"The in-depth method of study offered by Ruella Frank and Frances La Barre, foundational movement analysis, is of great value to psychotherapists who focus on interaction and contact, and affords a sharp tool to ground process work in a field perspective. Going beyond the empirical understanding of nonverbal expression, the authors show how body movements point out the unformulated and prereflexive areas of experience. They also demonstrate how feelings, to which psychotherapists are so sensitive, are a 'later-developing aspect of the experience of physical and kinetic elements of interaction,' without falling into the trap of a linear cause-and-effect way of thinking. Clear, brilliant, and illustrated with clinical examples, this book is a worthy addition to the library not only of psychotherapists, but also parents and caretakers." - Jean-Marie Robine, Founder and Training Supervisor, Institut Francais de Gestalt-therapie
"This fascinating and undeniably important book will do nothing less than widen and reorient your perception of human movement. Reading Frank and La Barre will actually change what you see. And you do see it, too, because the book is packed with marvelous, detailed illustrations. If you are interested in mother-infant observational studies, the interaction of parent couples, or individual psychotherapy, this is essential reading. Psychotherapists will make discoveries about their patients, themselves, and the interaction that they might never have suspected. Frank and La Barre's novel observational method, foundational movement analysis, reveals crucial data to be right there in the embodied aspects of clinical relatedness. We are overlooking so much!" - Donnel Stern, Ph.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, William Alanson White Institute
"Frank and La Barre have drawn upon years of expertise in recognizing the communicative importance of nonverbal behavior. Expanding upon the well-grounded movement perspectives of Laban, Kestenberg, Bainbridge-Cohen, and others, they extend their insights into the realm of parent-infant interaction, and awaken us to critical implications for us as psychotherapists. There are riches here pertaining to parent-infant relationships and to what makes the therapist-patient relationship effective. The bridge between these realms is exquisitely detailed in carefully observed movement interaction." - K. Mark Sossin, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Pace University, and co-author, The Meaning of Movement (1999)
"Finally, here is a work that definitively reveals how nonverbal movement inclinations in infancy, developed in the company of significant others, become the implicit core of adult function, still actively part of every lived moment. By elaborating the key movement patterns in all relationships, the authors have created a somatically informed, whole person approach to both psychotherapeutic treatment and educational interventions." - Alan Fogel, Ph.D., author, The Psychophysiology of Self-Awareness: Rediscovering the Art of Body Sense
"The ideas presented by Frank and LaBarre emerge from a wealth of clinical knowledge and experience. In beginning to play with their ideas and explore how they might be relevant to my own practice as a therapist, I need both a willingness to engage in my own personal exploration of movement and enough himility to allow myself to appreciate my novice status. I trust that from this place the seeds of this book would reap a rich harvest." - Leanne O'Shea, in Gestalt Journal of Australia and New Zealand
"The book is a labor of love by two psychotherapists from different orientions: psychoanalysis and gestalt school....Both are practicing psychotherapists and bring their rich experience to the book....this book also introduced a new and intriguing tool for consideration in my clinical practice...easy to read, well conceptualized and organized, and an intriguing addition to the literature for developmental, counseling, and clinical psychology." - Alan Cheney, in PsycCRITIQUES
"One of the most innovative and intriguing books that we have come accross this year. Highly recommended." - Play for Life, Summer 2011
