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Bioenergetic Analysis: Using the Connection Between Psyche and Soma in the Therapeutic Relationship Candi Dabney, M.S. , MFCC and Cindy Paxton, Ph.D. Somewhere deep in our physical and psychological being are stored the early experiences that shaped the essence of the way we relate to ourself and others. For those whose early experiences did not include an adequate amount of "good enough mothering" (Winnicott, 1988) or who were the targets of overt trauma, the child’s spontaneous impulses and drives to reach out and contact his/her world were threatened. In this experience of threat the child adapted, cutting off from or "blocking spontaneous expression of his/her needs and impulses in order to ensure connection to the caregivers upon whom s/he depended for survival (Reich, 1945). While these compromises served the developing child well in his/her early environments, they were often made at great cost; they required that the very young child deny his/her deepest needs, longings, hurts and joys. In this process the child learned that s/he would be loved as long as s/he didn’t need too much and/or express feelings, or present parts of him/her self that his/her parent(s) couldn’t tolerate (Winnicott, 1971, 1988; Hilton, 1989). This early compromise of the child’s true self forms the foundation of the somatic and psychic adaptive styles that the bioenergetic therapist will later come to see as his/her "character" (Mitchell, 1988; Reich, 1945). Bioenergetic therapy creates an opportunity to revisit the feeling state in which these compromises were made. Bioenergetic analysis provides a frame to understand the physical structure of a client as it correlates to the early development of his/her emotional patterns of relating to him/her self and others. It is unique in that it emphasizes the intricate interactions and interrelationships between the soma and the psyche - understanding the ways that the body reflects the emotional state and how the emotional state is unconsciously expressed through the body (Lowen, 1975). Theoretically, bioenergetic analysis has strong underpinnings in psychoanalytic and developmental theories (Hilton, 1996). Bioenergetic therapy focuses on somatic issues through observing and learning how emotional issues are organized energetically in the body. Injuries at specific developmental stages usually result in tightness and rigidity in corresponding areas of the body. Bioenergetic therapists learn to read the physical tensions that define the energetic blocks in the body and to correlate these somatic expressions to relational patterns that no longer work to secure connections in life (Lowen, 1975). Therapists who chose to work with clients in the process of reconnecting with the early trauma which necessitated the child’s compromise must be aware that the therapeutic relationship may, for some clients, recreate the original somatic and psychic experience of the trauma. It is imperative then, that therapists who engage with clients in this exploration of the constraints of their early environment, have first experienced a safe and supportive, "good enough mothering" (Winnicott, 1988) environment themselves. For bioenergetic trainees, the multifaceted training program provides such an environment. This program includes training, supervision and required personal therapy with a bioenergetic therapist. Over the four years of training the bioenergetic trainee then, has many opportunities to begin to understand the ways in which his/her own early adaptations, the foundation of the therapist’s "character", impact his/her ability to be in relationship, including the therapeutic relationship. In this process the compromised, adaptive child who has grown into the adult therapist can experience and loosen the hold of adaptive, "characteristic" ways of relating. Healing occurs and wholeness emerges in the therapist as old ways of coping and surviving break down, making space for new, more genuine responses and self possession. The process of self-exploration for bioenergetic therapists is an ongoing one. Certified bioenergetic therapists are encouraged and supported in continuing to examine the impact of their adaptive "character" styles on the person they bring to relationship, the therapeutic relationship included. Our Issues Emerge For both Candi and Cindy, psychotherapy is a carefully considered second career. Each of us brings over twenty years of experience in related fields to our clinical preparation process. We are currently completing the third year of a four year training program in bioenergetic analysis. Many years ago, we embarked on our own journeys into bioenergetic therapy. We are acquainted with embracing the central aspects of our woundedness. Through the consistent support and gifted work of our bioenergetic therapists, we are each daring to let go of deeply embedded and ingrained patterns in our body and our minds. For us, bioenergetic training began where our clinical training left off. Through understanding our issues within the framework of somatic theory, bioenergetic training challenges us to know and experience on a somatic level, our adaptive character styles, and to acknowledge the ways in which these styles impact our work as therapists. Our sensitivity to the material our clients bring to us has changed dramatically since beginning our training process, greatly enhancing our therapeutic abilities. As a way of sharing the impact of bioenergetic theory and the training experience, we would like to describe for the reader our simultaneous experiences of a training dyad. Recently, as we were focusing on countertransference, our training group was involved in dyadic work designed to enable us to feel in our body how our clients experience our therapeutic interventions. The context of this role play is critical in that, over the past 2 ½ years, through our time together in monthly training weekends, and our ongoing involvement in and support of each person’s process, the seven trainees in our group have come to know each other in deep and significant ways. Therefore, when we role play client or therapist, the close relationship we share creates an environment that more accurately emulates the knowledge and depth of connecting we would experience with a real client. Candi (Client) The dyad was structured with the client and the therapist standing to enable us to watch the somatic reactions of both. I was instructed to role play my most difficult client. I chose a woman who was chronically grieving over the sudden death of her infant daughter two years ago. Cindy was my therapist. I was instructed to "become my client", bringing her words and her physical expression to Cindy. Cindy was to approach me as a real client in session. As the dyad began, I told Cindy how lonely and isolated my life was - spending 3 to 4 hours alone in my bedroom each day, crying and journaling to my little girl. My family felt that I had grieved long enough. My friends couldn’t tolerate being with me. In fact, they avoided me because many of them had children who were my baby’s age. Everyone in my life, my parents, my husband, my friends, didn’t understand why I couldn’t just move on and accept that my baby was gone forever. Cindy (therapist)As a colleague and fellow trainee, now in the role of playing therapist to my classmate’s role as her own most difficult client, I began to feel a mixture of panic and performance anxiety. Because we know each other’s issues, I immediately connected with the part of Candi that was being disclosed in her impression of her client’s frustration (what would in the therapy room be the countertransference that could, if not acknowledged, affect the therapeutic relationship). I was touched deeply by the authenticity of Candi’s true self that was unconsciously being revealed. I listened to Candi "be" her client, seeing how she showed with her body, energetically, that no one, not her husband, her children, or her friends, really "got" what it felt like to be her at this time in her life. My deep appreciation of Candi’s willingness to visit a difficult place in her own process, combined with my own performance anxiety of needing to get it right with two trainers and five other colleagues watching, threw me into my own adaptive patterns as a therapist. Candi As the client, I was aware of how much energy there was in my body - my gestures were big, my voice was getting louder, I talked rapidly. There was so much energy in me that I couldn’t stand still and was actually lifting up onto my toes as I talked. I noticed that Cindy seemed to be tightening her shoulders and physically stiffening her body. I sensed that Cindy was concerned over how worked up I was getting. She used excellent verbal interventions to try and help me focus on my feelings and explore what options there might be to deal with my loneliness and isolation. When Cindy asked me to focus on who might be safe to share my grief with, I grew even more agitated, sensing that my body was heading towards out of control. Cindy told me that she understood how lonely I felt. I didn’t believe Cindy because her every effort at mirroring my pain was eventually followed with an "I wonder what would happen if…" or "I wonder what it would be like to try …". My agitation continued to build. Finally, I was so angry with Cindy that I had a momentary fantasy of strangling her or running out of the room. At this point, one of our trainers made a simple statement to Cindy. He told her to "… ask your client if she’s feeling like that right now – like you’re not getting what she’s trying to tell you right now." It was as if the trainer had dropped a bomb. The entire room was stunned into silence. The reaction in my body was instantaneous and dramatic. All along I had been role-playing a real client - saying the words she said to me week after week, with no apparent relief. But in this moment, in the space between the trainer’s statement and the seconds that followed, my body expressed a life energy of it’s own that was beyond my ability to regulate or anticipate. In a split second, my body changed from being defensively pulled up in the air, eyes blazing, jaw tightened, gesturing grandly, to a relaxed, sad, painful state with tears and softness that startled me. My impulse was to go back to the place of "nobody understands what it’s like for me", but my body wouldn’t and couldn’t go there. I wasn’t sure what had happened in my body, but I knew it was important. When I became aware of Cindy standing across from me, I was no longer on a mission to make her understand what this grief felt like in me. Her physical countenance had changed. And in this split second, as tears ran down my cheeks, tears that I could now understand on a somatic level when my client cried them, I heard Cindy ask me if I was "feeling" this very moment what I had been so desperately trying to describe to her. All I could do was shake my head yes. There were no words - only a profound, physical openness and energetic connection between us. Cindy The seconds following Candi’s dramatic physical response to the trainer’s words will be forever etched in my body and in my psyche. To experience such a dramatic and spontaneous shift in Candi’s body, in her whole countenance, has profoundly impacted the way I work with clients. In response to my most carefully considered efforts as a therapist, I had experienced Candi growing more agitated, more disconnected from me and from her self, more and more ungrounded in her self and in our relationship. I was not providing the container that her body or psyche needed in that moment. The harder I tried the more agitated Candi became. Then, to witness the instantaneous and dramatic change in Candi when the trainer acknowledged to her that in this very moment, one more person in her life was "missing" her, was awe inspiring to me. To feel and see the interconnection between the energy of the body’s and the psyche’s defenses and to then experience a momentary loosening of those defenses was astonishing. For the first time in the session, there was a mutual, deeply felt connection between us. To see and feel that in this connected place Candi was unable to return to her agitated, ungrounded place and that I no longer felt a need to explain to her that I understood what she was feeling, provided an opening to the healing process. For us, the experience described above demonstrates an essential difference between bioenergetic training and that which we experienced in our clinical training programs and in our psychodynamic supervision. We have both had excellent supervision experiences with supervisors who had the insight to ask us "what are you feeling in your body" as we described stuck places with clients. Bioenergetic training not only asks the question, but also creates the environment in which we are able to enter the "stuck place" psychically and somatically from the client’s perspective and further, to understand kinesthetically how our own characterological issues are disrupting the therapeutic process. The Beginning The exercise was over. But the change had only begun. In this dyad Candi began to feel the essence of what it must have been like for her real life client to sit across from her in their sessions together. When Candi felt, in "playing her client", her own defenses surge and create walls of words and gestures, she had no idea that, in the same unconscious way, her defenses would melt at the moment she could feel that Cindy really understood and felt her dilemma. It was then that Candi realized that she did know, on a somatic level, her client’s dilemma of isolation and loneliness. From her perspective as the therapist in the dyad, Cindy recognized Candi’s issues as she noticed how her body became ungrounded, tight and rigid. However, her best verbal therapeutic interventions were useless, because in the moment, Cindy was unable make use of the message that Candi’s body was screaming at her - "I have to tighten up, lose control and push you away because you don’t get it either!" As the client, Candi sensed that her actions were creating distance between her and Cindy. However, Candi didn’t know what else to do because Cindy was trying to provide ideas and solutions. The trainer’s statement brought to Candi’s awareness that Cindy had been responding to her words rather than to the messages displayed in her body. When Candi felt Cindy’s connection to her loneliness, pain and despair, she spontaneously and naturally moved towards Cindy - first she stepped a little closer, then lightly touched Cindy on the arm. In this place of loosened defenses, feeling and trusting the authenticity of the connection between them, Candi didn’t need to push Cindy away; she could allow Cindy to be there with her, in the middle of her pain. Were Candi actually in therapy with Cindy, this moment would serve as an important beginning to the healing she could experience in the connection with Cindy. The Process In the environment of bioenergetic therapy, the therapist becomes a participant with the client in movement towards spontaneous expression of impulses which were once blocked. In this process the therapist witnesses the physical tension patterns that spontaneously emerge whenever a client breaks through to a new level of contact and connection. Knowing the client’s history, and understanding the absolute necessity of appropriate timing, the therapist often uses a form of physical contact or intervention to facilitate this new connection. The shift that occurred in Candi as the client was first and foremost a physical change - unplanned, unexplained and unexpected. Candi needed Cindy to really "see" and "feel" her despair. As the physical shift entered the therapeutic relationship, and Cindy was attuned enough to feel the shift in her own body, Candi reached out to Cindy. The mutually experienced loosening of Candi’s defenses, and the resulting empathically attuned connection was an important transition in their relationship. At this point in the therapy, the bioenergetic therapist is both present to be contacted physically if necessary, and is also aware that the client’s psychic and somatic self is beginning to explore a new way of being in the world (Hilton, 1989). It is crucial to the process that the therapist notices what inevitably happens after the moment of connection experienced by Candi and Cindy. The very contact that the client so desperately wants in the moment, becomes the threat that s/he had to create defenses to protect against (Hilton, 1989). Thus, the client breaks the connection that was momentarily established, his/her defenses involuntarily taking over, leaving him/her once again lost in his/her isolation. Reaching and contacting then, are always involuntarily followed by the physical re-emergence of the blocks in the body. These blocks present themselves in a variety of physical shifts; the jaw tightens or the neck constricts or the head pulls back, or the eyes revert to their defended state. At this point the hard work of therapy begins. Client and therapist have begun a journey of slowly undoing a lifetime of resistance to being genuine in the world. Were Candi to continue to work in an actual therapeutic relationship with Cindy, they would experience many variations of this moment. Candi would move into and out of the place of loosened defenses, returning to the security of her automatic, defensive responses whenever she felt it necessary to do so. Cindy, observing this, would suggest various psychic and physical interventions intended to release Candi from these old, habitual ways of behaving so that she can once again connect with Cindy. Bioenergetic therapy then, is the process of inviting the client’s woundedness out into the safety of the therapeutic relationship; blocks loosen, connection is sustained for moments, then minutes. Over time, the client learns to reach out to the therapist, and then to the world (Hilton, 1987). The bioenergetic therapist supports his/her client in this struggle to give up the old pattern of tension and self-imposed psyche/soma restrictions. The client begins to breathe and move again with an expression of life that was all but extinguished in his/her pain (Hilton, 1989). It is truly amazing to participate in this journey of discovery and expression
References Hilton, R. (1989, August). Ego, energy and the body
Hilton, R. (1987). Grounding and the ground of being. Paper
presented at Hilton, R. and Stiel, E. , (1996). Curriculum outline.
Southern California Institute Krueger, D. W. (1988). Body self and psychological self: A
developmental and Lowen, A. (1975). Bioenergetics: The revolutionary therapy that uses the language of the body to heal the problems of the mind. New York: Arkana. Mitchell, S. A. (1988). Relational concepts in psychoanalysis.
Cambridge, MA: Reich, W. (1945). Character analysis. New York: The Noonday Press. Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. In Krueger, D.
W. (1988). Body self Winnicott, D. W. (1988). Human nature. New York: Schocken Books.
For further information about workshops and training in Bioenergetic Analysis, contact the San Diego (619)298-4505 or Southern California (714)7510-7761 Institutes for Bioenergetic Analysis or visit the website for the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis at http://www.bioenergetic-therapy.com. The authors wish to express their appreciation to Robert Hilton, Ph.D., for his support and assistance with this project. Dr. Hilton challenged us to extend, through the writing of this paper, our understanding of what it really means to practice as a bioenergetic therapist. Candi Dabney, M.S. MFCC has been involved in clinical work for the past 6 years. For over 20 years, she worked in areas of human development, training, education, marketing and publishing,. Candi’s current professional work focuses on issues related to couples and blended families. She also helps therapists learn to effectively market to self-pay clients. Candi is actively involved with the Southern California and the International Institutes for Bioenergetic Analysis. Her private practice is in Newport Beach. Candi can be reached at (714)651-0252. Cindy Paxton, Ph.D., M.S., MFCC Intern is a professor of Health Science and Human Ecology at California State University, San Bernardino. Her interest in bioenergetic analysis grew out of her perceptions, in both her personal therapeutic journey and in work with clients, of the need for a theoretical and experiential bridge between what the psyche understands and the body experiences. She is currently completing requirements for the M.F.C.C. license. Cindy may be reached at 909-798-7711. Robert Hilton, Ph.D. has been a psychotherapist in private practice for over 30 years. In 1972 he co-founded the Southern California Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis where he continues to serve as a senior trainer. He is an International Trainer for the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis and has taught throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and South America. Dr. Hilton is in private practice in Costa Mesa, California. Ó 1997; Dabney/Paxton; No part of this paper may be reproduced without written consent of the authors. Published in The California Therapist, The Magazine of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, September/October 1997.
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