Gentle Bio-Energetics / Butterfly touch Massage

At our center or core is a life energy that pulsates, expanding and contracting, a characteristic of all living things.  We experience this life energy through the flow of emotions and sensations. Emotion is not an idea but an expression of energy, something moves.  Our need to love and be loved is part of the pulsation of the energy. However, from conception to the present we experience traumas that affect the flow of our life energy. As a result of the trauma, we develop armor, usually unconscious, to protect ourselves.  The armor is for the purpose of surviving but also shuts down the flow of our life energy. Armoring can be in the form of verbal defenses, bodily defenses, or energetic defenses. The purpose is to prevent the experience from happening again or if it does to avoid experiencing the pain or emotions. However, this decision to armor ourselves prevents us from experiencing the full joy of life now. The process of moving from the free flow of life energy through trauma to armoring is a developmental process, explaining how we got to be who we are right now.

Gentle Bio-Energetics is an educational and therapeutic model that integrates verbal and body therapies for healing and growth. The gentle aspect refers to the non-invasive role of the therapist/helper, who nurtures with both touch and verbal interventions. Bio-Energetics refers to the individual’s life energy; how it flows freely or is blocked by armor, which results from traumatic life experiences.

Gentle Bio-Energetics is to enable individuals identify his/her armoring mechanisms, heal any underlying conscious or unconscious memories and restore the natural flow of life energy. Eva Reich often refers to the phrase “glow and flow” meaning that the life energy glowing in the center of our being is free to flow expanding beyond our being into our energetic field. The process might involve talking or gentle touch to restore the energetic flow resulting in new energy for life, emotional health, healing the memories, and integrating the work into our present life experiences. The process of understanding and melting armor, healing underlying memories and restoring the natural energetic flow is a healing process.

The Butterfly touch Massage technique imitates and is inspired by the gentle touch you need to hold a butterfly so the scales don’t come off on your fingers, and the rhythmic grace of the butterfly’s wings in flight. It invites life energy out of the patient to expand so the they might experience life richly. The Butterfly touch Massage has powerful techniques for healing all ages including and especially infants. It can help parents bond with newborns or, improve the vitality of a child. The gentle, non invasive techniques can be used on anyone.

Εxplanation of terms

Life Energy

At our center, our core, is life energy. It pulsates, expanding and contracting — a normal, healthy characteristic of all living things. We experience the flow of our life energy through our emotions and sensations. Joy and anger are experiences of expansion, while sadness, fear, and pain are experiences of contraction. The need to give and receive love is part of the pulsation of core energy.

Trauma

From Conception on, we experience traumas that may modify our life energy flow. Examples of traumas include: problems at conception (being wanted or unwanted), in the womb(parents’ emotional state illness), or at birth (difficult birth, anesthesia, caesarean birth, separation from mother after birth), Sexual, physical, emotional, or spiritual abuse; operations, illness, and injury; drug or alcohol abuse; deaths and other grief situations. It is important to understand that trauma is unique to each individual.  What one person my experience as trauma may not be traumatic for another.

Armor

As a result of experiencing trauma, an individual might develop armor, to prevent painful events or emotions from recurring. Armor is the sum of all the ways we protect ourselves in life. When we were children, we sometimes instinctively decided to armor in order to survive. However, the armor also inhibits the flow of life energy. Armor and trauma are connected, and the memory of trauma is maintained in the body. Armor may manifest itself in repetitive life patterns, ill health, painful or tight muscles, lack of life energy, or emotional distress. Some traumas, such as surgeries later in life, do not result in armor but may still shut down energetic flow.

Gentle Bio-Energetics is the name Eva Reich has given to her development of the therapeutic work of her father, Wilhelm Reich. Gentle Bio-Energetics developed from Eva’s work as her father’s assistant in the 1950’s and her world-wide work until 1992. Drawing on her vast experiences she created an educational and therapeutic model integrating many verbal and body therapy tools for healing and growth.