To wheel back...that "The Body Knows the Score"book is indeed great, partly because the range of possibilities presented is so wide, and partly because the author is so human in his approach. Only drawback I would suggest is the sense the book gives that trauma is only applicable to those with a relatively narrow spectrum of incredibly bad experience (and I wouldn't argue that this is necessarily intended by the author....just a feeling I got while reading it, the focus upon war veterans and young people leaving care) - whereas I would argue that a huge number of people are traumatised to a lesser or greater degree. Almost everyone would benefit from body and mind therapies, in other words.
Popularity of mindfulness definitely an attempt to deal with the overwhelming amount of stimuli we're subjected to these days. Pity practitioners are often so invested in the 'lifestyle' and assuming the 'mindful character' (reflexive project of the self, as Anthony Giddens would - very usefully - frame it) rather than concentrating on the pure therapeutic aspects....but obvs everything under capitalism is mined endlessly for its social status. That Andy Puddicombe interview with Russell Brand is very good because he's clearly not doing that. I recently took a mindfulness course with another former buddhist monk who could have been confused for a Sacha Baron Cohen pisstake of mindfulness.
Did anyone see the documentary 'The Work'? I thought it was incredible, even if by its very nature it's hard to see how there wouldn't have been ethical issues in making the film (but perhaps less than for many other documentaries). So powerful, reduced me to tears by the end. Must watch it again, I'm thinking as I write this. It really captured the linkage between mind and body, in trauma as in everything else.
Alexander Technique is very interesting though I only know the very basics so far, picking apart the automatisms of everyday life where a lot of us barely notice that our bodies exist cos we're so lost in our minds...but even as this is so, the body cannot help but tell the story of what is going on in the mind.