CPD Resources – Articles & Papers

All published writing by Morit Heitzler & Michael Soth (1992 - )

Resources – Articles (with excerpts)2017-04-07T03:26:50+00:00

Listing (with excerpt): Articles & Papers

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Articles & Papers

  • Relational complications in current trauma therapy (Morit Heitzler & Michael Soth 2018)

    Trauma therapy, aided by revolutionary neuroscientific understandings, has been very successful over the last 20 years or so, and has expanded enormously. New trauma therapies have proliferated, new tools, techniques and methodolgies have been developed, the reach and scope of treatable conditions has been extended…

  • Book Review: “Somatic Experience in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy” by William F. Cornell (2015)

    This book review was written for the journal Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, and you can find the 1500-word version there. But I got so engrossed with the book and the issues it raises, I wrote a whole discussion, plus I also included lengthy…

  • What Supports the Sustainability of our Practice as Therapists? – Part 2 (2015)

    After some years of not writing very much, I have written a substantial article on this crucial topic: mainly based on years of supervision experience and seeing supervisees' practices struggle or flourish, I explore the key factors that influence how we process the 'emotional load'…

  • What Supports the Sustainability of our Practice as Therapists? – Part 3 (2015)

    After some years of not writing very much, I have written a substantial article on this crucial topic: mainly based on years of supervision experience and seeing supervisees' practices struggle or flourish, I explore the key factors that influence how we process the 'emotional load'…

  • Working with Sadism – an embodied relational approach (Morit Heitzler 2014)

    Based on a presentation at CONFER in December 2014, this paper explores the complex identifications which occur in the therapist's countertransference when working with a horrifically traumatised client who had been on the receiving end of life-threatening sadism for a prolonged period in her teenage…

  • We Are All Relational, But Are Some More Relational Than Others? (2013)

    Discussant Paper in response to Ray Little: "The New Emerges out of the Old - An Integrated Relational Perspective on Psychological Development, Psychopathology and Therapeutic Action”. Building on Ray Little's integration of humanistic TA with both traditional and relational psychoanalysis, this paper explores both shared…

  • Broken Boundaries, Invaded Territories (Morit Heitzler 2013)

    One of the most excruciating aspects of trauma is the invasion or collapse of boundaries, not just in the moment of trauma, but as lasting damage. Traumatised clients usually bring to therapy an ongoing background feeling of threat: both to physical and emotional survival and…

  • The Relational Turn in Body Psychotherapy (2012)

    Based on an interview with Nancy Eichhorn in preparation for the 2012 International Body Psychotherapy conference in Cambridge, UK - she wrote it up, included her own comments and perspective and I then helped with the editing to get it to this published version:
“The term…

  • Using EMDR with Various Types of Developmental Trauma (Morit Heitzler 2011)

    Complex trauma is based on underlying developmental trauma. However, developmental trauma is a very broad, non-specific category. There are several typologies and classification systems of developmental trauma available, with various degrees of usefulness to EMDR practitioners.
Having researched and assessed these different theories, in this workshop…

  • Book Review: “Explorations in Transactional Analysis – The Meech Lake Papers” by William F. Cornell (2011)

    This book review was written for the International Journal of Transactional Analysis: “Since his original psychotherapeutic trainings many decades ago in Radix and Transactional Analysis, Bill Cornell (working in Pittsburgh, US) has been at the forefront of the creative endeavour to integrate these approaches, and…

  • The Return of the Repressed Body – Not a Smooth Affair (2010)

    These are a few thoughts, written fairly quickly, on my misgivings with the currently fashionable attempts to (re-)include the body into psychotherapy. These attempts, strongly supported by neuroscience, are welcome and long overdue. However, how can we seriously imagine that bringing the body back after…

  • A Response to the Claims of the ‘Human Givens’ Approach (2010)

    This letter, published in 'Therapy Today' under the title 'Boastful Claims', was a response to an earlier article by Julia Bueno, on 'The Rise of Human Givens'. I am suggesting that as a relatively recent approach, Human Givens is not sufficiently aware of its antecedents…

  • Crowded Intimacy – Engaging Multiple Enactments in Complex Trauma Work (Morit Heitzler 2010)

    My aim in this paper is to introduce relational Body Psychotherapy and its relevance to working with trauma. The term 'relational' is now widely used; it has recently become fashionable and most practitioners accept that “it is the relationship that matters” (title of BACP conference…

  • Therapy Today: Questionnaire – Michael Soth (2010)

    The BACP Journal 'Therapy Today&' has a regular column where established practitioners get interviewed and are asked both personal and professional questions. This is the longer, online version of an interview/questionnaire published in December 2010. “Michael Soth is passionate about the possibility of a new…

  • The processing body – integrating EMDR and Body Psychotherapy (Morit Heitzler 2008)

    The processing body - integrating EMDR and Body Psychotherapy: The paper presents a model for integrating EMDR with Body Psychotherapy principles and techniques. The model will be illustrated by clinical material from work with a patient who suffers from complex PTSD as a result of…

  • Group Body Psychotherapy (2008)

    This was written as a contribution to the English version of the Handbook of Body Psychotherapy (originally published in German by Marlock and Weiss). The chapter sets out some basic principles for a bodymind approach to groups and group therapy, and gives some indications for…

  • Embracing the paradigm clash between the ‘medical model’ and counselling (2007)

    A Response to James T. Hansen's article “Should counselling be considered a healthcare profession?”
This article, published in 'Therapy Today' under the title 'Polarising or embracing?', was a response to an earlier article by James T. Hansen who - from a postmodern perspective - was challenging…

  • Book Review of the German version of ‘Handbook of Body Psychotherapy’ by Gustl Marlock & Halko Weiss (2007)

    This is a review of the ground-breaking, monumental and comprehensive first global textbook of Body Psychotherapy, giving a brief overview of its content and some important chapters as well as evaluating its strengths and also outlining some critiques.  [s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level0)]To gain access to the full…

  • The Integrative Project within the Development from Holistic-Humanistic to Integral-Relational Body Psychotherapy (2007)

    This article follows on from my chapter "From Humanistic Holism via the 'Integrative Project' towards Integral-Relational Body Psychotherapy" (2007) and focusses on a specific phase in the development of Chiron Body Psychotherapy (i.e. the years between 1992 and 1998) which can suitably be called the…

  • The Therapist’s Implicit Relational Stance & Habitual Positions (2007)

    This was written quickly (it shows ...!) as a preparation for the 2007 CABP conference 'The Client and I', attempting in anticipation to clarify some important concepts within the relational debate. I suggest that there always IS an implicit relational stance and that the therapist's…

  • From Humanistic Holism via the ‘Integrative Project’ towards Integral-Relational Body Psychotherapy (2007)

    Written as a chapter for "Contemporary Body Psychotherapy - The Chiron Approach" (a book edited by Linda Hartley, published 2008), this paper gives an overview over the phases and quantum leaps in the development of Body Psychotherapy at Chiron, with particular focus on the 'relational…

  • How ‘the Wound’ Enters the Consulting Room … (2007)

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  • How ‘the Wound’ Enters the Consulting Room (2006)

    This article charts the deconstruction of the 'medical model' (which was taken for granted as a basic paradigm for the work of psychoanalysis by Freud at the conception of our profession) over the 100 years since then. It starts from the premise that the 'medical…

  • On BodyMind Process (2006)

    Some preparatory thoughts on an embodied whole-person approach: if we want to work with the whole spectrum of processes from unconscious to conscious, from spontaneous to reflective, from somatic to emotional, mental and psychological, we recognise that in its traditional manifestation, the field of psychotherapy…

  • Current Body Psychotherapy – a Relational Approach for the 21st Century? (2005)

    This article was written for the BACP Journal 'Therapy Today' to up-date the image of Body Psychotherapy across the professions of counselling and psychotherapy. By spelling out the - partly justified - prejudices against Body Psychotherapy deriving from 1970's practice, I try to show how…

  • How can Body Psychotherapy Help Apply the Insights of Neuroscience (2005)

    This was written as part of the Introduction to the Advanced Training programme of the Chiron Centre in 2004, following the enthusiastic reception of modern neuroscience by psychological practitioners. It spells out a list of the therapeutic micro-skills involved in bringing awareness to right-brain-to-right-brain attunement…

  • An up-to-date Synopsis of how Body Psychotherapy has Developed over the last Decade (2005)

    This was written as a new Introduction to the Advanced Training programme of the Chiron Centre and later got turned into an article for 'Therapy Today'.   [s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]To gain access to the full resource, please log-in if you are a member already, or to…

  • Psychotherapy: the ‘Relating Cure’ – Relating to the Psychosomatic Symptom (2005)

    This article was written as a response to some interview questions by Penny Gray, the editor of the Healthcare Counselling & Psychotherapy Journal. It is primarily addressed to counsellors working in the NHS, but it also covers wider questions regarding the bodymind and psychosomatic aspects…

  • Embodied Countertransference – some extracts (2004)

    This chapter, published in Nick Totton's 2005 book "New Dimensions in Body Psychotherapy" is my first and quite condensed formulation of some of the original concepts arising from an integration of bodymind and relational perspectives (3 kinds of contact; the 5 parallel relationships including the…

  • What Therapeutic Hope for a Subjective Mind in an Objectified Body? (2004, long version)

    This is the edited and elaborated text of my presentation at the UKCP Conference 'About A Body' which was eventually published in three versions: one published by UKCP in 2006 (9000 words) and one published in two parts in the Journal for Body, Movement and…

  • Is it Possible to Integrate Humanistic Techniques into a Transference-Countertransference Perspective? (2004)

    This was written as a response to a brilliant and helpfully clarifying article by Lavinia Gomez 'Humanistic or psychodynamic - what is the difference and do we have to make a choice ?', which tackles this difficult theme in a non-dogmatic and fairly comprehensive fashion.…

  • Humanistic or psychodynamic – what is the difference and do we have to make a choice? (Lavinia Gomez 2003)

    This brilliant and helpfully clarifying article by Lavinia Gomez tackles the difficult theme 'humanistic or psychodynamic' in a non-dogmatic and fairly comprehensive fashion. Lavinia poses some challenging questions, especially for integrative therapists: how free and fluid can we allow ourselves to be in terms of…

  • Psychotherapy: Paradoxes, Pitfalls & Potential (2003)

    This article was written for the magazine 'Self & Society' following the workshop series I ran in 2003 on the paradoxes inherent in psychotherapy. In the workshops I addressed specifically six paradoxes which do not even get a mention in this article, as it was…

  • What is ‘Working with the Body’ ? (2002)

    This was an invited response to a case presentation by Maggie Turp, a psychodynamic therapist who has initiated a consideration of the body and of the importance of wellbeing in psychoanalytic circles. Whilst this must be a worthwhile project and her case study shows dedicated…

  • Re-formulating the Notion of the ‘Body/Mind Split’ (2000)

    This is an extract from "The Integrated BodyMind's View on 'Body/Mind Integration' (2000)", as it is often requested on its own. It basically critiques the notion of 'body/mind split', but then uses it to focus more precisely on what experiential reality that tricky concept may…

  • The Integrated BodyMind’s View on ‘Body/Mind Integration’ (2000)

    This was written as an article following a presentation to the Chiron Association's (AChP) AGM in 1999. During the presentation itself I more or less did the opposite of what I was talking about and modelled a fairly dis-integrated stance. The learning from that experience…

  • Relating to and with the Objectified Body (1999)

    This was my first public attempt at spelling out the difficulties and pitfalls of Body Psychotherapy as I knew it in the late 1980's and the early 1990's. It took years to become aware of and formulate the hidden 'medical model' assumptions, the implicit idealisation…

  • The Body in Counselling (1999)

    This was written for a psychodynamically oriented audience from an integrative perspective, outlining - with no attempt at a comprehensive formulation - some of the ways in which the body enters the counselling room and the counselling relationship.  [s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level0)]To gain access to the full…

  • Collective Mothering and the Medical Model (1997)

    This is a longer article on the same theme as my letter with the same title to the European Psychotherapy Journal, written later and more detailed. It was cobbled together from two articles in consecutive issues of the AChP Newsletter (as it was then called),…

  • Collective Mothering and the Medical Model – EJP Letter (1996)

    A Letter in response to Emmy van Deurzen-Smith's 1996 paper 'The Future of Psychotherapy', taking issue with her suggestion that some of what used to be the intuitive art and craft of mothering could and should now be provided by a scientifically validated counselling profession.…

  • An Integrative Triangle: Freud, Reich and Jung (1994)

    Incomplete notes for a paper given at the UKAPI Conference 2001, suggesting that Freud, Jung and Reich can be seen as championing in some respects three mutually exclusive, but actually complementary perspectives, each with its own blessings and shadow aspects. By understanding these forefathers of…

  • An Integrative Perspective on Two-Chair Work (1993)

    This is a paper written initially as a summary hand-out for my workshops on 'Working with Dialogue / Two-Chair Work', I have been working on a much longer version over the years, leading towards a manual for this therapeutic tool that covers both theory and…

  • Parental Identification (1992)

    This is an early paper written for a staff training workshop, based on the recognition that object relations are both internalised and embodied. This affects our view of our clients, but also of our own habitual positions as therapists.  [s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level0)]To gain access to the…

  • Parental Identification

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  • The Gulf in ‘me’ (1992)

    Subtitled "A psychotherapist's view of the Gulf War", this was an attempt at formulating some principles of personal-political engagement and to contribute a psychological dimension to the political debate, by finding the global leaders within our own dreams and 'inner world', as well as seeing…