Diverse Bodies, Diverse Practices: Toward an Inclusive Somatics

This collection of approximately twelve essays is a first to open the door for voices to emerge from African American, Indigenous, Latin American, and Asian embodiment traditions to impact Somatic theories and practices. In addition, the notion of "body" that underlies most of these currently available writings assumes a universal normality of structure and function that has come into question: such challenges appear in this collection from the viewpoints of neural, hormonal, and physiological diversities. The authors in this collection embody these differences and have developed their particular somatic practices out of direct awareness of them. In the narratives of this anthology, we find the seeds of new approaches to the transformation of the bodily roots of our social order: a healing of the recurrent traumas of the past, as well as of physical suffering and our very culture.

These essays, on topics such as the autistic body-mind, the theme of how the human body is both shaped by and shapes contemporary society, and shaping somatic psychotherapy to be a trustworthy resource for healing within the African American community will help students and practitioners of somatics broaden the scope and efficiency of their therapeutic practices. It aims to open a more inclusive world of somatics with its audience of students and practitioners in psychotherapy and many forms of bodywork.