Body Psychotherapy. Vassilis Christodoulou

of us.

      Our boundaries form the basis of our relationships

      Examining a patient’s main developmental deficits, mainly in respect of their personal boundaries, is a priority for the therapist because it is on the basis of this examination that they will create the essential support framework that will enable the patient to relive their traumatic experiences in a safe therapeutic environment.

      Man is always a single, indivisible entity.

      Without boundaries we cannot exist as individual entities. With inflexible ‘limits’, with fixed impenetrable borders, we cannot exist as a society of human entities. And no human being who lives without the society of others is truly human. This brings us back to what the ancient Greeks and the Church Fathers believed: no individual human being can exist on their own; a human being on their own is not really a human being at all. Our personal energy fields cannot exist without the society of other human beings.

AN EXAMPLE OF OUR PERSONAL BOUNDARIES can be seen in the cell membrane. The cell membrane is the boundary which separates the internal part of the cell, which forms part of our being, from what lies outside and is alien to it. The membrane is flexible and permits a two-way flow of material through it. It allows good, useful and nourishing elements to flow in, while safely keeping harmful elements out. It also allows the waste matter produced by the consumption of nutrients to pass out of the cell and to remain outside it. Consequently, the cell’s boundaries never take the form of fixed, constant and impenetrable borders that protect us by keeping us securely sealed off from the ‘dangerous’ outside world.

      Let us consider the example of an individual that is suffering from severe depression, a person who is shut up within themselves. From the look in their eyes it is obvious that no energy is flowing through them. They are like a closed circuit. If they are not connected with other people, they will remain dead as a person. More than anyone else, they need to be connected with other people, which will draw them out of their isolation and give them energy to live – and yet this is so hard for them to do. It is as if the depressed individual has no heart. Of course, they have a physical heart but they have no energy, no energy flowing from the heart through the neck to the head that would make their eyes shine with vitality. Eyes without a heart are vacant; they do not encourage others to make contact. If you shake hands with someone without that person’s eyes establishing contact with you, then it is a frigid meeting. No energy is flowing. In such cases do not expect to see the kind of healthy flush and warmth that is generated when two people meet and can see joy in each other’s eyes. When one meets a depressed individual, it is like coming into contact with a cold fire, one which generates no heat because no energy is flowing. The bridge which links the heart with the head is ‘blocked up’. This happens to very many people, not only individuals suffering from depression. And all those of us who work in the healing profession know that depression is not a severe form of sadness. Depression is a deficiency of energy.

      When a person is functioning on the level of the head, they are thinking and often become lost in the maze of their own thoughts, but their thoughts have no connection with their heart. It is the same with their speech: when they speak and their utterance is not a ‘silent’ sound in the brain, their speech is not connected with their heart. In this case, the shoulders play a Procrustean role by obstructing the free flow of energy from the heart to the head and the mind. By releasing the flow of energy from the heart to the head we can connect a person’s speech, eyes, understanding and thoughts with the heart. The existence of a connection between the heart and the head is of decisive importance for any individual because it will determine to a large extent the quality of the relationships that that person will have with other people, leaders and movements. It will determine the role their heart plays in lending depth and colour to their life.

      The relationships of a mature person are not determined solely by the heart. They are influenced by the heart and the emotions but also by the cold reasoning of the head. We do not follow leaders or movements only with our hearts, neither do we function merely on the level of our heart and our emotions, without rational thought. Nor do we fall in love only with our hearts, independently of the rest of our bodies, without using our heads, embarking on a love affair which, instead of uplifting us, brings us pain and misery and causes us to lose our personal sense of self.

      We should also unite our legs with our hearts because they will lead us to the person we love. We should also unite our arms and hands with our hearts so that we can use them to embrace others, to give and take, to hold things and to be held, to attract things to ourselves but also to draw limits.

      Procrustes, who obstructs the flow of energy from the heart down to the rest of the body, resides mainly in the diaphragm and, to a lesser extent, in the pelvis – not because the pelvis is of any less importance in providing a connection between the heart and the reproductive organs but because if the flow of energy is cut higher up, in the diaphragm, then there will be no energy in the pelvis capable of being blocked. The pelvis does indeed play a very important role because it embraces and encloses, like a protective shield, the reproductive organs, although, as with any kind of embrace, it could under certain circumstances turn into a prison.

      Confidence and breathing

      How can you develop, how can you embrace and enjoy life when it looks so inhospitable, so traumatised in the faces of your parents? By working with a patient’s breathing, we perform exercises that build confidence and improve the quality of life, we help the patient to tune back into the rhythm of life. Think of the way that we look a baby in the eyes and welcome it with a smile, a movement or a playful gesture. This gives the baby space, the ability to breathe deeply, and confidence in the adult, and through this channel – the adult themselves – confidence in life. Every breath of life emanates from a feeling of confidence, initially confidence in the parent and then, if deficiencies in the parent are taken on by the therapist and the therapeutic process, confidence – through the therapist – in life. The more deeply we breathe, the closer we are to attaining joy. Breathing is perhaps the most direct way of connecting with the universe and its energy. Restricted and shallow breathing indicates a limited use of the energy of the universe. The effects of this on our sexual energy, orgasmic ability and ability to enjoy life, as well as on our health and our ability to connect with others, are direct and obvious. We cannot mechanically impose a change in body posture or in breathing. Changes that have been imposed in this way, if not cancelled out during the course of the therapy – and not any kind of consultative process – will certainly leave their mark elsewhere. In our work we are concerned with the whole person, the person who is suffering, and when a person suffers it is always their whole being that suffers.

      We are not concerned with ‘individual’ symptoms, with individual organs of the body. The body’s equilibrium does not consist merely in an equilibrium between the different organs of the body. The body is decidedly more than the sum of all its cells. And the way all these cells communicate with each other is wondrous. In our work we feel for and understand a person who, in the course of the therapy, displays the need to overcome the symptoms they are suffering from. We give that person support but we do not confine ourselves to, or allow our attention to focus only on the symptoms. The type of treatment we follow is not a symptomatic form of treatment. The symptoms, often to the surprise of the patient themselves, recede almost without our making any special mention of them.

SIMPLE EXERCISES BUT A GREAT HELPDeep breathing from the stomach and the sound made by the expirations help the energy to flow in both directions, both upwards and downwards, although mainly downwards because breathing from the stomach functions as a constant form of internal massage that relaxes the diaphragm area. Gentle jumps, with the joints relaxed, and twists of the pelvis in both directions, with no pressure on the stomach and deep stomach breathing, help to release the energy and make it flow downwards. Lying face up on a mattress and pushing on the back of the neck and the feet to raise the pelvis and hit it against the mattress, can also activate the flow of energy. For the upper part of the body, simple exercises that include twisting of the shoulder, neck and throat joints, and gentle massaging with sound of the joints of the upper and lower jaws, can help energy to flow.

      An all-round balance

      Individuals with blocked energy usually need support in order to relax. For this reason I would advise