Psycho-Physical Supporting Practice

The Psycho-Physical Supporting Practice is a unique holistic personal practice for restoring balance and vitality and enhancing creativity and health in an individual’s everyday life. This powerful practice, involving a new approach to an awareness of your body and your thinking, is taught to pupils through a series of individual lessons.Once each stage is learned a person can apply the Practice step by step to daily life and (re)discover a clearer and deeper sense of Self. 

 

The underlying discoveries and procedures behind the Psycho-Physical SupportingPractice can be found in the world-renowned body-mind method called the F. M. Alexander Technique, which the founders of the Practice taught internationally for many years. They observed problems and needs in themselves and their pupils which they could not find answers for. This led to extensive research and together they expanded the form and content of the Alexander Technique without losing the unique principles and effectiveness of the original method. They developed a beautifully organic system to bring a more comprehensive approach to an individual’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs. The system of this practice also teaches a vital process, which cannot be found in any other method.

 

Our problems arise through our unconscious habits and lack of psycho-physical education. Our habits are always psycho-physical as the mind and the body cannot be separated and many of them harm our wellbeing. Such habits lead us unknowingly to misuse the greatest gifts of our life - our body and our mind – by distorting sensoryperceptions of ourself and the world around us.

 

Such unconscious habits arise in childhood and youth through trauma and fears but also through our natural need to feel safe, to belong and to be seen. These lead to the enormous efforts we make to reach these goals. The Psycho-Physical Supporting Practice speaks profoundly to these needs enabling a person to release habits which interfere harmfully with the natural functioning of mind and body. The Practice offers detailed concrete guidance towards creating new life-enhancing ways of thinking, being and of doing our daily tasks.

 

This practice was first developed 1988 – 1998 by Prof. Nadia Kevan together with its initiator Dr. Chris Stevens and was originally referred to as the Support System. Later Nadia worked with Ron Murdock whose singular understanding of breathing and vocal expression became an integral part of the practice. 

 

Nadia had always been aware of an inner calling to connect deeper with nature and her universal powers to become a healing presence in the world. This powerful motivation led her from 2000 to the present day to research further and take the workonto new levels by defining its importance, not only to our physical and mentalexperience but also to our emotional and spiritual needs.

 

Further still as a performing artist and dancer, Nadia is a master at applying every aspect of the work as a conscious gateway to the arts, to dance, theatre, performance, visual arts and music. She has integrated each area of her life’s work into her teaching and now calls this the Psycho-Physical Supporting Practice.

 

The most potent principle of the work is that the earth is always supporting you and that the human body takes this dynamic force to become fully upright and energized through an internal process we call lengthening. 

 

The significance of experiencing Support cannot be overestimated - it is essential for mind and body. Gradually we begin to trust that the earth truly supports us and this changes our experience of life.

 

The phenomenon of the body physically lengthening, which is activated by thoughtand intention, not by muscular exertion, leading to more mobility and freedom effects many levels of the human being. To move with ease yet be fully connected to the earth is something that few adults today embody. 

 

In this way both Support and the Upward Direction correspond to the internal process of becoming a mature self-determined human being, one who is aware both of natural laws governing your life and of your own unique potential.

 

If you live by this dynamic principle, if you stay psycho-physically aligned with its empowering forces and allow it to nourish and inspire you, you can develop many gifts within yourself and begin to fulfill inner longings for creativity, meaning and abundance.

 

During a lesson the teacher uses their hands through the use of conscious touch to psycho-physically guide their pupil through simple movements. The teacher also usesvocal guidance so the pupil understands the process involved. The pupil gradually gains mental and emotional clarity of the essential role of their own conscious choice.Demonstrating how in order to choose wisely, you must first give yourself time, your teacher will assist you to take time, before and during activity.

 

When the pupil experiences how different their body feels with support and how they can release tension in their neuro-muscular system to activate innate vital forces, choosing to allow these processes becomes more natural to them.

 

The teacher will give you clear guidance as to how you can practice on your own, which is the master key to success. After the pupil becomes familiar with many new sensations and insights, they often describe a “feeling of coming home”, “feeling connected to themselves, to others and to the world around them” and feeling “empowered to live their own life”.

 

We recommend at least 10 or 15 lessons of 60 minutes. As the learning process requires time and space to be integrated take as many lessons as you can afford givingthe pupil an excellent tool for life. This is a teaching practice, not a therapy, so it can be part of your further education programme as well as a path of self-help during crisis and personal searching.

 

We recommend to try a first lesson so you can experience the work for yourself! We begin simply by exploring the body’s connection with the ground and together with the pupil we develop it from there – first body and mind, then soul and spirit.Although the system has a clear structure and order, the needs of the pupil will be compassionately incorporated into the individual’s process.

 

Through her many years of teaching large numbers of young artists at university level,Nadia developed an imaginative method to communicate The Psycho-Physical Supporting Practice to groups. This now has become established in the Practice and highly valued. In these group lessons the participants learn the basic practices and their embodied wisdom and how they can be applied to movement, breathing, voice, dance and simple activities.

 

We wish you a restorative and creative journey through the Psycho-Physical Supporting Practice. May it lead you to a practice of self-love and as your relationship to yourself shifts from a sense of separation to a state of connection, may you become psycho-physically confident to share your unique gifts with the world. May you receive and share an inner sense of joy and freedom.

 

 

Prof. Nadia Kevan, 

Cologne/Nijmegen 

August 2025