About
Integral Body Psychotherapy is a therapy that is inclusive of multiple modern techniques and methodologies. It allows us to see the roots of inner restlessness and dissatisfaction, emotional pain and various psychological problems that troubles the average person.
Psychotherapy
In Integral Body Psychotherapy we look at how early interpersonal relationships (object relations) form the unconscious, which together with the body’s neurology and physiology forms a whole (body mind), and how the embodied subconscious shapes the human psyche, the way of perceiving, thinking, behaving and deciding. Therapist observes how interpersonal experiences from the early childhood period remains, and are imprinted in the neurology and biology of the human organism, influencing the formation of the body shape and become the basis on which the psychological structure and body response is showing within the client.
With Integral Body Psychotherapy we rely on modern scientific knowledge about the influence of the quality of early attachment on lifelong health and the quality of life of a person. I am proud that my school Integral Personal Development International is the only body psychotherapy school that has direct successors of the founders of the first body psychotherapy in its team as teachers and supervisors. Heiner Steckel worked for years with Alexander Lowen, a student of Wilhelm Reich, the founder of Bioenergetic Analysis, and Walid Daw was a student and friend of John Pierrakos, the founder of Core Energetix.
The Integral Personal Development International school is accredited by EABP and a member of HKPT and SPUH.
Sessions
The session is 55 minutes long, and it is provided in person in Dublin, or via ZOOM.
Prior to the session you will be given a short questionnaire to answer, which will enable me to have a better understanding about your main health issues, your family connection, and why you have chosen a therapy.
My therapeutic approach:
My approach is Relational Body Psychotherapy, which means we work not only with thoughts and talking, but also with emotions, the body, and the nervous system. Our experiences are stored not just in the mind, but in the body – in patterns of tension, shutdown, anxiety, or emotional reactivity. In therapy, we gently bring awareness to these patterns and support your system to develop new, safer ways of relating to yourself and others.
Sessions offer a supportive, attuned relationship where you can explore what is happening for you in the present moment, make sense of past experiences, and develop greater emotional regulation, self-compassion, and connection. The work is paced carefully and collaboratively, creating a sense of safety and stability as change unfolds over time.
Together, we focus on building a stronger sense of inner safety, increasing emotional awareness, and supporting lasting change at a nervous system level – not just insight, but embodied change that can be felt in daily life and relationships.
Myself
I am Kristina, a mother to a beautiful, gentle girl, and a wife to a resilient man. I am a daughter of seemingly happy parents who did their best considering their upbringing. I am originally from Croatia, which I left in 1998., running from a dysfunctional ungrounded home where lack of support on several levels was the norm.
Since a very young age I was sensitive to people’s energies, very fond of observing people and curious about Why. I felt in my bones that the way I am, there is more to it. My inner fear for survival manifested itself in a form of drive for wealth and career, and at the time I perceived this as a drive for happiness. I reached my goals but I was still constantly unhappy, with body aches, depression, and heavily dependent on various different substance abuse. Through yoga practice in 2004 I started to realise the manifestation of my tension and possibility to ease it. Another drive led me to live in India, and Thailand where I lived for a while, and I got training and became a 500 hour certified RYT Yoga teacher. I have over a decade experience in teaching worldwide classes and yoga retreats.
Becoming a mother in a foreign country, with very little support, led me to my current educational background in Integral Body Psychotherapy. In 2017. I took a course on Natural Parenting. This helped me greatly to understand my daughter better, and to raise her with the knowledge and understanding of her needs for healthy striving. I continued with the Early Development studies program to get to know myself deeper, and my unconscious mind, formed through experiences and relationships. This was the first level in education for therapists of Integral Body Psychotherapy. I continued with Program OR, Personal Development that lasted 4 years, which brought me a deep transformative experience and personal growth. This is the second level of Comprehensive personal development and education for Integral Body Psychotherapists. Parallel to my Personal Development program I have taken a course in Therapeutic Practice – a two-year program that is conducted with the 3rd and 4th year of Personal Development Program with an explicit education in basic psychotherapy skills and introduction on how to work with clients. Continuing with a two-year Degree in Advanced Therapeutic Training, which consists of very intensive explicit education in physical psychotherapy skills conducted by trainers and supervisors as well as foreign trainers and supervisors Heiner Steckel, Walid Dow and Olaf Trapp. My experiential practice and personal inquiry enhances my capacity to respond to clients at an implicit emotional and relational level.
I am a therapist, a client, a student and a researcher on Integral Body Psychotherapy, and I will most likely continue endlessly. Today I am the observer of my emotional state instead of binder within my inner critique. I manage my emotional state with invaluable techniques learned throughout the years with my therapist and through the work groups and studies. Most importantly I feel that I am led by my emotional state with a chemically balanced mind. I have rewired my body and my mind. I am now “feeling the pleasure and life of the body.” : Alexander Lowen, M.D. (1910 – 2008). I feel I have a good balance between my thoughts and my feelings without neglecting or diminishing either one.
It is my sincere desire to take you on this journey of neurological change, rewiring your mind-body set up towards your own personal empowerment. The change that remains, and subsequently expands to all of those around you.