Resistance — Make Friends With It

At a glance

The Biodynamic tradition’s own principle explicitly instructs practitioners to respect resistance as protection rather than push through it — a direct departure from the earlier Reichian instinct to confront and break through defence.

Why this principle fits disability so well

This is one of the most genuinely useful ideas in the whole Biodynamic tradition for disability-informed work, largely unchanged. “Resistance” in a disabled body might be genuine psychological protection worth understanding — or it might simply be a real physical limit, a pain response, or a body accurately declining something that would cause harm. Either way, the instruction is the same: respect it, rather than treat it as an obstacle to be overcome.

Before asking anything to soften

The genuinely useful clinical question, borrowed directly from this tradition and extended: before asking a resistance, a tension, or a “no” to soften, understand what becomes unsafe if it does. That’s especially important around medical trauma, dependency, care relationships, sexuality, and any history of violence or discrimination — all places where a body’s protective “no” deserves to be taken at face value first.

A question worth carrying

What is this resistance actually protecting — and has anyone actually asked, rather than assumed it needs to be moved past?

You may also want to explore

Vegetotherapy · Medical Trauma & Body Ownership · Biodynamic Psychotherapy