Bioenergetics - Jenny Streit-Horn, PhD, LPC

Dr. Jenny Streit-Horn is a Certified Bioenergetic Therapist and a Local Trainer in the Dallas Society for Bioenergetic Analysis (DSBA). Visit the DSBA website for more information about training in the Greater Dallas area.

Bioenergetic Analysis is a body-centered approach to psychotherapy developed by Dr. Alexander Lowen. Visit the International Institute of Bioenergetic Analysis (IIBA) website for a great deal of information about the practice and theory of Bioenergetic Analysis.

Bioenergetic Analysis, also referred to as Bioenergetic Therapy, is a Somatic-Relational type of psychotherapy. Bioenergetic therapists provide analysis based on biopsychosocial history of their clients as well how clients’ past history manifests in the body. Bioenergetic Therapy is a melding of analysis and working with the body in the context of a therapeutic relationship. Bioenergetic therapists work with clients’ cognition, emotion, body awareness, muscular tension, and nervous system to help clients. Clients with the following concerns could benefit from Bioenergetic Analysis: self-esteem, depression, anxiety, trauma, physical tension and pain, meaning and purpose in life, relationship struggles, and more.

Bioenergetic therapists seek to bring about the conscious integration of mind and body; therefore, the focus is on both the psychological issues presented and the manifestation of these issues as shown in the individual’s body, energy, and movement. Patterns of muscular tension reflect an individual’s emotional history and include such things as early childhood relationships with caregivers, physical and emotional traumatic experiences, and the degree to which self-development was possible.

By addressing conflicts at a cognitive, emotional, and physical level, Bioenergetic therapists seek to help individuals gain greater understanding and awareness of old patterns of action and reaction, enlarge the capacity to tolerate and resolve old pain, and increase the ability to experience joy and pleasure. In addition to cognitive and emotional processing, Bioenergetic Therapy includes four major types of body work interventions to achieve the goals of your therapy:

International Institute of Bioenergetic Analysis

International Institute
of Bioenergetic Analysis

Awareness Experiences:
Body awareness interventions are designed to assist you in attending to your experience of your body. The focus is on areas of muscular tension, posture, breathing patterns, and the ways in which physical and emotional tensions, behavioral patterns, and mental states are related. Methods of increasing body awareness may be suggested and encouraged.
Physical Interventions:
Physical interventions are used to help bring more aliveness and movement to your body. These movement experiences may focus on areas of your body that have chronic muscular tension, poor circulation, low levels of awareness, or restricted movement abilities. They may include stretching exercises to enhance the tone of your muscles, breathing skills to charge the body or create states of relaxation, and stress reduction tools to expand the range of states you are able to experience. The purpose of these interventions is to increase energy, charge, and feeling by reducing chronic muscular tension and increasing the capacity for movement and self-expression.
Directed Expression:
Difficult or traumatic material from your past is sometimes the focus of therapeutic work, and the release, understanding, and integration of these feelings through procedures that facilitate emotional expression can be a therapeutic goal. To assist you in moving toward this goal, your therapist may suggest directed experiences in emotional expression. You may be asked to participate in body movements, exercises, and experiences that can deepen emotional expression and help you clarify your feelings. In turn, these experiences are designed to support an expanded range of feelings and a deepening of emotional awareness.
Touch:
In Bioenergetic Analysis, touch is sometimes used to help you bring awareness to your body, to release the tension in chronically held muscle groups, to support you during the release of past traumatic material, or to assist you in making new movements outside your usual restricted range of motion.
The guidelines for the use of touch include:
- asking your permission when touch is involved
- respecting your personal boundaries and preferences in the use of touch, and
- staying within the guidelines for the use of touch designated by your therapist’s licensing board and professional association.

Therapists trained in Bioenergetic analysis have been certified to utilize the procedures described above. The purpose of the somatic interventions or movement experiences should be clearly explained by the therapist to your satisfaction, and at no time should your choice of whether to participate in the experiences be compromised.