The Practice of Embodying Emotions: A Guide for Improving Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Outcomes

Praise for The Practice of Embodying Emotions

A grand accomplishment. A unique synthesis. With academic precision, and with a deep gift for reflection, Dr. Selvam takes us on a stunning journey, exploring the structure and function of emotion in the brain as well as the body, the role emotions play in health and dis-ease, and how the body can be used to create a greater capacity to regulate and tolerate emotions to improve cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes in all therapies. The Practice of Embodying Emotions is a rich addition for all therapists, as well as a gift to laypersons wishing to contact their emotional intelligence and enrich their lives.

—Peter A Levine, PhD, developer of Somatic Experiencing® and best-selling author of Waking the Tiger and In an Unspoken Voice

Our capacity to regulate our emotions is extremely important for healing our attachment wounds and for having healthy relationships. This book, which offers a simple and effective method for building in us a greater capacity to regulate our emotions through our body, is a must for all therapists who work with attachment and for those looking for a self-help approach to improve their relationships.

—Diane Poole Heller, PhD, author of Crash Course and The Power of Attachment and creator of DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning experience) Training

Ripe for our times, this brilliant book sheds light on the vital importance of fully embodying emotions, whether painful, pleasurable, or in-between. With an abundance of research and empirical evidence, it makes the case that emotions have a stronger influence on cognition and behavior than the other way around. As a couples’ therapist and a child advocate for mental health in our schools, I experienced this book as a joyous godsend. With the support of the compassionate presence of another, emotions can be felt and fully expanded within the body to make them allies rather than foes. Dr. Selvam generously provides details of his four-step approach to alleviate suffering and enhance pleasure through the vehicle of emotional embodiment.

—MAGGIE KLEIN, LMFT, Somatic Experiencing® faculty member, and author of Brain-Changing Strategies to Trauma-Proof Our Schools

There are many things I like about this book. I like that it is not only about changing emotional reactions but also about changing cognition and behavior (for the better) through regulating emotions—and that it shows scientifically how cognition, emotion, and behavior are intimately related to each other in the brain as well as the body. I also like that it provides evidence that our cognition, emotion, and behavior are dependent on others as well as the broader environment. I like how the book alternates between theory and concrete examples and embodies the author’s persistence and brilliance. I highly recommend it to all therapists and those who are serious about their personal and spiritual growth.

—Lisbeth Marcher, founder of the Bodynamic Somatic Developmental Psychology System, coauthor of The Body Encyclopedia, and former president of EABP (European Association for Body Psychotherapy)

Raja Selvam’s book is a revelation. Combining the findings of neuroscience, Western psychodynamic theories, and Western and Eastern insights into the mind-body relationship, he has created a powerful and transformative approach to the way we experience and work with emotion. His extensive work with traumatized individuals and groups has put this approach to the test, and the resulting techniques make an invaluable addition to all forms of psychotherapy. Every page of this book conveys depth, clarity, and substance.

—Glen Slater, PhD, cochair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute

This book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in understanding and working with the embodiment of emotions. It is the perfect combination of science, historical and cultural context, client case examples, and presentation of a well-articulated, innovative model. The reader is guided, eloquently and methodically, on an exploratory journey of interwoven threads of traditions, disciplines, and models for understanding emotion. That journey seamlessly leads into a clear and detailed description of Dr. Selvam’s approach to working effectively with embodying emotions.

—Kathy L. Kain, PhD, coauthor of Nurturing Resilience and The Tao of Trauma

Don’t miss this book! A valuable guide for therapists and interested folks alike. Introducing new concepts, solid theory, and grounded practice for working to embody emotions in gentle and innovative ways. The concept of sensorimotor emotions is a unique and much-needed contribution to the field of human consciousness. Refreshing in its presentation, with clarity, guiding the reader along a path of discovery toward embracing their whole being.

—Ian Macnaughton, MBA, PhD, psychotherapist and author of Body, Breath & Consciousness

The Practice of Embodying Emotions is a timely and necessary refinement to the practice of somatic psychology. Raja Selvam captures, elucidates, and makes clinically useful an essential element of embodied therapy—the use of the body to experience and express emotion as well as to defend against the experience and expression of emotion. His effort to bring all of this to life is both vital and indispensable to this moment in the development of the field of somatics and its clinical usefulness.

—Maureen Gallagher, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, certified psychoanalyst, Somatic Experiencing® faculty member, Inner Relationship Focusing Trainer, and EFT Certified Supervisor

In Jungian psychology the capacity to tolerate opposites in human experience, especially emotion, is key for optimal psychological health, individual growth, and fulfilling relationships. Trauma recovery depends on it, as does community development and navigating the challenges in our turbulent world. The Practice of Embodying Emotions—a wise and soulful book—offers an effective method for developing greater affect tolerance and transformation through the body. Rooted in science and the author’s depth of experience and capacity for integrating multiple disciplines, it contains practical, comprehensive information and illuminating case examples. Highly recommended, this book is a must for all Jungians, healing practitioners, and those who seek to help make the world a better place.

—Tina Stromsted, PhD, LMFT, LPPC, RSME/T, Jungian psychoanalyst, dance/movement therapist, somatics educator, and director of Soul’s Body® Center

The Practice of Embodying Emotions is a substantial contribution to psychoanalysis, allowing and enabling a safe, hands-off somatic approach for treating trauma. This brilliant book ought to become required reading for all psychoanalysts and therapists involved in trauma treatment.

—Margret Overdick, psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, trauma therapist, and specialist in pre- and perinatal psychological trauma treatment

Selvam’s extraordinary book offers an in-depth explanation of how the human body is involved in generating, defending against, and later triggering traumatic emotional experiences—especially prelinguistic ones—and is therefore a vital source of understanding of the physiology of implicit trauma memories that dominate the work of those engaged in pre- and perinatal psychology. The Practice of Embodying Emotions is brilliant and humble, research based, and intuitive. It is a ‘game changer’ in the field of trauma therapy, and I personally rate it five out of five.

—William R. Emerson, PhD, psychologist, winner of US National Science Foundation Award for Significant Contributions to Psychology, and author of Treatment of Birth Trauma in Infants and Children

This book unmasks what is most painful and hidden in our minds and bodies. It is gentle. It is compassionate. It helped me reduce my own fear and reclaim my body. One of its many compelling aspects is that it embraces all our experience: our traumas, anxieties, terror, joy, and on and on. Rather than discounting other approaches to therapy, it builds on them with honesty, wisdom, and self-awareness—ultimately offering me a logical and clear guide to my own healing. It is simply an amazing and superb book; it has deepened and broadened my life and sense of self.

—Paul Lieber, actor, poet, teacher at Loyola Marymount University and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, and author of the poetry collections Chemical Tendencies and Interrupted by the Sea

Raja Selvam’s extensive work on embodying emotions and regulating them through the body is a wonderful addition to the field of trauma healing. The book also includes what I particularly cherish: an extensive cross-cultural awareness.

—Gina Ross, MFCT, Somatic Experiencing® senior faculty, founder and president of the International Trauma Healing Institute, and author of several books on trauma including Breaking News! The Media and The Trauma Vortex

As a trauma therapist and educator, I found The Practice of Embodying Emotions to be a deeply satisfying work. It offers a practical combination of well-thought-out theory and research and numerous case examples to demonstrate and clarify the concepts and the methods. Raja Selvam is clearly an exceptional clinician, and I particularly benefited from the experiential exercises provided in the latter chapters. This book is a must-read for therapists and will be profoundly relevant for the layperson committed to their own healing.

—Ariel Giarretto, MS, LMFT, SEP, trauma therapist and educator

Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP) on which this book is based is a breath of fresh air for the professional community and the general public. It weaves together current science, Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, the linear and nonlinear world of emotional experience, and takes us to the next level of healing. It is brilliantly written and offers a wealth of information for anybody who wishes to engage deeply with the complex arena of trauma work. I have already gained priceless insights into my traumatization, stemming from racism and being a Vietnam combat veteran. Especially now, in these troubled times, people can gain a deeper understanding of their own response to PTSD with the help of Integral Somatic Psychology.

—Ralph Steele, MA, LMFT, SEP, ISPP, teacher of Embodying Emotions Through Somatic Meditation and author of Tending the Fire

This wonderful book offers a deep yet simple practice that aims to increase our ability to withstand, process, and complete difficult psychological experiences. It is useful for psychotherapists of different modalities and specialists in other helping professions, as well as for everyone searching for ways to cope with emotional forces in everyday life without suffering from avoidance. The main idea of the approach is surprisingly simple: involve more of the body in the emotional experience by removing physiological defenses against emotions and stay with the emotional experience for a longer period. Expanding and sustaining emotional experience this way, in turn, has a positive effect on almost all human systems (cognitive, behavioral, relational, physical, energetic, and spiritual).

—Elena Romanchenko, psychotherapist, psychologist, educator, and member of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy (EABP)

Developing the capacity to competently deal with deep emotions is a critical element in accessing and resolving powerful responses that can have a major impact in our lives. In this wonderful book, Raja Selvam offers a roadmap for identifying, accessing, and processing both present-day and long-ago emotions that live in our bodies and unconscious processes across a lifetime, often arising unbidden to play their irresistible role in current relationships and circumstances. With practical suggestions and guidelines, he shows us the way to develop the skill and ability to meet and resolve distressing and previously overwhelming emotional experiences.

—Nancy J. Napier, MA, LMFT, psychotherapist specializing in trauma resolution, Somatic Experiencing® faculty member, and author of Getting Through the Day, Recreating Your Self, and Sacred Practices for Conscious Living

Finally! We have been waiting for this book for years! In this groundbreaking work, Raja Selvam creates the long-overdue synthesis of psychotherapy, neuroscience, and quantum physics as well as of cognition, emotion, and behavior to provide a tool for working with emotions that will profoundly enrich and facilitate your therapeutic work, no matter what your specialty is. You and your clients will be grateful!

—Dr. Elisabeth Pellegrini, specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry, psychoanalyst, teacher at the Medical University of Vienna, the University of Vienna, and the Danube University in Krems, and a training analyst in the Vienna Circle for Psychoanalysis and Self-Psychology

In this very approachable book, Dr. Selvam marries the science of embodied emotion with the practice of healing. Practicing therapists as well as lay people will benefit greatly from the specific prescriptions offered in the book. Particularly at this trying time in human history, Dr. Selvam’s instructive book serves as a balm to our broken species, and as an instruction manual on how to recover from our collective traumas.

—Akshay R. Rao, PhD, General Mills chair in Marketing at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

Copyright © 2022 by Raja Selvam. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books

Huichin, unceded Ohlone land

aka Berkeley, California

Cover art © Nickolay Grigoriev/Shutterstock.com

Cover design by Mimi Bark

Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama

The Practice of Embodying Emotions: A Guide for Improving Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Outcomes is sponsored and published by North Atlantic Books, an educational nonprofit based in the unceded Ohlone land Huichin (aka Berkeley, CA), that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: The following information is intended for general information purposes only. Individuals should always see their health care provider before administering any suggestions made in this book. Any application of the material set forth in the following pages is at the reader’s discretion and is his or her sole responsibility.

North Atlantic Books’ publications are distributed to the US trade and internationally by Penguin Random House Publishers Services. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Selvam, Raja, 1956– author.

Title: The Practice of Embodying Emotions : A Guide for Improving

Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Outcomes / Raja Selvam, PhD.

Description: Berkeley, CA : North Atlantic Books, [2022] | Includes

bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021014095 (print) | LCCN 2021014096 (ebook) | ISBN

9781623174774 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781623174781 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Emotions. | Somesthesia. | Emotions and cognition. | Mind

and body. | Psychotherapy.

Classification: LCC BF531 .S45 2021 (print) | LCC BF531 (ebook) | DDC

152.4—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021014095

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021014096

This book includes recycled material and material from well-managed forests. North Atlantic Books is committed to the protection of our environment. We print on recycled paper whenever possible and partner with printers who strive to use environmentally responsible practices.

Acknowledgments

My parents, Kannammal and Muthuswamy, made the life I have possible. Without their dedication to my growth throughout my life, it is hard to imagine how this book could be here. I therefore dedicate this book to them, in gratitude.

I express my gratitude to those on whose shoulders the practice of embodying emotion stands, many of whom are named in the introduction as important influences in my professional development.

Of thousands the world over to whom I am deeply indebted for this life of mine, some have engraved deeper imprints on my soul. Richard Auger, my Jungian analyst for over twenty-five years, has been more of a caring father than a therapist. Cécile Ziemons, my love, companion, wife, anchor, harbor, catalyst, and critic, and an award-winning writer, has been a constant support throughout the writing of this book. Cécile, I love you!

I am also grateful to my maternal uncle Jegadeesan, in whose love I found the support to live through early separations from my mother; my paternal uncle Ramaswamy, who admired and supported my interest in reading and predicted that I would write a book one day; Alice Matthews, my class teacher in the seventh grade, who gave me much-needed confidence through a timely reflection of my academic ability, in the English-language boarding school I joined in the sixth grade with hardly any knowledge of English; Mr. Murugesan, my headmaster in the Tamil-language village school, who helped me to prepare for boarding school during lunch breaks; and dear friend Ron Doctor, who has given me much personal and professional support over the years.

One of the blessings of this life of mine is the opportunity to interact on a deep level with people from so many different cultures on every continent, form close friendships, and realize how similar we all are as human beings. I would like to express my love and appreciation to all of them and thank them for letting me into their hearts and lives and making my life so rich.

I would also like to express my gratitude to my publisher, North Atlantic Books, a nonprofit organization that embodies sincerity, heart, and soul through every individual I have had the pleasure of working with there: Tim McKee, the publisher, who patiently worked with me to arrive at a contract and introduced me to my excellent developmental editor; Shayna Keyles, the acquisitions editor, who went beyond the call of duty to offer me valuable editing suggestions, chapter by chapter; Lisbeth White, my developmental editor, who not only made the book much better but also made me a much better writer in the process; Brent Winter, whose meticulous and informed copyediting made the book even better; and Trisha Peck, the production editor, for helping me move through the many complexities involved from manuscript submission to publication.

I would like to thank my colleague and friend Maggie Kline for taking the time to offer very valuable comments. And last, but not least, two special thanks are in order. Louise Peyrot, the manager of my organization Integral Somatic Psychology, LLC, single-handedly manages almost all organizational activities to give me the time to write. Louise, I cannot thank you enough for all that you do for me and the organization, with such professionalism, kindness, compassion, and spirit of service! And Robert Gussenhoven, who plays multiple roles for us, including business consulting and website design, with such ability and ease—I thank you also for taking care of the art in the book.

Introduction

What This Book Is About

This book is about emotion. The book is also about the body, in relation to emotion. Specifically, it is about how to build a greater capacity to tolerate emotion. Its aim is to scientifically establish that we can build a greater capacity for tolerating emotion—especially unpleasant emotion—by expanding the emotional experience to as much of the body as possible, and how that can improve not only emotional but also physical, energetic, cognitive, behavioral, relational, and even spiritual outcomes in all therapies.

This book also aims to offer concrete steps and tools for how one might go about embodying emotion, or building a greater capacity for tolerating emotion through expansion of its experience to as much of the body as possible, to improve a range of outcomes. The book is for professionals in all therapeutic modalities who are looking for ways to improve outcomes in whatever work they do, as well as for those looking for self-help tools for managing turbulent emotions in daily life.

People seek help when they are feeling sufficiently bad about something that they cannot deal with by themselves. There is an emotional difficulty in the core of almost every problem that clients present to their therapists. There are many effective ways to resolve an emotional difficulty: through changing how we think about a situation (cognition), changing how we deal with a situation through expression or action (behavior), changing the state of the brain and body physiology through medication, or numerous other means such as exercise, nutrition, meditation, essential oils, bodywork, and even electric shock. Or we can stay with the emotional experience in whatever form it appears, for as long as is necessary, until it transforms—a common practice on many spiritual paths.

People come to us, their therapists, for help with their suffering. Why not reduce or simply take away their suffering through one of the above methods, without taking people deeper into their suffering to build a greater capacity for tolerating it by expanding the emotional experience to as much of the body as possible? The answer lies in the latest findings in neuroscience, which establish that all of our three important psychological functions—cognition, emotion, and behavior—depend not only on the brain but also on the body and its connection to the environment; and that inhibiting the involvement of the body in emotion compromises our cognition as well as our behavior relative to the situation that has to do with the emotion. These findings, in combination with the central thesis of this book—that involving more of the body in emotional experience can create a greater capacity to tolerate the emotion and stay with it for a longer period of time—offer the possibility of improved outcomes in cognition and behavior, even in therapies that focus primarily on cognitive or behavioral methods.

Emotion is a summary assessment of a situation’s impact on a person’s well-being. The brain that has a longer time to process an emotion—because it is more regulated from being more expanded through the body—has a greater chance of generating more functional cognitions and behaviors in relation to the situation. If I can tolerate my rage in a relationship setting, what I think and do in the situation is likely to be more regulated and relational. So, even therapies that focus on facilitating cognitive and behavioral change to bring about symptom relief can improve their outcomes by incorporating the practice of embodying emotion.

All of the usual methods for working with emotion—especially the strategy of staying with the awareness of the emotional experience until transformation occurs—do enable people to develop some capacity for tolerating emotion. However, the extent to which these methods can develop a capacity for tolerating emotions is limited because they either do not work with the body or, if they do work with the body, their focus is not on expanding the emotional experience to as much of the body as possible. Of all the methods, the strategy of staying with an emotional experience until transformation occurs is most likely to increase affect tolerance.

However, the transformation a person is working toward might take longer or not happen at all if they do not know that an emotional experience, especially a difficult one, potentially involves the entirety of the brain and body physiology. In addition, people need to know that one needs to work with physiological defenses against emotions to expand the emotional experience to as much of the body as possible. This will increase the capacity to tolerate it for a longer period and to fully grasp the impact that a situation is having on our well-being. There is also the risk of retraumatization in passively staying with an emotion wherever it appears, as opposed to actively working with the body to regulate the emotional experience by expanding it, thus reducing the likelihood of retraumatization.

For all of the above reasons, embodying emotion—expanding the emotional experience to as much of the body as possible, to acquire a greater capacity to tolerate it—offers the potential for improving various outcomes in combination with all therapies and all of the usual methods for working with emotions, including medication.

For those who are not working in the helping professions, the book has also been written to serve as a self-help guide for understanding and working with emotional difficulties, large and small. For those who intend to use the book for self-help, even if you are a therapist, please make sure to seek professional help in case you find yourself in a difficult place. Please remember that as far as emotions are concerned, sooner or later we always need the support of others to resolve things, no matter who we are.

I would like to briefly share with you my personal and professional journeys that led me to develop the work of emotional embodiment, with a nod to those who helped me along the way. Then I will present a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book, followed by suggestions for strategies you can use to get the most out of this book.

The Development of Emotional Embodiment Work

In their insightful book Faces in a Cloud: Intersubjectivity in Personality Theory, intersubjective psychoanalysts Atwood and Stolorow make the case that the diverse psychological theories developed by psychologists Freud, Jung, and Reich were shaped by these thinkers’ personal histories, needs, and personalities.1 My Jungian analyst, Richard Auger, often observes that we teach what we need to learn. Looking back over my life and my choice of orientations in psychology, I find that my relationship with the work of emotional embodiment in Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP) is no exception. I developed ISP as a comprehensive psychological approach to the embodiment of all levels of the psyche, individual and collective, with emotional embodiment as its primary clinical strategy, to improve cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes in all therapies.

I had a rough start in life. My mother and I nearly died during my birth. I got stuck in a birth canal too narrow for my head, with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around my neck during a prolonged labor under the care of a very inexperienced midwife. It was a miracle that we both survived, as my paternal grandmother remembered it. The birth trauma brought me close to cerebral palsy; I learned this from the symptoms I experienced while processing the birth trauma in therapy and in a dream from that period. My mother and I became tightly bonded, I think in part because of this shared traumatic experience. The repeated and prolonged separations from my mother I experienced from between the age of ten months until I was five years old were probably all the more traumatic because of the birth trauma and the close bond between us. When you add the physical, verbal, and emotional abuse my father subjected me to, my history does add up to something! I once dreamed that I went into a room in a heavily guarded police station to find a filing cabinet full of folders containing descriptions of all the kinds of traumas I have experienced in my life.

I have always marveled at how people appear to choose professions that offer them the optimal setting and opportunity to not only be of service to others but also to heal themselves personally. I see this especially among therapists in their choice to become mental health professionals and in the therapeutic modalities they choose, both for training and for treatment. The same is true for me.

All the early traumas caused me to lose my connection to my emotions and my body, and I grew up as a brainy kid interested more in mathematics than music. Once when I went on a date with a girl who loved music, I proudly offered her a mathematical theory of music appreciation. I am sure you can imagine how that turned out! Therefore, it made sense that from the very beginning of my professional development in psychology, I was drawn to bodywork systems such as Postural Integration, yoga, and body psychotherapy systems such as Reichian Therapy, Bioenergetics, and Bodynamic Analysis. This is where I first learned about physiological defenses against emotions and other psychological experiences, and how to work with such defenses gently (and not so gently) to connect the head to the body and to access emotions to work with them, often cathartically or regressively.

Wilhelm Reich, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, is considered to be the founder of the body psychotherapy tradition in the West. The system he developed is called Reichian Therapy. Body psychotherapy approaches such as Bioenergetic Analysis, with their origin in Reichian Therapy, are identified as neo-Reichian therapies. The field of body psychotherapy now consists of such neo-Reichian approaches as well as other modalities. In my opinion, Bodynamic Somatic Developmental Psychology, also known as Bodynamic Analysis, is the most sophisticated body psychotherapy system to date, with its empirically derived map of the psychological functions of the major voluntary muscles based on their psychomotor functions, and a complex character structure theory for seven stages of childhood development. This system is perhaps years ahead of its time, given how limited the orientation to the body still is in the larger field of psychology. I learned a great deal from teaching the Bodynamic Analysis psychology of muscles and character structure theory for a number of years. I cannot thank Lisbeth Marcher and her colleagues at the Bodynamic Institute enough for their contribution to my personal and professional development by offering me a detailed map of the emotional needs of the child in each state of its development.2

Many of the early traumas of my life involved so much stress and dysregulation in my body and brain that I suffered for a long time from symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as sensitivity to noise, poor sleep, and extreme reactivity in relationships, without realizing they could be symptoms of PTSD. Traumatic stress, especially from early childhood, often involves high levels of stress, dysregulation, and reactivity in the autonomic nervous system and the viscera governed by it, and in the central nervous system areas of the brain and the spinal cord.

It helped me a great deal to train in a body-oriented trauma training called Somatic Experiencing (SE), which focuses on resolving trauma through autonomic regulation, and then teaching the approach all over the world on behalf of its founder, Dr. Peter Levine. These experiences were beneficial not only in healing my traumatic stress symptoms but also in providing me with a laboratory to develop my emotional embodiment work. Dr. Levine, whose book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma continues to be a bestseller in its category more than twenty years after its publication, is an exquisitely fine clinician with an incredible intelligence.3 He is a master at downregulating highly aroused autonomic nervous systems that are often the cause of symptoms of traumatic stress. I owe so much personally and professionally to this exceptional individual and am very grateful for meeting him so early in my career in psychology.

My training in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy from Dr. Michael Shea helped me to understand how to work directly with stress and dysregulation in the central nervous system areas of the brain and spinal cord in others as well as myself.4 The core areas of the brain and spinal cord are increasingly dysregulated with severe trauma, such as birth and early abandonment traumas, which I have in my own history. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy also taught me how to work with the body in its depth at the quantum or subatomic level, which can become increasingly dysregulated when the intensity of trauma worsens. This approach also taught me how to reconnect the body to collective healing energies in its environment, a connection that can be compromised in trauma to a greater or lesser extent depending on the severity of the trauma.

I experienced much difficulty in accessing my emotions and regulating them, and in sensing my body, both as an academic in business before I became interested in formal training in psychology and during my subsequent education and training to become a licensed clinical psychologist. This motivated me to study the findings of research on emotions and their physiology in depth, especially in affective neuroscience and body psychotherapy paradigms, to find clues for how to access and work better with emotions and the body, both for my clients and myself.

Body psychotherapies such as Reichian Therapy, Bioenergetics, and Bodynamic Analysis work with body defenses primarily in the muscular nervous system to access and express emotions. Of late, the focus of body psychotherapy has expanded to include the role of the autonomic nervous system. Somatic Experiencing, for example, focuses more on working with defenses and dysregulation in the autonomic nervous system to access and regulate emotions. The approaches based on meditative practices from the East, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction, deal with emotions through mindfulness practice. The intersubjective and Kleinian psychoanalytic approaches and the analytical psychology of Jung work with emotions primarily through cognition. The cognitive behavioral approaches regulate emotions through cognition and behavior. And the fine work done by bodywork and energy work approaches regulates emotions by regulating the body or energy respectively. These are all either evidence-based or time-and-market-tested methods that are effective in helping clients with a variety of clinical problems. However, I found them lacking somehow, or time-consuming, or incomplete in their approach to working with emotions, at least for some of my clients—especially for myself!

More than one surprise emerged from my in-depth study of the physiology of emotions in affective neuroscience, especially in an area called embodied cognition. One of these surprises was recognizing that our understanding of the physiology of emotion and of the physiology of cognition has been going through paradigm shifts in the last twenty years, turning earlier findings on their heads. It was also surprising to see that so little of what we understand about the physiology of emotion and of cognition has been integrated into the practice of psychology, even in body psychotherapy systems. In addition, I noticed that most of the research on emotion is focused on a limited number of primary emotions, such as anger and sadness, and neglects the larger number of always-present emotions that I started to refer to as sensorimotor emotions—emotions such as just feeling good or bad about a situation one finds oneself in. Finally, the more recent findings in affective neuroscience in newer research paradigms of embodied and embedded cognition, and embodied and enactive emotion, provide substantial theoretical and empirical evidence for the effectiveness of emotional embodiment work in improving cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes across therapeutic modalities, which I had been finding empirically for some time.

No work stands solely on its own feet. It always stands on a pyramid of shoulders that reaches far below into the past. I have many to thank for my education about the interrelated physiology of emotion, cognition, and behavior. I will, however, limit my thanks to those close to the top of this pyramid of accumulated wisdom. I learned that the body as well as the brain are involved in emotion from neuroscientist Antonio Damasio (in whose lineage Bud Craig has been making outstanding contributions of late) and from neuroscientist and psychoneuroimmunologist Candace Pert.5,6,7

The work of a number of brilliant minds taught me that emotion, cognition, and behavior are functions of not only the brain but also the body and the environment; that cognition, emotion, and behavior are fundamentally inseparable in the physiology of the brain and the body; that embodying emotion can improve cognition and behavior; and that emotion is dynamic and predictive. Those brilliant minds belong to Eugene Gendlin8 from the University of Chicago, Marc Johnson9 at the University of Oregon, Lisa Feldman Barrett10 at Northeastern University, Sian Beilock at Barnard College,11 Giovanna Colombetti12 at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, Evan Thompson13 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Paula Niedenthal14 at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Rebekka Hufendiek15 at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

Any effective work with emotion requires an understanding of the psychological defenses against intolerable or unacceptable emotions, as well as adequate outside support for emotional experiences. I was fortunate enough to learn how to work with psychological defenses against emotions and to support emotions in not just one but a number of psychological modalities: the humanistic psychology of Carl Rogers, the gestalt therapy of Fritz Perls, Heinz Kohut’s self psychology, Melanie Klein’s object relations, and the intersubjective psychoanalysis of Robert Stolorow.

I grew up in India and moved to the United States for higher education at the age of twenty-six. I grew up in a family in which dreams were seen as meaningful messages from the collective. In my culture, one’s quantum energy body is real, and an individual’s experience is deeply embedded in and shaped by the collective. Therefore, it was natural that I would be drawn to Jungian psychology from almost the beginning of my study of psychology because of its expansive view of the human psyche. It was also natural that I would eventually be drawn back to an Eastern psychology that proposes an even more expansive view of the psyche: Advaita Vedanta, a school of Hindu philosophy. In addition to incorporating all levels of the psyche from Jungian psychology, Advaita Vedanta theorizes that the individual is ultimately inseparable from and identical with the collective.

In order to work with emotions, which are the most difficult of our experiences, it makes sense that one needs to work with all levels of the psyche—physical, energetic, and collective—that bear upon them. Jungian psychology, Advaita Vedanta,16 yoga, Randolph Stone’s Polarity Therapy,17 and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy18 gave me the necessary understanding and tools to begin to work with all levels of the psyche in relation to emotions. Developing a greater capacity for opposites in experience, or building affect tolerance, is emphasized in intersubjective psychoanalysis for psychological health, in Jungian psychology for individuation, and in Advaita Vedanta for enlightenment. Seeing the importance that these diverse systems placed on affect tolerance was an early inspiration in the development of emotional embodiment work as a core clinical strategy in the larger framework of ISP, my comprehensive approach to the psyche.

When I set out twenty years ago to develop the approach of embodying emotion—focused on developing a