ABSTRACT
This chapter speaks to the ways in which a “bottom up” approach (attention to embodied experience to inform cognition) is not only unique to body psychotherapy, but pertinent to the ways in which true meaning of the self can be revealed. The authors carefully describe the ways in which reflection, a common process in psychoanalysis is primarily “top-down” or thought through rather than experienced. Furthermore, they argue eloquently the ways in which mindfulness in addition to a “bottom up” process in which observation of embodied experience and meaning-making that comes from experience can be more effective in contacting a client’s self-compassion. They seamlessly adapt theories of attachment, trauma, and Buddhist philosophy into embodied relational knowing.
