Abstract

We tend to think of memory as the brain's storing of experiences so that they can later be called up into reflective awareness. Recent phenomenological theorizing, medical, epigenetic, and neuroscientific findings, as well as observations from body psychotherapies have refined and altered this notion, and we now understand the storing of experiences as occurring not only in the brain but also throughout the body. For the implicit part of those processes, phenomenology speaks of body memory. All advances in our understanding of memory carry profound significance for the practice of psychotherapy. In particular, there is increasing support for the idea that the bodily movement of both the psychotherapy client and the therapist can be leveraged for therapeutic change. The Moving Cycle is a body psychotherapy method that works with body memory by using conscious movement sequencing during sessions, movements that are themselves an act of remembering, a remembering that is held and cared for in the emotionally attuned movement responses of the therapist. This relational holding of body memories enables patients to uncover, process, and cope with difficult memories within their current lived experience of safety and understanding. In this article, we ask whether we can understand the Moving Cycle as phenomenological method, argue for this position, and invoke clinical examples to strengthen this argument.