Many people who are Out of Balance seek the help of a Therapist. There are Thousands of approaches available on the Market. Nobody is able to tell what therapy suits You.

Eugene Gendlin started to do research to find this out. He came back with his own therapy called Focusing. He discovered that every therapy works when the “patient” is able to Focus.

They focus on a very subtle and vague internal bodily awareness – or “felt sense.” When the patient treats his “felt sense” with “care” and an “interested curiosity” emotions and memories come back. When the memories and the feelings are accepted the patient feels a relief in the body (In-Sight).

Felt senses and reliefs are produced in a sequence. The patient changes but the changes are small steps. This is very different from other therapies where the patient HAS TO change something.

I want to explain Focusing with two theories.

The first one comes out of Second Order Cybernetics. It was created by Varela and Maturana. Their theory was named Autopoesis (Self Reproduction).

Just like the bacterium in my blog about The Work of Rodney Cotterill every organism has to renew itself. Every part of an organism is replaced during a certain period (a Cycle) but the process of replacing the parts has to take place in such a way that the organism stays alive. The parts (of the parts of the parts) are taken out of its environment and the “waste” of the organism is given back to the environment.

When the environment changes the Autopoetic System has to adapt. It is unable to adapt itself directly. It adapts in small steps related to the Cycle Time of the autopoetic (sub-)System that has to adapt itself. Everything is related to TIMING.

First the Scientist thought that the Body was run by one Central Clock in the Brain. Recent research shows that every part of the body has its own clock. Many clocks operate on a daily basis but there are also cycles that take a (Moon-)month or longer (Seasons).

When an organism has to adapt to a new environment (and this could simply be another person) it can take months before there is a new balance.

The second theory I will use is the theory of Wilhelm Reich.

I use a very large citation to prove my point. “In body psychotherapy, and more recently in neuroscience, sympathetic activity, has been seen more broadly as an indicator of an impulse or a feeling being stirred. The word sympathetic -sym pathos means with feeling. It is most easily understood as an upsurge – those feelings which are experienced as coming UP – anger, fear, excitement, desire, hatred – and which if expressed involve movement out, or towards, or in the case of fear, away from, an object. Sympathetic physiology increases energy and readies the body for action – so it is also about the need to do, express, act“.

“Conversely the parasympathetic action is a concomitant of coming DOWN – disappointment, grief, shame, guilt, despair; and contentment, peacefulness, satisfaction – feelings which involve a decrease in tension, withdrawal of energy inward and tend more towards introspection. Laughter and tears are both usually a sign of parasympathetic activity”.

“One way in which the body protects itself from emotional intensity is the development of chronic muscular tension, which dampens down both external and internal stimuli. Although sympathetic activity increases muscular tension, individuals with sustained high tension tend to have lower autonomic arousal than those with less muscle tension. Muscle tension creates a buffer, which reduces anxiety but at a cost – a loss of contact with oneself and others. It can be a negative loop that leads to loss of self-regulation”.

“Too much muscular tension impairs health because it constricts and inhibits spontaneous processes in general (i.e. including feelings and thoughts), such as breathing, and the venous and lymphatic circulation, which are responsible for clearing the body of toxins. This repressed inner turmoil translates in the body as tension at every level (visceral/muscular/autonomic etc), including hardening and narrowing the arteries, as in angina, a medical condition which can precede heart attack.”

“On the other hand, chronic parasympathetic activation, which correlates more with psychological collapse and depression, is not healthy either. Its characteristics are low blood pressure, sluggishness. The organs and muscles lack tone – in other words there is not sufficient tension”.

“The reciprocal action of sympathetic and parasympathetic as part of a four-beat cycle: tension-charge-discharge -relaxation. This is known as the vasomotoric cycle, and is a holistic model embracing both psychological and physiological function”.

“One image I have of the sympathetic is the coiling of a spring; the parasympathetic is the rebound back to a resting state. The part in between – the spring springing – is a crucial transition. In the coiled wire this action is governed by physical laws – the extent of its spring depends on fixed physical parameters”.

“the inhibition at any point in the cycle means that something is not integrated – its split off but the person will inevitably start to wind down sooner or later – just because of the in-built homeostatic regulation. The split off remnants remain in the body as generalised or localised areas of muscular tension, pain, flaccidity or numbness“.

Well I hope you got the message.

We are Self-Reproducing “Machines“.

To reproduce we need to go through a Cycle that contains Cycles that contains Cycles (a Spiral).

To reproduce we need an environment that gives us the Food (Energy) we need.

We also need the environment to give back our “waste“. Our “waste” is “food” for other organisms.

When we are unable to move through our cycles we create a Reservoir. This reservoir is filled with Tension or the need to experience Tension. The reservoirs are situated in the muscles. The most important Muscles are our Organs.

The muscles are connected by an “Electro-Magnetic” wiring system. This System is the same System the Chinese use in Acupuncture. A needle releases the Tension. It removes the “block” and a new “flow of Energy” is started. Just like Focusing Acupuncture is not a “One Step Cures All“-approach.

In our current Society many people are filled with tension but when you are old the opposite happens (YOU are BORED).

At a certain moment the Tension Explodes and we act with Violence. Until that time we experience A FELT SENSE.

When we are Highly Tensed we create a muscular ARMOUR. This ARMOUR protects us against tension but it also protects us from THE OTHERS. We isolate ourselves even from the THERAPISTS.

If this happens the only thing you can do is DANCE or RUN to get into contact with your Body AGAIN.

LINKS

About Stress

About Focusing

Why we Think with our Muscles

About Acupuncture