The development of working with the instroke of the pulsation of the life force was a major breakthrough in body psychotherapy. The effectiveness of the classical techniques of breaking down the armor had already fulfilled their potential, and the limitations of this approach were becoming more evident. In the fourteen years since I published the first article about the instroke (Davis, "Working with the Instroke", Energy & Character April, 1984). This work has taken body psychotherapy into new areas, some of which are represented by Michael Munzel's article on Narcissism, Lilly Davis' article on Integration and Thomas Harms' piece on mother-child relationships. This first article is intended to familiarize the reader with the history and concepts behind working energetically with the instroke. The following articles develop these ideas further.