Publications and Media
Articles, Interviews, and Professional Contributions on Somatic Psychotherapy,
Breath, Fascia, and Embodied Development
Core Strokes® has evolved through more than four decades of clinical practice, teaching, research, and phenomenological inquiry into the organization of embodied experience.
The publications and media presented here trace the ongoing development of the Core Strokes® framework—from breath and fascia to developmental organization, relational embodiment, and participatory consciousness. Together they explore how experience becomes organized within the living body, how adaptive patterns emerge throughout development, and how therapeutic transformation unfolds through embodied participation.
These resources are intended for psychotherapists, body psychotherapists, somatic practitioners, healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, and anyone interested in the science and practice of embodied human development.
About the Author
Dirk Marivoet is a European Certified Psychotherapist (ECP), physiotherapist, psychomotor therapist, trainer, researcher, and founder of the International Institute for Bodymind Integration (IBI) in Belgium.
He is the developer of Core Strokes®, an integrative framework for somatic psychotherapy, embodied development, and transformational practice that brings together body psychotherapy, developmental psychology, breathwork, fascia-oriented bodywork, relational process, and contemporary perspectives on embodiment.
For more than forty years he has explored how breathing, connective tissue, movement, emotional organization, relationship, and consciousness interact within living human systems. His publications seek to articulate a coherent organizational language capable of integrating these dimensions into a clinically meaningful framework.
Why These Publications Matter
Each publication explores a particular aspect of embodied organization. Together they represent successive steps in the development of the Core Strokes® framework.
Rather than presenting isolated techniques or therapeutic interventions, these writings gradually construct a broader organizational understanding of embodied life—one that integrates developmental psychology, body psychotherapy, fascia research, phenomenology, systems thinking, and clinical practice.
Readers may enter through any individual article, yet across the publications a coherent theoretical architecture gradually emerges.
Featured Peer-Reviewed Publications
The Living Language of Fascia
A Clinical Typology of Tissue States in Somatic Psychotherapy
Marivoet, D. (2025b)
Somatic Psychotherapy Today, 15(1), 24–33
This paper introduces the Fascia Texture Typology™, a clinical framework for understanding fascial qualities as embodied expressions of developmental history, autonomic regulation, emotional process, and adaptive organization.
Rather than viewing fascia simply as connective tissue, the article explores its role as a living medium through which experience becomes organized within the body, influencing perception, posture, movement, emotional regulation, and relational presence.
👉 Read the article
The Energetic Breath Cycle™
Phenomenological Layers of Respiratory Experience
Marivoet, D. (2025a)
Somatic Psychotherapy Today, 15 (1), 58–73
This article presents the Energetic Breath Cycle™ , a nine-phase developmental model describing how breathing organizes vitality, emotional regulation, relational engagement, and states of consciousness.
Integrating phenomenology, developmental psychology, body psychotherapy, and contemporary embodiment research, it proposes breathing as a primary organizer of human development rather than merely a physiological function.
👉 Read the article
Relational Pulsation
Shape, Countershape, and the Somatic Organization of Experience
Marivoet, D. (2026).
Somatic Psychotherapy Today, (16(1), 38-48
This article develops the concept of Relational Pulsation as an organizational process through which embodied experience continuously evolves through cycles of contact, response, adaptation, and reorganization.
Drawing upon developmental theory, phenomenology, and somatic psychotherapy, it demonstrates how relationships shape breathing, fascial organization, posture, emotional regulation, and embodied presence throughout life.
👉 Read the article
✍️ Essays & Foundational Articles
Alongside peer-reviewed publications, Core Strokes® continues to evolve through essays and theoretical articles that explore emerging ideas, clarify foundational concepts, and make complex clinical principles accessible to a broader audience.
The Poetics of Unnamed Emotion
From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows to Core Strokes®
Published in Somatic Psychotherapy Today
This reflective essay explores how subtle emotional qualities become embodied within fascia, movement, and relational experience. It considers how poetic language, somatic awareness, and therapeutic presence can illuminate dimensions of experience that often remain beyond ordinary conceptual thought, allowing them gradually to become integrated into awareness, relationship, and meaning.
Foundational Perspectives
The following articles explore central concepts within the Core Strokes® framework, including breath organization, fascia, developmental process, relational embodiment, and therapeutic transformation.
- Historical Lineage of Somatic Psychotherapy
- Neurofascial Encoding™
- Neurofascial Transformation Process™
- Organizational Dynamics
- Embodied Participation
- Developmental Patterns and Character Organization
- Breath as a Cycle of Energy
- The Language of Fascia
- Polarity, Relationship, and Embodied Presence
- When Breath Organizes Experience
The Core Strokes® Research Programme
The publications above represent successive stages within a broader long-term research programme exploring the organizational foundations of embodied life.
Current and forthcoming work extends this inquiry into several interconnected areas:
- Excited Breath and the Dance of Eros — developmental organization of polarity, vitality, and embodied relationship.
- An Organizational Grammar of Embodied Participation — the organizational dynamics underlying therapeutic transformation.
- Living Participation: Toward an Organizational Theory of Embodied Life — participation as a defining property of living organization.
- Participatory Consciousness — consciousness as an increasingly differentiated expression of embodied participation.
- Soul Organization — meaning, integration, and existential coherence within embodied life.
- Ethics of Participation — therapeutic presence, relational responsibility, and the ethical implications of living participation.
Together these publications seek to develop an organizational perspective capable of integrating body psychotherapy, developmental science, fascia research, phenomenology, enactivism, and contemporary systems thinking within a coherent framework for understanding embodied life.
The Evolution of Core Strokes®
The Core Strokes® framework has developed progressively over several decades.
1980s — Clinical foundations in body psychotherapy and developmental work.
1990s — Integration of body psychotherapy with developmental psychology and relational practice.
2000s — Refinement of character organization, breath, touch, and transformational process.
2010s — Increasing integration of fascia research, embodiment, and phenomenology.
2020s — Development of Core Strokes® as an organizational framework for somatic psychotherapy and embodied development.
Current — Ongoing work toward an organizational theory of embodied participation and participatory consciousness.
🎥 Interviews, Talks & Media
Interviews, webinars, conference presentations, and public lectures explore how the concepts presented in these publications translate into clinical practice.
Topics include breathing, fascia, therapeutic touch, developmental process, embodied participation, relational presence, and transformational psychotherapy.
Featured Interview
Breath, Fascia, and Embodied Transformation
An in-depth conversation exploring the origins of Core Strokes®, the relationship between breathing and fascial organization, and the clinical implications of embodied participation within psychotherapy.
From Reading to Experience
Publications provide orientation, conceptual understanding, and a language for describing embodied organization.
Core Strokes®, however, is ultimately an experiential discipline.
Its principles become fully meaningful through direct experience of breathing, movement, therapeutic touch, emotional process, relational exploration, and embodied awareness.
For practitioners wishing to deepen their understanding, professional trainings, workshops, webinars, and experiential events provide opportunities to explore these principles in clinical practice.
👉 Explore Trainings & Workshops
Stay Connected
Follow the continuing evolution of the Core Strokes® framework.
- New peer-reviewed publications
- Essays and theoretical articles
- Training announcements
- Workshops and webinars
- Conference presentations
- Updates on the ongoing Core Strokes® research programme
“Core Strokes® continues to evolve as an ongoing dialogue between clinical practice, embodied inquiry, and theoretical development. Each publication represents one step in a broader effort to articulate an organizational understanding of embodied life—one that seeks to deepen psychotherapy, enrich professional practice, and contribute to the future of somatic psychology.”