“Re-discovered bodies” Shiatsu for nutrition and eating disorders
STEFANIA FERRI
Since 1996, Shiatsu has been integrated into the rehabilitation pathway provided by the “Child Neuropsychiatry Unit and Regional Center for Eating Disorders (DNA) in developmental age” at Bellaria IRCCS Hospital in Bologna, currently directed by Professor Antonia Parmeggiani.
The activity has developed and been shaped according to the needs of the young patients. Currently, it is offered as group work for the Day Hospital and the Ward, carried out in a midweek session lasting one hour and thirty minutes for each service.
The exercises proposed during the activity, shiatsu and the drawings produced by participants are all practices aimed at expanding perception and awareness of the body, mind and spirit.
Their purposes are to:
– contain and reduce discomfort caused by eating disorders
– modify, through the reciprocal exchange of Shiatsu, the passive and self-centered attitude of the involved subjects
– develop relational capacities through contact
– induce a deep and beneficial state of relaxation in the individual
– enhance individual physical and psychic resources
– improve psychomotor processes, cognitive and intuitive abilities
– stimulate interoception
– promote a new body image
– activate and develop individual bodily and energetic knowledge-awareness
– encourage respect and care of one’s own body in the suffering subject
– develop greater self-awareness and a better relationship with the external world
The aspiration of this pathway is to integrate and make synergistic medical-psychological therapies and Shiatsu techniques, with the primary goal of supporting the person in their rehabilitation and transformation process; to make them the protagonist of their life project, according to a holistic vision.
Stefania Ferri
Shiatsu Teacher/Practitioner, responsible for activities in the Ward and Day Hospital of the “Child Neuropsychiatry Unit, Regional Center for Eating Disorders in developmental age”
stefania.shiatsu@gmail.com
