What is integrative body psychotherapy (ibp)?

IBP is a complete therapeutic and life practice system that combines verbal work with breath and body wisdom for the systematic integration of body, mind, emotions and spirit.

It is a gentle and powerful way of confronting one's deepest patterns, which are located in the body and unconsciously control our lives. Real change comes with insight, but only when awareness permeates the entire being – body as well as mind. IBP emphasizes the importance of relationships and focuses upon awareness at all levels, resulting in profound life-enhancing transformation.

How does ibp help?

Within the IBP framework, the use of breath brings us into our body where we can make contact with our “body voice”. It is a subtle, yet powerful tool like a beacon that brings us into a safe harbor and it also warns us when we are in danger. It tells us what is working for us through joy and what is not - through pain. Awareness of and connection to what is currently not working in our lives, (often very early learned patterns of relationship), allows one to evaluate old, often untrue, beliefs about oneself and / or about the world. Changing one's inner world changes how we see and make contact with the world around us. Trying to change other people instead of oneself - is always doomed to failure.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where it is all too easy to disconnect from ourselves and our “pain” through over-working, eating too much, using alcohol or drugs excessively or any number of other escapisms. Those of us who have experienced trauma know that our inner voice may have been blocked very early, leaving us unable to access our source of guidance, safety and contact with our own inner wisdom. We learned “not to talk, not to trust, and not to feel”. To cope, we build up defenses - habitual ways of being in relationships, which were helpful when they were formed, however, may no longer be our best choices. These early defenses can actually be getting in our way by alienating us from others, as well as, from ourselves.

Awareness of early interruptions, which cause our defensive patterns (character style)  – allows us to see them as our best attempts to cope with life. This allows us to learn new strategies and soften the walls we have built inside to keep us safe. We learn to let go of feelings of shame, remorse and alienation. We can learn to build healthier boundaries for ourselves, ones that we are now in control of. We do this by finding our voice and by giving ourselves permission to speak up on our own behalf. In this way, we begin to take our own power back – as a result, we let go of trying to please or control anyone else. Life becomes less conflictual and more satisfying for ourselves – we learn to listen to our own inner guidance and find the courage to take the next positive steps in our lives.

Natural Processing

Natural Processing is a therapeutic approach that works with our innate drive to bring unresolved issues to the surface in order to resolve them. Our awareness of what is happening in the body when we become activated allows us to move towards the resolution of that old trauma. Many of our reactions in life are driven by parts of our brain and nervous system that do not have verbal language – which makes “insight and understanding” , as important as they are – unavailable to resolution. By connecting to somatic or physical sensations in the moment, when people are able to stay present with awareness – they are able connect and work through their own patterns of behaviour and reactivity. We have all learned to disconnect from our own process of protection – which actually makes life more difficult. These disconnections can be tracked and targeted directly. Through working with a client’s Ventral Vegal system, this explicit contact can help expand the client’s social engagement and help expand their resiliency. When our nervous system is activated by guilt, shame, fear, grief, anger etc., unconsciously our body is constricting, disconnecting, dissociating, bracing, and/or becoming agitated – in therapy, these unconscious responses become more apparent and thereby more workable. These crucial disconnecting dynamics are exposed and can be gently brought to resolution. Our inherent nature is our drive to complete old traumatic injuries, given the support and parameters of our ability to stay present, allowing our central nervous system to re-calibrate and resolve old stuck energetic patterns in the body.