The physiotherapeutic intervention in psychiatry is based on the assumption that the body is involved in the processes related to psychic disorders: “the body is our vehicle of being in the world” (Merleau-Ponty, 1979:83), and a body-mediated approach contributes to modify the person’s perception of his own suffering. The body tells the patient’s life and the somatic symptom is often a coherent expression of it. Psychic discomfort transfigures the body, imprisons it in altered schemes, confuses its signals. The therapist and the patient, working together, try to restore the dialogue between mind and body that the mental disorder has made obscure and incomprehensible and has sometimes interrupted. Physiotherapy intervention helps to restore or increase the patient’s bodily and emotional awareness, as well as the ability to express emotions and, consequently, to establish appropriate interpersonal relationships. With various physiotherapy techniques and their holistic vision that consider the person as a unitary system composed of muscles, skeletal structures, connective tissue, internal organs and psycho-emotional aspects, the patient is approached. The aim of this approach is to read and grasp the bodily manifestation of psychic discomfort and act to reduce physical symptoms while bringing psychic-emotional benefit.

Massage is the oldest therapy technique that man has used to treat illness and is one of the most natural gestures to soothe pain and psycho-body discomfort. Massage is a healing technique that regenerates the body and spirit of man. The various techniques applied help to preserve psychic well-being by easing muscular and mental tensions in almost all psychiatric pathologies. Reflexive mechanical effects benefit the neurological and psychological systems. The body approach in massage therapy is considered by the psychiatric patient as:

• a modality that allows the subject to re-construct his/her own identity
• an important communication channel that fosters relationships
• an intervention that “brings back” the person to the first sensory experiences
• a form of emotional support and nurturing
• a way to recompose the fragmentation related to some forms of psychic discomfort

The psychiatric patient experiences the bodily care of massage as a beneficial and healthy treatment that touches the somatic sphere and the emotional-relational dimensions.

In the body moves an energy charge that activates the various tissues and muscles, giving rise in the individual what are called sensations.

Depression and anxiety can be defined and expressed in a decrease in energy that can occur for various reasons; the body becomes unable to respond with appropriate impulses to external events and the surrounding environment. The individual feels deprived of his natural energy charge, becoming unable to interact and respond to external stimuli.

There is therefore no disorder that involves only the psychic part without being reflected in the physical component of the individual. Foot reflexology works through micro-stimulation of the various corresponding areas of the sole of the foot in order to free the “stasis”, that is, a blockage of the energy flow that prevents free circulation. It stimulates the circulation, the nervous system and the immune system helping to combat the momentary “weakness” of responding adequately to internal and external stimuli of the person.