-IBIS-1.5.0-
rx
traditions
Reichian therapy
psychospiritual approaches
definition
Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychoanalyst born in 1897, is the father of most body-oriented and deep emotional therapies. He died in a Pennsylvania penitentiary in 1957, imprisoned in 1954 for selling his 'orgone' life energy boxes, and for the sexual tone of his work. Reich studied with Freud, but extended psychoanalytic work to the body and character structure, and developed an array of techniques to release repressed sexual/emotional energy through convulsive discharges. The ultimate aim of the therapy is to dissolve neurotic character structure and muscular armoring at the deepest biological levels, to restore free, natural energy flow.
Reich came to see the neurotic character structure as a constellation of defenses against the free flow of sexual-emotional energy. For Reich, sexual energy was the most sublime of all energies, and sexual freedom the highest of all aspirations. The healthy person, according to Reich, was the one who regularly engaged in lovingly uninhibited sexual exchange leading to a thoroughly satisfying orgasm. The unhealthy person, because of neurotic symptoms and rigid character traits, was the one unable to give him/herself fully to the intensity of the sexual encounter and as a result was unable to experience full orgasm and a full release of sexual energy.
Reich developed his 'character analysis,' a process of identifying and dissolving these characterological resistances, so that the underlying emotions could emerge. This is where his work diverged from Freud, as the usual psychoanalytic practice of symptom analysis involves interpretation without due regard for the total characterological resistance. Reich's clinical observations of the relationship between armoring, neurosis, and orgasmic potential convinced him not only that armoring diminished the flow of sexual energy or orgone through the bodymind, thereby thwarting the completion of the full orgasm cycle, but also that the degree to which his patients had blocked and armored themselves seemed to reflect the degree to which they were fully alive and healthy.
Reich was concerned with the how of a person's behavior, as distinguished from content. How a person talks - the quality of the voice, intonations, expression - are more revealing. Similarly, such things as posture, gait, mannerisms, gestures, facial expressions tend to have a set, habitual quality that makes a person uniquely recognizable to others, but of which he is largely unaware. The character analyst learns to feel the expression or emotional quality inherent in each of these traits and in the character as a whole. The analyst then helps the client to become aware of his own character in an experiential way, beginning with the most obvious or superficial traits, of which the client is most likely to have some awareness, and gradually proceeding to the deeper layers.
For example, a client presents with a habitual smile, a smile which persists even when discussing painful experiences. The analyst would point out the smile to the client, as it is happening, and call attention to the incongruity between the smile and the painful content of what the client is saying. He might urge the client to wiggle his face around, or scowl, or make other expressions which contradict the smile, or he might have him exaggerate the smile. At the same time the analyst is alert for signs of offense, resentment, anxiety, or any sort of resistance. It is these negative feelings that form the most important part of what lies concealed in the character armor, and these feelings are then encouraged to be expressed openly. As the negative feelings emerge, the defensive function of the smile will also become more apparent. If the negative transference (transference of negative feeling onto the therapist) is properly handled, the client will become increasingly aware of the covert feelings of mistrust, fear, anger, or longing which he feels for the therapist, and of their roots in the early parenting. As the character-analytic work proceeds, the client will begin to become aware of his smile and his other traits as symptoms rather than inalienable parts of his true self. He will also begin to feel how the smile and other traits serve to disguise, contain, or ward off those feelings, and to sense the roots of these defensive patterns in the past. With the growth of awareness and deeper feeling, the defensive patterns will loosen their hold on the character, the underlying emotions will spontaneously emerge and find discharge, and the whole personality will become clearer and healthier.
Reich found that neurotic character structure and repressed emotions are actually physiologically rooted in chronic muscle spasms, which he termed muscular armoring. For example, if the urge to cry has to be suppressed, all those convulsive muscular impulses have to be suppressed by a willful effort of muscle holding and stiffening, and breath holding. Thus the sob or scream is suppressed, and the energy level is lowered by decreased oxygen intake, and further blocked by the muscular tensions holding against the emotional excitation. When muscular holding becomes habitual, chronic spastic muscle contraction results. These spasms become unconscious, they cannot be voluntarily relaxed and persist even in sleep. The forgotten memories and feelings lie dormant but intact, and the totality of these muscle spasms constitutes a system of muscular armoring which defends us against both stimuli from without and impulses from within. Thus muscular armoring is the physical aspect, and character armoring the mental aspect, of the total defense system.
Reich identified seven major segments of armoring: the ocular, the oral, the neck, the chest including the arms, the diaphragmal, the abdominal, and the pelvic including the legs. Each segment is a ring of tension encircling the body, and also includes the underlying internal organs. The relative independence of these segments is shown by the fact that any emotional or bioenergetic activity in one part of a segment will tend to influence its other parts, while the adjacent segments will remain relatively unaffected. In fact, if bound up energy is liberated in one segment, the adjacent segments will often show signs of increased armoring or resistance, as a defensive reaction to the pressure of the released energy, which is trying to push through. It is therefore important to open up the head, throat, neck, and upper shoulder area before allowing too much dissolution of armoring in the lower body. Thus, Reichian body therapy generally begins with the topmost segments and gradually proceeds downward.
In the course of therapy, sometimes it is the body work that needs to be emphasized, sometimes the character analysis. Both are indispensable, complementary parts of Reichian work.
(Bauman (Richard Hoff), p. 205; Dychtwald, p. 101, 109)
see:
body reveals: the spirit
bodymind psychobiology
bodymind relationships
character typology of Reich and Lowen
exploratory or mechanistic?
holographic consciousness
human energy centers
process paradigm
search for god
state-dependent learning
the shadow and physical symptoms
footnotes