Therapies such as acupuncture, Reiki or reflexology have an energetic model of health and practitioners develop particular sensitivities in order to work with their clients' energy. Rather than working with acupuncture or pressure points, channels/meridians or channelled energy, biodynamic therapies are uniquely concerned with energy in a very simple way: energy as "the movement of life."

Everything in life moves through cycles: from a state of rest, through preparation or "build-up" to action or expression and finally a phase of recovery or integration. In biodynamic theory, this is known as the vasomotoric cycle.

How does bodywork interact with these cycles?

• Do you tend to get stuck in the planning or anticipation phase of things in your life?

• Do you never-endingly analyse and feel slightly sick about things you have done in the past? Or do you have problems letting go in other ways?

• Do you get stuck in being busy? Or being inactive?

• Do you get stuck being overly emotional? Or do you have problems connecting with your emotions?

These are all patterns which biodynamic massage can help by working with the energy flow in your body. The practitioner feels where energy is stuck and invites it to flow more freely, so restoring health and the body's innate ability to self-regulate.

In many cases, just the hands on work can be enough to help you to come back into a more healthy balance, but talking about these patterns, or about specific events, is also very helpful. There is scope within sessions to explore how you feel about your life, the reasons why it may be as it is, and how you might like it to be in future.

The amount of talking varies enormously between clients, and reflects biodynamic massage's original roots in psychotherapy.

The notion of unfinished cycles

If we lived our lives spontaneously, every vasomotoric cycle would flow to completion. We would do what we want or need to do, communicate openly and honestly with others, and express our emotions freely.

However, this is not the norm, for lots of reasons! Often we choose not to take action or express certain feelings because it may have consequences we would rather avoid, because we may believe it is somehow "wrong" to do so, or because in the past we have been conditioned to hold back.

Many of these patterns restrict our full participation in the world and may lead to frustration, anxiety or depression. If you constantly hold back, your life may become quite limited, and interestingly this is reflected in the way you hold your body. Your posture becomes distorted and unnatural, causing discomfort, pain or even injury and disease.

Psychoneuroimmunology has shown that continually suppressing feelings (or, indeed, overly expressing them - as can be encouraged in some cathartic approaches) your reduce the efficiency of your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to infections and perhaps even diseases such as cancer.

Biodynamic massage aims to release the harmful effects of unfinished cycles and help you to move towards a more fulfilling life. As your body lets go of old patterns, your circulation and respiration will become freed up, and your tissues will be better provided with the nourishment they need for proper maintenance - as well as for a normal and active life.

The use of the stethoscope by many biodynamic massage therapists reflects the belief that the movements of the gut (peristalsis) are part of a self-regulatory system in which the intestines digest the remnants of stress from our system. In biodynamic theory, this is known as psychoperistalsis.

Biodynamic work from a more conventional perspective

We can also talk about biodynamic massage in terms of the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Many people live their lives in such a speedy or stressed way that the sympathetic nervous system (the "fight or flight" part of our system) is overly activated. In such a state, we are somewhat numbed to our bodies (if you are fighting or fleeing then it is advantageous to be less aware of pain because it will hold you back), and tend to live life in a somewhat panicky or impulsive manner, doing things we may later regret.

Biodynamic massage aims to rebalance the nervous system so that we can settle into our bodies and respond to life more appropriately. The monitoring of peristalsis (gut sounds) during massage provides real time biofeedback as to the balance between these parts of our nervous system.

People who have undergone trauma have a nervous system which may get particularly stuck in one of three phases: fight, flight or freeze. The freeze response can be likened to having your foot on both the brake pedal and the accelerator of a car at the same time. These responses are controlled by primitive parts of the brain whose "language" is to do with bodily sensation and not words/thought. A mixture of hands on and verbal interventions which bring awareness back to the body but, importantly, without overwhelming the system can assist in gently restoring the nervous system to a better balance.

A spiritual interpretation

Biodynamic massage helps to return us to "here and now" (as described in Eckhart Tolle's best-selling book "The Power of Now").

Many of my clients say that my sessions are a time when their mental chatter comes to a near-standstill, their judgments cease, and they are simply present and aware of their bodies and the birds singing outside etc.

As a therapist I see sessions as having the potential to return both therapist and client to a state of simple presence; being in and communicating from this state can be highly healing and even life-changing for many people.

It can be quite a relief to appreciate that many of the things in our lives that we believe to be so real and distressing are in fact just thoughts. When the thought disappears, so does the problem. Touch can "return you to your senses" so that you come to see what it is in life that really matters.