What can the theory and practice of somatic/body psychotherapy, ecopsychology and Buddhism offer to each other?
For the past five years, Kamalamani has shared life and work at the confluence of these fields in her quarterly Bodywise articles for Somatic Psychotherapy Today, an independent international publication representing various modalities in body psychotherapy, somatic psychology, and pre-natal and perinatal psychology. This volume brings together these quarterly Bodywise articles. Kamalamani explores client work in embodied and relational ways, drawing upon her practice of Buddhism. With her characteristically warm, immediate, accessible tone, Kamalamani encourages personal reflection and professional consideration as she offers insights illuminated by traditional Buddhist texts along with personal and clinical anecdotes that range from birth to death, from meditating with character to Reich’s character structures, from trauma and terrorized bodies to diversity, embodied spirituality and pre-natal and peri-natal psychology.
She often provokingly offers more questions than answers and writes in a way that offers not only a sacred space for opening, sensing, being quiet, but also joining forces with our global communities in feeling the outrage, the love, the fear, the bliss that comes with interaction. She reminds us again and again of a whole-earth perspective, bringing sentient life and living processes into awareness in the course of everyday life, practice, and the work of healing.
All proceeds from this book will be donated to Somatic Psychotherapy Today, helping to defray the costs associated with an independently run international magazine. It is through generous gifts like Kamalamani’s and others’ who donate to Somatic Psychotherapy Today that it continues to exist.
“Her heart and mind are open to the world, allowing it in and herself to live outwardly with compassion and love.” – Nancy Eichhorn, Founding Editor-in-Chief of Somatic Psychotherapy Today.
“It’s so good to have these pieces collected in one place, so that we can clearly see their value, and feel gratitude for Kamalamani’s wisdom, wit, common sense, deep knowledge of Buddhism, and enormous generosity of spirit. I have always felt that Buddhism, especially Vajrayana, has a profound connection with body psychotherapy; and it is a great pleasure for example to read Kamalamani on Green Tara – a figure of personal meaning to me – and her development of Shunryu Suzuki’s brilliant slice through mind-body dualism: ‘Our body and mind are not two and not one…. Our body and mind are both two and one’. This book will be of great help to anyone interested in body psychotherapy, in Buddhism, and in ecopsychology, or in the relationship between the three.” – Nick Totton, body psychotherapist, trainer and author of Embodied Relating: the Ground of Psychotherapy.
Kamalamani is a relational body psychotherapist, ecopsychologist, supervisor, facilitator, trainer, and author living and working in Bristol, England. As well as book-writing–she is the author of Meditating with Character and Other than Mother: Choosing Childlessness with Life in Mind– she writes a regular column for ‘Somatic Psychotherapy Today’, and is the former editor of ‘Transformations’, a publication of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility (PCSR), and a former steering group member. Her articles have appeared in ‘Therapy Today’ journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), ‘Self and Society’, the International journal for Humanistic Psychology and ‘Indra’s Net’, journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists.
Kamalamani has been practicing Buddhism since her early 20s and was ordained in 2005. She enjoys meditating and facilitating Buddhist study and practice, particularly in the areas of ecodharma and the ecopsychology, applying age-old practices to contemporary life and work. Prior to training as a therapist she worked with small and micro enterprises on sustainable development projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In parallel she lectured at the Universities of Bristol and Gloucestershire and worked as a family business trainer and facilitator, working with families going through transitions. She continues to work with her brother in their family business.
www.kamalamani.co.uk
@kamalamani
www.facebook.com/otherthanmother
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