(this article was also submitted to fuckyourbrain.com, soon to be featured in the 3D magazine)

The underpinnings of the human mind and our behavior as an extension are naturally fascinating. It’s no surprise that Sigmund Freud caught on fast in the 1940′s and was a household name by the 1960′s. But what once held so much potential became more of a racket for years and years of expensive and sometimes cruel treatments that may never leave patients cured, or worse, the mentality that pharmaceuticals alone can cure all of our social problems. Traditional psychotherapy is characterized by a therapist who acts as an authority figure, and generally, a session includes the patient talking extensively as the therapist silently analyzes. It can take months or years to get anywhere, because as many therapists have noted, patients tend to exhibit defense mechanisms for their inhibitions, anxieties, and neuroses. Some will even express hostility towards the therapist. A good therapist has to be able to work past the defenses, known as resistances and negative transferences. Only then can breakthroughs happen.

Alternative psychology opts to take a different, and usually faster approach to breakthroughs- and many practitioners include the use of body language analysis, or the incorporation of movement or exercise as therapy techniques.

Wilhelm Reich, one of the original alternative psychoanalysts began his career as a protege of Freud. He began to notice in his psychoanalytic sessions that there were distinct patterns of body language that expressed a person’s true inner workings. He found that people who were being deliberately difficult during a session had a completely different posture and affect than those who genuinely wanted to be cured. Furthermore, when he experienced a breakthrough with a patient, he noticed a very distinct set of bodily movements. In some patients, these involuntary movements were so intense that they would be convinced the furniture underneath them was moving, and that it had to be a trick. Reich took his analysis of the physical body so far that he would often ask patients to strip down to their underwear during sessions. He developed such a keen sense of a person through their physical appearance that he scrapped Freud’s methods and developed his own. He took Freud’s idea of libido and treated it as a real, physical force. He believed that the power for a person to be able to experience a full orgasm was the most potent psychological force of all, and that any psychological problems would lead to a blockage of this force. He also believed that our body posture, breathing, and in any tensions in the body displayed this force. He spent the rest of his life doing experiments trying to research this force, supposedly found in all organic matter. He called this force “orgone” and convinced himself that it tangibly exists. He did so through completely original methods, despite similar concepts in other cultures, most notably the Chinese idea of “chi” and the Indian idea of “prana”.

Reich believed that our psychological defenses grew into what he aptly called character armor, which was clearly shown in the body as body armor. He thought this armor was used to shield ourselves from the emotions of others as well as safely hold emotions and impulses in. He categorized tension into seven segments- the eyes, mouth, neck, chest, diaphragm, abdomen and pelvis. These nearly line up with the seven chakras of yoga. Reich would have patients release any tensions, working through each segment starting with the eyes all the way down to the pelvis, working through individual tensions as independent problems needing to be addressed. He believed once the pelvis was relaxed, orgone was freely flowing, and orgasm was possible. It’s worth noting the similarities to Kundalini yoga, however the order of exercises is reversed, starting with the pelvis.The patient had to be closely monitored, as tension was likely to come back, and exercises had to be repeated many times. Over time Reich discovered that his patients could make real, life changing effects on themselves by understanding the connection between body and mind.

Reich developed a very simple home exercise regimen that be can found for free online (http://reichiantherapy.net/). Myofascial release massage is also a great detensifying therapy.

Many other psychoanalysts took Reich’s work and built on it, including Fritz and Laura Perls, the developers of Gestalt therapy. They believed that not only are body and mind connected, but our behavior is dependent on the situation we are in. For instance, a person probably behaves very differently at home versus at an analytic session. They also believed that the mind is constantly sorting things out in order of importance, and things that are extremely consuming blot out everything else. They call these gestalts, and gestalts have to be dealt with before any psychological progress can be made. An example would be a patient whose wife has just died and is so grief-stricken that he can’t eat or sleep. The gestalt of his wife’s death would have to be sorted out before the patient could want to eat and sleep again.

In addition to the exercises in the ebook above, Reich’s findings can also be used as a tool for self-analysis. For instance, freeze for a moment right now and observe your posture as you read this. How are you breathing? Notice if there are any muscle tensions, i.e. your neck, your jaw, your shoulders, your back, your feet. Are your shoulders or spine slumped? Is your breathing smooth and deep, or ragged and shallow? Are you fidgeting, multitasking? Is there some impulse or situation that is consuming your mental activity? Remind yourself to analyze your body in other situations, as they can be very telling as well. Notice your body on your way to work. Does your jaw grind? Do your feet twitch? Does your pelvis curl in to your body? Notice how you are when you are alone, when you are with a lover or friends, versus when you are with people you don’t like or don’t know. When do you feel the most relaxed, when do you breathe deeply and fully, and when do you tense up? Don’t forget to analyze yourself while you are having sex and your orgasm- either with a partner or alone. Is it mechanical or does it feel fluid, like a dance? Do you open up your orgasm, or do you hide it and internalize it? What do you think about?

Don’t make the mistake of interpreting things as things as good or bad. Think about what you seem to get caught up on, and what you want to let go of, what you want to change. If you’re averse to letting something go, it’s probably exactly what you should do. You will grow and improve yourself as a person the more you get out of your stubborn habits and allow yourself to experience life without them. It’s easy to rationalize them, i.e.- “I don’t have to release my anger towards my boss/dad/whatever- he makes me angry and tense because he’s a jerk”. No one is saying you have to be nice, but the idea here is to see what happens when you are. Does it make you feel better? Are you just perpetuating a familiar situation by being angry or does it feel like you’re falsely imposing morality on yourself when you’re nice? I’m a firm believer in ending relationships that only do us harm, but also a firm believer in sorting out where the conflict is coming from. We have an adage where I work that if you start thinking everyone is an asshole, the asshole is probably you.

It should be pretty easy to figure out what habitual behaviors of the body are indicating, for example, if you tense your jaw and squint your eyes when you see your coworker, you’re probably expecting conflict with them. If you slump your spine, cross your legs, and curl your pelvis in public you are probably repressing your sexuality (something we’re all basically taught to do). If you’re not sure what something means, or even to break yourself of accumulated habits, again, try doing the opposite. If you tend to conceal your genitals in public, see how it feels to sit with your legs wide open and pelvis tilted out. If you find yourself getting irritable and holding your breath at work, focus on breathing deeply and smoothly. Changing little things like your posture has been shown by one study at OSU* to dramatically change your perception of yourself and your environment. Studies have also linked deep breathing with stress relief and overall improvement of mood.**

Psychotherapy has been refined over several decades, and many patients have gotten a lot of results from incorporating the body into therapy. Reich gave himself a bad reputation through arguably shoddy science and politics, but his flaws are no reason to throw out his entire body of work. Before seeking out any form therapy, one should research thoroughly into its methods, results, and cost. Some practitioners are more interested in making money than helping people- and they can be easily spotted by their lack of respect for the patient’s needs, or by any dogma that seems to be repeated in a brainwashing fashion. Nevertheless, alternative psychotherapy remains highly beneficial, and mainstream psychology certainly could learn a few new things from its honest and practical approach.

REFERENCES:
Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis
Joel Latner, Ph.D, The Gestalt Therapy Book
Ola Raknes, Wilhelm Reich and Orgonomy
John Lawson, The Affirmation of Life
*Ohio State University, Science Daily (2009, October 5) “Body Posture Affects Confidence In Your Thoughts, Study Finds”
**Gina Paul, Barb Elam, Steven J. Verhulst Teaching and Learning In Medicine (Vol. 9, Issue 3; June 2007) ”Longitudinal Study of Students’ Perceptions of Using Deep Breathing Meditation to Reduce Testing Stresses”