Body-Mind Centering®

Body-Mind Centering® was developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in the 60s. She was a dancer as well as a neurodevelopmental and and occupational therapist who expanded on the principles she learned after years of studying yoga, Japanese katsugan undo and Laban Movement Analysis. Her years of working with children, helping them learn to move again after traumatic brain injuries, let her combine the tenets of the disciplines she'd studied into her own unique type of bodywork designed to use the body-mind connection to heal the body and balance it with the mind.

In her technique, patients are made aware of their thinking, breathing, and movement and how those things connect to each other. Her technique is used today in physical therapy, psychotherapy, and is even used to help athletes and others who want to get their minds and bodies focused.

Body-Mind Centering® revolves around two principles. It holds that the mind is an important part of the body, and that it can be reached through physical means. There are four main areas of focus with this type of therapy: the body and its systems, developmental movement, reeducating (or repatterning) for movement, and movement used for expression.

The first step in Body-Mind Centering®, the body systems, involves studying the physical body parts, like the skin, the structures and the systems. A process that Cohen called embodiment is used to explore the body's tissues and cells. Discussion and study of tissue starts the process then, the what Cohen called somatization begins, where the patients consciously move to help them understand their tissues' purposes. When this is focused on the tissues and cells in a particular system to help it, then the subject moves consciously while focusing thought on that area.

The developmental movement portion of Body-Mind Centering® involves recognizing patterns of movement, and changing them into better patterns through studying reflexes, reactions and responses, what's known as the three “Rs” of the therapy. The combination of these “Rs” makes up the body's movement patterns. If a pattern is “wrong” and movement (and because of that, the thoughts) are impaired, then illness and physical pain can result.

Repatterning or reeducating is the next phase, where focus on a specific area of the body is designed to speed the vibration found there and stimulate the tissue and cells in the area. Those who practice Body-Mind Centering® say that doing so causes the body-mind connection to strengthen in that area, allowing the area to be reconditioned more easily.

Body-Mind Centering® holds that the body affects the mind and the mind affects the body, and that harmony between each system in the body is crucial, as each one supports so many others. An important belief in this therapy is that if a patient can change his or her thinking about a certain area of the body, including making conscious movements there, then that area of the body will change and things from chronic illness to general well-being can be achieved.

• home
• massage therapy schools
• featured schools
• massage therapy types
• career resources