The way you carry yourself speaks volumes about your internal state of being. Non-verbal communication hasn't been dubbed "body language" for nothing. The implication is that it speaks about you all the time. It's an arena of human behaviour fraught with anecdote and misinformation. But if you're aware of some important aspects, you'll be aware of the unconscious messages you might send to other people.

Good psychotherapists take their body language cues from the people opposite them. Sitting in a not-too-dissimilar posture and composition from the person opposite is a quick way of exhibiting simpatico and empathy. It's also referred to in neurolinguistic and other terms as being in a state of rapport or "mirroring" the physiology and behaviour of the other person. Provided it's done with sensitivity and a positive, constructive intention, it can be an effective way of matching their state and then moving them to a more beneficial one. Clumsily executed, it will lead to immediate hostility as they cotton on to what you're doing.

Avoid using artificial "charm" or a smile. The Duchonne effect refers to the crinkles that appear next to your eyes. They signal a real smile or laugh - starting at the eyes and concluding by involving the mouth. Someone who knows you well will know from your eyes when you're even slightly amused. Artificial smiles often exclude the eyes and give a shark-like appearance to the smile. If you've had a botox shot to preserve you from wrinkles, you're in trouble!

Try to maintain open postures, in which your legs don't cross and your arms don't come across the front of your torso, in the initial phases of a communications encounter. Although not meaning anything specific on their own, these more receptive looking positions will make you feel less defensive or protective and have a positive, if minor, impact on the other person.

Remember that your posture and carriage reflects your state of mind to some or other extent. It's the oldest aspect of medicine known to human kind. Psycho-somatic. What happens in the mind will have an impact on the body. What the body does, will have an impact on the mind - that's called bio-feedback.

Body language is very culture specific. So gesture, movement and posture that signals one thing in a Eurocentric, Caucasian-dominated culture, may well signal the exact opposite, or nothing, in other cultures. Drawing quick, stereotyped conclusions from someone's body language is hazardous.

Habit is the delightful booby trap built into non verbal communication. Before you draw the conclusion that someone sitting or standing with crossed arms is "closed off" to those around them or rejecting your message, ask yourself whether they might be cold, or have heartburn. Or whether it's just their habit. People sometimes even adopt specific body postures because they have old sports injuries, arthritis, a pinched nerve in the lumbar spine and so on. You need to be literate in the territory of non-verbal, or be around them for some time, before you're able to draw accurate conclusions.

We often fold arms, hug our own elbows, stroke a shoulder or straighten clothing as a "self-caress." When you're tiny and you're uncomfortable, threatened or uncertain, someone will typically hold your hand or "caress" your shoulder, saying "Don't worry, it'll be OK." When we're older, we often self-caress under similar conditions. This leads to someone holding their own hand, crossed in front of the body, in a "figleaf" position.

I always say to clients who want to "get into" body language, "Worry more about your own non-verbal than that of others. If you're signalling appropriate openness, sensitivity, empathy and non-hostility, you'll have a positive impact on them, and in turn on their body-language.

If your conscious brain is ticking away, attempting to analyse someone's body behaviour, you're not focussing on the actual communication. You're using part of your neurological "band width" (message-carrying capacity) to monitor what