ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we will present findings from embodiment research related to depressive disorders. Depression has a particular importance for the healthcare system as it is a mental disorder occurring in 4.4 per cent of the world’s population, and accounting for the largest share of global disability and suicide deaths (World Health Organization, 2017). In contrast to the flourishing literature on brain mechanisms in depression, empirical research on the embodiment of depression is still relatively sparse. Yet there is growing interest in treating depression with BP and a first manual for depression has been presented. The literature on BP mostly presents qualitative descriptions of body posture and movement. At the same time, some indirect evidence for the significance of the body in depression comes from studies on processing emotional material in non-clinical populations. These studies have shown that the processing of emotionally negative and positive material can be influenced by bodily manipulations.
