Research related to body-centred psychotherapy remains under-represented in the literature. There are very few studies about the client experience with these therapies. In this research, the results of a hermeneutic-phenomenological inquiry into the experience of Psoma Yoga, a body-centred therapy, are presented. Interactive interviews were conducted with six adults, four women and two men, who had participated in Psoma Yoga. Interpretive thematic analysis based on a reflexive phenomenological epistemology was used. Themes identified in the data were the call, embodiment, and transformation. Psoma Yoga participants report being called to this type of experience. They noticed embodiment which resulted in increased awareness, changes in perception and transformed relationships with self, others and the world. Findings are discussed in relation to current neuroscience knowledge, integration into nursing practice, education and counselling and psychotherapy practice. The uniqueness of this work lies in its rich description of embodiment as a potential guide for creating greater health, well-being and wholeness, for individuals and communities. As a result of this research, individuals and caring professionals such as nurses, counsellors, and educators are encouraged to consider including a more body-centred approach to life and practice. Considerations for further research are recommended.

Full thesis

Background – Psoma Yoga in brief

Psoma Yoga and Psoma Yoga Therapy are terms coined and trademarked by Donna Martin to describe the integrative body-centered psychotherapy yoga style she uses in her work.  

This method is based on the yoga sutras of Patanjali, pranayama, and mindfulness practice including mindfulness-based asana and applied mindfulness: the Hakomi way (body-centered psychotherapy).  Psoma Yoga helps the participant to learn more about body patterns and habits and Psoma Yoga Therapy is a way of working with these body patterns to offer the participant more choice or possibilities.  This [Psoma Yoga and Psoma Yoga Therapy] is an approach to body/mind/spirit healing which understands healing as the unfolding of wholeness, or wholeness happening (Martin, 2011, n.p.).

Why Study Psoma Yoga? 

Research related to body-centred psychotherapy remains under-represented in the literature. There are very few studies about the client experience with these therapies.  In this research, the results of a hermeneutic-phenomenological inquiry into the experience of Psoma Yoga, a body-centred therapy, are presented.  Interactive interviews were conducted with 6 (six) adults, 4 (four) women and 2 (two) men, who had participated in Psoma Yoga.  Interpretive thematic analysis based on a reflexive phenomenological epistemology was used.

Research Findings  - 3 Main Themes:  The Call, Embodiment, Transformation

Each person’s experience, described uniquely, revealed important aspects of the overall experience.

The Call

The participants described being invited or called to Psoma Yoga.  Invitations, suggestions or calls may be a return to the existential self, a “call of conscience”, and in Heidegger’s view, there is a way of hearing and listening for the authentic being (Brogan, 2013, p. 35). Heidegger says, hearing the “call” and the voice of conscience requires the gift of hearing the silence of the authentic word... Authentic speaking has to be made room for and allowed to be made manifest... The call of conscience is the return of phenomenological language, letting what is speak of and from out of itself... It can only be heard silently.  (Brogan, 2013, p. 36)

“When I went to the first training it was just with an open mind, just to sit there and say ‘what is this all about’, ‘how does this work’... I got curious” (Echo).  “Come back to the breath, come back to the body, come back to this moment and we’ll go from there” (Charlie).  “Listening to your experiences with your body” (Foxtrot).

Embodiment   

(5 subthemes – thinking, sensing, feeling and intuition; awakening; seeing; space and time; being)

Thinking, Sensing, Feeling and Intuition.  I was more in recognition of my body after, more in tune with it, much more aware of it...Foxtrot

I want to be very clear... there’s a great big difference between having a conceptual idea of something and having a full-bodied experience of something.  Having a conceptual idea would be “sure it’s important to take risks and go into the unknown” but unless you have a really grounded body experience of it, it’s hard to take those steps.  Somewhere in there is the sense that there is a foundation, life is supporting you, and that is not a conceptual idea.  It is a felt and experienced sense, like gravity is always working on my behalf... Knowing that life is working for me and not just knowing it, but feeling it and experiencing it; it’s easier to take risks. (Alpha)

Awakening.  I remember going outside in the break afterwards and actually seeing the world differently- profoundly differently.  It is like I could see every leaf of the plant was like a friend, like a living being. There was more colour and more detail in what I was seeing in nature.  It blew me away.  I couldn’t believe it. It was like “am I dreaming?”, no, I’m awake. (Delta)

We carry our whole story in our bodies... It might just be a blink that is seen in a nanosecond, or out of the peripheral of our eye, but our story is carried in us all the time!   I stay really open to how I take [clients] in, I’m listening with my whole physicality to somebody, like letting my whole body be the receptor of them... To intuitively respond to somebody isn’t based so much on anything rational or based on something they say... For me it is very heart-centred around the whole presence of the person. I look for the stories everywhere. (Charlie)

Seeing.  Alpha laughed as he shared, “It's like we think how we see things, is how things are.”  And he says “I'm not really used to thinking of perception as a habit but of course it is… I think some of our compelling stories have a pretty powerful pull.  To be able to step aside, even a little bit, and to say this is not what's going on now, but this is how my body is reacting”

Space and Time.  I realize that maybe the space I am living in might be bigger than what I am actually seeing in the moment... It’s like there are different levels and my attention might be in one but it doesn’t mean that the other one is not there…This beautiful, beautiful realization of being able to relax and be with what was actually going on inside me” (Delta). 

Simple practices begin to tug on you and heighten your curiosity. “What we were doing didn’t seem like much at all but it seemed to be touching some very profound elements” (Alpha). 

The “healing space” allows the individual to move fluidly between perspectives, sometimes seeing the water from edge of the river (time) and sometimes from within the river (timeless).  This “healing space” is a paradox, a place that both has a starting point and is void of past, present and future. Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/2002) perspectives on space outline that whatever is occurring, there is no context until a perspective is established. The Psoma Yoga experience then, creates a place to start, a place to begin to unfold and solidify the meanings and relationships between the abstract objects and ideas that relate with the individual. 

Being.  Approaching health from the point of view of beingness [brings out] the naturalness of our own ability to continue to heal.  When we do that, miracles are naturally happening.  There is no effort, there is kind of a relaxed beingness. I think most of us get caught into fixing or right/wrong thinking.  I think it takes practice and vigilance to learn how to step out of that.  There is something about it [this way of seeing and being] that is poetic, like something that you catch a sense or feeling about.  It’s not so concrete because I think in some ways its function is supporting change at a very, very subtle level. There is a moving from an egocentric point of view to a non-egocentric point of view. (Alpha)

Alpha is describing “stepping back”, opening to a greater view.  This view creates some distance from old habits and old experiences and old ways of being. Yet, this “stepping back” is not stepping away; it is still fully engaged with the moment.

There was an invitation to begin noticing embodiment, the intricate patterns of breath, movement and stillness, thoughts, sensations, feelings and emotions, the language and story of the body, and glimpses of the soul. They described awakening to seeing differently, as if for the first time, where space becomes spacious and time becomes timeless and being becomes effortless.  The new experiences acknowledged the “knower and the known” (Welwood, 2000).                                                                                   

Transformation (1 subtheme – reverent relating)

The research participants outline a movement or transition to a new understanding - a transformation. 

Something happened to me emotionally.  I wasn’t really sure what was happening to me in terms of transformation, what I know is when I left there... people wanted to know where I had been and what I had done.  They saw a significant difference in me, in who I was and how I interacted. (Bravo)

Delta shared, “the experience of finding a place in which I am not doing anything and having it be such a rich experience and having there being so much information that comes from that place.” 

Echo described, “the exercises have lots of benefits and are quite powerful”. 

 Foxtrot says, “It is nothing special, yet it is transformative on so many different levels.” 

 Reverent Relating.  Meeting the self and meeting the other.

I think the most significant aspect [of Psoma Yoga and Hakomi] is “being met” in that place - whether it is me meeting somebody else or somebody meeting me...  the communication of mutual reverence...  There is just something in there that has nothing to do with words or the right thing to say... this really strong trust in the moment and mutual reverence. (Charlie)

Revisiting the Literature and Implications

Findings in the thesis were discussed in relation to current neuroscience knowledge, integration into nursing practice, education and counselling and psychotherapy practice.  Psoma Yoga as a starting point for defining the lifeworld and for creating space for exploration of thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions and meanings that may assist with transformation and healing. 

I explored the relevant literature from both mainstream and academic sources to reveal information about the relationship between the mind and the brain, human interaction, suffering and compassion, embodiment, embodied learning models, transformation and healing.  This included another look at mindfulness; Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/2002) perspectives on space which outline that whatever is occurring, there is no context until a perspective is established; and further exploration about the recent findings in neuroscience. 

How has this interpretive account fostered our understanding of the topic?

“Embodiment does not express the truth, but expresses conditions of possibility among multiple possibilities” (Sharma, Reimer-Kirkham & Cochrane, 2009, p. 1649).  AND they says that learning to discuss “our embodied experiences and methodological reflections” promotes “critical reflexivity” and that qualitative research pushes us “to go places one might not otherwise have gone” (p. 1649).

Summarizing Conclusions

1.       Bringing conscious awareness to simple practices and mindful experiments can have a profound and transformative impact on an individual.

2.       Embodiment, the invitation to fully experience the form and the soul or spirit, greatly impacts our ongoing transformation by creating a point where the tangible and the intangible meet.

3.       Experiences that arise from this self-discovery feel like awakening to a broader vision, and an expanded way of seeing and being.

4.       Transformation happens when we can hold both the duality and the place beyond duality.

If we are attentive to these fostered understandings, how does this impact the practice of caring professionals, including nurses and counsellors? 

1. Create Space – Psoma Yoga promotes an environment which is respectful, curious, compassionate and unconditionally loving, and thus creates the safety and freedom for individuals to discover.  (What is happening?)

2. Explore habits and meanings - Psoma Yoga, often practiced slowly and gently, assists with supporting the investigation and subsequent discernment of determining when habitual patterns, ways of being, serve us and when they do not.  (What if? What else?)

3. Navigate change - Practices, like Psoma Yoga, may assist individuals to navigate these transitions with greater purpose and ease. (What wants to happen?) 

How has my understanding of Psoma Yoga and myself been transformed by this work?

1.        My lifeworld perspectives are influenced by Heidegger, Gadamer and especially Merleau-Ponty and his work about the phenomenology of perception.

2.       I have explored the phenomenon in relation to literature from neuroscience, nursing, education, theology, and psychotherapy and counselling. I am struck by the overlap of the information and the many explanations and understandings of similar themes and ideas.  This gives me trust in the idea that there are many paths to the same end.  

3.       Perhaps the most profound impact occurred  as I studied my own experience of the phenomenological writing in a Psoma Yoga way.

The Writing Experience

It was as if I was walking in the bright sunshine, on a beautiful day, amidst the grasses and wild flowers in a great field.  I had been here before.  I knew the terrain well.  I could walk sure footed on the uneven path.  I could breathe in the deep, fresh air.  I could feel the gentle wind on my face.  I was confident, joyous, solid, and in an instant, everything changed.

I was suddenly plunged into some dark depth, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light, fearing to move because I had no idea where I was.  As my eyes adjusted, I began to see tunnels and pathways dug into the dirt.  There was no way to know where the tunnels would lead.  Panic set in, I was momentarily frozen in stillness, and then, meeting this stillness with patient awareness, new understandings emerged.  Eventually, I would be returned to the surface to once again confidently walk in the field.

At first these plunges to the depths, “down the rabbit hole” were unwelcome experiences (Carroll, n.d., n.p.). Yet, as I became more open to them, I began to recognize that these were the moments where expansion was possible.  I had dropped out of my normal way of thinking and being into something else, into a world of possibility.  There seemed to be a rhythm developing, accented with notes from some faint music from a distant drum.  

The feeling that arose was that of being part of something so much bigger, and at the same time being so incredibly small; incredibly there, and yet, not there.  And as I sat with that, in my own body, I once again noticed the familiar feelings of ‘overwhelm’ sitting in my chest; my mind grappling to see how it might contain something so big, and my body giving in to knowing.  Relaxing in, resting.  Somehow the body may be able to contain this feeling in a much more spacious way, one that isn’t fighting to grow and understand or define.  It simply is, and is not.  Existence and being seem to meet at this place of transition. 

One day, after a number of these experiences ‘steeping in the data’ and spending much time contemplating meanings, Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” rolled out of my mind. The lines, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference” (Frost, n.d, n.p.) took on a new dimension. These lines came to represent the different ways of knowing--a well trodden cognitive road and a less travelled phenomenological path.  As I was writing, I often found myself on the cognitive road.  It felt easier to explain and confidently know about Psoma Yoga.  The phenomenological path requires more patience, less surety, a questioning attitude, a sense of wonder. 

Often, my writing would slip back to the cognitive road - well-trodden, to the point of being deeply rutted, unconscious and habitual. The urge to list, categorize, and place words somewhere convenient and comfortable was strong. Yet, sometimes I was able to explore new possibility, to venture into the unknown, to meet whatever is on this unknown path.  The phenomenological path of new possibility may feel less comfortable, and yet it is rich with promise.  On this path, which is readily apparent when you slow down, notice the divergence, and trust the process, previously unavailable understandings blossom before you. Maybe you have found a new sense of freedom, of wholeness, without any effort, being is different. Once followed, as Frost says, this path makes all the difference.

In every transformation it seems some deconstruction or destruction needs to happen.  Some construct that we’ve built needs to be challenged and in Psoma Yoga the challenge can come in such a gentle way.  It is not forced upon us or pushed.  Psoma Yoga honors the strangeness, without any rush or any hurry, the method asks us to sit with what is.  It asks us to explore, to be curious, to be patient, to resist the quick answer, to dive deeply into the experience past where our mind can go, to some subtle place of knowing, of being.  It is simply a space created where you can step into that unknowingness and explore it with support; diving deeply, hearing the whispers, hearing the call to transformation. And then rising from the depth of this place, we find ourselves changed in some subtle and yet tangible way.  From the perspective of those we meet, something is different, yet we may be unable to name that something or what that quality might be. A transformation that happens in this moment, in the next moment, in every moment, perhaps the body understands while the mind alone may have some trouble comprehending.

Final Thoughts

Clients and professionals alike can explore different dimensions of the self to discover their own inner wisdom.

The individual in self-awareness, with a widened perspective, may be more able to fully accept the place of transition, the place of chaos, where all possibilities exist.

Perhaps the body understands what the mind alone may have trouble comprehending.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
T.S. Eliot

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