Bioenergetic Analysis • The Clinical Journal of the IIBA, 2020 (30), 7–8
https://doi.org/10.30820/0743-4804-2020-30-7 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 www.bioenergetic-analysis.comDear Readers,
You are about to read the Journal that captures some of the spirit of 25th IIBA Conference in Portugal. Our experience at the Conference is condensed in these articles. The articles represent the efforts of our colleagues to put in writing the talks they presented at the Conference.
For members who were present, this Journal will be a good reminder of the important themes that inspired us all. For those that did not have the opportunity to be at the Conference, these articles are a way to know how seriously and profoundly our community is treating the Conference themes of Healing, Love, Connection and Authenticity, so important for the world today.
The first article on “The Other as Potential Enemy”, is an essay by our special guest at the Conference, the esteemed Jungian, Prof. Luigi Zoja from Milano, Italy. The Professor talked about how paranoia is socially contagious and how modern mass media allows collective paranoia to take hold creating exaggerated fears, for instance, fears relating to Islamic migration and terrorism in many countries. Professor Zoja, recognizing the archetypal roots of paranoia and the need for enemies, proposes the need to look inside ourselves, activating both consciousness and conscience, especially in respect of environmental problems that beset us all today.
Following Prof. Zoja’s paper, Garry Cockburn presented an updated Bioenergetic view on “Otherness”, based on Lowen’s writings on the Oedipus tragedy and the psychoanalytical interpretation of the difficulty to open up to the other in a world that still privileges power and control instead of humanity. He points out the importance of feminine power, the Mother Earth and the body to bring us back to connection with “The Face and Body of the Other”.
Vita Heinrich-Clauer, in her Keynote Address, presented an interesting view of the work with negativity using vocal expression. She introduced creative forms of unblocking our dark side, as Ben Shapiro named it. Vita illustrates this with reference to Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, bringing out the complex and rich theoretical and practical implications of working with the voice.
Guy Tonella’s description of the role of therapist is based in his rich and poetic understanding of the “Life Force” from the cosmic to the microscopic levels. Tonella drives us to the wonder about our therapeutic role to be the “ferrymen” between nature and culture, linking Reich’s self-regulation to Lowen’s study of biological polarities, and ending at Porges’s polyvagal theory.
Patrizia Moselli, in her comments on Tonella’s Keynote, reminds us of the power of the “now” in Bioenergetics. She makes us think about the concept of Complexity, as described by Edgar Morin, and challenges for us to embrace both our humanistic roots and a scientific research approach.
And following her, the article by Pye Bowden takes us forward from Tonella’s proposals and emphasises the role of love in the regulation of the body, grounding this both in Lowen and the work of the HeartMath Institute. But she didn’t let it stay “neurobiological”, and to help us understand those concepts more deeply, she generously illustrates that with a beautiful and touching personal history.
And last but not least, the article that was not at the Conference but has a great synchronicity with the issues we dealt with there. It is Leslie Ann Costello’s paper about therapy for women with infertility. This is a problem of the contemporary human being, and it takes a lot of tactfulness to touch such a sensitive theme. Leslie Ann does it with a reflection that brings the body, the culture and the stories, into a very careful setting of powerful healing.
Our sincere thanks goes to the translators of the Abstracts: Claudia Ucros (French), Pablo Telezon (Spanish), Maria Rosaria Filoni (Italian), Maê Nascimento and Edna Veloso de Luna (Portuguese), Thomas Heinrich (German), Olga Nazarova and Alesya Kudinova (Russian).
We hope that you are now ready to start reading this volume. And I hope this inspires you to not only reading but also to writing for this Journal and to open your mind to the community. Guidelines for writing articles to this Journal can be found at the end of this edition.
Léia Cardenuto
November 2019