

In contrast to the inductive approach, the use of character theory to intervene to elucidate other aspects of a character that have not emerged yet is called deduction. Character theory connects overt behavior with implicit processes that occur in the unconscious. The theory of character types prepares the therapist to look for the other aspects of the character that are not yet conscious to the patient, and character theory is used to structure interventions to make the unconscious process conscious. Using theory to link conscious behavior with unconscious events is referred as deduction (vs. induction). Here the therapist uses theory to determine the course of the therapy. This is more the psychoanalytic approach.

Another important facet of the relationship is the establishment of an extremely safe treatment space in its spatial and psychological aspects. The former includes a physically safe environment for the patient to actively express intense emotions without harming himself or the therapist. Mattresses and cushions are deployed to make the office safer. Rugs have a deep, soft cushioning underneath. Sound insulation is used on the walls, doors and ceiling. White sound may be used to mask the patient's sounds. The person can make as much sound as needed without being concerned about being overheard or disturbing others.

As I mentioned previously, psychologically the therapist supports the patient to express any fantasy, feeling, thought or action short of harming himself, the therapist or destroying office equipment. It is important to implement these limits because they parallel limits that often occur outside the therapy relationships in life's situations. And effective psychotherapy is a process that helps patients to deal more with the realities of their world. At the same time, the patient's thoughts, feelings and actions are accepted without judgment (and with support) by the therapist. This great degree of freedom of expression is crucial to the conduct of ISP.

The therapeutic relationship I am describing can be an extremely challenging one for a therapist to foster and sustain. At times, the emotional, mental, spiritual, and even physical demands on the therapist can be significant. It is essential that psychotherapists practicing ISP develop trust in themselves and courage. Psychotherapists develop self-trust and courage, by engaging in their own personal ISP psychotherapy, in order to support a patient's fullest expression of their self.

The concept of the holding environment was applied to describing what the psychoanalyst seeks to achieve in the psychotherapeutic setting*. The analyst approximates the mother's holding by paying close attention to the patients' experiences, needs, feelings much as a mother does to her infant child. The analyst may also help the patient to arrive at their own insights or meanings for their experiences. The patient's dreams, fantasies, wishes and intense feelings are accepted and the therapist supports the patient's deeper exploration. The analyst also responds with empathy to these patient expressions.

All of these relational statements refer to ways in which the psychoanalyst may symbolically create a holding environment during a treatment session. This environment supports the patient in regressing back to earlier times in his life when he encountered trauma and his psychosocial development was not yet very established. This regression provides the patient with an opportunity to have corrective emotional experiences and to more fully integrate these earlier events into his psyche.

ISP uses all of these symbolic ways of creating a holding environment much as a psychoanalyst may do. Importantly, as ISP therapists, we also provide direct soft touch and containing touch to patients with our hands and bodies where this early bonding with the mother was insufficient. This type of intervention is extremely healing because it is a very...