Body Psychotherapy. Vassilis Christodoulou
quietly and the crying would continue like this for months.)
V. Ch.: Is that how you feel – sad – when you lose your support?
C. D.: Whatever I feel, it’s not easy for me. My grandpa was the only support I had. And all this seems silly to me, but it’s what I feel.
V. Ch.: Is there anything in my attitude that makes you feel the urge to apologise? Do you feel perhaps that I’m judging you?
C. D.: No…
V. Ch.: We’ll make a note of that. Do you feel “strange” here, with me, knowing that it’s not my behaviour that is making you feel like this. Do you mind if we get closer? Do you mind if we hold hands for a short while?
C. D.: No, that’s okay.
V. Ch.: Good. Now take your time and tell me: now that we have this kind of contact, how do you feel?
C. D.: Moved. I feel moved and my chest feels lighter and I can breathe more deeply. And my stomach has stopped hurting.
V. Ch.: It seems that you need this contact, it makes you feel better. Now look me in the eye, carry on holding my hands and tell me how you feel.
C. D.: I feel a lump in my throat and find it difficult to breathe. I’m afraid that you might criticise me for something…
V. Ch.: Go back to where you were, sit as far away as you need to and for as long as you like, and tell me how you feel. You can come back again when you feel that you need to.
A short while later:
C. D.: Now my shoulders feel more relaxed. As soon as I realise that you’re not putting pressure on me, I feel okay and can draw close to you again.
V. Ch.: Tell me, in what way do you feel I was putting pressure on you?
C. D.: I felt that you were expecting something of me. I always have doubts about what I should do when another person is expecting something of me.
This young man was trying to want what everybody else wants in order to be liked, despite what other people thought of him, which in many cases was that he was a selfish person bent on getting his own way. Recently, after the body work we have done together, he has been breathing better, there is a more grounded look in his eyes and his hands are not as cold and sweaty as they were before. When he has his own space and his boundaries are respected, he does not feel threatened and then he can connect with confidence. Any change in one’s mental state and emotions manifests itself in the body.
What we must do in our first therapy session with a new patient, apart from obtaining an initial idea of their history, is, in the ‘here and now’ of the session, to create the conditions in which the patient will be able to feel that their boundaries are being respected, that nobody is going to criticise them and that they will be able to get the support that they need.
The body therapist does not restrict himself to words, nor is he restricted by them. He uses words and listens carefully but does not stop there. He will garner important information by listening to what the patient says and how they say it. Yet he will obtain even more important information by observing the correspondence, or lack of it, between what the patient says and their body. Where is the patient looking when they are speaking? Do they say that they feel calm and comfortable while they are actually looking away from us and their body shows us that they are halfway out of the door? What is their breathing like? Are they breathing with their stomach or with their chest? Is the breathing deep, shallow or chaotic and irregular?
The body speaks to whoever will listen
In body psychotherapy we have learnt that the body really does speak to whoever is prepared and able to listen to it. We observe muscle tone and take note of the posture of the trunk and the spinal column, and the condition of the hands, feet, the back of the neck and the face. How does the patient respond to touching? Do they feel comfortable about getting physically close? How do they respond to exercises which are designed to help them feel possible blockages in their body?
In order to get to the emotions we have to go through the body. Somebody reeling off their emotions is like a piece of bad play-acting in which the lines are divorced from the plot. Instead of us feeling that our emotions are aroused by the plot, the actor tries to shows us what we should be feeling by telling us what he himself feels. He says things that even he himself feels only cerebrally; the body does not follow. There is no bridge between the mind and the body: they are separated by an abyss. And any communication between the head and the body is via… a rope bridge, like those that dangle over ravines and which, to cross, take the kind of courage displayed by those slick heroes in the old feature films. The way, therefore, to the emotions is always through our own body. Therefore, anything that affects the body is of importance in our work.
In our therapeutic approach to body psychotherapy, our role continues to be that of a therapist: of a person who has already made the journey, who has already made good ground in their quest for self-knowledge. And this is where the basic principle of therapy comes in: nobody can safely accompany someone else on their road to self-knowledge beyond the point which they themselves have reached. The journey to the underworld of the belly and the emotions is not an easy one. There is no doubt, however, that it will broaden one’s horizons and open up new paths… to ‘new adventures and new knowledge’ for anyone who truly accepts the challenge. The democratisation of the therapeutic process in body psychotherapy does not do away with the role of the therapist. It confronts us, however, with a universal truth: on the journey of life, we are all – therapists and patients alike – fellow travellers in the process of maturing. Our roles, therefore, alternate. We are equal, although as therapists we should not overlook the fact that the person we are treating is a person with certain demands.
Man is an integrated entity of body, mind and spirit
In our work, the whole person is the focus of our attention and so we treat him or her as an integrated entity of body, mind and spirit that lives and evolves in society.
Each of us does not possess a body; he or she is a body. Each of us does not possess a spirit; he or she is a spirit. And we are all conceived, we are all born and we all evolve in society.
It is quite common for people to ask questions like: Why are you raking up the past? The more you search, the more you'll find… If something doesn't bother you, then why don't you leave it alone? What’s the point of going ‘back’ to things that happened so long ago they’ve almost been forgotten about? What’s the point of raking up childhood memories? We all have old wounds: what’s the point of bringing them back again and again and hurting ourselves by thinking about them?
All of these questions are often asked, in good faith, by people who cannot see the real benefit of a therapeutic process that uses only speech as a tool. It is indeed pointless, and very often causes fresh pain, to recall a traumatic experience and do no more about it. In psychotherapy we never get patients to recall things simply for the sake of doing so. Knowledge in itself, I will never cease to emphasise, will not bring about healing. The relationship between therapist and patient always lends a new dimension to things and can invest past events with such meaning that they fall into place without causing distress when they are recalled. Awareness always plays a positive role in giving life meaning, and the feeling that our lives have cohesion and meaning has a constantly beneficial effect on us.
Is this the kind of therapy that we want? Is the aim to prevent our memories from disturbing our consciousness? I do not disagree with the basic principle: if something doesn’t bother you, then leave it alone. This raises the big question: are we always conscious of the thing that is bothering us? The answer is no. Many of the issues that cause us severe health problems completely evade our consciousness. In fact, I believe it would be no exaggeration to say that the deeper something is buried within us, the more destructive it can be. We are mistaken in believing that when the danger is removed, our bodies will automatically return to a state of relaxation and calm, with the body’s systems having released the energy they had mustered in order to deal with the danger. This energy is not some kind of mythical entity but the biological residue that remains trapped in the various systems of the body and in each of its cells. If this energy