The Bodily Roots of Experience in Psychotherapy: Gestures and their Meanings in Treatment and in Everyday Life   

Date & Time: October 20 (Sunday), 2024  

**This event will be recorded. Registrants will receive the recording link via email after the live session.**

Abstract:

Each facial and bodily gesture we make expresses an important meaning, and demonstrates how we experience ourselves within our world. When fully felt and understood, they tell us something we had not known about ourselves in our relationships or that we knew, but now see more clearly.

During this 1 ½ hour book launch and webinar, we will learn how our gestures form complex negotiations with others. They reveal what has gone on in our earlier histories, what they entail for this present moment, and what they anticipate for the future. Once aware of their meanings, we have the capacity to change our habitual and rigid gestural patterns in relation – patient-therapist, partner-partner, employer-employee, teacher-student – to more spontaneous and free exchanges. 

Speaker & Curator:

Dr. Ruella Frank:

Ruella Frank, PhD, is the founder and director of Center for Somatic Studies, New York City. She is on the faculty of several Gestalt therapy institutes and teaches internationally. She authored, Body of Awareness (2001, Gestalt Press – 4 Lanuages), co-authored, The First Year and the Rest of Your Life (Routledge – 4 languages), and authored,The Bodily Roots of Experience in Psychotherapy (Routledge Press, 5 lanugages). Her video, Introduction to Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy (three languages) is available online at www.somaticstudies.com