Body Psychotherapy Thechniques for Children and Adolescents
Brasilda dos Santos Rocha
2014 – 1ª edition
Editora Arte e Ciência
349 pages
Por R$61,00 or U$20

Her contribution is on transmitting the live technique of the neo-reichian therapists (Gerda Boyesen, David Boadella, Alexander Lowen and Stanley Keleman), while associating the psychoanalytic reading and psychodrama to the language of the toy.

We utilize the concept of “intermediate object” given to us by reading of Winnicott; and the use of the live therapist technique, in search of an energetic flow, as given by the reading of Reich.

The necessity to propitiate a renewal of the identity matrix, as provided through the psychodrama; the various playing correspond to the development of the child, according to Aberastury.

We tried to find out which kind of energy each toy has, and what psychic and body representation they are related to. In addition, by using toys we attempt to locate the child’s body tension, assuming that they represent the child-mother relationship, where conflicts are originated.

The aim of children psychotherapy is to rescue their identity matrix, what we call “matrix renewal identity.” That would enable them to restore traumatic situations of emotional experiences in the first moments of life.

In neurosis, the libidinal flow is blocked, and in order to reach it we need the process of metabolism, which mobilizes the vegetative system.

We intend to take the concept of the toy in its operative point of view, integrating its pedagogical and therapeutic aspects, as this object always corresponds to a child’s need when he or she plays with it.

We consider playing as a way for the child to acquire new concepts, to increase his or her capacity to create and to perceive, in order he or she can achieve happiness and mental health throughout the development of the different stages in adult life.

Our scientific aim is to compare such features to toys, establishing the stage of psychic development that the child is going through. Based on such data we can present the operative proposal (a faster and more precise development), which leads to the therapeutic process and, preventively, reaches the development of the child’s personality with more efficacy.

By carrying out a research along many years of study and clinical work, we managed to identify the energy that different toys and games embrace, and their related meaning to the child, trying connectedly to find out and to determine such energy in his or her body.

Its major contribution is on identifying and evaluating the toys that correspond to the type of blocked energy within the psychic and body development of the child. We come to the conclusion that “the toy symbolizes the body of the child and it can be utilized as an interpretation and/or intervention, without interrupting the energetic circuit.”

Our job is changed into a task of studying the prophylaxis of the neurosis, or let us say, to accompany the babies until they enter the adolescence phase; jointly with the parents, since the identification of the armors and the need for us to work on the therapeutic and pedagogical function of the toy, in the prevention of the armors. Therefore, we systematize the types of toys that do correspond to the energetic flow of development of the child, to enable us to amplify this internal space, and to avoid the patterns of emotional tensions.

This work reflects the day-to-day of the children, their search for pleasure and the need to become creative, breaking the rules of the games, building their own rules, being faithful, their pains, their anguishes, their fears; their lives which is so close to their somatic memories of their conception, to this conducting wire of the energetic pulsation.