PAUL SMID PANTAREI
My name is Paul Smid and I'm a certified practioner of the Pantarei Approach, working in Amsterdam.
The Pantarei Approach is a bodywork method that works with thoughts, emotions, and the body.
In a Pantarei session, you experience your body and yourself in a very deep way. This allows emotions to be felt and processed, physical tension to be released, and new insights to arise.
What can a Pantarei session help with?
My clients come for sessions for a wide variety of reasons.
Ultimately, everyone wants to feel more comfortable in their own skin and live life in a way that feels right. Every Pantarei session aims to contribute to this.
Specifically, Pantarei sessions can lead to:
- reduced feelings of anxiety
- reduced depressive feelings
- more relaxation in the body
- a greater ability to feel and express emotions
- reduction of psychosomatic pain
- more confidence in yourself and in life
- more clarity about the life direction that suits you, and more energy to follow that path
Of course, the results of a Pantarei process differ from person to person. Sometimes significant progress can be made very quickly, while at other times results come more slowly. Often, after just one session, you can already get a good sense of whether this method works well for you or not.
That said, Pantarei sessions often bring about a lot of positive change with relatively few sessions. This is because in a Pantarei session, you're not only working verbally, but also experiencing your feelings and inner world in a very deep way. This creates a "healing space" where deep themes can be processed—ones that are often hard to reach through conversation alone.
How does a Pantarei Session work?
A Pantarei session lasts about an hour and consists of a conversation part and a “feeling” part. During the conversation, we discuss what you would like to work on in the session and what is currently going on in your life. I’ll ask you many questions to better understand your situation.
After that, you're invited to lie down on the treatment table. You begin with conscious breathing and tuning into your body and emotions. Usually, feelings and experiences related to the earlier discussed topics start to surface quickly.
Through touch and focused attention on your body, you enter a deeper state of being. Your body relaxes, and your awareness naturally becomes more refined.
At this point, emotions can be processed more easily, energy can flow more freely, and new insights can arise. The body can also begin to release tension and stress.
Throughout all of this, I feel and think along with you. It’s my task to tune in as closely as possible to what’s happening in your system. With suggestions and touch, I help guide your experience and create a safe space.
Often, we are stuck in certain inner reactions that no longer serve us. In a session, we look for new responses and new ways of relating to both internal and external experiences.
An examExample of an inner reaction that is no longer be helpful: I strongly criticize myself every time I feel anger. I shrink and almost stop breathing. Afterward, I often feel powerless and alone.
Part of my role is to help you discover new ways of dealing with aspects of your inner and outer life. By becoming aware of old habits and reflexes, new solutions often arise spontaneously.
The answers and solutions are, in fact, always already within you!
Pantarei helps you face your challenges by connecting deeply with yourself.
Testimonials
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I’m so glad I came across Paul and the Pantarei Approach two years ago.
I had done several years of talk therapy, but working with the body as well has been incredibly helpful in accessing emotions and layers of my psyche that were previously out of reach. Combined with inner child work, it has proven to be truly transformative for me.
I’m deeply grateful for Paul and his skills
~ Jelena Gregorius
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"I am very grateful that I found Paul as my body therapist and I am not exaggerating :) . I had a burnout depression and no doctor could help me with my psychosomatic pain. At that time I really needed the trust and the compassion of Paul that things will get better. And after a series of very intense but truly healing and transformative sessions it did. Every single session brought some light to parts of me that needed to be seen and loved. Paul guided me so spot on and intuitively through every one of them. It was the greatest gift for my traumatized soul to experience body work. Paul is able to create that safe space for me in a non-judgemental and understanding environment that I have never experienced before. He brings me new perspectives and knowledge, but very down to earth and is one of the biggest cheerleaders for my journey of healing and growth. A big thank you to, Paul.. "
~ Simone Jahrmann
"Working with Paul was a wonderful experience, that brought me deeper into my body and thus closer to myself. I much appreciated his ability to listen and reflect as well as his calmness and openness that allowed for things to happen rather than trying to get to a certain point. I can warmly recommend his work."
~ Jakob
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"I’m at Paul once a month and I really enjoy every session. It helps me to calm down and it brought me to some great realisations which helped me to find more confidence. I highly recommend working with Paul. The mixture between conversation and the support through Pantarei helps a lot to find peace and answers."
~ Aline
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"Working with Paul has helped me see reactions as coming from long denied feelings and beliefs I internalised very early in life, rather than continuing to blame myself for not doing things right or not being good enough and expending tremendous energy not to feel and acknowledge my own self. This helped me to believe I should acknowledge and experience these feelings, that they are valid and there is nothing wrong with me for having them, that they are helpful rather than dangerous. Our sessions have helped me to learn to do so in an atmosphere that feels safe, which never really seemed possible to me in the past."
~ Jen
Frequently asked Questions
That’s absolutely fine. You don’t need to have any prior experience with therapy or coaching for Pantarei sessions to be effective.
It’s actually quite common for people to see a psychotherapist and also do Pantarei sessions alongside. The two can complement each other very well—and some people swear by the combination!
If you find it really difficult to feel your body and your emotions, the first sessions may feel quite subtle. It might be a bit harder at first to access deeper experiences. However, it also happens quite often that people surprise themselves—feeling and experiencing far more than they expected.
That said, Pantarei is a very gentle and supportive way to gradually reconnect with your body and emotions. There’s an entire inner world waiting to open up for you. If you struggle to feel your body or your emotions, that’s actually a sign that there’s a lot of potential for growth and transformation.
Pantarei can often be very helpful for people dealing with burnout. Every person is different, and so is every burnout. But what I’ve observed in my clients with burnout is that they often:
- are very sensitive individuals
- feel (or have felt) that they must always work extremely hard and be constantly productive
This combination then leads to deep exhaustion and overstimulation.
In the sessions, we focus on experiencing and honouring your sensitivity. It’s often as if a deeply precious, sensitive part of you has been neglected for a long time—pushed aside in the constant push to keep going. Giving this part the attention it deserves can be deeply healing and can bring a profound sense of calm to the system.
The sessions also frequently touch on finding a more authentic way of living. You could see burnout as a signal that you’ve been living in a way that doesn’t quite align with who you really are. In that sense, it can be viewed as an invitation to be even more radically yourself.
In a session, we explore what truly matters to you, and how you can begin to let go of patterns of thinking and behaving that are not truly yours.
I've personally experienced deep anxiety for many years, so I know firsthand how difficult and overwhelming it can be. Every person is unique, and so is every experience of anxiety. That said, Pantarei tends to approach anxiety from two key directions:
1. Feeling and understanding the anxiety
A major part of anxiety often lies in our resistance to the feeling itself—we become afraid of fear and try to avoid it. When we allow ourselves to truly feel the anxiety instead of running from it, it can bring tremendous relief. Often, just by turning towards the fear, it starts to lose its intensity.
We also work to bring more awareness to the worldview present within the anxiety:
How does this anxiety perceive the world and life? And are those thoughts and assumptions really true?
Where is the fear held in the body? And how can the body begin to release the tension that is holding it?
2. Connecting to the parts of us that are not afraid
Anxiety has a strong grip on our attention because it is a signal for danger. This can make it hard to connect with the parts of ourselves that are not anxious. These parts tend to be much more quite and less attention grabbing.
In a session, you are guided back into contact with the deeper parts of your being—your calm, your love, your creativity, your curiosity, etc.
By fully experiencing those aspects and allowing your body to relax into them, the anxiety can start to move to the background. You are reconnecting with parts of yourself that are deeper and more powerful than fear.
It’s quite common in a Pantarei process for certain psychosomatic pains to decrease—or even disappear altogether. However, results vary from person to person.
Pain is often the body’s way of signaling that something needs our attention. In the case of psychosomatic pain, what’s calling for attention is usually emotional in nature.
In a Pantarei session, we explore—openly and with curiosity—the emotional patterns that may be connected to the pain. Through deeply feeling and experiencing we start to investigate.
Often, we uncover a reservoir of unprocessed emotions that are asking for your attention and understanding. When these emotions are finally felt and acknowledged, energy can begin to flow more freely in that area of the body—and the pain often starts to diminish.
Book a session
I always recommend that people who are curious about the Pantarei process start with a single session. From there, you can then see how you'd like to continue.
The price per session is €95.
For those with a tighter budget, a reduced rate of €75 per session is available.
Sessions take place in Zeeburg, in the East of Amsterdam.
Would you like to book a session? Fill out the contact form, and I’ll get back to you via email shortly. Please tell me in a few sentences what you would like to work on.
Do you have questions? Feel free to email me at: paulsmidpantarei@gmail.com
Contact
De Praktijkruimte
Hildo Kropplein 87,
1019EG Amsterdam.