It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Robert in the Spring of 2023 at the age of 84. Bob wanted it to be known how proud he was that he had been happily married for 55 years, had a son, a daughter and three grandchildren. He will be deeply missed by so very many people.
Here are a few of his words that beautifully explain how he worked and why he loved what he did: "I aim for a clinical encounter in which there are two people in the room; I mean by this, not an "expert" therapist who diagnoses the problem and fixes it for an objectified, compliant patient. What I prefer is that we both discover how it can be safe enough, with two of us in the room, for my patient to begin to tell his or her story. That story, of past events and relationships, is embodied in the patient's psyche-soma. In the spontaneous exchange, sometimes implicit and nonverbal, the relational story becomes known as it is re-lived, this time in a safer context. I remain the responsible professional, but I am also a guide who is touched by this journey into such personal places."
Robert Lewis, M.D. | 1938-2023
What is Bioenergetics?
When you have no words for your feelings, for what happened to you, for what is missing in you, we listen to the inner resonance - of your inchoate secrets - as it lives in your body. This therapy will help you to sense and amplify this inner resonance until its movement comes close enough to the surface of your being to enter your consciousness.
But we also listen carefully to your words and are touched by them when they come from a depth of your being that no one can put a hand on. We invite you to surrender to the spirit of your body and the body of your spirit - and in so doing, to embrace your true self.
Learn more about Bioenergetics.
Dr. Robert Lewis, M.D.
Featured Publications
Palermo Panel
In 2013 at the international bioenergetic conference I read this paper on the relevance of David Berceli's Trauma Release Process for an ongoing relational somatic therapy (Bioenergetic Analysis). Along the way, A) I challenged David to tell us what kind of wounded person he was before he assumed the mantle of a wounded healer. B) I also took issue with his contention that trauma (as opposed to a secure attachment status) is the royal road to a deeper, more authentic existence.
Broken And Veiled In Shame; Revealed By The Body's Implicit Light
This paper was a keynote presentation at the 2009 IIBA Conference on the Poetry of the Body in Buzios Brazil. It is proposed that we bioenergetic therapists are artisans whose craft is both an art form and a clinical science. In support of this thesis, the following questions are explored: Is it possible to both celebrate the poetry and ineffable mystery of our work, and yet remain true to and to honor our Reichian and Lowenian roots? Can we be grounded in the mystery of life, without slipping into the 'Mystification" against which Reich warned us? Has the 'grace of self' that we seek to 'unveil, actually evolved from the core pulsation which our founders strove to liberate from our character armor?
Neurobiological Data: A Help Or A Hindrance In The Clinical Encounter?
This paper examines the clinical relevance of recent neuroscience data to the practice of bioenergetic analysis. I conclude that the nonverbal, bodily basis of our approach is affirmed by the evolving picture of a right-brain-to right-brain infant-caregiver dialogue engraving our attachment experience into the right limbic system as a model of relationships to come. But I also conclude that, for for most of us, the neurobiological data does not help us in real time to be present with our patient in the clinical encounter. Two clinical vignettes illustrate both the above perspective and the continuing relevance of our basic Reichian/Lowenian model of our patient as the trillion-celled amoeba.
“I want you to know that I’m still grateful for the session and the workshop. I still can feel my longing to surrender to live and to feel the life-force and joy in me. I thank you for your presence and careful way of working with me. I want to let you know how precious it has been for me, and that it really changed my work and life.”