Bioenergetic Analysis • The Clinical Journal of the IIBA, 2025 (35), 13–15
https://doi.org/10.30820/0743-4804-2025-35-13 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 www.bioenergetic-analysis.comDear Colleagues of the IIBA Bioenergetic Community,
You may know that the issue of our Journal that you are about to read has been composed by a new Editorial Board: Thomas Fellmann, Yael Harel, Josette van Luytelaar, Homayoun Shahri and Rosaria Filoni. We are grateful to all the colleagues who preceded us with great passion and competence and we hope that we will also be able to do a good job. On the last page you can see our faces and read some information about who we are. For the last few months, we have been preparing this issue that we hope will meet your interest. I present it to you starting from the cover, whose image was donated to us by Vincentia Schroeter. Her works have long introduced us in a poetic way to the reading of Bioenergetic Analysis and I would also like to thank Vincentia for the help and advice that have generously comforted me in this adventure.
Thanks to the reviewers of the articles: Vita Heinrich Clauer, Odila Weigand, Laurie Ure, Peter Geisser, Susan Kanor, Margit Koemeda, Vincentia Schroeter, and Piero Rolando and to the colleagues who translated the abstracts: Angelina Sarmatova (Russian), Chiara Blasi (French), Christoph Helferich (German), Mae Nascimento (Portuguese), Rosaria Filoni (Italian), Rebecca Liu Gianpu (Chinese), IIBA Staff (Spanish).
We choose to open this issue by remembering some colleagues who have left us and who belonged to the first generation of Bioenergetic Analysts. With a letter to the IIBA members, Léia Cardenuto, President of the IIBA, remembers Ed Svasta and her meeting with him, Bob Hilton remembers Bill White with the words he pronounced in his funeral eulogy. We are also happy that, in another part of the Journal, Guy Tonella reviews the Collected Essays of Robert A. Lewis, edited by Gerald Perlman and tells us about Bob’s life and work.
We continue with the publication of an article by Sara Invitto, IIBA colleague and member of the University of Salento and Patrizia Moselli, President of Siab (Italy). Their article: Exploring Embodied and Bioenergetic Approaches in Trauma Therapy: Observing Somatic Experience and Olfactory Memory, was originally published in the prestigious Brain Science Journal, also thanks to the partial financial contribution of the IIBA Research Committee.
Here follows a series of articles that reflect on Bioenergetic Analysis and its updates. The first one you will encounter is the article by Len Carlino with Laurie Ure A Reflection on the Exquisite Amalgam of Bioenergetic Analysis. The authors state that “the uniqueness of bioenergetic analysis lies in the wide variety of facets that it incorporates. These include psychodynamic theory, character analysis, the physical dynamics of character structure, transference and countertransference, the therapist’s use of self with an available heart, resonating with the patient, and the new concept of the pendulum illustrating both regression to progress and progression to regress” and with clinical vignettes they accompany us to understand the concepts they present to us.
Then we have the articles of two colleagues belonging to the Editorial Board: Thomas Fellmann and Homayoun Shahri, who reflect on Character and Object Relations.
Thomas Fellmann in his The object relationship theory in bioenergetic analysis in the light of Kernberg’s conception offers us the possibility of reflecting on the thought of Otto Kernberg, substantially absent from the bioenergetic reflection and which instead offers significant possibilities for expanding our capacity for intervention with clients. “The grounding phenomenon known in bioenergetics is reinterpreted by means of Kernberg’s psychodynamic understanding and the possibilities of the interventions derived from it are explained on the basis of a clinical example”.
Homayoun Shari’s article: Character Structure – An Object Relations Perspective “analyzes character structures based on Object Relations Theory and discusses four phases of object relating, 1) an undifferentiation phase, 2) an incorporating phase, 3) a pre-object relating phase, and finally, 4) a full object relating phase, resulting in internalization and introduces treatment approaches, notwithstanding somatic interventions, based on Object Relations Theory and the theory that he introduces in this paper”.
Another theme, traditionally central in Bioenergetic Analysis is that of aggression and Louise Fréchette, in hers: Aggression: destructive impulse or life force “retraces the evolution of the concept of aggression from the Freudian understanding of that primary impulse to the contemporary analytical authors, as well as to the Reichian and the Lowenian view of it and in the second part presents how today’s bioenergetic therapists conceptualize the aggressive impulse and how they work with it in their clinical practice, so that they can help their patients transform what can be a destructive force into a life force sustaining self-expression and self-actualization”.
In recent years, Polyvagal Theory has been at the center of interest of Bioenergetic Analysts and Arild Hafstad, in his: Integrating Polyvagal Theory in Bioenergetic Therapy brings his contribution to the reflection on its possible integration into bioenergetic clinical practice.
Yael Harel, in her article Being discovered by the m/other “delves into the intricate early stages of development through the unique perspective of experiences. It draws on a diverse range of disciplines, such as embryology, psychology, and philosophy, as well as the realms of imagination and metaphor, to seek a deeper understanding of this period”.
And we come to the two book reviews that complete this issue of our Journal. We have already talked about Guy Tonella’s touching review of the Collected Essays of Robert A. Lewis, edited by Gerald Perlman, and we conclude with Josette van Luytelaar and Homayoun Shahri who review of the book by Jens Tasche and Carsten Holle: Psychodynamische Grundlagen der Bioenergetischen Analyse [Psychodynamic Foundations of Bioenergetic Analysis].
We wish you a good read.
Furthermore, as the Editorial Board, we are encouraging everyone to send us articles for the next issues.
We believe that the more colleagues write, the more our Journal can contribute to the dialogue between the IIBA and other psychotherapeutic modalities (and to the scientific growth of our organization). We eagerly look forward to reports on empirical research, case studies, theoretical elaborations, and conference materials that meet the IIBA editorial standards. Articles about Bioenergetic Analysis in different countries and socio-cultural realities or in specific fields are also of great interest. If you have an idea, we are here to work with you on how to formulate it up as a clinical article for our Bioenergetic Analysis journal.
We remind you that articles can be submitted from June 1st to September 1st of each year and that these articles will be read by two “double-blind” reviewers to ensure confidentiality and fairness.
Maria Rosaria Filoni