Postural Integration® is a way of helping individuals become aware of themselves in their body and to empower them to change themselves – their bodies, feelings and thoughts. It is a powerful tool for enabling clients to increase their sense of well-being, their capacity to feel, their ability to express, their self-awareness and consciousness.
An extensive article on Postural Integration by Jack Painter (creator) can be found here.
Psychotherapeutic Postural Integration (PPI) is a wider development of Postural integration (PI), an alternative body-psychotherapy method, which attempts to help individuals to become aware of themselves in their body and empowering them to change their "bodymind" - their bodies, their emotions and attitudes. At a practical level, PPI is an active therapy in which the patient/client and practitioner (psychotherapist) interact to release blocked energy and to guide the development of awareness in both. Thus enabling clients to increase their sense of well-being, their capacity to feel, their ability to express themselves, to develop their self-awareness and consciousness. It aims to restore unity of tissue, feeling and awareness by a direct manual, deep softening and reorganization of the myofascia which envelopes and coordinates the entire muscular system while simultaneously bringing together gestalt therapy, emotional release and expression, breathwork, movement awareness diciplines and bodydrama into a single framework.
Postural Integration (PI) was originally developed in the 1960's by Jack Painter, Ph.D., (°1933) a former Professor at the University of Miami after many years of self-exploration in the fields of humanistic psychology, deep massage, acupressure and the Five Elements system, gestalt therapy, but especially with Reichian therapy in combination with the work and theories of Ida Rolf. Postural Integration is taught and practiced in Europe, USA, Canada, Mexico, South Africa and Australia and is organized within the International Council of PsychoCorporal and Bodymind Integration Trainers (ICPIT) .
Practitioners of Postural Integration® (PI) and Psychotherapeutic Postural Integration (PPI) are trained to work in a respectful and interactive manner with their clients. They use a variety of somatic (bodywork) methods – breath and deep tissue work, focusing on the body and self-awareness techniques, as well as emotional expression. The practitioners of Postural Integration® need to be able to bring professional knowledge and experience tempered by their ability to bring themselves with personal feelings and attitudes held (in a self-aware manner) into the exchange with the clients.
The International Council of PsychoCorporal and Bodymind Integration Trainers (ICPIT) is devoted to guiding and supporting the trainers of practitioners who will use professional skills and personal power with integrity. The members of the council are themselves Postural Integration trainers and realize that they need to consult and share with each other, not only to establish guidelines for the training of practitioners but also to sustain their own commitment, creativity and pleasure in teaching.