Psychotherapeutic Postural Integration
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Psychotherapeutic Postural Integration (PPI) is a wider development of Postural integration (PI), an alternative body-psychotherapy method, which attempts to help individuals to become aware of themselves in their body and empowering them to change their "bodymind" - their bodies, their emotions and attitudes. At a practical level, PPI is an active therapy in which the patient/client and practitioner (psychotherapist) interact to release blocked energy and to guide the development of awareness in both, thus enabling clients to increase their sense of well-being, their capacity to feel, their ability to express themselves, to develop their self-awareness and consciousness. It aims to restore unity of tissue, feeling and awareness by a direct manual, deep softening and reorganization of the myofascia which envelopes and coordinates the entire muscular system while simultaneously bringing together gestalt therapy, emotional release and expression, breathwork, movement awareness disciplines and bodymind drama into a single framework.
Postural Integration (PI) was originally developed in the 1960's by Jack Painter, Ph.D., (°1933) a former Professor at the University of Miami after many years of self-exploration in the fields of humanistic psychology, deep massage, acupressure and the Five Elements system, gestalt therapy, but especially with Reichian therapy in combination with the work and theories of Ida Rolf. Postural Integration is taught and practiced in Europe, USA, Canada, Mexico, South Africa and Australia and is organized within the International Council of PsychoCorporal Integration Trainers (ICPIT) .