The body in psychotherapy : inquiries in somatic psychology by Johnson Don 1934-;Grand Ian J & Grand Ian J

Author:Johnson, Don, 1934-;Grand, Ian J & Grand, Ian J
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mind and body, Mind and body therapies, Mind-Body Relations, Metaphysical, Psychophysiology, Psychotherapy, Mind and body, Mind and body therapies
Publisher: Berkeley, Calif. : North Atlantic Books ; San Francisco : California Institute of Integral Studies
Published: 1998-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

THE BODY IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

Through my therapy with Gene Alexander I perceived that my panics might be not only a performance-1 addicted myself to in a child's effort to meet a psychiatrist on his own hallowed ground, but counterfeit omens masquerading in distortions of others' voices. Perhaps I was not so much afraid as protecting something tabooed long ago, perverse yet precious. This did not mean that my panics did not have an energetic base but that their anatomy, like the anatomy of dizziness, could not be solved simply by straightening it out, for it understood itself as crooked and always adjusted back to its axiom. I had to hear whose voice was speaking to me, but even before that I had to hear that it wasn't my voice.

Gradually I began to intrude upon my internal dialogue, to catch the slight but palpable gap between my natural more mild response to a panic - evoking event and then the injunction (like a voice from on high) to be afraid. What I had always experienced as homogenous fear had a component that was more like a prescription to think a certain way (or else!). Otherwise, I tended to handle crises calmly. My problem wasn't with danger or threats. It was with thought itself, which cruelly sabotaged my courage. A voice was always warning me of the disastrous things that would happen if I did not immediately get afraid in a big way. So I did. Turbulence during a plane flight became atmospheric vortices of which the pilot was unaware. My children late from school evoked tabloid horrors. Large pimples and swellings became candidates for tumors. An undercurrent of omen underwrote my life, usually at a subliminal level, surfacing as panic only when the voice took over, effecting a loss of control and a hallucinogenic state.

I was closeted on an ongoing basis with a sadistic, relentless drill sergeant. He was always there, pretending to be me, terrifying me, demanding compliance.

What Gene speculated—by his ovvnri admission an idle conjecture— was that the unique benefit of such a fear would be if one had a mother who intentionally scared them to control them. The best protection against such a parent would be to become more effective at scaring oneself.

Whether or not this was the origin of my compulsion, I had created a vast algorithmic universe, much like the actual universe, but with no parental protection. Panic was an ancient voice inside me, my mother a petty provocateur by comparison.

Compulsion is a strange beast. It speaks in concatenations of riddles. It tells you, superstitiously, if you think "it," it will happen, so you try very

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