Rendez-vous avec Thérèse Bertherat

Abstract

The author gives an account of her interview with Thérèse Bertherat. The latter is a French physiotherapist who, after an initial classical training, become discouraged by the inhuman attitudes that were common in her professional surroundings, She attended then a summer session with Françoise Mézières. There she learned to be more attentive to her own experience rather than to depend on reading or on other's experience. After a few years of professional practice, she developped new muscular activities called "préalables". These non mechanical activities are aimed at the reappropriation of one's own body. With her patients, Thérèse Bertherat discovered that the psychological realm is sometimes encapsulated into muscular rigidity. In effect, releasing these rigidities often induces the recall of a painful memory. Some patients refuse to give up the rigidities and stop the treatment at the approach of important improvement. This physio therapeutic approach is characterized by a profound respect for individual evolution. Through its main stages, it also resembles some psychotherapeutic approaches. In this context her book may be valuable to anyone who is interested in the unity of the individual.