​“We only said goodbye with words, I died a hundred times…”  

​As a human being, I have been in the situation of feeling “He’s killed me…”. Amy Winehouse, played beautifully by Marisa Abela, speaks these words from her heart, feeling utterly abandoned by Blake, in the 2024 biographical film of her life, "Back to Black".

Perhaps I’ve been in the other place too, of abandoning someone and leaving them feeling like I have killed them. Strong words… and yet, these things happen... people react, close their hearts and leave, and the people they leave also react, and feel destroyed.

Amy speaks straight into these places of raw feeling and deep, unconscious reaction, with her heart fully engaged in her music. Through her music and life, we feel all the tragedy and waste, “me and my head high and my tears dry… get on without my guy… you went back to what you knew... I’ll go back to black…”, especially as her life spirals into addiction and early death. We watch as Amy tumbles headlong into the turmoil of her dreams for love, marriage, family and relationship with “her Blakey”, ultimately un-achievable and insurmountable.

Bless Amy’s love for Blake, it’s a sacred love, and the pain she feels is universal. ​

And all the time, there is something earlier that is underlying, seemingly buried by both the film and by Amy herself: the nagging reality, less romantic, of difficult relationships with close caregivers. Amy’s loss of her Nan, the intimate relationship with her Nan, cuts into her reality and Amy doesn’t seem to survive this. She disintegrates into her coping strategies, previously successful: sublimation into her music and displacement into her love for her Blakey. Amy’s Nan gently telling her, “oh, I’m sorry. You liked him, didn’t you?” And Amy, simply being heard, “Yes Nan, I quite liked him a very lot.”

I've literally just come away from our ABMT autumn meeting with Sue Frazer which explored trauma and how to work with trauma.

The session started with a sharing of what we thought trauma was and I thought it was helpful for Sue to use the definitions in Babette Rothchild’s book, The Body Remembers, to distinguish between different types of trauma:

• Stress:  non specific responses in the body to any demand both positive and negative.
• Post Traumatic Stress: likely to be from an incident where the PTS persists and where the body is held in fight/ flight.
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: where stress responses accumulate to such a degree that the person is showing symptoms within the DSM V classification and there is a clear dysfunction.

It was helpful to be reminded of the differences between body psychotherapists and biodynamic massage therapists and what we are equipped to work with. In essence, body psychotherapists can work with all three and biodynamic massage therapists can work with the first two.

The ABMT will be holding a workshop on Saturday 15th April at the Gestalt Centre, 15-23 St Pancras Way, London NW1 0PT.  The session runs from 2pm – 4pm and will be facilitated by Gemma Ireland, who will encourage us to explore how we can deepen our understanding of working in the aura in biodynamic massage. Gemma is a biodynamic psychotherapist and trainer with many years’ experience, having trained initially with Gerda Boyesen. This workshop will be rich and informative in terms of learning; we aim to explore working with the aura being both in contact and outside the body; how it is possible to be in both places together working with the energy field.

For logistical reasons, we probably won’t be working on massage tables, so attendees are being asked to bring yoga mats, blankets etc; Gemma also says this work can also be explored sitting in chairs.
 
This event is free to members of ABMT, and we are asking for a contribution of £20 for non-members. Please could you RSVP to Lindsey Nicholas: [email protected], if you would like to attend.

Led by Richard Parker for the ABMT 22nd October 2022


Richard hosted and led us in a two hour workshop which was attended in person in Cambridge, and online. This workshop took place in the afternoon of our ABMT Autumn meeting, 22nd October 2022. It was free to attend and open to non-members.


Most striking for us as biodynamic bodywork and massage therapists, were the commonalities between contact improvisation and the methods we use for connecting in therapeutic work. Richard guided us in techniques which used “reaching” to make contact, and we were guided to a place of being present with ourselves and the other, while we were working with a partner. We were told to be observant of the breath, and the whole being, of ourselves and our partner. Richard told us to “see what was there” and that we were “seeing” though the touch. This is very much how we feel as biodynamic massage therapists, seeing or listening with our hands, as well as the rest of our senses.

​This CPD Session with dance practitioner, Richard Parker, will be held on Saturday, 22nd October 2022 from 2pm to 4 pm at the Gestalt Centre, London NW1 0PT.

"An opportunity to explore the relational qualities of touch within a creative and dance-based practice called Contact Improvisation.

Contact Improvisation is an embodied, meditative and profoundly connecting dance practice. It works with the principle of how we listen and communicate our intentions of co-creative movement through touch by awakening our whole body into tactile listening and presence.

Within this workshop, we'll create a safe and playful container, using easy-to-follow exercises and movements to creatively explore some of the fundamental principles of how two or more bodies can move together as one within a spontaneously unfolding improvised contact dance.

Richard Parker is passionate about the relational and profoundly human experience that can be revealed through Contact Improvisation (CI).   He has been developing his skills and knowledge as a Contact Improvisation (CI) dancer since 2006.  Over the years he has extensively trained with many internationally renowned teachers within CI including Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson, KJ Holmes, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, Ray Chung & Martin Keogh.  Since 2011 he has shared his teaching of CI within Professional, Educational, Festival & Community Organisations as well as organised his own festivals, Retreats and Camps."

This event is open to members and non-members of ABMT. Please contact [email protected] if you would like to attend.

If you attended the conference, here's a book of words and images collected on and from the day to bring back memories. If you were unable to attend, some words and images to give you a flavour of an amazing event at King's College Cambridge in July where neuroscience, psychotherapy and biodynamic massage therapies came together to dialogue on touch. 

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​Speaking and touching are two streams of communication which seamlessly interweave in daily relationships.  Touch is a "language" in its own right and it can sometimes communicate more than words can say. The foundations for this are laid down prior to birth and afterwards.

Communicating through touch is a way of relating in body psychotherapy.  Body psychotherapists are trained to touch, have a touch lexicon, are skilled in its timely therapeutic use, and know how to observe and discuss the impact of touching with clients.  Ways of touching are diverse and complex.  Varying speed, rhythm, pressure and depth, focussing on different tissues of the body, touching skin to skin, through clothes and blankets, touching with finger tips, the palms of the hands, elbow to elbow are some of the possibilities.  Through experience the skills and methods of touching become embedded in the psychotherapist and are pulled out of the practitioner, often intuitively, in a "dance" between client and therapist at appropriate moments.