defining bodymind

[Guest guest]

as we're trying to stimulate discussion :-)

 

I am currently working to a twofold theoretical model, it may sound a

little strange, it may be completely wrong, I stress it's only a

model and I've come to it as a massage therapist.

 

Level 1: Muscles have their own opinions.

 

I get macho clients, they're telling me 'go harder!', 'it's ok if it

hurts'. At the same time I can feel their muscles begging for

respite. I've felt the softer, more soothing strokes release muscles

that were chronically tight while the macho 'thumbs in' approach

would just tense them up more. But that doesn't stop the brain

demanding thumbs :-) Muscles have their own mind. It may be

primitive from our perspective, but it does them pretty fine and its

existence does have huge implications for bodywork.

 

 

Level 2: Whatever you tell the universe the universe will hear.

 

I've had clients who've had chronic emotional postures. I recall a

client (we'll call him Arthur) who complained of receiving a negative

reaction from people. But Arthur *looked* aggressive and dangerous;

the shoulders were up, the chin was down.

 

He was a chatty client, and as he talked it became clear that he had

faced a lot of aggression in his life but that he wasn't himself an

aggressive person. He'd just unconsciously adopted an aggressive

posture, for mirroring or defence, or both, and then forgotten it was

there. It took some fairly deep bodywork to persuade those muscles

to let go, to start occupying other postures, to reflect the

emotions Arthur was actually feeling.

 

Reminds me of what my granny always told me - don't pull that face or

the wind might change :-)

 

 

 

 

While I do have Lowen's books; 'Depression and the Body' being the

main target for reading, my reading pile is taller than I am and I'm

more using Transactinal Analysis at the moment before I move on to

Bioenergetics. Briefly, for those not familiar, TA uses a 'game'

model to analyse human behaviour. Lots of people don't like the use

of the word game to describe something like alcoholism but I stress

it is only a model.

 

One of the mysteries of TA is how game-players find each other; how,

for example, do violent abusers find potential victims? Why do abuse

survivors so often attract abusers? Could it be that certain signals

are locked into the posture, there for all to see? Is it possible

that someone who has survived an abusive relationship has picked up a

set of unconscious postural 'markers', fixed into the musculature

that an abuser will respond to? And is it possible that Bodywork

(massage) could release those markers, contributing to an end to the

abuse cycle?

 

And that's where I'm up to with the bodymind :-) There's more but

it's tentative. I'll offer it if there's interest.

 

 

Ged