Comparative individual psychology and psychomotor therapy: a real-world approach to serving the child

Abstract

This contribution explores the psychomotor therapeutic approach, based on Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology, as a treatment for children with early relationship disorders, such as autism and psychosis. This approach differs from other techniques in that it acts on the mind-body relationship, privileging psychomotor expressiveness as the child's language, emphasising the possibility of ‘reading’ the body as an expression of lifestyle, in an inseparable articulation of attitudes, feelings and emotions. This approach is indicated for children with difficulties in symbolisation and communication and focuses on the first years of life, when the child's ‘lifestyle’ is formed, working at an archaic level to restructure the personality and encourage mother-child separation, a fundamental aspect for the development of the meaning of the Self. Through movement, the child's body becomes the means to restore the pleasure of feeling, acting and moving with one's own body to build new channels of communication. A concrete example shows how therapeutic work with an autistic child enables progress in recognising her image and overcoming isolation