Embodied relational therapy

Domain IV · Body-oriented psychotherapy · Nick Totton · 2001

What it is

ERT is Nick Totton's integrative, neo-Reichian body psychotherapy. Totton trained in William West's Reichian "Energy Stream" work from 1981 and later trained others in it until 1992. With Em Edmondson he ran Selfheal (1988–1997), which added transference, countertransference and boundary work, and…

Format

• No published phases or session counts. The sources give no stages, no typical number of sessions and no criteria for moving between phases. Totton holds that therapy works best without goals ("Therapy has no goal", 2007, cited in Priestman 2013), so a staged protocol would cut against the model.
• Format.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Group and training format: a residential, modular, part-time postgraduate course over three years, plus the Wild Therapy year. It uses small groups, two trainers, check-ins and open group process.
• Version followed: Embodied-Relational Therapy (ERT) as Nick Totton describes it in his own writing (Totton 1998, "In search of the body", Self & Society 26(2); the framework of Embodied Relating, 2015, read through its contents list and a review only), plus the ERT training as described by co-trainer Allison Priestman (2013). Neither Reichian Growth Work (Totton & Edmondson, 2nd ed. 2009) nor Body Psychotherapy: An…
• What it is. ERT is Nick Totton's integrative, neo-Reichian body psychotherapy. Totton trained in William West's Reichian "Energy Stream" work from 1981 and later trained others in it until 1992. With Em Edmondson he ran Selfheal (1988–1997), which added transference, countertransference and boundary work, and a reworked character theory, to the Reichian core. He began the postgraduate ERT training in 2001, and a…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Overdoing it until it feels like a trick. It is working when words and felt experience come together.
• Pushing a client out of their safe mode too fast. It is working when the client moves more easily between feeling and saying.
• Interpretation landing as criticism. It is working when the defence softens because it is understood, not because it is attacked.
• Implying symptoms are "all psychological". It is working when the client feels the symptom has been heard and new meaning or feeling emerges.
• Losing the frame, or following your own associations instead of the client's process. It is working when unexpected material deepens the session.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.