Body Psychotherapy. Vassilis Christodoulou
Here we are dealing with the self-repeating vicious circle ‘dependence → enthusiasm → rejection → depression → hate → new dependence’ or the similar one of ‘dependence →mythification → enthusiasm → demythification → demonisation’ and the endless process of making connections without the patient being able to establish a real relationship. Real relationships always require both freedom and commitment, which represent another stage of development.
It is not uncommon for patients of mine, in the pain they experience on discovering a new connection with me that might lead them to have a new kind of relationship, to react negatively at first by saying something like: ‘Yes, I feel okay about you holding me… it's nice to be hugged and to have someone you can turn to for support when you need it. But I don't want it, I don't want to get used to something I know I won't be able to have when I leave this place. I won't be able to find it…’ The only thing I ask of them is to put their trust in the therapeutic process and I explain to them that what they are experiencing now, as adults, and is causing them pain because they recognise the deficit they have, is experienced in such a way during the therapy session that it is recorded in their system as if they had experienced it at the stage of their development which is under examination. The experience will be recorded in their system in such a way as to eliminate the deficit. A similar thing occurs in the treatment of accident cases. When the treatment is over, the patient knows that an accident took place but, despite this knowledge, feels that it never took place. The same thing often happens in phobia cases. For example, recently I was told by a fifty-year-old woman who had been afraid of dogs all her life ever since she was chased by one when she was eight years old: ‘I remember the incident, I remember that I used to be afraid even of small and completely harmless puppies but now it's just a vague memory that causes me no fear at all. I remember that I used to be afraid; now I no longer feel any fear… Now I play with dogs and stroke them as if I had always done it.’
Let us return to the process of making contact with the heart. When someone makes contact with your heart, they can often – in fact, it would be no exaggeration to say almost always – see it. It might look red to them. It might look red with a yellow halo. It might look a pure yellow or gold. Maintain that person’s contact with your heart for a short while and then ask them how they feel and what their own heart looks like. Some people will find it difficult at first to see their heart. Others will find it easier. To some people their heart will look black, dark or slightly red… The most important thing is that they should establish contact with it. Then we can go on to make a connection.
Each time you breathe, press my hand a little harder and do it as if it were a pump. Try and pump energy out of my heart into your own. Look at your heart now: it is not alone. Look at what it’s like now that your heart is not alone. Look at how you feel… keep hold of that feeling, it’s yours… Your heart is not alone. Now it knows what it’s like not to be alone, now it can trust… Keep hold of that feeling, it’s your heart. Look at what colour your heart is now. Is your heart now the same colour as mine? Now your heart knows, wherever it is, that there will always be another heart it can connect with…
Often, people who have a certain amount of spirituality or believe in God will speak to you of the awe they feel when they make a connection, and they will often tell you afterwards that they felt the presence of Christ, the Virgin Mary or a saint they particularly revered. People who do not believe in God are surprised when they have spiritual experiences. At first they try to deny that they had the experience. Later, however, they find that they cannot deny the obvious. The truth, their own truth, is so powerful that it eventually imposes itself.
The two aspects of time
By creating a suitable therapeutic framework for each individual patient, we can proceed in depth with the treatment, in which, in the here and now of the therapy session, the two aspects of man as a creature ruled by time are unified and experienced as if they were one and the same thing. We shall take a more detailed look at this later.
Suffice it to say here that the experience that is relived in the here and now of the therapy session is relived as if it were happening in the present. Consequently, every intervention we make in the here and now of the therapy session is experienced in the time at which the trauma occurred and cancels it out, as if it had never happened. We encounter the trauma in the time at which it occurred and it is in this context that the therapy takes place, ‘changing’ the course of events at its onset. The historical event is still there and the memories of it remain but what makes the difference is the energy: the energy which flows freely and marks the patient’s release from the trauma.
It should be noted that our ontological system leads us to the therapy by following not the chronological order of events as has been recorded in the patient’s calendar time but a progression from the least painful to the most painful experience. In this wise manner it enables us to move on to deal with painful experiences after having gained strength on the way there. Indeed, at some stage our system will need to nourish us by leading us to very positive experiences so that we can gain the strength that we need for the next step, which is likely to be very painful.
Very often the progressive work that we do in order to nourish a patient and help them move forwards is alternated with regressive work to help the patient obtain what they never received in the past, to help them feel secure and continue their development with confidence.
Now I shall describe part of a therapy session I had with C. D. that took place after we had been working together for about three months. As usual, he arrived five minutes early. He declared that he was feeling very tired, although he hadn’t done anything to justify such tiredness. ‘I don't know what's happening to me… I feel so stiff and sluggish, and yet I haven't done anything particularly unusual to feel this way,’ he said with a self-deprecating expression.
V. Ch.: What you did might not have been unusual but it might still have been tiring.
C. D.: I haven’t done anything different from what I normally do… I shouldn’t be feeling this way.
V. Ch.: Are you perhaps too hard on yourself?
C. D.: That’s how I’ve learnt to be… I always feel as if I’m to blame for something. I feel as if I’m not good enough for someone… as if I fall short in some way… I don’t know, I always feel as if someone is expecting something from me…
V. Ch.: Now, at this very moment, what do you feel? Do you feel as if I’m expecting something from you?
C. D.: That you’re expecting me to be cooperative? I don’t know…
V. Ch.: And how do you feel when someone is expecting something from you and you don’t know what it is and you don’t know how to respond?
C. D.: I don’t know…
V. Ch.: At this moment, how do you feel physically?
C. D.: Tired. Yes, I feel as if someone forced me to dig a field on my own and I haven’t heard a word of thanks from anyone…
V. Ch.: If they said thank you, would you feel less tired?
C. D.: Definitely.
V. Ch.: Okay, concentrate on your physical state. You’re feeling tired, okay, we’ve got that… Now try and tell me a little bit more about the tiredness you feel.
C. D.: My head feels tense… it doesn’t hurt but it doesn’t feel good. I feel as if I can’t see clearly… The back of my neck feels like a lump of wood, I find it difficult to move my head from side to side. I feel as if my head will drop off… My shoulders feel like two blocks of stone. They feel heavy and hurt me… I find it hard to breathe deeply… My chest hurts…
V. Ch.: Your belly, your hips, your legs… how do they feel?
C. D.: Well, my belly feels a bit queasy… As for my hips and my legs, I can see them but I can’t feel them!
V. Ch.: Concentrate for a moment on what you can feel in your body… If you can, close your eyes and tell me what happens… or tell me if you can see something.
C. D.: Yes, I can see my girlfriend. I can see what happened yesterday…