David Boadella
Encyclopedia
David Boadella is a British
psychotherapist and founder of a modality of body psychotherapy
called biosynthesis, and the author of numerous books including poetry
.
Boadella was born in London
, the son of Harold Boadella, a Port of London
transport officer, and Jessie, a secretary (maiden name Marsh). He served his military service in the British Army
, Intelligence Corps between 1948 and 1952. He has one son and one daughter, Adam and Eilidh, from his first marriage in 1952 to a writer named Elsa Corbluth. He is currently married to Silvia Specht Boadella. They married in 1988 and their son was born the same year.
, psychology
and English literature
. He holds the following degrees: B.A.
(with honors) from the University of London
, 1953, an M.Ed.
from the University of Nottingham
, 1960. Here he also studied vegetotherapy
and the concept of bioenergetics
at the Peer Institute. He then has an Dr.h.c.
from the Open International University of Complementary Medicine, given to him in 1995 for his work in the field of human and social sciences.
between 1960–1963, then as headmaster at Abbotsbury School in Abbotsbury
in Dorset
from 1963 and until at least 1970. He worked as a bioenergetic therapist at Churchill Centre from 1968, he was a lecturer at University of Bristol
1968–1971 and Weymouth College of Education 1973–1975. Boadella was director of Abbotsbury Publications from 1970. He was also a founding member of Chesil Poets which was a community project in creative writing
for adults established in 1973.
Boadella is a psychotherapist (SPV and UKCP
). He underwent five years of training analysis under Reichian vegetotherapist
Ola Raknes
in Oslo
, Norway
during the 1970s, and he has been influenced through his encounter with the work of Francis Mott to involve himself with configurational psychology. He has also received education from Frank Lake
and later in cooperation with Lake he directed the Institute for Development of Human Potential in London.
In 1969 Boadella began developing his biosynthesis modality, which in its initial form had an expression which markedly followed Mott, after twelve years part time practice as a vegetotherapist and 15 years working with the emotional problems of children in an educational context. Starting in 1975 he began his training of others in biosynthesis in his own, as well as other institutes in London, one of these being the Institute for Biodynamic Psychology.
Since 1980 Boadella has traveled extensively around the world lecturing and giving guest seminars at universities and insititutes.
During the mid-1980s David Boadella and Dr. phil. Silvia Specht Boadella together founded the International Institute for Biosynthesis (IIBS), today located in Heiden, Switzerland
.
He has since 1985 undergone training analysis in "psychosomatic centering" under Robert Moore in Denmark
. In 1995 he was also awarded his honorary doctorate from the Open International University of Complementary Medicine for his pioneering work in the development and promotion of the disciplinary journal Energy & Character (established by Boadella in 1970) as well as for his contributions in that context. In 1989 David Boadella became the founding president of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy
(EABP).
, German
, Italian
, Spanish
, Danish
and Norwegian
. His interests also include chess
, judo
, mountaineering
, sculpture
and music. The article about him in Contemporary Authors (published in 1975) quotes Boadella as being a libertarian
and with respect to religion being "Sympathetic to Taoism
, but no official adherence."
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
psychotherapist and founder of a modality of body psychotherapy
Body Psychotherapy
Body psychotherapy, also referred to as body-oriented psychotherapy and somatic psychology, is a significant branch of psychotherapy, with origins in the work of Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and particularly Wilhelm Reich....
called biosynthesis, and the author of numerous books including poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
.
Boadella was born in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the son of Harold Boadella, a Port of London
Port of London
The Port of London lies along the banks of the River Thames from London, England to the North Sea. Once the largest port in the world, it is currently the United Kingdom's second largest port, after Grimsby & Immingham...
transport officer, and Jessie, a secretary (maiden name Marsh). He served his military service in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, Intelligence Corps between 1948 and 1952. He has one son and one daughter, Adam and Eilidh, from his first marriage in 1952 to a writer named Elsa Corbluth. He is currently married to Silvia Specht Boadella. They married in 1988 and their son was born the same year.
University studies
Boadella has studied educationEducation
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
. He holds the following degrees: B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
(with honors) from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, 1953, an M.Ed.
Master of Education
The Master of Education is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in a large number of countries. This degree in education often includes the following majors: curriculum and instruction, counseling, and administration. It is often conferred for educators advancing in...
from the University of Nottingham
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...
, 1960. Here he also studied vegetotherapy
Vegetotherapy
Vegetotherapy is a form of Reichian psychotherapy that involves the physical manifestations of emotions. The basic and founding text of vegetotherapy is Wilhelm Reich's Psychischer Kontakt und vegetative Stroemung , later included in the enlarged edition of Reich's Character Analysis .- Practice...
and the concept of bioenergetics
Bioenergetic analysis
Bioenergetic Analysis is a form of body psychotherapy , based upon the work of Wilhelm Reich, but adding a number of innovations...
at the Peer Institute. He then has an Dr.h.c.
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
from the Open International University of Complementary Medicine, given to him in 1995 for his work in the field of human and social sciences.
Professional life
From 1957 he worked simultaneously as teacher for emotionally disturbed children as well as receiving patients in his psychotherapeutic practice. He worked as a teacher at various schools in NottinghamNottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
between 1960–1963, then as headmaster at Abbotsbury School in Abbotsbury
Abbotsbury
Abbotsbury is a large village and civil parish in the West Dorset district of Dorset, England; situated north-west of Weymouth. It is located from Upwey railway station and from Bournemouth International Airport. The main road running through the village is the B3157, connecting Abbotsbury to...
in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
from 1963 and until at least 1970. He worked as a bioenergetic therapist at Churchill Centre from 1968, he was a lecturer at University of Bristol
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
1968–1971 and Weymouth College of Education 1973–1975. Boadella was director of Abbotsbury Publications from 1970. He was also a founding member of Chesil Poets which was a community project in creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
for adults established in 1973.
Boadella is a psychotherapist (SPV and UKCP
United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy
The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy exists to promote and maintain high standards in the practice of psychotherapy for the benefit of the public throughout the United Kingdom...
). He underwent five years of training analysis under Reichian vegetotherapist
Vegetotherapy
Vegetotherapy is a form of Reichian psychotherapy that involves the physical manifestations of emotions. The basic and founding text of vegetotherapy is Wilhelm Reich's Psychischer Kontakt und vegetative Stroemung , later included in the enlarged edition of Reich's Character Analysis .- Practice...
Ola Raknes
Ola Raknes
Ola Raknes was a Norwegian psychologist, philologist and non-fiction writer. Born in Bergen, Norway, he was internationally known as a psychoanalyst in the Reichian tradition...
in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
during the 1970s, and he has been influenced through his encounter with the work of Francis Mott to involve himself with configurational psychology. He has also received education from Frank Lake
Frank Lake
Frank Lake was one of the pioneers of pastoral counselling in the United Kingdom. In 1962 he founded the Clinical Theology Association with the primary aim to make clergy more effective in understanding and accepting the psychological origins of their parishioners’ personal difficulties...
and later in cooperation with Lake he directed the Institute for Development of Human Potential in London.
In 1969 Boadella began developing his biosynthesis modality, which in its initial form had an expression which markedly followed Mott, after twelve years part time practice as a vegetotherapist and 15 years working with the emotional problems of children in an educational context. Starting in 1975 he began his training of others in biosynthesis in his own, as well as other institutes in London, one of these being the Institute for Biodynamic Psychology.
Since 1980 Boadella has traveled extensively around the world lecturing and giving guest seminars at universities and insititutes.
During the mid-1980s David Boadella and Dr. phil. Silvia Specht Boadella together founded the International Institute for Biosynthesis (IIBS), today located in Heiden, Switzerland
Heiden, Switzerland
Heiden is a municipality in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland. Its Biedermeier village around the church square is listed as a heritage site of national significance.-History:Heiden is first mentioned in 1461 as guot genant Haiden....
.
He has since 1985 undergone training analysis in "psychosomatic centering" under Robert Moore in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. In 1995 he was also awarded his honorary doctorate from the Open International University of Complementary Medicine for his pioneering work in the development and promotion of the disciplinary journal Energy & Character (established by Boadella in 1970) as well as for his contributions in that context. In 1989 David Boadella became the founding president of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy
European Association for Body Psychotherapy
The European Association for Body Psychotherapy is a professional association for practicing body psychotherapists in Europe.It currently has about 750 accredited members on its Register of European Body Psychotherapists...
(EABP).
Other information
David Boadella reads FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
and Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
. His interests also include chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
, judo
Judo
is a modern martial art and combat sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an...
, mountaineering
Mountaineering
Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...
, sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
and music. The article about him in Contemporary Authors (published in 1975) quotes Boadella as being a libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
and with respect to religion being "Sympathetic to Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
, but no official adherence."
Source
- "Energy & Character" vol.31 no.1, September, 2000. P.126-131,144