Why the Body Needs to Be Included in Your Therapy Work

If you’ve spent some time in mental health focused spaces, you may have heard providers emphasizing the importance of ‘somatics’, ‘embodiment’, or ‘the mind-body connection’. As a counselor and dance/movement therapist, I am no stranger to these buzz words but I also recognize that it is difficult to capture the value of this work in a word. Many may find themselves wondering, what are we really talking about when we talk about the Body-Mind Connection?

More and more in recent years, mainstream society’s understanding of mental health seems to be waking up to a reality that dance/movement therapists and somatic practitioners have been aware of for years: the notion that the mind and the body are intrinsically connected. So much so, that a change in one influences a change in the other—a concept that movement therapy has used to facilitate psychotherapeutic treatment for over half a century. Of course, the awareness of a unified mind and body is an ancient one in Eastern philosophies and indigenous practices, but in the 17th century René Descartes famously reinforced the old Greek notion of a mind-body split, which has dominated mainstream thinking until recently. Now as our Western society attempts to integrate ‘somatic’ or ‘embodied’ practices, it seems we run the risk of shaving them down to fit into the cerebral boxes with which we’ve become so comfortable.

I often hear the mind-body connection defined as our ‘thoughts, feelings, beliefs, etc.’ affecting our physical and biological body. While not inaccurate, separating our cognitive processes from the physical seems to be at the root of this great body-mind divide that we experience as a culture. As Christine Caldwell, PhD, puts it in her recent book Bodyfulness, “Eastern traditions typically don’t separate the mind from the body but treat mind-body unity as an achievement rather than an essential state. This unity must be physically as well as intellectually cultivated…The issue is about coming home. The body isn’t a thing we have but an experience we are.”

This idea starts to get to the heart of why this kind of embodiment work can be even more impactful for certain populations. At Sunrise, we know eating disorders, such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating, are not created in a vacuum; that our culture has a huge impact on how we come to perceive and relate to our bodies and food. Body disconnection or dissociation is often a necessary form of coping for individuals experiencing an eating disorder, anxiety, or trauma. This is certainly understandable given that the body, and therefore our nervous system, produces our emotions and patterned reactions to stress and anxiety - which can feel overwhelming. As a result, some may use disordered eating or body dissociation to cope or ‘numb out’ with or without realizing it. However, there can be great empowerment in working with the body instead of against it. Becoming more aware of our bodies and the sensations they produce can actually allow us to re-pattern our responses to certain situations, foods, or people instead of fighting against our automatic responses or habits. The more our sense of embodiment increases, the more our intuition increases which can directly support our intuitive eating work by strengthening hunger/fullness cues, building body neutrality and appreciation, increasing body trust, and decreasing the reliance on external measures such as numbers, diets, or fitness plans. It can also help address and heal feelings of anger or betrayal we may feel towards our bodies and determine what kind of relationship we would like with our body moving forward.

When we attempt to solely control our cognitive and physical processes through intellectual means, we lose this experience. Our mind does not control the body; rather is it housed within our bodies-part of the greater whole. What we typically think of as products of the mind, our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, are constantly occurring and moving within the body. When we recognize our bodies as a container for the movement of emotion we can release some of our society-wide desire for control and begin to familiarize ourselves with the feeling of being at home in our bodies—become curious, even, about their non-verbal language!

Practices that include a focus on movement and body sensations can complement and enhance our therapy goals by allowing us the opportunity to shift our mental state by first shifting our nervous system’s state. Many clients find that this is a helpful and necessary step to building trust and comfort in their emotional and physical experience and exiting ruminative anxiety thought patterns. In a world in which our intellectual skills are increasingly favored and heavily influenced by the external stimuli, an integrative dialogue with the feeling wisdom of the body is more important than ever

Maura Reagan, LMHC, BC-DMT is an eating disorder specialist and dance-movement therapist practicing in the state of Washington.