Bioenergetic Analysis is a form of analytic psychotherapy which combines work with the body and with the mind to promote health and enhance one's pleasure in living.

The bioenergetic therapist assists clients to see how early childhood experiences have affected their adult perceptions of themselves and their way of relating with others. Clients are guided to an understanding of how traumatic early life experiences have affected their ability to be fully alive in the world.

Early life traumas are understood to impact the client as an adult on both the level of the personality (psyche) and on the level of the body (soma). The bioenergetic therapist   thus treats the client as a psycho-somatic unity. The psychological defenses such as rationalization and denial that a client uses to manage emotional pain are also anchored in the body where they appear as unique muscular patterns which inhibit self-awareness.

A client's psychological defenses combined with muscular holding patterns create a unique characterological defensive structure. The bioenergetic therapist studies each aspect of these defenses and designs physical exercises that are uniquely suited to challenge them. The therapist carefully explores with each client what it feels like to begin to release tight muscles through expanded movement, deeper breathing and emotional expression. 

As the therapy progresses, the client normally uncovers beliefs and experiences emotions which have been repressed since childhood. With the help  of the bioenergetic therapist, the client begins to understand that habitual defenses manifested in the body as chronic muscular tensions and in the mind as self-limiting beliefs were once a recipe for survival in an early non-supportive environment. In  current life as an adult, however, these same physical and mental defenses inhibit a capacity for joy, happiness, love, sadness, sensuality and healthy anger.

The therapist starts with each client's current problems and with an assessment of his or her vitality in the context of present relationships. Gradually, through body work, analysis, and the experience of a safe, healthy, supportive connection with the therapist, the client discovers a greater capacity for joy, integrity and an ability to relate to self and others in more satisfying ways.