Psychocorporal therapy (IFCC)

1. Introduction

Version followed: the IFCC (Strasbourg) method Intégration Posturale Psychothérapeutique (IPP, "Psychotherapeutic Postural Integration"), as described in the institute's own French and English presentations and checked against the FF2P member directory and the IFIPP page on IPP. For the hands-on protocol that IPP borrows, this guide uses Jack Painter's Postural Integration (PI) as he described it in 1985 and as ICPIT (the international council of PI trainers) describes it today. The sources disagree on the length of the touch series, and the institute's two texts disagree with each other. The French IFCC text says seven sessions ("sept sessions, chacune consacrée à une partie du corps"), the English IFCC text says ten, Painter (1985) says ten (seven release plus three integration) and ICPIT now teaches twelve. Each figure is named wherever it is used. [source: IFCC presentation FR/EN; FF2P directory; IFIPP; Painter 1985; ICPIT process page]

Same method as guide 024. The institute's French text states that IPP "est une thérapie psychocorporelle". What is sometimes called "psychocorporal therapy (IFCC, France)" is therefore IPP, the method that guide 024 (Psychotherapeutic postural integration) also describes. It is not a separate method. Guide 024 gives the Painter/ICPIT touch techniques in full, together with a harm account for deep tissue work. This guide focuses on what is distinct about the IFCC school as a whole. That means the institute's frame: verbal sessions first, touch sessions alternating with verbal ones, a relational rather than curative stance and a long-term contract. It also means the non-touch components the institute teaches alongside IPP: Mouvement Régénérateur, the directed waking dream, creative visualisation, creative and symbolic exercises, and myth work. The Painter/ICPIT techniques used inside touch sessions (4.3 and 4.6–4.14) are kept here only in short form, so that this guide can be used on its own. Use guide 024 for their full steps and risks. [source: IFCC presentation FR/EN; guide 024]

Source note. Sources include the institute's French and English presentations, the FF2P member directory, the IFIPP page on IPP and two French IPP practitioners' pages. These points are sourced: the institute's full name, founders and dates; the touch rules (touch starts after the 4th session, is done on the skin, and is firm and intense); the conflicting session counts (7 in the French text, 10 in the English); and what the institute says about Mouvement Régénérateur, the waking dream, the creative exercises and the myth seminar. These points remain [uncertain]: what the letters "IFCC" abbreviate; IFCC's order of body areas; an explicit consent protocol for touch; contraindications; step-by-step procedures for the waking dream, the creative exercises and the myth seminar; and how a Mouvement Régénérateur session closes. Every consent step, screening item and procedural step marked [synthesis] is this guide's own, not the institute's.

What it is. "Psychocorporal therapy (IFCC)" is a training institute and its integrative school, not a single manualised therapy. Its clinical method is IPP. The FF2P member directory lists it as "IFCC – Institut de Formation en Thérapie Psychocorporelle", and the institute's own documents use the same full name. No source opened says what the letters "IFCC" abbreviate [uncertain]. Eliane Jung-Fliegans (now Fliegans-Vaux; clinical psychologist) and Claude Vaux (body psychotherapist, d. 2016) began working together in 1982. They first taught Gestalt therapy and Postural Integration, and founded the institute in 1996. The IFIPP page dates the development of IPP to 1990–2006 and its validation by the European Association for Psychotherapy to 2007. The institute teaches at the Centre Européen de Thérapie Psychocorporelle in Strasbourg and runs a four-year training approved for the European Certificate of Psychotherapy. It is a member of the FF2P, EAP and EABP. IPP places Painter's Postural Integration (fascial touch, breath, posture) inside a humanistic, Gestalt-leaning relational psychotherapy. To this it adds Itsuo Tsuda's Mouvement Régénérateur (spontaneous movement, from Haruchika Noguchi's katsugen undō), the directed waking dream (rêve éveillé dirigé), creative visualisation, creative and symbolic exercises, and mythological or archetypal work. The cited lineage is Reich, Lowen, Pierrakos, Perls, Jung, Frankl, Cyrulnik, Kepner and Rebillot. The IFIPP page adds two influences: Jung's individuation, in which suffering is a stage of individuation rather than a pathology, and the link between body and nature in Indigenous cultures. ICPIT describes the Strasbourg adaptation as leaning more towards Gestalt psychotherapy and putting less weight on structural hands-on bodywork than Painter's PI. [source: IFCC presentation FR/EN; FF2P directory; IFIPP; ICPIT FAQ]

How change happens (the school's model). The model rests on "Bodymind": body, emotions, thoughts and words are linked and carry meaning. IFCC follows James Kepner's "parallelism", in which body and mind are distinct but each changes the other. Touch on tender fascia can bring up emotion and memory. The client is invited to feel these rather than to be fixed, to express what was unbearable, and then to put words to it, which rebuilds the story of their life. The practitioner helps the client integrate pain ("faire avec") rather than remove it. The work is framed as relational, not curative. In Painter's PI the body's habitual holding ("armor") is the school's construct, and change comes from releasing the whole structure while the client re-owns the parts they had rejected. Painter's charge and discharge of "energy" is likewise the school's own theory, not established physiology. [source: IFCC presentation FR/EN; Painter 1985]

2. Framework

Indications and population. The institute names identity difficulties, behavioural and relational difficulties, and major life transitions. IPP is for adults. Adolescents and young adults receive verbal IPP only, without touch. IPP is "not for those who want it to go fast". [source: IFCC presentation FR]

Format. Sessions last about 1.5 hours, every two weeks. The institute expects full benefit over one to two years. Touch sessions take place with the client lying on a mattress on the floor and the practitioner kneeling beside them. [source: IFCC presentation FR/EN]

Order of body areas. IFCC states only that each session of the series is devoted to one part of the body, following Painter. Neither the French nor the English presentation names the areas or their order. Two French IPP practitioners' pages describe "une séquence précise" of deep stimulation of the muscle tissue. Both also stress that they do not touch a particular spot to produce a particular effect, and neither gives the order [uncertain]. Painter (1985) lists the first seven sessions as releasing the legs, pelvis, torso, arms and head, one area at a time. The current ICPIT order is: [source: IFCC FR/EN; Zilliox; Groscaux; Painter 1985]

1. BF1: arms, hands, shoulders; superficial fascia of the upper body.
2. BF2: legs and feet (grounding).
3. BF3: sides of the trunk and shoulder girdle (taking one's space).
4. BF4: inner legs and pelvic floor region (trust, shame, sexuality themes).
5. BF5: psoas and belly.
6. BF6: buttocks, backs of the legs, back (holding, anger, power).
7. BF7: neck, head and jaw; work around the eyes and mouth.
8. BF8–12: integration.

This ICPIT order is offered as a reference, not as confirmed IFCC practice [source: ICPIT process page] [uncertain].

Training prerequisite. The IFCC training is four years. It requires about 250 hours of personal therapy and ten PI sessions received from an approved practitioner. Clinical work starts under supervision in the middle of year 3. The final certificate needs 500 hours of paid practice and 150 hours of supervision. Do not start the touch components without equivalent training. [source: IFCC presentation FR]

3. Guiding principles

• Bodymind (parallelism). Body and mind are distinct but affect each other. In practice: track posture, breath and tissue response as carefully as words, and link the two levels aloud. [source: IFCC FR, citing Kepner]
• "Oui ! Et" ("Yes! And"). IFCC calls this "first a state of being": accept what is there ("yes"), then turn towards action and the future ("and"). It is contrasted with "Yes! But", which hides a refusal. In practice: receive every response, including resistance, without correcting it, then invite one next step. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Relational, not curative. IPP "belongs to the field of relationship, not of care", and the practitioner "is not a healer". In practice: do not promise to fix; frame sessions as accompaniment. [source: IFCC FR]
• Integrate pain rather than remove it. In practice: the goal of an exercise is that the client can stay with and live alongside what hurts, not that it disappears. [source: IFCC FR]
• Invite to feel; do not manipulate. "Inviter à sentir ne veut pas dire guérir, transformer, manipuler ou influencer" (IFCC FR). In practice: touch is an offer of contact the client can feel and lean on, not a corrective manoeuvre. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• No interpretation of the client's movement. In practice: when a gesture or movement appears, invite the client to notice it ("stop for a moment, try to feel", IFCC EN) instead of telling them what it means. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Here and now, with titration of traumatic material. The therapist accompanies emotion, keeps the client in the present, and helps relieve material that is too traumatic. In practice: slow down or stop when material becomes overwhelming. [source: IFCC EN]
• Words complete the bodily work. The client expresses "the unbearable" and then puts words to it. In practice: every touch or movement segment ends with time to talk it through. [source: IFCC FR]
• Non-doing. Tsuda's "Surtout ne faites rien !" ("above all, do nothing!"). In practice: in movement work, do not produce or perform movement; let it arise. [source: IFCC FR]
• Act with, not react. "Le mouvement c'est agir avec, pas réagir" (IFCC FR). In practice: in joint or group work, move with the other, not against or in answer to them. [source: IFCC FR]
• Respect for the other and for oneself; the therapist has done their own work. In practice: FF2P and EAP ethics codes apply, and the practitioner must have worked through their own trauma and emotions before using touch. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Time. The work is long-term. In practice: contract openly for a process of one to two years. [source: IFCC FR]
• Whole structure, not parts (Painter). Releasing one area alone is "simply a rearrangement of our problems" (Painter 1985). In practice: complete the series and its integration sessions instead of chasing a symptom. [source: Painter 1985]
• Calibrated pressure (Painter). Too light evokes nothing new. Too deep or too fast makes the armour reinforce itself. In practice: work at the edge between comfortable and mildly intense, watching the eyes and breath. [source: Painter 1985]
• Balance charge and discharge; let emotion complete (Painter). Attend to the neglected phase of the breath. Emotion needs time to build and to discharge: cutting it short leaves frustration, and letting it escalate exhausts the client. In practice: neither stop emotion early nor push it. [source: Painter 1985]
• Own the resistance (Painter). Resistance is acknowledged and then claimed as part of oneself. In practice: turn "this pain" into "my holding". [source: Painter 1985]

4. Intervention inventory

The IFCC presentations name these components but give little step-by-step detail. Entries 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, 4.5 and 4.15–4.21 cover the IFCC frame and its distinct non-touch components. Entries 4.3 and 4.6–4.14 are Painter/ICPIT Postural Integration techniques used inside IPP touch sessions. They are the same techniques as in guide 024 and are kept here in short form; guide 024 has the fuller account and the harm account. Steps below come from the source named in each entry. Where no source gives a step, it is marked [synthesis]. No source opened gives durations or repetitions unless stated. All example language is illustrative and my own wording, not the founders'.

4.0 Touch: training, consent and safety (applies to every touch technique below)

• Purpose: Make touch safe, chosen and revocable.
• What the sources give:
  • Touch starts only after the 4th session, once alliance and life history have been worked through verbally.
  • Each touch session begins with a verbal exchange.
  • Contact is directly on the skin. The client lies on a mattress on the floor, and the practitioner kneels and works the fascia around the muscles. The touch is deliberately firm and intense: the French text says its "intensité et fermeté" bring the client up against painful areas. Consent therefore has to cover discomfort and pain, not just contact.
  • The practitioner must have explored their own trauma and emotions.
  • FF2P and EAP ethics codes apply.
  • IPP is for adults; adolescents and young adults receive verbal IPP only, with no touch. The institute also says IPP is not meant for people who want quick results or who expect the therapist to solve all their problems.
  • [source: IFCC FR/EN]
  • ICPIT's practitioner curriculum includes "contact and boundaries" [source: ICPIT FAQ]. Neither IFCC presentation, the IFIPP page nor the two practitioners' pages gives an explicit consent protocol or any contraindications [uncertain]. For the risks of deep tissue work in this lineage, see the harm account in guide 024.
• Consent steps to add [synthesis]:
  1. Explain in advance what the touch session involves: area, kind of pressure (it can be firm and briefly uncomfortable), skin contact, what the client may feel.
  2. Ask for consent for this session and this area. Consent is never assumed from earlier sessions.
  3. Offer a no-touch alternative every time: breath, posture and awareness work, verbal work, or the client placing their own hand.
  4. Agree a clear stop signal (a word plus a hand signal) and practise it once before starting.
  5. Agree on clothing. The client keeps on whatever they choose; offer shorts or underwear plus a covering sheet. Expose only the area being worked.
  6. Check in during touch ("pressure OK?") and talk it through afterwards.
  7. Breasts, genitals and the area immediately around the genitals are never touched. Sexual touch is never part of therapy.
  8. Write down consent in the notes.
• Training and legal scope: Touch requires specific training (IFCC requires four years plus ten personal PI sessions) and ongoing supervision. Check what your licence, your insurer and your jurisdiction allow; in some places only licensed bodyworkers may do deep tissue work. [source: IFCC FR for training] [synthesis for legal check]
• Screen before any deep tissue, breath-intensification or expressive work [synthesis; no IFCC, IFIPP or PI source opened lists contraindications]:
  • Pregnancy.
  • Cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled hypertension, anticoagulant use or bleeding disorders.
  • Asthma or other respiratory illness, if breath is intensified.
  • Epilepsy.
  • Osteoporosis, recent injury, surgery, fracture or thrombosis.
  • Skin lesions or infection.
  • Psychosis or mania.
  • Severe dissociation or a dissociative disorder.
  • Active suicidality or recent self-harm.
  • Recent trauma not yet stabilised.
  • Current intoxication.
  • Eating disorder with medical instability.
  • Where there is a history of sexual abuse, stay with verbal work and toucher présence until the client clearly wants more and has stable resources.
  • When in doubt, get medical clearance.

4.1 First meeting

• Purpose: Present IPP and its framework; let the client say what they expect; decide together whether to start. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Steps:
  1. Offer a free meeting of about 30 minutes.
  2. Describe the course: verbal sessions first; touch sessions later, only with the client's agreement; sessions of 1.5 hours every two weeks; a process of one to two years.
  3. Ask what the client hopes for.
  4. Screen for contraindications and needs beyond IPP, and refer on when needed [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "The first sessions are spoken: your history and how you live in your body. Later, if you want, we can add touch sessions. You will always be able to say no or stop."
• Watch for: Two expectations the institute says the method does not suit: a quick fix, and expecting the therapist to resolve all the client's problems. Say so honestly. [source: IFCC FR/EN]

4.2 Verbal opening sessions (sessions 1–3/4)

• Purpose: Gather the life story and the client's relationship with their body, and build the alliance. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Steps:
  1. Take the life history, including transitions, losses, illness, surgery and body experiences.
  2. Explore how the client senses, uses and judges their body.
  3. Note recurring postures and places of tension.
  4. Agree goals.
  5. At the end of session 3 or 4, explain the touch work and its consent steps (4.0) and ask whether the client wants it [synthesis on the timing of the request].
• Example language (illustrative): "Where in your body do you feel at home, and where do you not?"
• Watch for: Material too heavy for touch work yet. Stay verbal longer when it appears.

4.3 Body reading

• Purpose: Form a shared, non-judgemental picture of posture, breath and holding to guide where touch and attention go. [source: ICPIT process page: "phenomenological, interactive, after initial contact"; method not detailed] [uncertain]
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. The client stands comfortably, clothed as agreed.
  2. Describe what you see in neutral terms (weight distribution, shoulder height, breath movement) and ask what the client feels in those places.
  3. Do not interpret character.
  4. Agree which area the series will start with.
• Example language (illustrative): "I notice your weight goes more onto the right foot. What do you notice from the inside?"
• Watch for: Shame about being looked at. Offer to do the reading seated, or as a verbal self-description.

4.4 Toucher présence (presence touch)

• Purpose: Offer contact the client can feel and lean on, to deepen awareness of an area without trying to change it. Useful in early touch sessions, after intense material, and with clients who are sensitive to touch. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Steps:
  1. Complete the consent steps (4.0).
  2. Client lies on the mattress, or sits if preferred [synthesis].
  3. Place a hand calmly and still on the agreed area, for example the upper back, sternum below the collarbones, a forearm or a foot [area choice: synthesis].
  4. Invite the client to feel the touched area and to "take support" (prendre appui) on the contact.
  5. Do not push, manipulate or interpret.
  6. Remove the hand slowly, with notice.
  7. Ask what the client noticed.
• Example language (illustrative): "Just feel where my hand is. You can lean into it if you want, or not. Nothing needs to happen."
• Watch for: Breath slowing, softening, warmth or tears suggest the contact is being received. Bracing, holding the breath or spacing out suggest it is not. In that case lift the hand and talk.

4.5 The IPP fascial touch session (structure)

• Purpose: Contact tender areas of the fascia so that emotions and memories held there can come up, be felt, expressed and put into words. [source: IFCC FR/EN; Painter 1985]
• Steps:
  1. Open with a verbal exchange about what has happened since last session and what the client brings today [source: IFCC].
  2. Consent check (4.0).
  3. Client lies on the floor mattress. Practitioner kneels.
  4. Work the fascia around the agreed area's muscles, with direct skin contact [source: IFCC]. Painter describes using fingers, fists and elbows, starting on the superficial layers, while watching the client's eyes [source: Painter 1985]. ICPIT works in three depths: superficial, intermediate and deep [source: ICPIT].
  5. Gauge pressure at the edge between comfortable and slightly painful (Painter). Never press through a stop signal [synthesis].
  6. Invite the client to express what they sense, feel and think through sound, movement or words (4.7). Use Gestalt dialogue (4.8) when resistance shows.
  7. Pace the breath (4.9–4.11) throughout.
  8. Close with toucher présence (4.4) or integrating strokes (4.14) [synthesis on closing].
  9. Allow time to sit up and put words to the experience (4.16) [source: IFCC on verbalisation].
• Example language (illustrative): "I'm going to work more firmly along the outside of your thigh now. Tell me what you feel: a sound, a word, an image, anything."
• Watch for: Tender areas that bring up emotion and memory are expected [source: IFCC EN]. Bruising, sharp pain, numbness or dizziness mean stop [synthesis].

4.6 The area series (one body area per session)

• Purpose: Work through the body region by region, then integrate. The order below is ICPIT's; IFCC's own order was not found [uncertain]. Themes are ICPIT's associations, offered as material to explore, not as fixed meanings. [source: ICPIT process page; Painter 1985]
• Steps by area (the general structure in 4.5 applies to each):
  • Arms, hands, shoulders; superficial fascia of the upper body (BF1). "Opening". Themes: reaching out, holding on, early bonds.
  • Legs and feet (BF2). Grounding and security. ICPIT pairs it with Gestalt work, breath work and acupressure.
  • Sides of the trunk and shoulder girdle (BF3). Lengthening, taking one's space. Themes: boundaries, authority.
  • Inner legs / pelvic floor region (BF4). ICPIT themes: trust, shame, sexuality, abuse, birth.
    • High risk. Touch stays on the thigh, well away from the groin. No genital or perineal contact ever.
    • Clinicians without specific PI or IPP training should do this session through posture, breath and verbal work only.
    • With any history of sexual trauma, use no touch unless the client asks for it from a stable place and has agreed it in detail. [synthesis]
  • Psoas and belly (BF5). Themes: deep trust, safety within oneself.
    • Firm abdominal work needs medical screening (pregnancy, abdominal surgery, aortic or vascular disease). [synthesis]
  • Buttocks, backs of the legs, back (BF6). Themes: holding, anger, personal power, safe expression of aggression.
    • Gluteal contact needs explicit, area-specific consent. Offer to work through clothing or on the back only. [synthesis]
  • Neck, head, jaw, eyes, mouth (BF7). Themes: the "mask", the senses, early experience.
    • Painter and ICPIT include work inside the mouth. That is a specialised technique: do not do it without specific training, gloves, explicit consent and confirmation that your licence allows it. [synthesis]
    • Never apply strong pressure at the front of the neck. [synthesis]
  • Integration sessions (Painter: 3; ICPIT: BF8–BF12): see 4.14.
• Example language (illustrative): "Today we'll work with your legs and feet. As I work, notice how you stand on the ground and whether anything comes up about feeling supported."
• Watch for: Do not tell the client what an area "means". Let them say it (principle of non-interpretation). [source: IFCC]

4.7 Expression through sound, movement and words during tissue work

• Purpose: Let what the touch evokes be expressed rather than held back, so it can be felt and later put into words. [source: Painter 1985; IFCC FR: "exprimer l'insupportable"]
• Steps:
  1. While contacting an area, ask the client to let out what they sense, feel or think as a sound, a movement or words.
  2. Shift emphasis between tissue, sound and words as needed.
  3. Let an emotion build fully and then discharge. Do not cut it short, and do not drive it into exhausting rage (Painter).
  4. Return to steady breath (4.11) and toucher présence (4.4) to settle.
  • [source: Painter 1985]
• Example language (illustrative): "Let a sound come with the breath out, as big or small as it is. What does that sound want to say?"
• Watch for:
  • It is working when the expression rises, peaks and subsides, and the client feels lighter and more present afterwards.
  • Stop and ground if the client loses contact with you or the room, cannot hear you, or goes into escalating panic or rage.
  • Cathartic discharge (shouting, hitting, kicking) carries the contraindications listed in 4.0. ICPIT also uses kicking or punching. If you use it, it must be voluntary, into cushions, after screening, and never with clients who are dissociative, at risk of self-harm, psychotic or not yet stabilised after trauma. [source: ICPIT EI handout for kicking/punching] [synthesis for safeguards]

4.8 Gestalt dialogue with the body area (claiming the resistance)

• Purpose: Turn tension or pain from something foreign ("it hurts") into something owned ("I hold"). Use it when tissue resists or the client pushes the area away. [source: Painter 1985; ICPIT "gestalt awareness dialogue"]
• Steps:
  1. While the area is contacted, ask the client to acknowledge the resistance.
  2. Ask them to claim the area as part of themselves.
  3. Invite them to speak as the area, in the first person, to themselves. Painter gives an example of his lower back telling him it needs a slower pace and attention.
  4. Continue the dialogue between the area and the client.
  5. Afterwards, connect it to everyday life (4.16).
  • [source: Painter 1985]
• Example language (illustrative): "Be your shoulders for a moment. Start with 'I am Anna's shoulders, and I...'"
• Watch for: The voice and posture changing when the client speaks as the part. A shift from "it" to "I" is the sign it is working. If the client feels silly, slow down and offer a simpler version: "What would your shoulders say if they could talk?" [synthesis]

4.9 Breath: attending to the neglected phase

• Purpose: In Painter's model, balance the "charge" (in-breath) and "discharge" (out-breath). These are the school's energy concepts, not physiological claims. [source: Painter 1985]
• Steps:
  1. Observe which phase dominates.
  2. If the out-breath is excessive, slow and soften it while inviting a deeper in-breath into neglected areas.
  3. If the in-breath dominates, guide attention to a fuller out-breath, sometimes with sound.
  4. Coordinate the breath with the strokes.
  • [source: Painter 1985]
• Example language (illustrative): "Let the out-breath go all the way, with a soft sound if you like... and let the next breath come by itself."
• Watch for:
  • Signs of hyperventilation (tingling in hands or lips, dizziness, cramping of the hands). If they appear, return to slow, normal breathing through the nose. [synthesis]
  • Breath intensification carries the contraindications in 4.0.

4.10 Spontaneous ("free") breathing

• Purpose: Once charge and discharge are more balanced, allow a vibrating, unpredictable breath that eventually involves the whole body. [source: Painter 1985; ICPIT EI handout "Free Breath"]
• Steps:
  1. Stop directing the breath.
  2. Let the client follow whatever breath arises.
  3. ICPIT adds a variant: arms open wide on the out-breath and drop on the in-breath. [source: ICPIT EI handout]
• Example language (illustrative): "Stop managing your breathing. Just watch what it does on its own."
• Watch for: Trembling and vibration are expected in this school. Stop if they become distressing or uncontrolled. [synthesis]

4.11 Secure (grounding) breath

• Purpose: The baseline "secure" state in Painter's energetic cycle, used to settle the client and return to safety. [source: ICPIT EI handout (Painter 2007, unpublished, adapted by Marivoet 2017)]
• Steps:
  1. Steady, even breath into belly and chest, with awareness of the whole body.
  2. The practitioner may rest hands on the head and neck (consent per 4.0), rub cool arms and legs to warm them, and gently rock the whole body. Avoid stimulating expression.
  3. Help the client find a safe image.
  4. For fragmented, fearful breathing, the handout adds a finger-tracking eye exercise while breathing, and two-handed unifying strokes.
  • [source: ICPIT EI handout]
• Example language (illustrative): "Feel the floor under you. Breathe in to your belly and up into your chest, and out again. Is there an image that feels safe?"
• Watch for: Warmth returning to the hands and feet, and calmer eyes, show it is working. The handout links "darting or fixed eyes" and cold extremities with fear. [source: ICPIT EI handout]

4.12 Nurturing (receptive) breath

• Purpose: Support receiving, in a "needy" breathing pattern (weak in-breath, collapsed chest). [source: ICPIT EI handout]
• Steps:
  1. Rest hands on the belly (consent per 4.0; offer the client's own hands as the alternative).
  2. Invite an effortless, deeper in-breath and a soft out-breath. Imagery: breathing in warm colour, floating in warm water.
  • [source: ICPIT EI handout]
• Example language (illustrative): "Let your belly fill under my hands, then let your chest rise."
• Watch for: Grief or longing surfacing. Respond with toucher présence and slow pace.
• Risk flag: The same handout also lists provocative techniques for this and the other breath patterns. These include:
  • pressing on the chest against the breath;
  • the practitioner playing a denying role with rejecting phrases;
  • jaw pressure while the client bites a towel;
  • provoking the gag reflex;
  • slapping or elbow pressure on the buttocks;
  • pelvic stimulation.
  • These do not appear in the IFCC presentations. They carry high risks of retraumatisation, physical injury and boundary violation, and are not included here as interventions. [source: ICPIT EI handout] [synthesis on risk]

4.13 Small spinal movements and gentle pelvic rocking during superficial work

• Purpose: Coordinate deep muscles with the superficial fascial work. [source: Painter 1985]
• Steps:
  1. While working superficial layers, invite small, slow spinal movements or gentle rocking of the pelvis in a lying position.
  2. Keep the movement small and self-paced. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "Let a small movement start in your lower back, very slowly, as if the floor were rocking you."
• Watch for: Pain on movement means stop. Pelvic movement can evoke shame in some clients, so name that it is optional. [synthesis]

4.14 Integration strokes and integration sessions

• Purpose: After the release sessions, bring the areas into a felt whole and stabilise breath, energy, movement and emotional patterns. [source: Painter 1985; ICPIT four pillars and process page]
• Steps:
  1. Long, connecting strokes that link upper and lower body, left and right, front and back, inside and outside (ICPIT "integrating" or "special strokes"). The exact technique is not described [uncertain].
  2. Movement and awareness exercises: ICPIT names "awareness through movement" exercises and bodymind drama.
  3. Gestalt dialogue between body halves.
  4. Imagery and symbols for integration (ICPIT pillar 4).
  5. The final ICPIT session takes the work into relationships, family and authority.
• Example language (illustrative): "Feel the line from your feet to the top of your head as one piece. What is different from when we started?"
• Watch for: The client describing themselves as more whole or connected. IFCC quotes a typical end-of-therapy remark, "Je me sens à nouveau vivant" (I feel alive again). [source: IFCC FR]

4.15 Reassuring touch and here-and-now anchoring when emotion comes "from far away"

• Purpose: Accompany strong emotion that seems to come from an earlier time, keep the client in the present, and relieve material that is too traumatic. [source: IFCC EN]
• Steps:
  1. Pause the fascial work.
  2. Offer a still, reassuring touch (for example a hand on the upper back or a hand held), only if touch is already agreed. Otherwise use your voice alone.
  3. Orient the client to the present: name the room, the date, the floor under them, your presence. [synthesis on orienting steps]
  4. Invite slow breathing (4.11).
  5. Resume only if the client wants to and can stay present. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "This feeling is old and it's here now. You are here, in this room, with me. Feel the mattress under you."
• Watch for: The client being able to answer you and make eye contact is the sign to continue. If not, stay with stabilisation and end the touch work for the day (see 5.3).

4.16 Putting words to it (verbal integration after body work)

• Purpose: After the client has expressed what was unbearable, they put words to it. IFCC says this lets them rebuild themselves and "build the story of their life". [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Steps:
  1. After the body segment, the client sits up.
  2. Invite them to describe sensations, images, emotions and memories in their own words.
  3. Help link them to their history and present life, without interpreting for them.
  4. Leave 15–20 minutes for this [timing: synthesis].
  5. The next session, which is verbal, can continue the work with creative or symbolic exercises (4.19).
• Example language (illustrative): "What would you call what happened in your body just now? Where does it belong in your story?"
• Watch for: A coherent account emerging from fragments. Do not force meaning.

4.17 Mouvement Régénérateur, phase 1: the activation chain (group)

• Purpose: Open a Mouvement Régénérateur session by connecting with the others while staying present to oneself. In the English text the group searches together for the common energy needed to practise the Movement (the school's concept). The practice comes from Itsuo Tsuda, who brought it from Haruchika Noguchi's katsugen undō. IFCC describes it as a practice of non-doing and spontaneous movement, and the IFIPP page says it works with breath and life force. It is taught as part of the IFCC training. Whether it is also used with individual clients is not stated [uncertain]. [source: IFCC FR/EN; IFIPP; Seitai Barcelona on Noguchi's origin]
• Steps:
  1. Participants form a hand-linked chain with eyes closed. The presentations do not say whether participants stand, sit or kneel [uncertain].
  2. Left hand turned up to the sky, right hand turned down to the earth ("La main gauche tournée vers le ciel, la droite vers la terre"). Each person receives one hand and gives one hand, linking the group.
  3. Participants stay present to themselves while connected to the others.
  4. The principle is to "act with, not react".
  5. Tsuda's instruction: "Surtout ne faites rien !"
  6. Duration is not given [uncertain].
  • [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Example language (illustrative): "Eyes closed. Left palm up, right palm down, resting on your neighbour's. Feel yourself, and feel the chain. There's nothing to do."
• Watch for: Hand-holding with eyes closed can be hard for some trauma survivors. Allow eyes open, or standing beside the chain without touching. [synthesis]

4.18 Mouvement Régénérateur, phase 2: one's own movement

• Purpose: Let spontaneous, uncontrolled movement emerge. IFCC says it may bring release through emotion, thought, yawning or crying. [source: IFCC FR/EN] A secondary source says the movement can range from very dynamic to almost still, and that blocked tension, memories and feelings may come up. [source: Seitai Barcelona]
• Steps:
  1. Release the chain. Participants separate and each goes in search of their own Movement ("chacun part à la recherche de son propre «Mouvement»", IFCC FR), without deciding or performing it.
  2. The facilitator does not interpret movement.
  3. If a participant gets caught up, invite them to "stop for a moment, try to feel" (IFCC EN).
  4. Closing: not described in either IFCC presentation, the IFIPP page or the Seitai pages [uncertain]. The English text says only that the practice teaches people to say "stop! I've had enough of these tensions". Suggested closing [synthesis]: let the movement slow and stop by itself; rest lying or sitting for a few minutes with eyes open; then share verbally, in pairs or as a group.
• Example language (illustrative): "Let go of the hands. Wait. If a movement wants to come, follow it. If nothing comes, that's fine too."
• Watch for:
  • Space between participants, and objects that could cause injury. [synthesis]
  • Do not use with people who have epilepsy, psychosis, severe dissociation, or a balance or cardiovascular risk without clearance. [synthesis]

4.19 Directed waking dream (rêve éveillé dirigé)

• Purpose: Guided imagery in a relaxed state, which lets images charged with feeling emerge and be worked with. IFCC lists "l'enseignement et la pratique du rêve éveillé dirigé" among its teaching methods but describes no procedure. The IFIPP page says the method draws on unconscious resources and active imagination. No IFCC version of the procedure is given [uncertain]. The steps below follow Robert Desoille's method as a secondary source describes it. In IPP it belongs in the verbal sessions, not in touch sessions [synthesis]. [source: IFCC FR/EN; IFIPP; Passerini & De Palma 2012 on Desoille 1945]
• Steps:
  1. Client lies down in a quiet, dimmed room.
  2. Muscle relaxation to a drowsy but responsive state.
  3. Offer a starting image. Desoille's classic themes are sword, vase, witch, dragon, sea and sage; a personal image can be used instead.
  4. Guide ascents, which tend to bring lighter, calmer images, and descents, which tend to bring darker, more anxious ones. Alternate them.
  5. The client narrates aloud.
  6. Intervene sparingly. Offer "contrasting" images to get past blocking or anguished ones.
  7. Do not interpret intellectually.
  8. Afterwards, go over the images and connect them to the client's life [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "Imagine you're at the foot of a path that climbs. Tell me what you see as you begin to go up."
• Watch for: Overwhelming descents. Use an ascent or a contrasting image to steady the client. Avoid with psychosis or severe dissociation. [synthesis]

4.20 Creative and symbolic exercises (verbal sessions)

• Purpose: In the verbal sessions that alternate with touch, give form to material from the body sessions. The English text describes these sessions as working "by way of exercises in creativity, of symbolic representation" and of exchange with the therapist. Eliane Jung-Fliegans' earlier practice combined Gestalt therapy with creative visualisation (Visualisation Créatrice). Trainees learn to create and run psychotherapeutic exercises of their own, so the exercises are not a fixed set. No specific exercise is described [uncertain]. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Invite the client to draw, model or arrange objects to represent a sensation, body area or theme from the last touch session.
  2. Explore the representation with open questions.
  3. Link it back to the body ("where is this in you?").
• Example language (illustrative): "Draw what your back felt like last time. No need for it to be good."
• Watch for: The symbol shifting over sessions as a sign of movement.

4.21 Myth and archetype work (mythology seminar)

• Purpose: Use myths to recognise archetypes and life patterns. IFCC gives these examples. Apollo stands for reason and harmony of thought, and Dionysus for the orgiastic side, enjoyment and unreason; the two are presented as inseparable. Oedipus goes on carrying his father's fault, which illustrates transmission across generations. The institute presents myth as a "théâtre de guérison" (healing theatre). Its "Mythology and psychotherapy" seminar, a training seminar with its own fees, is the occasion to express that healing theatre concretely. IFCC links this work to Jung and to Paul Rebillot, who worked with Joseph Campbell. No seminar procedure is described, and the presentations do not say whether the seminar is offered to clients as well as trainees [uncertain]. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Present a myth.
  2. Invite participants to find which figure or moment resonates in their own life and body.
  3. Embody or enact it in a contained way.
  4. Share.
• Example language (illustrative): "Which of these two — Apollo's order or Dionysus's wildness — do you live more, and which do you keep out?"
• Watch for: Enactment can stir strong affect. Keep a clear structure and debrief.

4.22 Ending the process

• Purpose: Consolidate change. Painter expects tension not to disappear but to be recognised and released faster. [source: Painter 1985]
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Plan the ending several sessions ahead.
  2. Review the whole series with the client.
  3. Identify the early body signs of their patterns and the self-regulation resources they now use: breath, grounding, own movement.
  4. Agree follow-up.
• Example language (illustrative): "When the old tightness comes back, what's the first thing you notice now, and what do you do?"
• Watch for: Separation feelings, which are themselves material to work with.

5. Handling problems

The IFCC sources give only general guidance here: accompany emotion, stay in the here and now, relieve material that is too traumatic, do not interpret, "stop for a moment, try to feel", "Oui ! Et". Painter adds calibrated pressure and letting emotion build and discharge fully. Everything else below is marked [synthesis].

5.1 Stuck clients (nothing happens, "I feel nothing")

• Painter: pressure too light evokes nothing new, while too deep or too fast makes the holding stronger. Recalibrate first. [source: Painter 1985]
• Work with the absence itself through the "Oui ! Et" stance. Accept the numbness ("yes"), then ask about one detail of it ("and what is its edge like?"). [source: IFCC FR for the stance] [synthesis for the application]
• Use Gestalt dialogue with the numb area (4.8). Change channel: from touch to breath, movement (4.18) or imagery (4.19). [synthesis]
• If the client is stuck for several sessions, review goals and the alliance, and consider whether verbal work alone suits them better. [synthesis]

5.2 Resistance

• Painter treats resistance as operating in both body and mind. He asks the client to acknowledge it and claim it as their own rather than pushing through it. [source: Painter 1985]
• Never use force or provocation to "break" resistance (see the risk flag in 4.12). Slow down, ask what the holding protects, and respect a no. [synthesis]
• Resistance to touch specifically: stay with verbal sessions and toucher présence. Offer self-touch. IFCC does not require touch. [synthesis]

5.3 Overwhelm, flooding, dissociation

• Pause the tissue work and stay in the here and now. Offer reassuring touch only if already agreed (4.15), and help relieve material that is too traumatic. [source: IFCC EN]
• Return to secure, grounding breath (4.11). [source: ICPIT EI handout]
• Concrete steps [synthesis]:
  1. Stop all intensifying techniques.
  2. Ask the client to open their eyes, sit up, feel their feet and name things in the room.
  3. Normalise breathing; if they hyperventilate, slow the out-breath.
  4. Do not leave until the client is oriented.
  5. Shorten later touch segments.
  6. Lengthen the verbal phase.
  7. Consider a stabilisation-first trauma approach before resuming.
• Overwhelm after the session (nightmares, intrusions): agree in advance how to contact you, and check in at the next session. [synthesis]

5.4 Non-adherence (missed sessions, dropping the series midway)

• Painter warns that releasing one area without the whole structure is only a rearrangement of problems. If a client drops out mid-series, offer at least one integration session to close. [source: Painter 1985] [synthesis for the application]
• Explore missed sessions as material: is the pace too fast, or is the next area (pelvis, belly, back) frightening? Slow down and give choice over the order. [synthesis]

5.5 Ruptures in the alliance, including around touch

• IFCC places the work in relationship and requires the practitioner to have worked on their own trauma. [source: IFCC FR/EN]
• Concrete steps [synthesis]:
  1. Name the rupture openly.
  2. Take responsibility for your part (for example, pressure too strong or touch too soon).
  3. Invite the client's experience without defending.
  4. Reconfirm consent from zero before any further touch.
  5. Take it to supervision.
• ICPIT describes a "symmetrical" relationship in which practitioners share their own feelings [source: ICPIT four pillars]. Keep any self-disclosure brief and in the client's interest; never let it reverse roles. [synthesis]

5.6 Modality-specific difficulties

• Pain and injury from deep work. Bruising, persistent soreness, nerve symptoms: stop, adjust pressure, refer for medical review if needed. Never work over varicose veins, inflamed areas or recent injuries. [synthesis]
• Arousal or sexualised transference during touch.
  • Do not touch the inner thigh, pelvis or belly when this is present.
  • Name the boundary calmly and move to verbal work.
  • Take it to supervision.
  • Practitioner arousal or attraction means stopping touch with that client and seeking supervision.
  • Sexual contact is a serious ethical violation under the FF2P and EAP codes the institute follows. [source: IFCC on the codes] [synthesis]
• Re-experiencing abuse during BF4–BF6 work. Stop. Ground (5.3). Return to verbal and resource work. Do not resume these areas with touch unless the client asks from a stable state. [synthesis]
• Client asks to be "fixed". Repeat IFCC's framing: the practitioner is not a healer, and the aim is to integrate pain. Re-contract. [source: IFCC FR]
• Health or medical claims. ICPIT pages attribute effects on blood pressure, eyesight and pain to the method. Do not present IPP or PI as treatment for any physical disease. Refer physical complaints to medical care. [synthesis]
• Spontaneous movement out of control (Mouvement Régénérateur). "Stop for a moment, try to feel" (IFCC EN). If that is not enough, open the eyes, slow down and sit. [synthesis]
• Suicidality emerging. Suspend intensifying body work. Do a standard structured risk assessment and safety planning, including lethal-means counselling (storage and removal). Coordinate care. Resume only once stable. [synthesis]
• Adolescents or young adults. Verbal IPP only, no touch. [source: IFCC FR]
• Scope. If your training, licence or jurisdiction does not cover therapeutic touch, use only the verbal, breath-awareness, imagery, symbolic and movement elements, and refer for touch work. [synthesis]

Sources

Sources:

• Presentation IFCC fr (Institut de Formation en Thérapie Psychocorporelle, Strasbourg)
• Presentation IFCC en
• FF2P: Nos organismes membres (entry "IFCC – Institut de Formation en Thérapie Psychocorporelle")
• IFIPP: La méthode de l'Intégration Posturale Psychothérapeutique (IPP)
• Groscaux, O., L'Intégration Posturale Psychothérapeutique (Psychologue.net) (practitioner article)
• Zilliox, P., Outils: Intégration Posturale Psychothérapeutique (Psychothérapie Colmar) (practitioner page)
• ICPIT: The Four Pillars of Postural Integration
• ICPIT: The Bodymind Integration Process (process page)
• ICPIT: FAQ
• ICPIT: Four ICPIT Bodymind Integration methods
• Jack W. Painter (1985), Postural Integration (article, ICPIT)
• Painter, J. W., Energetic Cycle: descriptions of 9 steps and blockages (from Energetic Integration, unpublished 2nd ed. 2007; adapted by D. Marivoet, ICPIT 2017)
• Seitai Barcelona: Katsugen undō (secondary)
• Seitai Barcelona: Introductory courses (background; no session procedure given)
• Itsuo Tsuda (Wikipedia) (background)
• Passerini, A. & De Palma, M. (2012), Immaginario: spazio e tempo della cura – dal rêve éveillé all'esperienza immaginativa (secondary, on Desoille)
• Le maître anarchiste Itsuo Tsuda, extract (ActuaLitté) (background only)

Books cited (not drawn on):

• Kepner, J. I. (1987/1998), Body Process (Fr. Le corps retrouvé en psychothérapie).
• Desoille, R. (1945), Le rêve éveillé en psychothérapie, PUF.
• Painter, J. W. (1986), Deep Bodywork and Personal Development [uncertain].

Further reading (not drawn on): the IFCC team page for Eliane Jung-Fliegans and the IFCC 2023 open-day flyer, and the Grand Est training listing.

Not described in the sources [uncertain]:

• What the letters "IFCC" stand for. The full name, Institut de Formation en Thérapie Psychocorporelle, is verified.
• IFCC's own order of body areas. The session count is also unresolved, because the institute's own texts conflict (seven in French, ten in English).
• An explicit consent protocol for touch.
• Contraindications. The institute names only its population limits: adults only, and verbal work only for adolescents and young adults.
• Detailed procedures for IFCC's creative and symbolic exercises, its version of the directed waking dream, and the mythology seminar.
• How a Mouvement Régénérateur session closes, how long it lasts, and whether it is used with clients outside the training.