Suggesting the Systematic Use of Visual Information in (Body) Psychotherapeutic Diagnostics - An Empirically Derived Screening Device

Abstract

In a previous study we demonstrated that bioenergetic therapists were able to sort photographs (whole body) of patients as to their relative psychosomatic health and to match the correct description out of three verbal symptom descriptions. They did so significantly above chance level and outperformed laypersons lacking knowledge of body-psychotherapy.

In this study we wanted to explore -again by using photographs - which categories bioenergetic therapists use in order to describe visible and presumed problems as weil as changes between the beginning and the end of psychotherapeutic treatment. Using a computerized program for text analysis 30 basic and 4 superordinate categories were derived.

Qualitative and quantitative analyses were carried out and correlations with character structure diagnoses according to Lowen (1958) were computed. Some of the latter, however, need additional data from larger samples in order to furnish reliable results. The paper concludes by affirming the use of the derived categories for regular screening in clinical body-psychotherapy but warns clinicians of the danger to psychopathologize or uncritically infer personality traits merely from visual information. Lastly a further exploration of the relationships among pertaining variables is recommended.

Keywords:
Body-psychotherapy; Diagnostics; Bioenergetic analysis; Personality; Character structure; Visual perception.