In the 1970’s in Zurich, Switzerland, Process Work takes shape, inspired by established fields – revitalizing, rebranding and in some cases advancing them. Much of the early discoveries emerged from the creative mind of Arne Mindell -physicist, turned Jungian Psychologist.

Arne and his colleagues made clinical observations of patients in extreme states and began to notice a correlation between the way they listened and unfolded “signals” – often manifesting as symptoms – and an improvement in said symptoms. These signals could be coming through in language and communication, relationally – they could be coming through in body signals, repetitive motions – or in sensations. They observed these signals in the dominant sense channels: kinesthetic (movement), proprioceptive (feeling), auditory (sound) and visual (sight). Through relating to the signals democratically, improvement in the symptom resulted. Relating democratically may involve unfolding, going deeper into, amplifying or transferring it from one channel to another. Having an honest encounter with the signal revealed to them a level of communication happening below the level of consensus reality. The body communicating beyond hunger and thirst, in its own language, breaking through to the conscious mind.  

Arne began to operationalize techniques to engage with this field of communication. He coined the term Dreambody, a term inspired by C.G. Jung’s work, as a way of naming the field of mind that is flowing in waking as well as sleeping states. This field of mind is what we call phenomenological because it is directly experienced through the body. Let’s meet it together, here: