Somatic psychotherapy and research: Walking the common ground

Abstract

Research is a crucial element in advancing our collective knowledge of somatic psychology, but body and movement psychotherapists often struggle to engage in meaningful relationships with the psychology research literature and the community of scholars who typically produce it. This paper elaborates the common ground between research and somatic psychotherapy by linking the values, attitudes and skills of somatic psychotherapists with specific research methodologies. It traces the similarities between doing therapy and doing research, with a focus on the role of the therapist/researcher, and outlines a research method that somatic psychotherapists might consider as a basic framework when undertaking their own formal research.