Aucouturier noticed, that the child experiences this normative pedagogy as aggressive, involving feelings of insecurity, anxiety and guilt. Therefore the resistance of the child is reinforced.
Aucouturier observations show that certain mechanisms of adaptation are induced through psychomotoric exercises, but they only remain specific and can not be related to learning skills. This is the case even if these exercises had good results in psychomotoric control tests. Aucouturier concluded that the children's difficulties and their physical expression often stem from deeper and more meaningful problems, which can be detected in the child's affective-emotional expression and relational behaviour.
During psychomotoric therapy with »Bruno« ( Aucouturier, Lapierre, 1977), a therapy report published in German in 1982, Aucouturier realised that he would not get hold of Bruno, if he tries to work with him according to his own wishes and aims. If he is trying to encourage Bruno, who is not walking upright, to walk in a co-ordinated manner, if he is trying to encourage Bruno, who does not use language, to speak and if he is trying to encourage Bruno, who is not interested in the material in the psychomotoric room , to act and play , he ignores him and refuses himself. His report about the therapy stated:
»The ›classic‹ view of pedagogy only deals with negative aspects: lack of motor co-ordination, difficulties of keeping balance, muteness etc.- and is focused on reducing these deficits: exercises for co-ordination, static and dynamic balance, talking. This was the way one would have treated Bruno and probably the way we would have dealt with him a few years ago. But experience has taught us that, that this approach of instrumental pedagogy, which is focused on the deficits of the child has only limited success. This has to be analysed further: on one hand this approach only focuses on patterns of behaviour, without modification of deep underlying structures of personality. If those underlying deep structures are too disturbed, a symptomatic re-education yields no success. On the other hand it creates a conscious or unconscious conflict within the child, who will ›defend‹ the symptoms with, which she expresses herself .Therefore, by institutionalising the deficits, they are only increased and structuralised. Moreover the possibility to build an open and trusting relationship with the child, which is a prerequisite for her development, diminishes.«
( Aucouturier, Lapierre, 1982,p.26).
Aucouturier decided that in his intervention he would not only focus on the child's deficits and problems but on the abilities and skills. He tried to learn to understand what the child is doing spontaneously.
»This observation and discovery has led us to discard any form of pedagogy, that focuses only on symptoms, which it tries to remove through more or less flexible exercises. We want to work with the positive aspects of the child. We are only interested in what the child is able to do and not what she is not able to do. Only in this way can the relationship be relaxed, the situation be less dramatic and the child be able to re-discover trust and security. The best way to help the child overcome her difficulties is to let her forget them«
( Aucouturier, Lapierre, 1998, p.20).
Aucouturier's psychomotoric practice is therefore based on the belief, that every human being should be accepted as an individual with an array of skills to be supported individually. The child's individuality with it's own special touches and her unrepeatable history of life is the fundamental principle of Aucouturier's work and is starting point of every psychomotoric intervention. Thoughts of humanistic and psychosomatic psychology are reflected in this.