Touched in sensation – moved by respiration

Abstract

The aim of this theoretical article is to elaborate on the underpinning of Norwegian psychomotor physiotherapy (NPMP). With a narrative and hermeneutic point of departure, we explore the unfolding of a 10-year-long treatment by analysing a particular narrative from this treatment context in relation to some foundational perspectives on movement, sensation and time. A woman in her late thirties suffering from muscular tensions and pain, depression, anxiety and anorexia, came for NPMP. The investigation of her treatment experience is based on the journal written by her physiotherapist and first author of this article. We suggest that new experiences in movement and sensation as well as changes in movement patterns can contribute to retuning in sensation and restructuring of narrative time. Feeding the fictional space and narrative fantasy with new experiences in movement and sensation can help counteracting delusional ideas and assist changes, supporting embodied narrative identity. Ingrid's experience is discussed in the light of Trygve Braatøy's understanding of muscular functions, Knud E Løgstrup's phenomenology of sensation and Paul Ricouer's narrative time.

Opening toward life: Experiences of basic body awareness therapy in persons with major depression

“…The temporal elasticity in the experiences of BBAT, expressed through immediate embodied recognition, recalling, and verbalization of life-events, could be regarded as an aspect of body memory (Koch, Caldwell, & Fuchs, 2013 ). Our results can also be related to the recent studies of Norwegian Psychomotor Physiotherapy, which illuminate patients’ process of transformation through new experiences in movement and in sensation, with the new experiences feeding their narrative imagination and reshaping past plots, embodied identity, and future prospects (Sviland, Martinsen, & Råheim, 2014 ; Sviland, Råheim, & Martinsen, 2012 ).…”

Return to work after vocational rehabilitation: does mindfulness matter?

“…Individual counseling – participants were offered individual counseling based on cognitive therapy51 every second week (three meetings in total), plus one individual counseling session in psychomotor physiotherapy52,53 and one counseling session with a sport supervisor whenever an individual exercise program was preferred by the participant. Moreover, the participants were offered assistance to communicate their needs to the employer (for employed participants) or to the NLWA (for the unemployed participants).…”

Norwegian Psychomotor Physiotherapy versus Cognitive Patient Education and active physiotherapy—A randomized controlled trial

“…Overall, the results showed that the group receiving COPE-PT improved more on the questionnaires and physical tests than the group receiving NPMP. The results were surprising, and might reflect that COPE-PT is an approach better targeted for pain coping and increased activity, reflected by the chosen outcomes in In qualitative studies of NPMP patients have described factors like being more in touch with and familiar with their body and self, to be better acquainted with bodily reactions, to better interpret bodily symptoms and to connect these reactions to relational dimensions and habitual ways of acting (Dragesund & Raheim, 2008;Ekerholt & Bergland, 2008;Sviland, Raheim, & Martinsen, 2012;Øien et al, 2009). According to these qualitative studies, the treatment require a process up to one year or even more (Dragesund & Raheim, 2008;Sviland et al, 2012).…”