BodyDreaming in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: An Embodied Therapeutic Approach

313 Pages·3.275 MB·English

by  Marian Dunlea

“BodyDreaming brings together the analytic legacy of Carl Jung with develop-
ments in the fields of Body Oriented Psychotherapy. It shows that we remain,
elusively, disconnected from our dreams (and inner images), until we can embody
them through interoceptive awareness. This transformative process, catalyzed
through connection to the Living, Sensing, Knowing Body, bridges the dream
world to here-and-now experience. In this way, we nourish the deep Self, the true
Self and our connection to inner aliveness and vitality. I believe that this book
contributes to a rich dialogue between analytic and experiential therapies; a dia-
logue that will certainly enhance both.”
– Peter A. Levine, author of Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma
and In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases
Trauma and Restores Goodness
“In this highly readable book, Marian Dunlea shows us the seamless constant
unconscious conversation between the body and the mind. Every thought we
think is companioned by a physical response. ‘When you do not know what mat-
ters most to you that, then, can become the matter with you.’ It is essential to
understand that trauma becomes an emotional pattern and/or a symptom that can
unconsciously govern your life perspective and your self-esteem. The talking cure
alone does not free the body from the emotional responses that it carries. The body
cannot and does not lie.
Dunlea offers both the practitioner and the participant the vital keys to unlocking
this deeply healing truth.”
– Paula M. Reeves, PhD, psychotherapist and author of Women’s Intuition:
Unlocking the Wisdom of the Body and Heart Sense: Unlocking
Your Highest Purpose and Deepest Desires
“We live at a time when body and psyche are both in a traumatized state; where
we are not in a relationship with nature, soul or body but dissociated from
all three. The great imperative of our time is reconnection and moving to a
more developed, evolved and individuated state of consciousness. Profoundly
steeped in Jung’s approach to the psyche as well as other methodologies (par-
ticularly the work of Marion Woodman, Donald Kalsched, Peter Levine, and
Allan Schore), this inspiring book shows us how great a transformation can be
wrought through the medium of BodyDreaming. Marian Dunlea approaches
the client with the utmost reverence, gentleness and awareness of the fragil-
ity of psychic processes and their connection to neural pathways and nervous
system responses.
Dunlea shows us how, through reconnection with our heart and the dawning of
insight, we can become illumined, healed and restored to wholeness.”
– Anne Baring, PhD, author of The Dream of the Cosmos:
A Quest for the Soul
“BodyDreaming, Marian Dunlea’s new and unique approach, arrives as a breath of
fresh air. It provides us not only with a new way to think about our work theoreti-
cally, but with new practical ways of perceiving and attending to how our patients
actually experience our interventions in the body. It represents a creative synthesis
of new findings in the fields of affective neuroscience, attachment theory, infant
observation, and body-sensitive approaches to therapy, as they apply to somati-
cally informed psychotherapeutic work with trauma, dissociation, and dreams.
Marian Dunlea’s BodyDreaming provides a way of getting ‘underneath’ the
seemingly intractable defenses and resistances that our traumatized patients pre-
sent to us, without our having to forsake the mytho-poetic imagination and its
symbolic riches found in dreams, active imagination and the other products of
the unconscious.
The extensive verbatim write-ups of actual clinical vignettes in the text demon-
strate Marian’s exquisite attunement to the felt experience reported by her clients.
For all of us seeking a more relevant and effective way of working, these verbatim
accounts are illuminating to read. Doing so has already improved my practice as
an analyst.”
– Donald E. Kalsched, PhD, Santa Fe, New Mexico
BodyDreaming in the Treatment of
Developmental Trauma
Marian Dunlea’s BodyDreaming in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma:
An Embodied Therapeutic Approach provides a theoretical and practical guide
for working with early developmental trauma. This interdisciplinary approach
explores the interconnection of body, mind and psyche, offering a masterful tool
for restoring balance and healing developmental trauma.
BodyDreaming is a somatically focused therapeutic method, drawing on
the findings of neuroscience, analytical psychology, attachment theory and
trauma therapy. In Part I, Dunlea defines BodyDreaming and its origins, plac-
ing it in the context of a dysregulated contemporary world. Part II explains
how the brain works in relation to the BodyDreaming approach: providing
an accessible outline of neuroscientific theory, structures and neuroanatomy
in attunement, affect regulation, attachment patterns, transference and coun-
tertransference, and the resolution of trauma throughout the body. In Part III,
through detailed transcripts from sessions with clients, Dunlea demonstrates the
positive impact of BodyDreaming on attachment patterns and developmental
trauma. This somatic approach complements and enhances psychobiological,
developmental and psychoanalytic interventions. BodyDreaming restores bal-
ance to a dysregulated psyche and nervous system that activates our innate
capacity for healing, changing our default response of “fight, flight or freeze”
and creating new neural pathways. Dunlea’s emphasis on attunement to build
a restorative relationship with the sensing body creates a core sense of self,
providing a secure base for healing developmental trauma.
Innovative and practical, and with a foreword by Donald E. Kalsched,
BodyDreaming in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: An Embodied
Therapeutic Approach will be essential reading for psychotherapists, analytical
psychologists and therapists with a Jungian background, arts therapists, dance and
movement therapists, and body workers interested in learning how to work with
both body and psyche in their practices.
Marian Dunlea is a Jungian analyst and head of training in BodySoul Europe,
part of the Marion Woodman Foundation. She is a Somatic Experiencing Trauma
therapist based in the west of Ireland and is the creator of BodyDreaming.

BodyDreaming in the
Treatment of Developmental
Trauma
An Embodied Therapeutic Approach
Marian Dunlea
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
 2019 Marian Dunlea
The right of Marian Dunlea to be identifed as author of this work has
been asserted by him/her/them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dunlea, Marian, author.
Title: Bodydreaming in the treatment of developmental trauma : an
embodied therapeutic approach / Marian Dunlea.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge,
2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2018060674 (print) | LCCN 2019003557 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780429398827 (Master eBook) | ISBN 9780429677274 (Adobe
Reader) | ISBN 9780429677250 (Mobipocket) | ISBN 9780429677267
(ePub) | ISBN 9780367025939 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367025946
(pbk.) | ISBN 9780429398827 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Neuropsychology. | Dreams—Therapeutic use.
Classifcation: LCC QP360 (ebook) | LCC QP360 .D86 2019 (print) |
DDC 612.8/233—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060674
ISBN: 978-0-367-02593-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-02594-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-39882-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
To my parents Kay and Michael and the line of women
I come from and those that come after me ... Hanorah
McCarthy Cogan, my maternal grandmother, May O’Keefe
Dunlea, my paternal grandmother, my mother Kathleen
Cogan, and my three daughters Mary-Anna, Claire and
Ruth Kearney.
To artist and friend Dorothy Cross for producing the
image of the black pearl for the cover. “It must be
something beautiful,” she said. And it is.

Contents
Acknowledgements xi
Foreword by Donald E. Kalsched xiv
Credits and Permissions xxi
PART I
Setting the Scene 1
A Note to the Reader: How This Book Works 3
Introducing BodyDreaming 4
Why This Book Now: The Origins of BodyDreaming 12
Building a More Embodied Therapeutic Approach 19
An Invitation to the Reader to Engage Experientially with the Text 24
The Black Pearl 26
PART II
Neuroscientific Background 33
1 How the Brain Works: A Brief Outline and Discussion
of the Neuroscientific Theory That Informs BodyDreaming 35
PART III
BodyDreaming in Clinical Practice 73
2 Orienting, Regulating, Resourcing: “I may be able to
find some peace here” 75
3 Working the Threshold: “Slowly, slowly, 1 per cent...” 99
4 Attunement: Learned Secure Attachment in the Body:
“I’m yielding to it” 126