Movement Without Normalisation
THE CLASSICAL ASSUMPTION: more movement, more range, more spontaneous expression through the body generally signals more health.
REMEMBER: more movement is not automatically more health.
Where the assumption comes from
Many body psychotherapy traditions treat restricted movement as a sign of psychological inhibition to be released, and free, expansive movement as a sign of health being restored. That mapping makes sense for a body whose only real limits are psychological. It breaks down completely for a body whose movement is genuinely, physically limited — by paralysis, spasticity, joint damage, chronic pain, fatigue, or neurological difference.
What actually needs separating
Limited movement is not automatically inhibition. It might be a joint that genuinely can’t move further. It might be a body managing a finite amount of daily energy. It might be pain that makes a wider range of motion actively harmful. None of that is psychological restriction waiting to be released — and treating it as such can mean pushing someone past a real physical limit in the name of “freeing” them.
The reconstruction
The actual psychological territory here — expression, agency, spontaneity, aliveness — doesn’t require a wide range of physical motion to reach. A single available gesture, a small movement, a shift in weight, a change in breath, or even an imagined movement can carry the same expressive and psychological weight as a large physical action, if it’s approached with the same attention and meaning.
A process to try
- Notice one movement that’s genuinely available to you right now, however small — a finger, a breath, a shift of weight, a blink.
- Do it once, slowly, with full attention rather than trying to make it bigger than it is.
- Notice what it carries — an emotion, a sense of agency, nothing at all.
- “Nothing” is a valid, complete result. This isn’t about producing a bigger reaction.
For therapists
Never read a smaller range of movement as necessarily meaning “less work happening.” A tiny, available movement, attended to fully, can carry exactly as much psychological content as a large one.
A question worth carrying
Is this movement limited by something physical, or by something psychological — and does the answer actually need to be known before the work can proceed?
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