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This article is a revised version of a paper given to the Society of Bioenergetic Analysis, and later to the German Society of Analytical Psychology. The author is a bioenergetic therapist and an analytical psychologist. Dr Ware's purpose is to point out that even though Jung was aware of the importance of the body in analytical psychology, and indeed prepared a place for it in therapeutic practice, nevertheless this approach has not been taken up by the profession to any significant degree. The author begins his exposition with several dream analyses which, he says, use the metaphor of the body to gain entry into the dream's unconscious. He illustrates his point by referring to Jung's well-known dream about the patient to whom he had to look up by craning his neck.
At the basis of Dr Ware's argument is the initial premise of the unity of man's body and psyche. Starting with the infant, he points to the fact that its primary experience of consciousness, as well as the development of the ego, are imprinted in the infant through the experience of the bodies of the nurturing people in its environment. He therefore feels that the ego is not only limited by the body but earthed in it. To counteract inflationary tendencies in the unconscious, it is vital for us to be rooted in the reality of the body. Dr Ware bases most of his assertions on Jung himself, but also quotes extensively from Winnicott, Fordham and Neumann.
In the second part of his paper, Dr Ware outlines in practical terms some of the therapeutic possibilities open to the non-bioenergetic therapist. These comprise the following: body language and body reading; body memories; touching; and the movement of the body in therapy.