Le Corps a ses raisons (The Body has its Reasons)

Your body has not forgotten anything. In the stiffness, in the inhibitions, in the muscular pains of your back, of your limbs, of your diaphragm and also of your face and genitals, your entire history is revealed, from birth to today. From the first months of your life, you have reacted to pressure: “Watch your posture. Don’t touch. Don’t touch yourself. . .”. You accommodated as best you could and in thus conforming, you deformed yourself. Liberate yourself from past programming. A woman tells you of her personal and professional experiences and suggests anti-exercise, not a forced shaping of your body/flesh, the body likened to a wild beast which must be broken, but movements that are conjured up from the past. It is through these that you will make a voyage backwards through your own life where you shall rediscover your true harmonious, balanced and autonomous body.

Courrier du corps (The Body’s communication system)

You don’t go to a therapist to state: “I absolutely do not want to get well”. Yet, the resistance to change, the need to continue recognizing oneself as a suffering being, victim of life and circumstances, are the underpinnings of many requests for care. This was one of the discoveries of Thérèse Bertherat while reading the 15,000 letters that she received after publishing her first book “Le Corps a ses raisons”. In this book, she talks about these very revealing letters which made her ask disturbing questions about her work, about her patients and about herself. Most importantly, she shares her research on a global therapy which would take into account not only the psychic reasons which have rendered the body susceptible to illness and deformation, but the mechanical causes of pain as well. She describes and critiques the numerous psycho-corporal therapies in vogue today and talks about the evolution of her own work on anti-exercise, where the word and the contact with others are one. Fifteen movements inform you, indeed very precisely, about your actual state and can lead you, your body consenting, towards lasting changes of your muscular, nervous and, it goes without saying, life organization. Rather than a sequel or an end to “Le Corps a ses raisons”, “Courrier du corps”, for those readers who dare to face themselves, will be the start of a new way to see and hear oneself

Les Saisons du corps (The Body’s Seasons)

A man was running in the street, one day. Chest out, eyes bulging, open mouth, he was running hard, he was running as if his life depended on it. It is then that I saw that he had a knife stuck between his shoulders blades. I often think of this wounded man,“ says Therese Bertherat, “when I see people chasing after their form. They will never run fast enough to escape the tightening of their muscles. Everything they want to avoid, discomfort, stiffness, aches, remains anchored behind, in their backs. The shape! Keep the shape! What a refrain. . . Instead, let go the shape. . .Let go the knotted muscles that deform you. Before you hang yourself, before climbing on your bicycle, before grabbing the weights, sit down quietly. Open your eyes. Before wanting to keep your shape, take the time to look at yourself. Billions of years, millions of rhythms, of seasons, of moon cycles passed for your body shape to be born. Since the day of your birth to the present, thousands of days have passed for your shape to reshape and deform itself. For your well-being, for your health, learn to rediscover your shape, concrete, precise, virtually harmonious and beautiful. Find it yourselves, literally and figuratively, to the eye.

Le Repaire du tigre (The Tiger’s Den)

We all have a tiger in our body. A live tiger, powerful and very beautiful to look at. Everyone does, even those that don’t know it. He stays in his den, in a very precise location, but in the anatomy books, appears in small detached pieces, truncated, unrecognizable. Not knowing him causes much harm: back aches, stiffness and various aches often have no other reason for their existence but our ignorance of this power that came from time immemorial. For Therese Bertherat (we know this thanks to her books, “Le Corps a ses raisons” and “Courrier du corps”), the tiger is an old aquaintance. For nearly twenty years now, she works at observing it and helps her students to live with, and benefit from, him. She outlines for us now, in a thousand beautiful and precise images, the anatomy of this tiger, but also his tricks. How we succeed to ensnare ourselves. From that point on, everyone can learn to tame one’s tiger, without haste, by simple movements. We all have the power to create our equilibrium.

A Corps consentant (Body Acquiescing)

It is the diary of my daughter, Marie, that you are holding. What she says, with much simplicity, she has lived it in her body, she has felt it in her flesh, for nine months. To share it with you, she has then conducted an investigation with much intelligence and discipline. With her generosity, and with that gentle tenacity which is so true to her. . .However, don’t mistake it, these nine months that made her a mother is not an invitation to docile behaviours. . . Thérèse Bertherat, a mother, discovers her daughter that she thought to know so well, and this discovery surprises her, fills her with joy and respect. A daughter suddenly asks her mother for something other than a little warmth and tenderness. She questions her experience as a therapist. Therese Bertherat reassures her and explains the forces that are awakening inside her. She suggests fourteen extremely precise movements to prepare her body for giving birth. Based on anatomical data and rigorous physiologies, they awaken in her the feeling for subtle sensations, and the desire to inhabit her body in all its nooks and crannies, with tenderness, with self-respect and respect for her child to come. If you are pregnant, if you have anxiety, if you need a comforting word or a practical answer, listen to these women. With Paule Brung (a not run-of-the mill midwife with forty years of experience and the confidence that only such successful years can give), they have found, each in their own way, the right gestures and the right words. You shall find the potential strength that is in you. They explain to you how your body is made, how to prepare yourselves, how to be yourselves and give birth freely, your body consenting...