Creativity and Grounding in a Liquid World

Building and Maintaining a Social Clinic in São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

After more than 14 years dwelling with the challenges of a Social Clinic in Focused Bioenergetics we intend to share our experience with the bioenergetic therapists community. In all those years we have learned much about the difficulties of establishing a line of work suitable to use the bioenergetic approach with troubled people in troubled social environments, in particular those outside of our consumer society. We had to rely more on a progressive approach than on a regressive one in order to bring the analytical process to a successful outcome, consistent with the focused bioenergetics method we adopted. In this process we did not abandon our psychoanalytic-based approach, but humbly adapted our understanding to terms that could be agreed between therapists and clients, establishing what we call the symbolic universe sharing. We were very moved by the theme chosen for the present conference, «The grounded body as a safe place in difficult times”, and felt we should attend. This is the first time a conference addressed exactly our difficulty. The new concepts that were developed during this process will be presented.