(Note: This paper, which has been in rough-draft form for quite awhile, is not meant to supplant traditional Reichian Therapy, but merely to give another explication thereof. Unlike an old acquaintance who couldn’t tolerate his own Reichian analysis and therefore "branched out," I make no claims to have "improved on Reich." On the other hand, I believe Orgonomy, per se, is perhaps a bit anal retentive, and Orgonomists covetous of anyone other than their clique — or claque — who claims any expertise. Eventually, I hope to conclude this paper by integrating it with material on cognitive competence as presented by Dr. Paul Popper — see bibliography. Also, this paper mentions Figure 1, Figure 2, etc., but you'll see no corresponding graphics as yet until I "figure" out a way to produce and include them. )
All of us must deal with our sexuality, and most of us must take care of ourselves, usually by hard work. How well we do these usually shows how mature we are and how much satisfaction we get out of life.
One good way to define overall mental or emotional health and maturity is to assess the person's genitality and autonomy. Genitality is the measure of how solidly grounded one is in one's sexuality, and hence how well one can bond with a mate (to be able to provide the parenting and sex-role modeling necessary to bring one's or others' offspring to sexual maturity).
Autonomy is the measure of one's ability to take care of one's responsibilities in the world (to provide for the needs and wants of self and others and to accept the roles of both being, and being under, authority).
Sigmund Freud stressed these two areas as "love and work" (lieben und arbeiten). Wilhelm Reich's aphorism was "Love, work, and knowledge are the wellsprings of our lives; they should also govern it."1
Of those who develop significant problems in living, most have trouble with just one area. Their love life may be lousy, but at least they can lose themselves in work, or vice versa. Those with significant problems in both areas are usually very unhappy and sometimes may be quite disturbed.
Problems in either or both areas can lead to symptoms that range from the irritating to the disabling, symptoms that can be psychological, physiological, or both. For example, a professor developed so much anxiety he collapsed from exhaustion and could no longer teach his classes. A housewife experienced a continuing series of sore throats that stumped all the specialists until her old hometown family doctor told her, "Missy, you just need to cry more." A doctor had strange, almost violent seizures when she was stressed, but they weren't epilepsy, and anti-seizure medication did no good; after an exhaustive work-up, her neurologist said, almost flippantly, "Well, it's probably sexual in nature." A successful young executive bounced from woman to woman and became semi-impotent in his mid-30s.
Sometimes the problems go beyond symptoms and become deeply-entrenched in one's personality, becoming characterological defenses against both consciously- and unconsciously-perceived threats: excessive shyness prevents one from standing up for oneself; an exhausting depression keeps one from confronting deep rage; a hostile attitude toward people avoids any chance of closeness; a flippant, supercilious attitude toward life keeps one from facing "the lonelies"; or a withdrawn, neutral stance in the world avoids involvement just as much as does the inflated, self-important stance of an "important person" or that false openness of a seducer.
Such character styles, of course, ultimately avoid not only the pain that comes from past hurts and disappointments, but also the deep pleasure that comes from intense personal contact with another person.
Whether the pain is direct (such as panicky anxiety or heavy depression) or indirect (perhaps the grudging acknowledgment that one's life "isn't working"), it is the high discomfort level that sends people for professional help, and Intensive Somatic Psychotherapy1 [ISP] is a powerful way of getting to the roots of the pain, subsequently alleviating much of both the pain and its cause. While some therapies work with the symptoms alone, or mainly at a cognitive (thinking) level, ISP excavates to the deepest levels of psychological and physiological interaction in order to restructure the very foundations upon which the personality is constructed.
Whether the global problem is one of love, of work, or of both, the common factor is lack of fulfillment and enjoyment in life. The rock song of the 70s wailed it well: "I can't get no satisfaction," (and the performers' lives seemed to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy). Reich saw the global problem as a disorder of pleasure.
What is pleasure? It's not so-called "cheap thrills," for they're not pleasurable after the fact. It's not just what "feels good," for such can ruin one's health and body (hepatitis, AIDS, cirrhosis, lung cancer, VD) as well as one's home and family (the casual affair, credit card binges, gambling).
For our purposes, pleasure is defined as the natural, unfettered build-up and release of energy; full pleasure is pleasure experienced when making deep ("soul-to-soul") contact with another person; and mature pleasure is full pleasure governed by genitality and autonomy (see above). Energy is not defined as a force alien to our natural selves or foreign to science,2 but is instead posited as an intervening variable to explain and communicate the sensations and feelings, sometimes very intense and "streaming," that occur in our bodies. It is in no sense connected to the mystical or the occult.3
The build-up and release of energy seems to be the basis of the spontaneous, naturally-occurring movement that occurs in, and perhaps is a necessary condition of, all life. It is pulsation. Pulsation consists of an energy cycle in which mechanical tension leads to a bioelectric charge, a bioelectric discharge, and then mechanical relaxation, after which the cycle repeats.
This tension-charge-discharge-relaxation [TCDR] cycle can be demonstrated in unicellular organisms, as in the movements of amoebas, and in more complex organisms at all levels: the exchange of materials at the cellular level, the firings of nerve cells, the pulses in arteries, the peristaltic movements in the digestive system, the inspiration-expiration of breathing, the process of orgasm, daily (circadian) cycles, monthly cycles (menstruation), reproductive cycles (conception to birth), and perhaps even the cycle of life, itself.
[NOTE: The figures, below, are not included in this internet paper.]
Figure 1 represents a "normal" TCDR cycle. Figure 2 shows what happens when a charge cannot be built up to a biologically normal level, but instead short circuits once a certain lesser level is reached. (This happens, literally, when an electronic flash capacitor is defective and cannot store its usually high charge but instead flashes prematurely and thus weakly.) A life example would be the person who compulsively masturbates, hops from bed to bed, or has premature ejaculation because he or she cannot tolerate sustaining a high level of sexual energy (is not able to "hold a charge").
Figure 3 depicts what happens when discharge is defective and cannot happen quickly and fully. (Our electronic flash would not give light, but would slowly "trickle down"; or a toilet would not flush completely, even though all the water eventually drained from its tank.) In life, some people with high charges who cannot discharge feel tremendous pressure that often becomes psychosomatic. Others tighten up so much they literally do not feel the pressure; they deaden themselves. And some people "burst the dam" with periods of intense acting out (such as the gunman, known to his neighbors as quiet and never causing trouble, who suddenly shoots up a restaurant).4
Of course, no one fits any of these patterns exactly, and people have wide varieties and combinations of these and other patterns for differing times, circumstances, and stressors. Physiological conditions add their overlay to these patterns, as well. Being physically sick, having blood-sugar fluctuations, or experiencing pre-menstrual pressures (or lesser-known vague hormonal cycles in men) all distort the TCDR cycles.
Pulsing consists of expansion and contraction. On a micro-level, organelles, cells, and tissues automatically expand and contract to stimuli. The heart beat and pressure-pulse of the arteries is a good example. On a macro-level, the organism expands to open up to the environment (an amoeba expands its pseudopodia around food to ingest it), and it contracts to close down and protect itself from the environment (an amoeba shrinks from noxious stimuli).
In warm-blooded animals, this expansion and contraction is controlled by a structure singular to the mammalian brain, the hypothalamus, which at its most primitive functioning regulates heat gain and loss. When the animal is too warm, the hypothalamus causes the organism to open up and lose heat to the environment. When the animal is too cold, the hypothalamus causes a close-down to conserve heat, and perhaps even shivering to generate heat.
Furthermore, the expansion and contraction are specialized by the autonomic nervous system [ANS], which is divided into two parts: parasympathetic, which deals with the expansion of the organism, such as eating and sexual activity, and sympathetic, which deals with the contraction of "fight or flight." These two sub-systems tend to work reciprocally.
Gellhorn5 has elaborated prior theory about the periodicity (regular occurrence) of these parts of the ANS. He speaks of the Trophotropic and Ergotropic arousal systems. (In Greek, troph‚ is nourishment, ergon is work, and tropos is a turn, a way, a manner or style. Trophotropic is a turn toward nourishment or a taking in, a charging up; ergotropic is a turn toward work or a giving out, a discharging.)
Trophotropic arousal is comprised of diminished thinking, relaxed muscle tone, and parasympathetic ANS activity: an opening up of the boundaries between the organism and the outside world to allow the environment to affect internal processes, such as digestion or sexual arousal. Ergotropic arousal is comprised of increased thinking, tensed muscle tone, and sympathetic ANS activity: a closing down to the influence of the outside world to allow the organism to work on it, to attack it, or to flee from it.
Various TCDR cycles would have differing degrees of trophotropic and ergotropic arousal. Figure 4 [not included] portrays the TCDR cycle of sexuality. Note the tension and charge portion (the period of foreplay) is one of trophotropic arousal. The discharge portion (the climax) is ergotropic, and the relaxation portion (the afterglow) is again trophotropic.
A person experiencing spontaneous, unmitigated arousal of both the trophotropic and ergotropic systems can charge and discharge fully as the situation warrants and has the structural flexibility to respond fully to the positive and negative aspects of the environment. Given a childhood (or redeemed adulthood) rich in personal contact and appropriate instruction in being and responding to benevolent authority, such a person would have all the conditions sufficient for genitality and autonomy and should attain a life of mature pleasure.
The more flexibility there is in the structure of the body and its physiology, the greater the range of functioning. As an analogy, if your hand were frozen into a "claw," its amount of flexibility would be limited, as would the things you could do with it. But as it regained its flexibility, its range of motion and usefulness would increase manifold.
In dealing with concepts of energy, an electrical analogy is often effective. Most people know that household current is approximately 110 volts, with double that amount going to some ranges, ovens, and dryers.
It's as if we're born with a 220-volt system and almost no resistances to it; therefore, we run on full current.6 We can see, and feel, this in infants when we gaze into their unguarded eyes or watch them laugh or cry with full force, with no inhibitions. But because of our parents', or society's, prohibitions and conditions, sometimes experiencing too much current can get us into trouble and cause us pain from punishment or the withdrawal of love.7
So, we set up resistances, which lower the current, and as we become more in control over our lives, we also can do things or experience situations that lower the voltage (such as eating poorly, not exercising, or becoming physically ill). As we get older, we add to the resistances and keep lowering the voltage, and the current gets less and less. The amount of energy we have, and can handle, is significantly reduced.
When surge of adolescent hormones appears, the system often cannot handle the excess, and overload happens. Sometimes the energy spills over into unchanneled acting out; sometimes the resistances clamp down so hard the system almost shuts down. After adolescence, resistances continue to grow and then solidify as people settle into the routines of their lives. The slowing down of bodily growth8 seems to reduce the voltage even further, so that the current is chronically low.
But occasionally we get glimpses of the power beneath the surface. Nightmares are nothing more (or less) than discharges of intense emotional energy.9 We experience strong emotion breaking through to the surface sometimes when we're under stress or duress, sometimes when we experience the full contact of a new person (the electrifying gaze across the crowded room), or sometimes when there is no apparent reason at all. Some people have a "jerking" experience at certain times, such as just before falling asleep. Often, this bodily contraction is accompanied by the mental imagery of falling,10 and it's usually felt as a strong jolt to the body___more evidence of the power lying within.11
After years of living, we have diminished our capacity to feel to such an extent that we experience anxiety whenever the intensity of our feelings (our energy) starts to rise to a biologically normal level. In defending against this anxiety, we adjust our lives to feel only as much as we can tolerate, which often is just a mere fraction of the potential.
We defend against this anxiety by setting up resistances to the energy flow, and we do this by automatically tightening our muscles in specific patterns. This blocks or reduces the strong feelings to manageable proportions, and is known as muscular armor.
The prototype of this is the startle reaction, where we suck in our breath, hunch our shoulders, and become hyperalert as a reflex against a sudden noise or movement. A more recognizable block would be the "lump in the throat" one feels during a sad movie. Here, the throat muscles (pharyngeal constrictors) go into spasm as if to "choke down" the sadness that wants to come out. When the person cries fully, the tightness disappears.
Reich elaborated seven areas of armoring: the eyes, including the back of the neck; the jaw; the neck and throat; the chest; the diaphragm; the abdomen; and the pelvis. No two people have muscular armor in the exact same places for the same reasons, but there are patterns of armoring that seem to appear with certain traumas and conditions.
For example, people with ocular armoring ("eye blocks") often have headaches behind their eyes or in the back of their necks, and habitually block off visual contact with others. People with chronic jaw tension may grind their teeth (bruxism), and they have have sweet smiles masking jaw muscles over-developed from "biting back" anger. The housewife at the beginning of this article had a strong throat block, as did also a man with a history of childhood oral-genital sexual abuse. A muscleman afraid of crying might develop a puffed-up chest, et cetera.
Character armor is an attitude or set of attitudes toward life that usually arises out of the muscular armor. The muscleman described just above might well have a puffed-up, inflated attitude about himself and thus relate to people through this defense, afraid to let his softness and vulnerability show. Contrariwise, a person with neck and chest armor in chronic contracted position may approach the world in a beaten-down, milquetoast way, protecting himself from experiencing his own rage.
Obvious cases like these, of course, are easy to identify. Usually, however, the muscular and character armoring patterns are subtle, and they can, and do, shift around during the course of therapy.
When we originally armor ourselves, we do so in idiosyncratic patterns that relate to our past histories. But the common factor is that everyone's TCDR cycle is distorted, and the result is usually a feeling of intense internal pressure, and perhaps even pain, accompanied by many of the standard psychological symptoms. Some people don't experience specific symptoms, but instead have a global feeling of being dissatisfied, or of having angst. And others have tightened up so much they cannot even feel; they have deadened themselves to their own distress.
In sum, we are frightened of strong feeling (the energy flow) and try to squeeze it away, to shut it off. When that doesn't work, we feel anxiety. We then try adjusting our lives so we can get rid of, or at least diminish this anxiety. We do this either by unconsciously producing psychological defenses, by unconsciously discharging the anxiety into psychosomatic symptoms, such as ulcers, or by living a life that avoids the anxiety at the expense of emotional spontaneity (character defenses).
At the basis of all these problems is an inhibited TCDR cycle, so that energy is pooled and static. Reich called this condition stasis and said it was the real neurosis, as opposed to the defenses erected on top of it, which he called the psychoneurosis. In other words, the real neurosis is physiological in nature, where the psychoneurosis is, of course, psychological and is epiphenomenal to (arises out of) the underlying bodily state. The psychoneurosis is thus seen as a defense against the real neurosis. Hence, treating only the psychoneurosis does not go to the root of the problem, and treating the real neurosis first may well dissolve the psychoneurosis along the way.
For example, a person may, through conventional therapeutic means, uncover a fear of getting angry, and further work may determine that the person is either afraid of being hurt, or of hurting someone else. This is the psychoneurosis. The real neurosis is the person's deep fear of the intensity of feeling of the deep rage, itself. In the same way, fear of relationships, or even of success, is seen as a defense against the intensity of deep feelings of longing and contact.
Death anxiety, falling anxiety, and other sorts of fears and terrors of losing control are often seen as pleasure anxiety, the anxiety signaling impending breakthrough of the deepest bodily sensations, a phenomenon that occurs toward the end of treatment, when defenses are the weakest and when the person has learned first to endure, then finally enjoy, full-pulsing TCDR cycles. In fact, Reich stated that the root of his discoveries was that people were afraid of full pleasure and thus lived their lives in search of substitute contact.
In the dynamics of personality, we see above that ISP takes a depth-psychology (Freudian) view of the psychoneurosis and a physiological view of the real neurosis. In the structure of personality, ISP departs from the traditional Id, Ego, Super Ego/Ego Ideal of Freud or the Collective Unconscious of Jung.
Reich saw the core of personality as relatively pure and good.12 Armoring puts a secondary layer around the core, which either deflects impulses (feelings) back inside, or else distorts them toward substitute contact and gratification as they pass through the armor. (And as this happens, anger often emerges.) A superficial layer of defenses, often intellectual and/or social, encapsulates the secondary layer.13
To cross-translate between the physiological and psychological, an old theory buried back in the textbooks is perhaps best. O. H. Mowrer was a famous behavioral psychologist back in the early 60s (until he spoke about guilt being a positive force in life, at which time he lost his prominence). One of his contributions was called the 2-Factor Theory of Neurosis.
Mowrer saw neurosis as Operant Conditioning superimposed upon Classical Conditioning. Classical Conditioning is automatic, without much, if any, volitional control, and involves the ANS and smooth (organ) muscles. Pavlov's dogs salivating to the sound of a bell is the classic example. Operant Conditioning is mainly volitional and involves the peripheral nervous system and skeletal muscles. Skinner's white rat pressing a bar to get a reward is the classic example, though people pulling the levers on slot machines for hours on end is perhaps a more potent image.
As a simple example, suppose a dog bit you. Under the laws of Classical Conditioning, the sight of the dog (Conditioned Stimulus, CS) is paired with the bite (Unconditioned Stimulus, US). The normal response to the bite is pain (the Unconditioned Response, UR), which now connected to the sight of the dog becomes fear (the Conditioned Response, CR). (See Figure 5. [not included]) Now the CS brings on the CR: the sight of the dog brings fear, and this can generalize to seeing any dog, or even thinking about one. It can be a very powerful one-trial learning, very hard to get rid of (to "extinguish," to use the technical term).
The only way to extinguish the fear of dogs is to present the CS (sight or presence of a dog) without the US (the bite). Gradually, the CR (fear) drops out when no UR (pain) occurs.
But suppose you become so afraid of dogs that you go out of your way to avoid them. You see a dog a block away, and you take another route. This follows the Operant Conditioning paradigm. A Discriminatory Stimulus, SD (the dog) appears, you make a voluntary, conscious Response, R (you retreat), and your Reinforcing Stimulus, SR is the removal of fear. (See Figure 6. [not included]) After a while, your Response may no longer need to be conscious (and sometimes this can happen quickly and almost automatically).
All this is no problem unless your life needs to take you close to dogs, or unless there are so many dogs about there's no place left to where you can retreat. You cannot overcome your fear of dogs by avoiding them, so you must break your voluntary learning, which may well by now have become unconscious, out of awareness. So, under Mowrer's paradigm, you must (First Factor) extinguish the Operant Conditioning of avoidance of dogs so you can begin (Second Factor) to extinguish the underlying Classical Conditioning of fear.
In the ISP model, the underlying Classical Conditioning is this: the CS is deep bodily feelings that occur just prior to the US of punishment (spanking, withdrawal of love). The UR to the punishment is pain, and the associated CR is fear or anxiety.14 Hence, anxiety is classically conditioned to appear with deep bodily sensations and feelings;15 this is the First Factor. Some people have conditions where they feel this anxiety very intensely; these are the anxiety neuroses and panic reactions, which are relatively easy to treat provided the person can withstand intensifying the anxiety until it extinguishes.
To avoid the anxiety coming whenever deep sensations happen, one of several things can occur, either of which is the Second Factor of Mowrer. One, the person can first consciously, then unconsciously, tighten the body enough (or perhaps actively will the brain) literally to stop the feeling or the mental processing of it. A variant of this is when the tightening upsets the bodily chemistry and environment enough to bring about a psychosomatic process, like ulcers, where the anxiety is "bound" in the body (as opposed to "free floating," as described just above).
Or two, psychological defenses can help avoid the feeling of anxiety by literally taking one's mind off the pain by mental manipulations and contortions, such as ascribing one's hidden feelings to someone else, or making the object of one's feelings a substitute for the original. All these behaviors (denial or avoidance) are rewarded by the escape from pain or anxiety.
The treatment is to confront the avoidance, stop it, and experience the anxiety until it extinguishes. This can be done in standard verbal therapy, though it's hard to extinguish classical conditioning in this manner. ISP, on the other hand, aims at the primary layer of anxiety, and sometimes can prevent the need for extensive talk and peeling away of defenses that occur in cognitive-based treatment.
Standard behavioral therapy sometimes aims at the anxiety, but because it usually is not a depth-psychology theory, it often does not understand that the base of the anxiety is a fear of full pleasure (as defined at the top of this article).
Deep bodily sensations and feelings are directly or inadvertently punished or neglected, which causes pain. This pain is not expressed, either because expressing it causes more punishment, or because expressing it has brought no response and the person has given up. This closing down of feeling is done by tightening the body, and such disturbs the TCDR cycles and hence curtails the full expression of movement and emotion. Whenever the deep, intense feelings threaten to surface, we feel anxiety, which is usually so intense and debilitating we erect defenses to avoid it.
After years of living, we have diminished our capacity to feel to such an extent that we experience anxiety whenever the intensity of our feelings starts to rise to a biologically normal level. In defending against this anxiety, we adjust our lives to feel only as much as we can tolerate, which often is just a mere fraction of the potential. We become overly-intellectual, blaming, angry, suspicious, hypersexual, depressed, or otherwise psychopathologically conditioned, and in doing so we refuse to modify or let go of intolerable life situations, such as unhappy jobs or relationships.
In short, we have become scared of full pleasure and therefore continuously strive for substitute gratifications that cannot give satisfaction, but instead give feelings ranging from vague discontent to abject misery and confusion.
Somatically, the defense against pleasure is inhibition of function by rigidification of structure. Through certain parental and societal conditioning, the onset of strong emotional impulses brings about anxiety, which is usually avoided by chronic tightening of the musculature, often in patterns suggesting a startle-response or a compensation of it. As a result, pulsation is impaired, an abnormal-energy homeostasis appears in the ANS, and the trophotropic and ergotropic systems become dysfunctional, or abnormally "tuned." The bio-energy is in stasis.
The inflexible physical structure, the muscular armor, leads to concomitant rigidity in attitudes about life, the character armor. The armoring process affects all levels of physiological and psychological functioning and therefore increases inappropriate responses to the environment.
Any energy for changing the armored homeostasis is kept at a low (i.e., "safe") level as depression or neurasthenia, bound into psychological defenses and somatic attitudes, and/or partially discharged through anxiety states or psychophysiological symptoms (including many disease states often thought to be merely physical and treated only by allopathic means). Resistance to change is incorporated into the increasingly unyielding biological structure of the person (e.g., lack of crying is sometimes not a matter of choice, a "won't," but instead an inability, a "can't," because of chronic tightening of the diaphragm, thoracic cage, neck, jaw, and/or eyes).
Intensive Somatic Psychotherapy [ISP] is an in-depth, long-term individual treatment. Its goal is to aid the patient to achieve that flexibility of functioning that will give an optimal level of genitality and autonomy16 and the resulting natural authority, common sense, and ability to perceive and deal with the world as it is (while still helping to change it)___in other words, to lead a successful life.
Since most of the armoring took place in response to a toxic, uncaring, or not-caring-enough authority, the extinction of the fear of intense feelings needs to take place under an authoritative therapist (neither authoritarian nor permissive), so that the negative feelings conditioned to authority are extinguished. Not only is there most likely rage connected to the original armoring process, but also there is rage that results whenever feelings themselves come up past the anxiety and hit the muscular or character blocks. This anger is transferred to the closest person at hand, the therapist, and is called the negative transference, a necessary part of therapy.
This is part of the process called the resistance, which is the seemingly built-in response we all have that tries to defeat our own therapy, a process that actually represents the fear of change from a known status quo, the neurotic state, to the unknown state of being unarmored, which can be quite frightening in itself. But so long as the desire to get better is stronger than the resistance, therapy progresses.
Both the negative transference and resistance are part of a larger process called the regression, where under the necessary stress of therapy, of having one's physical and psychological resistances attacked, one progressively feels, and often acts, as if at a much younger age. More than one writer has described psychotherapy as a tearing down of resistances and a rebuilding of the personality via emotional reparenting.
By committing themselves to the treatment, patients learn to give up control to the therapeutic situation and thus "let go" of conscious and unconscious control over bodily and mental processes. Concurrently, as the armor dissolves, patients lose their fear of vulnerability and softness as they learn to expand and contract fully, to be open or defensive as the situation warrants. As optimal pulsation is restored, people learn how to adjust their lives to maintain the new, healthy homeostasis. This may include actively changing, or leaving, a hostile or inadequate environment.
When patients have "worked through" the negative transference and their resistance, and thus extinguished fear and anger of authority as well as fear of the deepest pleasure, they are ready to become their own authorities, autonomous, and to accept their sexual feelings and roles, genitality.
It's important to note that people who are healthy do not lose their defenses; rather, they have the flexibility to open up or defend, be vulnerable or armored, as the situation warrants. They are in charge of their own defenses, rather than vice versa. One patient likened herself to a smoothly operating venetian blind that could raise, lower, open, and close in any configuration desired.
Hence, a healthy person might be defined as one who can feel full or mature pleasure, can access all feelings deeply and fully when necessary, and can choose to open or close to the outside world as appropriate.
As in all complete psychotherapies, treatment success depends to a greater extent on the therapist's integrity, grasp of theory, and solid case management, and to a lesser extent on the techniques employed. However, the techniques of ISP are very powerful. They consist of the non-verbal Vegetotherapy and the verbal Character Analysis, aimed at dissolving the muscular armor and the character armor, respectively.
In Vegetotherapy, the major technique is full breathing. Except for strong emotional discharges, full breathing17 is the body's biggest, most regular pulsation and has well-defined TCDR segments. It is the common denominator of strong emotions, and it maximizes circulation and cellular respiration, two major components of "energy." The increase in pulmonary ventilation raises "core energy," which both exacerbates and exaggerates the muscular armor.
Using various patient movements such as reaching, therapist-patient interactions such as strong eye contact, therapist verbal instructions, and the occasional aid of manipulations varying in force from a soothing touch to deep muscular massage,18 the armor is gradually loosened as the patient learns to overcome (to extinguish) the fear resulting from stronger pulsations and increased feelings (more "energy"). As this happens, the physiological stasis is altered, and the tuning of the ANS begins to normalize so that large, full TCDR pulsations occur and full pleasure ensues.
Simultaneously, Character Analysis helps the patient integrate intellectual with somatic knowledge and understand the relationship among symptoms, inappropriate actions, and life-negative attitudes. In dealing with the overlying psychoneurosis, attitudes toward authority are challenged and worked through, as are attitudes toward vulnerability, aggression, hostility, grief, and sexuality. Counseling about habits, diet and nutrition, and the use of common sense aids the patient in maintaining the increased levels of feeling.
Although it is not necessary for the patient to understand why the therapy works, or even about the reasons armoring occurred in the first place, insights and memories usually happen, often after the fact of emotional release. The State-Specific Theory of Memory19 explains this well: certain memories are encoded during specific states of consciousness or emotions, and sometimes these memories are accessible only when the person has reattained the specific state of consciousness during which the memory was stored.
The classic example is the drunk who hides a bottle when intoxicated, cannot remember while sober where it was hidden, then remembers instantly when once again inebriated. The memory was encoded during the state of intoxication and inaccessible during the state of sobriety.
Similarly, the memory of an event taking place during strong or violent emotions, such as sexual abuse, may be recoverable only during a state of consciousness where the same intensity of feeling occurs. And since it's a scary state, the person may consciously or unconsciously do all things possible to keep from regaining that specific state of consciousness.
By raising the level of emotional activation (increasing the energy), ISP helps people regain such lost parts of themselves. As one example, during a session a man suddenly grabbed at his arm, screamed, and started sobbing uncontrollably. When finished, he recounted suddenly recalling an incident that occurred when he was four years old: he was playing near the ironing board when his mother dropped the hot iron, which burned his arm. He remembered never crying about the incident or feeling the burn___until some twenty years later.
In another example, a woman who had almost been electrocuted as an infant relived the jolt to her nervous system and literally arched up in the air as muscles contracted in the same pattern as thirty years earlier.
But it's important to note that such dramatic relivings are more the exception than the rule. Most people's armor was formed by small, daily incidents of neglect or disparagement that blend over time into an inchoate mass of vague memories.
The emphasis in ISP is to regain the ability to feel full pleasure in the unfettered charge and discharge of energy pulsations. When people can feel this, and can concomitantly experience their life changing for the better, they really don't care whether they know the reasons for their past neurosis.
ISP is not a panacea, nor is it appropriate for every patient. Some fortunate people who had happy childhoods with loving parents may need only minor counseling, if any at all. Others, severely handicapped physically, psychologically, or both, may not be robust enough to withstand the physical and emotional intensity of the treatment. And there are always some for whom the therapy is just not suited, for any number of reasons.
However, a large percentage of people who are willing to submit and commit to ISP can benefit from it. It is good for intellectuals and other obsessive people, for those with anxieties and panic attacks, and for those who are chronically depressed and have lowered energy. Because of its strong mind-body interaction, it is especially good for psychosomatic cases, such as ulcers, perhaps even for some auto-immune conditions, such as lupus or scleroderma. It can be a treatment of choice for post-traumatic stress disorders. It is occasionally effective with some people who have moderate psychotic or psychotic-like reactions, and the author has had some success using ISP to treat anorexia and bulimia.
1. For different, or sometimes more thorough, expositions of many of the concepts presented in this article, see Bibliography I and II, especially works by Reich and Baker. ISP is a generic version of Reich's work, especially the first and second phases of it, where he discovered Character Analysis and Vegetotherapy (the therapy described in this paper, which works with the ANS, the "vegetative" nervous system). The third phase of Reich's work deals with Orgone Energy, which is neither within the scope nor purpose of ISP.
2. Such as the chi energy in martial arts or kundalini sex energy in certain yogas.
3. In all his writings, Reich spoke of mysticism being a "splitting off" of the mind from the body, and hence by definition a state of ill health.
4. This can also explain why kids on a long car trip, having built up a high charge, pick a fight until everyone ends up crying. It also can explain why some children almost "ask" for a spanking, which forces them to discharge and allows them to become calm and sweet again.
5. See Bibliography III.
6. Ohm's law: E=IR, where E is electomotive force in volts, I is current in amperes, and R is resistance in ohms.
7. Every child, and every society, need certain restrictions; otherwise, anarchy results. But sanctions and punishment can be done so that energy is discharged or diverted, not stifled, so that what is broken is the will (and willfulness), not the spirit.
8. Growth hormone is no longer produced in quantity after age 25 or so, but at a younger age, excess energy is often directed into growth. The mitosis of a cell is a powerful TCDR cycle.
9. Harvard dream researcher J. Allan Hobson has posited that some dreams are merely the spontaneous discharge of lower brain activity. Reich and ISP builds upon that theory by stating the brain is a "sense-making" organ that makes sense of, that translates the lower brain bodily (and hence, emotional) discharge through the filters of our past experiences and wishes. Therefore, in ISP the intensity of feeling in a dream, hypnogogic (half wakeful) state, or fantasy is often deemed more important than the content. See Winson (1990) in Bibliography VI.
10. When almost asleep, the muscle tone is very relaxed and muscular blocks dissolve or release (see further down in the article). This allows a surge of energy to flow throughout the body. This surge being uninterrupted, the almost-sleeper may experience imagery of flying or other exhilaration. But if the flow hits a muscular block, the result is a clonic muscular contraction (a "jerk"), often with imagery of falling (see footnote 9).
11. Another useful metaphor is the atomic pile, which, when left unattended, may chain-react out of control. Rods of graphite pushed into the enriched uranium core absorb the neutrons and slow or stop the reaction, depending upon how far they are inserted. Many people have their control rods fixed either too far in or too far out, inflexible in any case. The mature, healthy person would have flexible control rods that could be adjusted as needed.
12. Originally, Reich saw the core as flawless, similar to Maslow and other humanists, and opposed to the pre-enlightenment, pre-rationalist view of mankind as flawed (the Original Sin model). In his later life, Reich became so disenchanted with trying to change people and society that he thought only children could be successfully treated. Rumor has it that Reich died a practicing Catholic, which would presuppose the Original Sin model, that the core cannot be perfect and is inherently with at least some flaws. ISP assumes the core layer is not perfect, as least as soon as a rudimentary ego, or self, develops.
13. For a fascinating exposition of political character types according to these layers, see Baker in Bibliography II.
14. Fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably, though technically they can be defined differently. Sometimes fear is defined as being afraid of something identifiable, whereas anxiety is being afraid of the undefined. Physiologically, fear is a parasympathetic (trophotropic) response, while anxiety is sympathetic (ergotropic).
15. In a phenomena called Higher Order Conditioning, a CS2, such as an authority figure, is paired with the CS. The CS2 then elicits a CR2. This is how fear of and anger at authority develops. The generalization, or spread, of this accounts for negative transference.
16. See the top of the article.
17. This breathing is different from the controlled breathing of most yoga techniques, though there might be some occasional similarity to the tantric yoga "breath of fire." The emphasis in the ISP breathing is to inhale fully, and then give up control during the expiration.
18. There is some similarity here to when dentists inject jaw muscle in spasm with saline solution. The "shock" to the muscle is often enough to cause it to relax spontaneously, to "de-armor."
19. See Fischer and Landon in Biblio. VI.
I. BOOKS BY REICH
Reich, Wilhelm, The Function of the Orgasm, New York: Noonday Press, 1961. This is a classic among Reich's books,
Reich, Wilhelm, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, New York: Noonday Press, 1970.
Reich, Wilhelm, Character Analysis, New York: Noonday Press, 1972. Another classic.
Reich, Wilhelm, Listen Little Man, New York: Noonday Press, 1972.
Reich, Wilhelm, The Cancer Biopathy, New York: Noonday Press, 1973. A good exposition of mind/body interactions.
II. REICHIAN HISTORY, THEORY, AND DERIVATIVES
Baker, E.F., Man in the Trap, New York: Macmillan, 1967. If one were to read just any one book about Reichian theory . . . . Baker was Reich's heir apparent until he died several years ago.
Boadella, David, Wilhelm Reich: The Evolution of His Work, Chicago: H. Regnery Co., 1973.
Boadella, David (Ed.), In the Wake of Reich, London: Coventure Books, 1976.
Brown, M., "The New Psychotherapies," Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 10(2), Summer (1973).
Fliess, R., The Psycho-Analytic Reader, New York: International U. Press, 1948.
Lowen, A., The Language of the Body, New York: Collier Books, 1958. Lowen studied under Reich, then later formed his own school, "Bioenergetics," an athletic first-cousin to Reichian theory. (Lowen was a gymnast before becoming a physician, and his techniques are more active and physical than Reich's.)
Lowen, A., The Betrayal of the Body, New York: Collier Books, 1967.
Lowen, A., Bioenergetics, London: Coventure Books, 1976.
Popper, P., "The Biological Foundations of Health: an Evolutionary, Developmental and Reichian Perspective," unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1980, available through University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Well worth reading; he ties together Reich and Gellhorn. Try calling him to buy a copy: (415) 753-8666.
III. TROPHOTROPIC AND ERGOTROPIC AROUSAL SYSTEMS
Gellhorn, E., Physiological Foundations of Neurological Psychiatry, U. of Minn. Press, 1953. Gellhorn's works are classics in this field.
Gellhorn, E., Autonomic Imbalance and the Hypothalamus, U. of Minn. Press, 1957.
Gellhorn, E., Emotions and Emotional Disorders, U. of Minn. Press, 1963.
Gellhorn, E., Autonomic-Somatic Integration, U. of Minn. Press, 1967.
Gellhorn, E., "The tuning of the nervous system: physiological foundations and implications for behavior," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 1967, 559-591.
Gellhorn, E., "Central nervous system tuning and its implications for neuropsychiatry," J. Nerv. Ment. Dis., 147: 148-162 (1968).
Gellhorn, E., "Neurophysiological basis of homeostasis," Confina Neurologia, 30: 217-238 (1968).Gellhorn, E., "Further studies on the physiology and pathophysiology of the tuning of the central nervous system," Psychosomatics, 10: 94-104 (1969).
Gellhorn, E., "The emotions and the ergotropic and trophotropic systems," Psychol. Forsch., 24: 48:94 (1970).
IV. ASSORTED PHYSIOLOGICAL REFERENCES
Becker, R.F., "The gamma system and its relation to the development and maintenance of muscle tone," J. Am. Osteo. Assn., 75:1 (1975), 170-187.
Dicara, L., Limbic and ANS Research, New York: Plenium, 1974.
Granit, R. (Ed.), Muscular Afferents and Motor Control, New York: Wiley, 1965.
Lester, D., A Physiological Basis for Personality Traits, Springfield, IL: Chas. C. Thomas, 1974.
Lowry, T.P., Hyperventilation and Hysteria, Springfield, IL: Chas. C. Thomas, 1967.
Luce, G.G., Body Time, New York: Bantam Books, 1971.
Magoun, H.I., Osteopathy in the Cranial Field (2nd Ed.), Kansas City, MO: The Cranial Academy, 1966. Describes a powerful technique initiated in osteopathy.
Selye, H., Stress without Distress, New York: Signet Books, 1974. All books by Selye are highly recommended.
Speer, F. (Ed.), Allergy of the Nervous System, Springfield, IL: Chas. C. Thomas, 1970.
Stanley-Jones, D., Structural Psychology, New York: Pergamon, 1957.
Stanley-Jones, D., "The physical basis of anxiety," J. Nerv. Ment. Dis., 125: 247-258 (1957).
Stanley-Jones, D., "The physiology of the Oedipus complex," J. Nerv. Ment. Dis., 125: 259-272 (1957).
Stanley-Jones, D., "The structure of emotion: Lust and rage," Psychoanal. Rev., 44: 289-297 (1957).
Stanley-Jones, D., "The thermostatic theory of emotion," Progress in Biocybernetics, Amsterdam (Elsevier) 3: 1-20 (1966).
Thie, J.F., Touch for Health, Santa Monica, CA: DeVorss and Co., 1973. A blend of Oriental medicine and Chiropractic, this workbook provides challenging technique and theory.
Thomas, L., The Lives of a Cell, New York: Bantam Books, 1974. All of Thomas's books are worth reading.
V. ASSORTED NUTRITIONAL REFERENCES
Bieler, H., Food Is Your Best Medicine, New York: Vintage Books, 1973.
Blaine, T., Mental Health through Nutrition, Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1969.
Davis, A., Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit, New York: Signett, Mentor & Plume, 1970.
Cheraskin, E. and Ringsdorf, W.M., Psychodietetics, Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein and Day, 1974.
Fernstrom, J.D. and Wurtman, R.J., "Nutrition and the Brain," Sci. Amer., 230: 84-92 (1974).
Watson, G., Nutrition and Your Mind, the Psychochemical Response, New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
Williams, R.J., Nutrition against Disease, New York: Pitman, 1971. Roger Williams was the dean of nutritional physiologists up until his death several years ago at age 96 or so.
VI. ASSORTED PSYCHOLOGY/PSYCHIATRY REFERENCES
Baumrind, Diana (reference unknow for rough draft deadline). She's done important work on the styles of child rearing: permissive, authoritative, authoritarian.
Gadpaille, W.J., The Cycles of Sex, New York: Scribners, 1975. An extremely scholarly, absorbing work on sexuality, in utero through old age, well-referenced and quite readable, thanks to collaboration by a newspaperwoman. Gadpaille is a psychoanalyst. The book is out of print, probably because it was not politically correct, even back in '75.
Goldberg, S., The Inevitability of Patriarchy, New York: Wm. Morrow and Co., 1973. Controversial, but well-documented and researched. A challenge to current attitudes.
Fischer, R. and Landon, G.M., "On the arousal state-dependent recall of 'subconscious' experience: stateboundedness," Brit. J. Psychiatry, 120: 159-172 (1972). A similar article appeared in Psychology Today around 1975.
Gilder, G., Men and Marriage, Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 1986. A rewrite of his book, Sexual Suicide, which made him Gloria Steinhem's "Pig of the Year." Note that he's married with a family, she's not. Like it or not, this book truly "tells it as it is."
Hendin, H., The Age of Sensation, New York: W. W. Norton, 1975. An illuminating, psychoanalytical look at last generation's late-adolescents and their fear of intimate relationships with the opposite sex. It still holds true today, a generation later.
Lamb, M.E., The Role of the Father in Child Development, New York: Wiley Interscience, 1976.
Lorenz, K., On Aggression, New York: Bantam Books, 1963. See any of the ethologists' books: Lorenz, Tiger, Morris.
Montagu, A., Touching, New York: Harper and Row, 1971. A must.
Winson, J., "The Meaning of Dreams," Scientific American, November, 1990, 86-96.