What is Core Energetics?

Core Energetics is a type of therapy focused on reconnecting you with the brilliant core that you are born with.

Learn about how we work in Core Energetics and how it was developed.

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What is Core Energetics?

In Core Energetics we work with the individual, as a whole, the body and the mind are inseparable. We believe that our ability to heal comes from within but with external support. You were born with a heart that knew how to be and with natural impulses that worked for your best interest. Sometimes our context demanded that we disconnect from our heart and our natural impulses to function. While this seems to work for a period of time, this disrupts the natural balance, and we end up using more energy to hold down our feelings and fundamentally good nature than to live the life we long for.

We work with each person to restore the natural, balanced flow of energy through the five fundamental levels of being: the body, emotions, mind, will, and the spirit.

When we see a block or distortion in one of these areas, we tend to see it in all of them. This means that we need to work with more than just the conscious (thinking) mind to create lasting change.

We use targeted movement, breath, sound, and vibration among other psychotherapeutic and body-based techniques to help shift the patterns that aren’t working for you and remove the obstacles around your heart so you can experience more joy, connection, pleasure and purpose in your life.

History of Core Energetics

See the contributions of psychoanalysis and early body psychotherapy and its evolution to Core Energetics

Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud

Identified the stages of development & arrested development
Explained that we have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind, and that the unconscious mind drives a lot of our behaviour
Defined competing drives − that there can be a "yes" and a "no" towards something within the person at the same time

Body Psychotherapy

Wilhelm Reich

Identified patterns of muscle tension, body composition and posture that reflect areas of disruption in stages of emotional development
Connected disruptions in the body's natural rhythm of expansion and contraction (energy economy) to the relevant developmental stages
Worked with the body and breath as part of psychotherapy

Bioenergetics

John Pierrakos & Alexander Lowen

Continued and extended the work of Reich, especially in bringing using active standing interventions and extending the work around the schizoid defence
With support from Leslie Lowen, systemised working with the body in psychotherapy through the a posture and movement vocabulary

Core Energetics

John Pierrakos

Integrated the Bioenergetic bodywork with concepts from Pathwork lectures
Reenvisioned the work with The Core or Higher Self / beautiful qualities of a person at the centre
Broadened the purpose of the work toward expanding a person's capacity for pleasure, fulfilment and purpose instead of simply resolving symptoms

What Core Energetics helps with

In my years of private practice, I see again and again highly intelligent clients who tell me that they ‘logically understand’ a issue they are facing, but they can’t seem to shift it.

Or clients who feel like all sorts of sensations, feelings or signals coming from their body, but don’t know what do with them!

‘I know I have everything in life that should make me happy, but it just doesn’t’
‘I know I should make myself a priority, but I just seem to fall to the bottom of the list before I even realise’’
‘I know that I need to slow down sometimes, but I can’t seem to sit still'
‘I know it is out of my control, but I can’t stop thinking about it!’

‘I feel like something was off in my gut, but I didn’t know what or why’
‘I have chronic pain in my lower back, but the doctors say there isn’t anything wrong’
‘I can’t even tell when I am hungry, or tired, or upset - it just feels bad, and I eat.’

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Most of us have been raised to believe that the thinking brain has the answers and the rest (including the body, feelings, the will/behaviour and the spirit) ‘should’ fall into line.

However, most of us have some areas of misalignment that takes away from the joy, connection, pleasure or purpose in their lives.