Birth Oriented Therapy

First, a few words of my own, and then I’ll direct you to the wonderful Wikipedia entry.

Birth-Oriented Therapy is an approach to accompaniment and therapeutic support for women, couples, and family units, specifically attuned to the unique life processes surrounding fertility, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and parenthood. It was developed over the past decade by Keren Friedman Gadassi.

BOT is a deep and gentle approach grounded in tools from Focusing, Family Constellation, and Somatic Experiencing (SE).

When there are many things within and around us that need attention, release, reorganization, and a soft compassionate hand — BOT sessions can lead to clarity and connection with personal knowledge and inner resources.

BOT sessions are suitable for challenges, difficulties, or struggles related to:

• Emotional difficulties during fertility, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, parenting, relationships, and sexuality
• Traumas that surface and influence the present experience
• Previous pregnancy and birth experiences (processing pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding experiences, etc.)
• Personal childhood trauma and trauma in general
• Coping with the effects of sexual abuse and other forms of harm
• Emotional disconnection (from the baby, from oneself, from one’s relationship, from one’s life activity) and feelings of dissociation
• Feelings of depression and anxiety arising during these life periods
• A sense of diminished joy, vitality, or connection to life and personal expression

BOT sessions may also be deeply meaningful for women and couples going through healthy, joyful, and positive experiences who are interested in approaching these periods of life as gateways to profound inner treasures.

Such sessions invite personal and relational growth through understanding life processes, strengthening resources, and allowing the whole self to discover its next fuller and truer movement.

BOT stands for Birth Oriented Therapy.

It is a gentle yet highly grounded and precise accompaniment approach (and, in my view, also a way of life), drawing from the fields of Focusing, Somatic Experiencing (SE), Family Constellation, as well as conventional psychotherapy and neurology.

Out of the realities and processes emerging in our society, there arose a need for a therapeutic approach uniquely adapted to these periods of life. Every field of knowledge — psychiatry, psychology, midwifery, medicine, and others — certainly contains relevant experience and understanding regarding women during these times, yet often without a synthesized and deeply embodied understanding of pregnancy and birth processes on the physiological, emotional, and spiritual levels.

In other words: psychology may offer support to a woman experiencing anxiety during pregnancy, but without a deep understanding of trauma mechanisms unique to birth experiences, the support may remain incomplete.

BOT seeks to bridge and fill this gap — and does so remarkably well.

It brings a set of deep and meaningful tools (which I’ll describe shortly) into a very unique accompaniment space that includes the orientation, capacity, and skill for radical acceptance of everything that exists and arises, deep and full presence, and tools connected to the shared field between the practitioner and the woman (or family system) being accompanied.

BOT sessions may be one-time meetings for a specific issue or question, or a short series of meetings. Accompaniment can be ongoing throughout a challenging period (fertility, pregnancy, early parenthood), or consist of “maintenance” meetings once a month, for example.

Since every woman is unique and one-of-a-kind, the accompaniment model that develops together with the practitioner will also be unique and adapted to the woman, her world, her preferences, and the challenges relevant to her.

And now, a little more about the different components:

Focusing is interested in and supportive of connection.
Connection between the mother and the pregnancy, the baby, previous experiences, and most importantly, connection with the different parts within herself. Focusing-oriented communication allows a woman to remain in relationship with all her parts. In this way, she remains connected both to her resources and to the parts within her that are afraid, hurting, or signaling something important about her own right path — together with and in relation to everything that exists within her, including previous experiences or losses.

When there is a part within us that is disconnected — with which we have lost contact (usually due to survival or protective mechanisms) — our capacities become limited, and we are unable to fully be all that we could be. It is like a castle with several locked and inaccessible wings.

Focusing also integrates the wisdom of the body. The accompaniment takes place primarily through conversation — but a “focusing-oriented” conversation that invites listening to bodily sensations as well, usually at a slower pace that allows the “right brain” to participate: nonlinear knowing, associations, insights, and experiences stored and halted within the body.

The goal is not to silence the mind, which is itself a legitimate and respected part of us, but rather to integrate its goodness and wisdom alongside the wisdom of other inner parts.

Through safe accompaniment (always highly regulated and attentive to pacing and inner balance), it becomes possible to open, air out, soften toward, understand, and even transform these locked wings.

And then, much more air enters. There is more inner spaciousness. Countless possibilities for movement, change, and connection to the resources present within every woman begin to emerge. The outcomes often lead to very practical and grounded understandings — and this is something I deeply love.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) offers the possibility of releasing different forms of trauma from childhood or later life through a bodily and holistic understanding of trauma mechanisms and healing pathways.

Family Constellation offers a broad view of processes within the woman and family system that are shaped and influenced by the extended family and previous generations. At the same time, it brings these understandings inward — toward emotional and spiritual inner observation — seeing the woman herself as a kind of microcosm of the family and society existing outside her. Different parts within us, too, exist in relationship with one another.

Together, all these components (and others as well) have woven themselves into a mode of accompaniment unlike anything else I have personally encountered.

Because of its deep internal coherence, BOT becomes an additional layer enriching every therapeutic field connected to women around pregnancy and birth. Professionals from many disciplines — yoga, homeopathy, acupuncture, reflexology, physiotherapy (especially pelvic floor work), doulas, breastfeeding counselors, shiatsu practitioners, and many others — often find that BOT adds another layer of wisdom to the foundation of the work they already carry within them. It is a synthesis that works beautifully, mutually enriches, and expands.

For me personally, the synthesis that emerged was between BOT and the “other” form of parenting accompaniment I have been developing and facilitating for around twelve years. For me, this has been nothing short of miraculous. I opened groups dedicated to inquiry and reflection in parenting through the spirit of Focusing and my Respectful Parenting approach. Powerful processes and transformations take place within the participants and their family systems — processes that fill me with awe and gratitude.

Within the more traditional field of fertility, pregnancy, and birth accompaniment, in recent years my work has focused almost entirely on accompanying women with histories of sexual trauma or trauma from previous births. In this, I feel both a mission and a privilege.

Personally, I can say that from the moment I encountered BOT, I felt I had found a home —
a home within myself, and a home in the source of things, the essence of things, and the path toward health, joy, and healing.

And I am deeply grateful for the richness, the gift, and the privilege that have come into my life through it.

Birth-Oriented Therapy is also highly suitable for situations involving anxiety, and especially for women for whom aspects of birth may act as triggers — body-related triggers, exposure, penetration, fear of pain, or fear of uncertainty.

In my experience, even within a relatively short period of time, deep and gentle processes can begin moving — processes that support healing, access to resources, and bodily-emotional regulation, and that help support the possibility of a birth experience that is fitting, joyful, healthy, and aligned.

The Wikipedia entry about BOT — words that beautifully summarize all this >>

A little about myself in relation to BOT:

BOT was the gift of my life. It became my gateway into another layer of being, acting in the world, and experiencing joy in living.

After already accompanying births and families through this threshold of life for about ten years, I began studying Birth-Oriented Therapy and felt that I had finally come home —

home to myself, and home to the source of things, the essence of things, and the pathway toward health, joy, and healing.