Diverse Bodies, Diverse Practices: Toward an Inclusive Somatics

A cutting-edge anthology that opens the door for emergent voices from African American, Indigenous, Latin American, and Asian embodiment traditions to transform  the field of somatics
 
The notion of “body” that underlies most available writings about somatic theories and practices often assumes a universal normality of structure and function that has now come into question. In this collection, viewpoints grounded in neural, hormonal, gender, and physiological diversities challenge convention and open up a more inclusive world of somatics for psychotherapy and many forms of bodywork. The authors embody these differences and have developed their particular somatic practices out of direct experience. Their narratives offer new approaches to the transformation of our social order’s bodily roots enabling a healing of the recurrent traumas of the past. Covering topics such as the autistic body-mind, how the human body is both shaped by and shapes contemporary society, and somatic psychotherapy as a trustworthy resource for healing within the African American community, these poignant essays will help students and practitioners of somatics broaden the scope and efficacy of their therapeutic practices.

Don Hanlon Johnson is a professor of Somatics at the California Institute of Integral Studies; he founded the degree program there in 1983, the first of its kind. He is the author of Bone, Breath, and Gesture, Groundworks: Narratives of Embodiment, and The Body in Psychotherapy, among other books. He is a contributing editor of the professional journal Somatics and the director of the Somatics Research Center at CIIS, where there are several studies in process about the relevance of Somatic methods to major issues facing our society, including programs in rehabilitation and recovery, PTSD, and the education of parents for bonding with their children. He also directs the Somatic wing of the Esalen Institute.