To understand what we are working with within biodynamic sessions, it is necessary to introduce another model – the model of dysfunction in the body. Life is multidimensional and nonlinear (not amenable to the simple logic of cause-and-effect relationships) processes, and even an attempt to describe life processes in the body is just an attempt to describe some of them. Nevertheless, we all have a living knowledge of what is health and what is unhealthy. A simple example of a “cut finger” clearly demonstrates to us that when boundaries and healthy functions are violated, the finger becomes something very noticeable to us. When everything is ok with a finger – we don’t even remember about it – it just is and “works”.

Based on this example, it is easy to understand that dysfunction is a violation of the healthy function of the body, when we begin to feel discomfort or “illness”. I will omit here the stages of the formation of dysfunction, especially those that remain invisible to consciousness, but they nevertheless exist (6 stages of the development of diseases are perfectly described in treatises on Ayurveda and according to them only the fourth we begin to notice). The expression of dysfunction in the body can be so different that the current nomenclature of WHO diseases exceeds 20 thousand units. What is important for us is not how something is called, but how it is experienced at the level of the body and how it is perceived at the level of the psyche.

Returning to the topic of the formation of dysfunction from the point of view of biodynamics, in simple terms, it is formed either when the threshold of adaptability is exceeded in the event of a traumatic effect – one-time or periodic, or when there is “disconnection” from the function inherent in us at the embryonic level.

With the threshold of adaptability, everything is simple. As an example, you can take my case of coming to osteopathy – a broken leg as a result of a repeated fall. Due to circumstances, I had to descend 2 times from a high surface. The first descent and impact of my foot on the ground my body was able to adapt, on the second time the adaptive forces diminished and a fracture occurred (after which I turned to an osteopath and the recovering effect was so impressive that I myself wanted to become an osteopath). When we talk about the adaptive capabilities of the body – they, of course, are individual, vary greatly from moment to moment, depend on the overall conditions and resources in the body, and, of course, do not refer only to mechanical influences, but also to various kinds of intoxications, infections and etc. For some, a small infection will go unnoticed, but for others it will lead to an extensive inflammatory process with pain, swelling, damage to part of the tissues and a deterioration in the quality of function in the body.

The second phenomenon “disconnection from a function” is more of a metaphor. The result is the same as in the first case – some function becomes distorted, less pronounced, or healthy in the body, but at the same time we cannot trace obvious cause-and-effect relationships. An example of this can be various kinds of hormonal, immune or autoimmune disorders, diseases associated with biochemical or metabolic processes. We can look for the reasons in psychosomatic connections or, again, use the models of Ayurveda or TCM, which work quite well in this field, or we can remain within the biodynamics at the level of the high-level concept of “inherent integrity, function, striving for balance.” There are many cases from the practice of biodynamics, when, for example, attunement with embryonic fields, the midline of hormonal function, leads to the normalization of hormonal levels. There are, of course, many reverse examples when this did not help. And here, as always, it depends on the depth of session, the contact between the client and the therapist, and much more. Other methods of restoring health are in no way denied, and biodynamics can be either the main or auxiliary method in relation to them.

As a result, dysfunction in the body is a decrease, distortion or disruption of the normal function and the work of biodynamics – restoration of the original function at all levels available for work – structural (tissue), fluid (perception of fluidal, rhythmic wave processes in the body), “energy” (perception of potency and vitality), embryonic (functional) and – existential, when work is carried out by means of the “third force” – Primary Respiration (who is interested in what this is – welcome to our school of biodynamics, but this is definitely not about rays of light, goodness, etc.) – this is about Contact with the Whole, outside the client, therapist and each of us.