Body Psychotherapy evolved primarily from the work of Wilhelm Reich, originally a psychoanalyst and student of Freud. Reich later developed character analysis, which correlates certain psychological and physical patterns. Wilhelm Reich identified "armor" as the sum total of typical character attitudes, which an individual develops as a blocking against his emotional excitation, resulting in rigidity of the body, lack of emotional contact, "deadness". Functionally identical to muscular armor (chronic muscular spasms).

Somatic (Body) psychotherapy helps people deal with their concerns not only through talking, but also by helping people become deeply aware of their bodily sensations as well as their emotions, images and behavior. Clients become more conscious of how they breathe, move, speak, and where they experience feelings in their bodies. People seek body psychotherapy for the same reasons they seek talking or any form of psychotherapy (e.g., anxiety, depression, relationship problems, sexual difficulties), but also for physical problems (e.g., headaches, lower back pain).

Dr. Lowen (founder of Bioenergetic Analysis) writes in his book Bioenergetics: "Bioenergetics rests on the simple proposition that each person is his body. No person exists apart from the living body in which he has existence and through which he expresses himself and relates to the world around him. If you are your body and your body is you then it expresses who you are. It is your way of being in the world. The more alive your body is, the more you are in the world. When a body loses some of its aliveness, as when you are exhausted, for example, you tend to withdraw. Illness has the same effect, producing a state of withdrawal. You may even sense the world at a distance or see it as through a haze. On the other hand, there are days when you are radiantly alive and the world about you seems brighter, closer, more real. We all would like to be and feel more alive, and bioenergetics can help us toward the achievement of this goal."