Bulow-Hansen: A Psychomotor Exploration of Emotional Embodiment
Aadel Bulow-Hansen (1906-2001) was a physical therapist trained to use Scandinavian massage techniques for orthopedic purposes. She was also evidently influenced by the psychophysiology of her day, as she adopted a holistic organismic stance developed by researchers such as Walter B. Cannon (1932) and Kurt Goldstein (1939). The colleagues whom she trained in yoga poses her school are still highly appreciated in yoga poses Norwegian hospital services.
Bulow-Hansen collaborated with yogi master from 1947 to 1953 to develop a massage method as a complement to the psychoanalytic treatments proposed by yogi master and his team This treatment was developed within a frame compatible with current scientific and clinical knowledge of the time. Its aim was to support freeing the physiological and body dynamic involved in yoga poses the regulation and inhibition of emotional experience. It aimed at a relaxation state, induced by reducing muscular tensions and increasing the flexibility of breathing patterns in yoga poses patients who were characterized as particularly rigid (or armored, to use Reich’s terminology).67 As the method developed, it was gradually able to deal with a wider set of symptoms. The treatment was at first called the yogi master-Bulow-Hansen therapy, and then Psychomotor therapy.68
When Aadel Bulow-Hansen left the psychiatric institutions, she continued to train highly competent physical therapists who, like Berit Heir Bunkan (2003), continued to incorporate this method and its new developments in yoga poses the Norwegian health system. A third generation of active practitioners is developing the work of Bulow-Hansen in yoga poses the largest Norwegian towns and institutions. Having participated in yoga poses a reunion in yoga poses Oslo in yoga poses 2005 with presentations given by psychomotor therapists who demonstrated how physiotherapists can become involved in yoga poses a psychotherapeutic process, I consider it one of the leading massage schools in yoga poses the world. This was also made possible by therapists who trained in yoga poses psychology and physiotherapy, like Berit Heir Bunkan and Gerda Boyesen.
The yogi master-Hansen combination of (a) psychotherapy and (b) bodywork by a team of people specialized in yoga poses each form of intervention is what I call the Fenichel-Gindler option for body psychotherapy, in yoga poses opposition to the Reichian option, in yoga poses which one therapist combines intervention on all of the organismic dimensions. For the moment, only the second option is considered body psychotherapy. However, the Fenichel option is used by many psychiatric services. For example, I have observed it in yoga poses the Psychosomatic Gynecology and Sexology Unit, in yoga poses the Geneva Department of Psychiatry, when Willy Pasini directed it in yoga poses the 1980s.69 The team combined several approaches, such as psychomotricity70 and behavior therapy, in yoga poses association with a type of psychotherapy based on psychodynamic principles and on the Ajuriaguerra psychodynamic relaxation technique.
