Bio from the Greek means life and danza means movement with emotion, so Biodanza means movement with emotion that promotes life. We have been dancing from the beginning of time and continue to do so; it must be very important for us to express our soul freely and have pleasure relating by dancing together.

Biodanza is a group therapy.  While traditional psychotherapy is interested in analyzing the wounded part of the individual, Biodanza focuses on the community expressing higher qualities of the human spirit and healthy states of consciousness: peace, harmony, love, affection, courage, human kindness, tenderness, trust, vitality, happiness, the desire for contact, instinctual awareness, respect for all life, the awakening of oneÕs creative potentials, personal identity and personal power, the ability to surrender the individual I to a greater totality, the determination to overcome obstacles, the motivation to live life fully, enthusiasm, openness to new possibilities,  the cultivation of pleasure everyday - as you walk down the street feeling the breeze or the warmth of the sun touching your skin. 

 A session of 14 Biodanza movements is called a vivencia.  As participants experience the various movements, they contact profound feelings and emotions. The vivencia provides these direct emotional experiences that will impact on the individualÕs behavior over time, changing how they feel, think and relate to others, to themselves and to life on the planet.

Expressing in this way through the dance create strong templates of authentic relatedness. We all have the potential to relate in these loving, affectionate, creative, sensual, vital ways and the different movements provide these opportunities. We are not talking about these subjects, we are having an immediate experience of them in the here and now. All these potentials exist within us and the skilled Biodanza facilitator gently leads people very slowly into the practice of relating to one another.  This is not an exercise or dance class. You cannot do Biodanza alone because we do not exist in isolation but in relationship to each other.

Usually we are running so fast, we barely have time for each other and quiet time for ourselves. Often we force ourselves to move at a velocity that increases stress and disassociates us from our feelings.   In the Biodanza vivencias, we stop this anxious rhythm and dedicate time for companionship, tenderness and authentic ways of communicating with others. The group experiences are an opportunity to practice affectionate interactions and a healing way of seeing the world, and individuals respond with love, peace and harmony toward one another.

Biodanza is a well-known movement therapy in South America and Europe, but practically unknown in the United States.  The creator of Biodanza is Rolando Toro.  During WWII he became profoundly agonized by the horrors and human suffering of a global society motivated toward death and destruction.  He developed Biodanza as a corrective response to revert human sorrow and reeducate us about relationships, love and tenderness.

 Toro in the 1940Õs was an anthropologist who studied hundreds of universal dance movements from different cultures throughout human history. He organized them into the system he called Biodanza.  Hundreds of movements and specific music are organized into five categories.

Vitality - health, vital impetus, happiness to be alive

Sexuality - sexual pleasure, eroticism, reproduction, passion

Creativity - innovation, construction, imagination, openness

Affection - love, friendship, altruism, empathy

Transcendence - connection to nature, feeling part of a greater totality

Toro believes that when these five categories are fully developed within the individual, they can experience inner balance and mental health.

      The movements induce a visceral emotional response; there are many movements - movements to express affection, creativity, vitality, sexuality and connection to a transcendent source.

1. For the category of Vitality the music would be euphoric, happy, energizing;

2. For the category of Sexuality the music would be erotic, flowing, sensual;

3. For the category of Creativity the music would be expressive, different, intense, inspirational

4. For the category of Affection the music would be tender, soft, flowing, harmonious

5. For the category of Transcendence the music would be sublime, ethereal, mysterious, glorious

We begin a session with a walk movement and this playful way of promoting contact with others is non-threatening and the accompanying upbeat music induces happiness and vitality.  Walking is a movement that is inherent to all human beings.  The way a person holds their muscles and skeletal structure in their walk reveals a great deal about their mental state. For example, a depressed person walks with a lack of vitality and their muscle tonus is flaccid. People suffering from depression may walk slowly in an aimless way, and in the Biodanza session they practice walking with vitality.

Rather than analyze why the person is depressed Biodanza induces feelings of aliveness. We play a Benny Goodman tune and ask people to walk with a slight bounce with their arms swinging in harmony to the music and feel the rhythm in your body. With this movement we are stimulating an inner impetus - enthusiasm to face life; their posture is erect, their chin is slightly raised and the spine is straight. We practice walking not only with our legs but also with our entire body. As people walk across the room they are asked to greet other group members and develop affectionate interactions.

When two people hold hands and walk together to the rhythm of the music and no one is leading and no one is following, we practice developing mutual respect and sensitivity for each others way of being. Harmonizing your movement and bodily rhythm with the movement and bodily rhythm of another creates a third movement that is neither yours, nor mine but ours.  

People experience true contact and communication, relaxing the armature.  The experiences will register in the body, mind, spirit, initiating new neurological responses, new imprints over time.

Usually each session begins with accelerated movements to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and slowly we decelerate the movements and musical affect to engage the parasympathetic nervous system.  We begin with outer-directed movements and gradually introduce movements that prepare participants to enter deeper states of relaxation or trance. 

 In Biodanza, by progressively slowing down the movements and music, we  can return to deeper states of early psychobiological development. The movements gently lead the group into a state of deep relaxation and members experience a nonjudgmental, n state of wholeness. The neocortex is relaxed, the defenses are diminished and the mind is receptive and sensitized.    In this state anguish and anxiety disappear.  The individual experiences a state of well being that is difficult to describe; feelings of respect, love and an openness for life. The body is subtle, receptive, and feels deep pleasure being in the moment with what is. It is similar to the oceanic state of consciousness of the newborn, but on a higher level of consciousness.

Movement predates verbal knowing and our first means of relating to the world was through movement. Biodanza movements access emotional states of being that rational dualistic intelligence is not able to. Rather than offer information to the intellectual mind we educate the instinctual corporeal soul level of knowing.

During a session, we do not communicate in words, only through movements of emotion. There exists a cultural tendency to discredit the instinctual responses as irrational.  The function of the instinct reveals a type of biological wisdom of the human species that has its own inherent logic.  Being aware of our instinctual intelligence maintains health and survival.

Words bring us back into the intellectual mind and we want to explore other ways of thinking. For this reason the entire Biodanza vivencia is nonverbal.  During a session we ask people not to talk but to feel. Biodanza reconnects to deep levels of instinctual human awareness that many people living in technological societies are not in touch with anymore. Presently, many of us function on automatic, producing and Òdoing doingÓ as if we were machines, totally disrespecting the natural wisdom and needs of the biological organism.

  Each session plants seeds within the subconscious or unconscious mind.  The response is first learned in the body, and then it filters through to the mind. Each session is designed to create these healing experiences where participants deeply feel their higher potentials of human intelligence. We are trying to connect to the instinctual sensory feeling mind, the original state of knowledge that is embodied. 

Ken Wilbur says that all deep structures of consciousness are remembered whereas all surface structures of consciousness are learned. Some of the deepest structures of the human psyche, such as the archetype of Wholeness - feeling unity with the Totality of existence - are not comprehended through the intellect but experienced in a transcendent state outside of the rational mind.

 The practice of affectionate intelligence is another one of the major tenets that uniquely characterizes this group therapy.  Through affectionate intelligence we can empathize with other people, understand them, feel tenderness, compassion, gentleness, friendship, maternity, paternity and affinity with others. 

Bonding with others is necessary for our mental health and Biodanza fulfills this need. Participants progressively relate emotionally to one another through fluid and harmonious movement interactions, that express our human need for connection, closeness and the instinct of solidarity. When people are denied meaningful relationships with other humans or animals they feel depressed.  Prolonged separation from loved ones yields despair. ÒThese biological impulses of co-operation, of integration, of solidarity culminate in feelings of altruism and constitute the genesis of love.Ó Rolando Toro

Biodanza provides an experience of deep bonding to oneself, to others and to a higher force in the universe. Many of the movements prepare the human organism for the process of entering into the primordial state of consciousness called regression to the origin. Toro believes that the key to healing is this return to the original state where deep structures of unity with life, inner peace and ecstasy are experienced in the present moment.   We are being liberated from the critical judgmental mind and in the state of  nonduality, the mind engages in a state of wholeness and profound connection with the totality of existence. These unity experiences of the individual with the group and with the greater totality are one of the unique aspects of Biodanza group therapy.

During a vivencia, fears, such as abandonment, are replaced by new integrative feelings of being touched by a group member who symbolically represents a mother or a father or a loved one. The feeling of abandonment or loss is replaced by one of belonging, of being accepted, of knowing authentic contact with others. Experiencing in the present moment feelings of acceptance, tenderness, peace and deep connection to others is one of the healing methods Biodanza utilizes.

There exists a life force within us that is able to go beyond the identification with how we were conditioned. The regressed state is a return to the Original Self before the trauma was imprinted. The person is exposed to corrective emotional experiences By that I mean feeling states they may never have experienced sufficiently when they were young.  These Òcorrective emotional experiencesÓ provoke a series of chemical alterations within the body. Toro believes that the affectionate movements activate specific neurotransmitters that alter the bodyÕs biochemistry. These chemical-hormonal alterations repeated over time stimulate new neurological responses on a cellular level in the body-mind.  As these mental states are experienced on a regular basis they create new positive mental states that are remembered on deep levels of the body, mind, spirit when one comes out of the session. 

Each Biodanza session builds upon the next and as the groupÕs emotional ties strengthen, people begin to feel the warmth and security they may never have felt in the relationships with their family of origin or with other people in their life. We say that the Biodanza session is an emotional laboratory where we can experiment letting ourselves feel in this protected environment that the world is a safe place; we look into someoneÕs eyes with an open heart, tenderly touch there face and smile at them. In this moment of encounter, the defensive armature is gone and the person is unprotected, celebrating live fully. This positive memory has been planted in the unconscious mind.  Something has been truly lived that is not easily forgotten. . Interacting with people on this authentic level of human contact and getting oneÕs emotional needs met on a continual basis, imprints feelings of being loved and accepted.

What distinguishes Biodanza from other group or movement therapies is its focus on developing affectionate intelligence through touch. Affectionate touch is necessary for mental health. Life in both the animal and human species needs to be caressed or touched in an affectionate way.  Both Dolores Kreiger and Barbara Brennan, among other teachers, have documented the healing power of therapeutic touch. From the beginning the baby needs to have her primary caretaker affectionately caress her soul by gazing into her eyes, affirming their bond. The baby monkeys in the Harry Harlow experiments, or the children raised in orphanages that Rene Spitz observed, both these researchers have confirmed that affectionate contact nurtures and itÕs absence wounds.* Human touch is a necessary emotional component for health.

  Brains of neglected children show neurons missing by the billions. Even the experiments done with plants showed that those exposed to music, spoken and cared for with affection, grew more abundantly than those plants that did not receive these forms of communication.

An important movement of affectionate touch is the embrace.  This embrace does not only have a sexual connotation but can be a feeling of fraternity. I can embrace someone I do not know very well and this contact symbolizes that we recognize each otherÕs humanness.  There is no single word in English that translates the Portuguese word ÒsemelhanteÓ.  Semelhante is an expression of humanity acknowledging one another as equals or members of the same species, the same ecological family, regardless of race, economic status; we embrace one another as equals.

The group becomes an affectionate protective community where we can experience universal love.  One of the goals of Biodanza is to experience universal love for all humankind, for our semelhante, in addition to feeling it for a specific individual.  The group affirms the possibility of feeling undifferentiated love, as opposed to love directed toward one special person.  In undifferentiated love, we are very interested in encouraging  feelings of love or affection toward humanity. We feel affection for people we do not know because we recognize that they are members of our species and part of humankind.

Practicing exercises with people in the group sessions, develops this feeling of common affinity and undifferentiated love for others. Although some people may be more attractive to us than others, when you can get past the exterior packaging, fundamentally we realize our common natures - we all have dreams, hopes, fears and the desire to be loved.

            It is necessary to talk about your fears and blocks to intimacy and in the part of the session reserved for verbal group process, participants can express their emotional reactions to the different movements.  There are no right or wrong emotions.  Some people may want to make eye contact, others may not feel ready to at that particular time.  All emotions are valid. Each person is accepted for who they are.

            There are beginning, intermediate and advanced movements. When we practice doing any of the exercises, it is important that we respect our emotional needs and do the exercises at each level only when we are ready to.  That is the basis of building a firm foundation of safety and acceptance for self and others in the group. We never invade someoneÕs space or allow our personal space to be invaded. Go at your own pace and honor that you do not have to do anything other than what you are able to do and accompany each person where they are, respecting your limits and the other persons.

            It is important to differentiate between contact and affectionate touch. A mechanical contact in itself is not really therapeutic.  It is a sensitive touch accompanied by attitudes of affection, empathy and caring for one another that nurtures. 

We can also practice our affectionate intelligence through looking into someoneÕs eyes. Our culture approves not showing what we feel. Eye contact brings up feelings of embarrassment. 

 In the beginning of a Biodanza session we may look at one another, putting our hands over our eyes and just peeking out at people in a playful way. Progressively, as people feel safe in the group environment and know they are cared for then they can experiment making eye contact with different people in different ways. This is the power of working in group.

                As the group matures we can do more intimate exercises of eye contact.  For example, walk around the room and connect with someone you would like to dance with by making eye contact.  Slowly, walk closer toward each other.  Get in touch with your longing to be with this person.  Allow this feeling to grow inside as you slowly draw closer.  Enter in touch with all the feelings that arise.  Maybe you feel vulnerable, fear, happiness, and desire - just watch and let each one be.  When you finally meet this person, let the embrace be slow.  Feel the coming together as if you were embracing a long lost friend. There are different kinds of embraces in Biodanza.  There are embraces of friendship, of sexual desire, of protection, of melting into another personÕs breathing and the two becoming one in a Òmoment of eternityÓ.

As Biodanza is practiced over time, the individual becomes freer and lives life more fully. They identify with their Original Self. This breaks their identification with the wounds and allows the individual to partake in the pleasure, love and the celebration of Life.

*  The significant finding in the Harlow experiments was that the baby monkeys preferred to embrace and be with the soft flannel mother rather than the wire mother who supplied the milk.  Once the babies were fed, affectionate touch was favored over food.  Those monkeys that only grew up with the wire mothers and did not have the cloth mothers to cuddle notably appeared more neurotic. It appears that living organisms that do not experience this contact are emotionally starved and those that do are capable of vital healthy relationships to themselves and others because of this initial bonding.

Lecture at New Orleans Conference - 2003

Susan Bello PhD ATR

susanbello@hotmail.com

tel. 212.956.2291 

Why have human beings been dancing since the beginning of time?  Why do we continue to do so? Dance accesses expressions from our soul, our original identity and connects our bodies to a primal source of pleasure. Bio from the Greek means life and danza means movement with emotion, so Biodanza means movement with emotion that promotes life.  Biodanza focuses on developing positive mental states rather than on suffering or mental disturbances.  While traditional psychotherapy is interested in analyzing the wounded part of the individual, Biodanza develops higher qualities of the human spirit: peace, harmony, love, courage, brotherhood and strengthens healthy states of consciousness.

Biodanza is a well-known movement therapy in South America and Europe, but practically unknown in the United States.  The creator of Biodanza, Rolando Toro, an anthropologist in Chile who during WWII, became profoundly agonized by the horrors and human suffering of a global society motivated toward death and destruction.  He developed Biodanza as a corrective response.  It is directed to revert human sorrow and reeducate us about relationships, love and tenderness.

 Toro believes that disease is a psychosomatic signal of a total block at emotional levels. Unfortunately we have to deaden our senses to the daily bombardment of anti-life pollution that exists in pathological cultures valuing materialism over mental health.  Specific movements and music are designed to stimulate positive emotional inner experiences, such as:  human kindness, trust, instinctual awareness, respect for all life, awakening of one’s creative potentials, a strong sense of personal identity, personal power, the ability to surrender the individual I to a greater totality, determination to overcome obstacles, motivation to live life fully, enthusiasm to create and be open to new possibilities, the cultivation of pleasure everyday - as you walk down the street feeling the breeze or the warmth of the sun touching your skin.

  The participant can experience in each session corrective emotional experiences that provoke a series of chemical alterations within the body. Toro believes that specific movements activate specific neurotransmitters and hormonal secretions in the body. These chemical-hormonal alterations repeated over time stimulate new neurological responses in the body-mind.

  Toro organized hundreds of universal dance movements and music from different cultures throughout human history into an organized system he called Biodanza. The movements are organized into five categories:

Vitality – health, vital impetus, happiness to be alive

Sexuality – sexual pleasure, eroticism, reproduction, passion

Creativity – innovation, construction, imagination

Affection – love, friendship, altruism, empathy

Transcendence – connection to nature, feeling part of a greater totality

Each category expresses genetic potentials that are stimulated when one dances with deep emotion.  Toro believes that when these five categories are fully developed the individual experiences a healthy and balanced life.     

Each movement is danced to a specific music designed to induce a visceral emotional response; movements for contacting the numinous transcendent reality, movements to express affection, creativity, vitality and sexuality.

1. For the category of Vitality the music would be euphoric, happy, energizing;

2. For the category of Sensuality the music would be erotic, flowing, sensual;

3. Creativity – profound, different, strange, intense, grandiose

4. Affection - tender, warm, soft, loving

5. Transcendence – harmonious, sublime, eternal, limitless, mysterious

            Each session contains approximately 13 movements that reflect these five categories.  Some of the movements in a session are designed to slow down and rediscover one’s own natural internal rhythm.  So much of the time we force ourselves to move at a velocity that increases stress and disassociates us from our feelings.  We function on automatic, producing  and “doing doing” as if we were machines, totally disrespecting the natural wisdom and needs of the  biological organism. The variety of the movements, emotional responses and diverse possibilities of communication are positive stimulants that liberate the development and the expression of one’s genetic potentials. Biodanza permits, it gives access to rather than repress or impede the development of.  It stimulates the organism to evolve in harmony with its internal laws.

The walk is a movement that often occurs in the beginning of a session and this playful way of promoting contact with others is non-threatening and the upbeat music induces happiness and vitality.  Walking is a movement that is inherent to all human beings.  The way a person holds their muscles and skeletal structure in their walk reveals a great deal about their mental state. For example, a depressed person walks with a lack of vitality and their muscle tonus is flaccid. Rather than analyze why the person is depressed Biodanza induces feelings of aliveness. We can play Benny Goodman and ask people to walk with their arms swinging in harmony to their footsteps, which have a slight bounce to them.  The force that propels the walk comes from an impetus to face life; their posture is erect, their chin is slightly raised and the spine is straight. We practice walking not only with our legs but with our entire body.    People suffering various problems incorporate their mental state into their daily walk, and in the Biodanza session they experience a different way to walk.  As they walk across the room they are asked to greet other group members, briefly make eye contact with the other group members in a playful manner.

Another important movement in Biodanza that promotes affection is the embrace, o encontro.  This embrace does not have a sexual connotation but rather a feeling of fraternity. This form of contact accepts everyone regardless of their race or economic status.   I can embrace someone I do not know very well and this contact symbolizes that we recognize each other as “semelhantes”.  There is no one word in english that really translates “semelhante”. It is an expression of humanity acknowledging one another as equals or members of the same species, the same ecological  family.

There exists a cultural tendency to associate the instinctual responses with irrationality.  The function of the instinct reveals a type of biological wisdom of the human species that has its own inherent logic that responds harmoniously to the organism’s necessities.  Being aware of our instinctual intelligence maintains health and survival.

            Usually the movements start off accelerated to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and slowly deaccelerate to affect the parasympathetic nervous system.  We begin with outer-directed movements and gradually introduce movements that prepare participants to enter deeper states of relaxation or trance.

Gently the movements lead the group members into a state of regression, deep relaxation and openness to their center or original state of being. The neocortex is relaxed, the characterological defenses are diminished and the mind is receptive and sensitized.    In this state anguish and anxiety disappear.  The individual experiences a feeling of well-being and a sensation of plenitude and love for life that is difficult to describe. The body is subtle, receptive, and feels deep pleasure in the moment. There is a feeling of fraternity with everything that exists and the group is felt as an affectionate protective unity of beings that form a whole. We experience universal love for all humankind and not for a specific individual.  The individual is immersed within the group uterus, a communal support of love and affection. In this state the tired and stressed human organism is revitalized and the participant has a profound internal experience of a new learning.

Each session is designed to create internal experiences where participants can deeply feel these higher aspects of human nature rather than intellectually talk about them. The entire Biodanza vivencia is nonverbal.  We are trying to connect to the instinctual sensory feeling mind, the original state of the primordial mind and that is why we do not use words.  Words bring us back into the intellectual mind and we want to leave this way of thinking and access deeper levels of consciousness. Movement predates verbal knowing and our first means of relating to the world was through movement. When we do Biodanza some of the movements are designed to offer a nurturing inner experience of early maturational phases of development that may never have been experienced before in one’s life.

 Experiencing these internal states of higher consciousness in the present moment is the teaching method Biodanza utilizes. Rather than offer information to the intellectual mind we educate the instinctual body-mind-soul level of cognition.  Seeds are planted within the subconscious or unconscious mind that root over time and promote changes in one’s neurological system, attitudes and way of living in the world.  The response is first learned in the body, then it filters through to the mind.

Many traumatic emotional imprints, stored within the body-mind, continue to repeat themselves. There exists a life force within us that is able to go beyond the identification with how we were conditioned. The regressed state is a return to the Original Self before the trauma was imprinted. It is a healing state of mind where a healthy emotional seed is planted deep within the body-mind intelligence, and new learning and programming takes root in this fertile soil.

All deep structures of consciousness are remembered whereas all surface structures of consciousness are learned.  One of the deepest structures of the human psyche is the feeling of Wholeness – unity with the Totality of existence.  This is not comprehended through the intellect; it is experienced in a transcendent state outside of the rational mind. The drive (natural desire) for Wholeness is an archetype necessary for mental health.  When the baby looks into the mother’s eyes and receives her caring look there is a feeling of Wholeness. The group members may experience a state of wholeness with each other and with the life force in the trance state. It is a more evolved state than the oceanic consciousness experienced by the newborn, before ego consciousness developed.  It is a state of wholeness with the totality of existence that is on a higher plane of consciousness. A profound experience of feeling an integration between the individual self with the group and with the greater totality is one of the unique aspects of Biodanza group therapy.

Many of the exercises practiced in Biodanza prepare the human organism for the process of entering into the primordial state of consciousness called regression to the origin. Toro believes that the key to healing is this return to the original state. The individual abandons the rigid ego structure and enters into an altered state, a primordial reality, where deep structures of unity with life, inner peace and ecstasy are experienced in the present moment.

            The mind is no longer thinking and the person no longer feels their regular state of dissociation or fear.  Fear of abandonment is replaced by a new integrative feeling of being touched by a group member who symbolically represents a mother or a father. The feeling of abandonment or loss of meaning is replaced by one of belonging, of being accepted, of knowing authentic contact with others.  This experience is remembered on deep levels when one comes out of the session.  Repeated practice promotes inner change over time. The session is an emotional laboratory that creates a safe environment where new behaviors can be risked that one would not ordinarily do in daily life.

            Bonding is necessary for life.  When people are denied meaningful relationships with other humans or animals they feel depressed.  Prolonged separation from loved ones yields despair.   These vivencias are inner experiences the participant may never have had the opportunity to experience in their life. What was lost or never felt is experienced with others. Each Biodanza session builds upon the next and as the group’s emotional ties strengthen, people begin to feel the warmth and security they may never have felt in the relationships with their family of origin and other people in their life.  In the group experience new emotional bonds are felt.  The more people begin to develop ties with the group members an old neural code can be revised. Interacting with people on this healthy level of resonance and getting one’s emotional needs met on a continual basis, creates new neurological attractor patterns of feeling loved.

States of mental health express through the dance. Through emotionally engaging in the movements we relate to the group members in sensitive, authentic ways that create strong templates of healthy relatedness.  These loving states exist within the collective unconscious in a latent state.  The skilled Biodanza facilitator gently leads one into this state very slowly.  This is not an exercise or dance class.  We are relating to one another and connecting to an emotional nucleus that is universal.  You cannot do Biodanza alone.  It is a group therapy. We do not exist in isolation but in relationship to each other. The group forms the protective uterus where rebirth occurs. The individual and the group also experience being part of the greater totality; the Life Force of the cosmos is in each one of us.

The first part of the emotional healing is making an emotional connection.  When a limbic connection has established a neural pattern, it takes a limbic connection to revise it.  In Biodanza we do not just talk about feelings, we experience them deeply. No analyzing takes place.

            When participants are in a mild trance state and receive this affectionate touch, they experience the healing power of human contact. Through Biodanza they practice  touching  and being touched with sensitivity, caring and affection.

Affectionate touch is necessary for mental health. Both Dolores Kreiger and Barbara Brennan, among other teachings have documented the benefits of therapeutic touch. The baby needs to have a primary caretaker look into their eyes, caress their soul and affirm their existence. The baby monkeys in the Harry Harlow experiments, or the children raised in orphanages that Rene Spitz observed, both these researchers have confirmed that affectionate contact nurtures and it’s absence wounds. Human touch is a necessary emotional component for health.  Brains of neglected children show neurons missing by the billions.  Life in both animal and human species needs to be caressed or touched in an affectionate way.  Even the experiments done with plants showed that those exposed to music and spoken to grew more abundantly than those plants that did not receive these forms of communication.  The significant finding in the Harlow experiments was that the baby monkeys preferred to embrace and be with the soft flannel mother rather than the wire mother who supplied the milk.  Affectionate touch was favored over food once this basic need was provided for.  Those monkeys that only grew up with the wire mothers notably appeared more neurotic.  It appears that living organisms that do not experience this contact are emotionally starved and those that do establish a vital, healthy connection to life.

It is important to differentiate between contact and affectionate touch. A mechanical contact in itself is not really therapeutic.  It is a sensitive touch accompanied by attitudes of affection, empathy and caring for one another that nurtures.  The practice of affectionate intelligence is one of the major tenets of this group therapy.  We practice touching each other through various movements in each of the five categories: vitality, transcendence, creativity, affection and sensuality.

Members’ limits are respected.  That means, if someone is not comfortable doing an exercise they do not have to.  If someone is shy and gives a timid hug, then adjust your movement to not overwhelm them.  Be aware and sensitive to what each person’s response is. Be sensitive to the movement of your partner. We practice not imposing our rhythm or emotional state on the other. The objective is to develop a sensitivity between two people where no one is leading and no one is following.  Practice harmonizing your movement with the other person’s movement and create a third movement which is neither mine nor yours but ours.    

As this therapy is practiced over time, the individual becomes freer and lives life more fully. They identify with their Original Self. This breaks their lower ego identification with the wounds and raises the individual to partake in the pleasure, love and the celebration of Life.

A Way To Nurture Your Soul

Lecture at New Orleans Conference - 2003