| Welcome to Core Energetics South Healing Mind, Body & Spirit |
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Today psychology is conventionally viewed as a mental science. Wilhelm Reich was the first western psychiatrist to begin to reconnect psyche and soma. Alexander Lowen MD and John Pierrakos MD, students of Reich, co-created bioenergetic analysis which works with body-emotions-mind as a unit. When John Pierrakos created Core Energetics he was the first modern western physician to connect the spiritual nature of the human, to the body, mind and emotions. Modern society continues to facilitate this fragmented existence by compartmentalizing our process of learning and healing. Educators are in charge of the mind; psychologists, the emotions; ministers, the soul; and physicians, the body. Recent exciting information has been presented in the fields of new physics and new medicine, which tell us we must treat the human entity as an integrated systme of body-mind-emotions-spirit. Findings in the new field of psychoimmunology tell us that science is catching up to what has been practiced in folk cultures for generations-we must treat the whole person to truly heal ourselves. Core Energetics takes as its premise that the Core of the individual person, stripped of all its masks, pretensions and ego antics, is the soul, and its nature is love-the life energy. Core Energetics believes that love is all there is. Everything else is fear, or the fear of fear. Those fears are distortions and illusions, but they seem to be real and they are preventing us from living spontaneously, and with as much flow and as much love as we would like to live.
The next layer is The Primal Wound. When we are not allowed to protest, or to express our pain, this energy becomes stagnant and will produce the next layer of defense, which becomes the physical armoring. The social mask is what we wear to protect ourselves. It is what we believe are what we should be like, act like, think like; but it is not us. It is what we pretend to be so that our caretakers and later society will accept us. "The mask dampens the vibrancy and buoyancy of the life center." (Pierrakos) It is shown as the outside layer of dark energy in our model. When negative or painful experiences happen in this life, we create energy blocks, to try to stay safe. We block the movements of energy from the Core of our being into creative expression in the world. The more pain a child experiences, the more extreme are the measures to protect the self and to block the pain, which eventually become patterns of holding the physical energy. This creates blocks in the physical body. For example, fear can unconsciously elicit held breath and raised shoulders. If this happens enough times, a person develops permanent holding patterns which are present in the body and can be seen and worked with by the Core Energetic therapist. These blocks tell where and how to proceed. An important piece in Core Energetics is working with the dark side, called the lower self, that portion of Core Energy that has been blocked and become distorted. In order for wholeness to be regained, the lower self energy needs assistance for exploration and airing-which leads to transformation. The process of Core Energetics is to transform the negativity and distortions into creative and positive energy. This can be likened to turning on the light in a once scary closet and seeing that the feared monsters are in reality just items of clothing. We don't show our dark side (or Core) to others, because it is very tender. But they are there and they are quite obvious. The therapist guides the individual to discover in his/her body both repressed feelings and the physical blocks associated with those feelings. Core Energetics includes a lot of body work and energy work, because whatever happens to the child is registered in the body physically. That energy creates the physical body. The Form follows energy in creating our reality. We know by viewing Kirlian photographs, that before a plant grows a new leaf, it shoots out an energy form in the shape of a leaf. The physical leaf then grows into the energy form. Our bodies grow in similar ways. Our emotions, thoughts and beliefs form part of the energy, which the body follows. Genetics is only part of why we look like we do. The process of this evolutionary work therefore is to unblock our defenses, move the stuck energy to create healthy flow and to transform the negative distorted emotions back to the Core Self. By working with the physical body-the body armoring- by transforming the negative emotions of the dark side and by allowing the primal wounds to be expressed. The Core Self can then be experienced as loving, joyful, and connected to all of life. At all times throughout the process, attention to the person's positive qualities of his or her Core is paramount. Universal spiritual principles are taught and applied. Core Energetics is a process of education to our inner reality- which is love. In this process, people can expect to work hard; some powerful stuff will happen. They may find that what they thought was going on isn't what is going on at all. One of the wonderful things about Core Energetics is that when we do look at the body and use the energy in the body, we discover things that have been hidden from awareness. It's a much faster way of doing that than just through talking therapy. Core Energetics looks for what is going on with the person. What can we do that honors where this person is? Once the person feels comfortable enough, the therapist may work with the breath and with movement. The breath is one of the first things in the body that gets traumatized. For many people, once they start breathing, feelings will begin to be released. Then the work is to get them to move, to see what is happening with the energy, then to help them unblock the physical blocks. That's done with physical movements and by the therapist putting her or his hands on the body to help them allow energy to flow once again. Although Core Energetics is relatively new, people all over the world are seeking it's healing powers. There are training programs, in the Core Energetic Evolutionary Process, all over the US, Canada and several European countries. A Core Energetic training program for professionals began in Atlanta in the fall of 1997. The Core Energetic therapist is trained in traditional analysis, human development, other traditional therapeutic modalities transference/counter transference issues, as well as in energy analysis. He or she studies for at least four years in addition to a professional degree. That study includes anatomy, physiology, human energy theory, Reichian theory, Bioenergetics, Core Energetics and spirituality. Graduation requires extensive personal therapy and supervision. Healing happens through love- getting closer to our source, feeling whole, and in balance. To be in balance we must have all our energy centers (chakras) open. When our energy is open and flowing we connect to the earth and to our bodies, we can also think, feel and be connected to spirit. Then the veil between the physical and spiritual begins to melt. I think everyone comes to this work for a reason. The soul decides, at some level, that the time to do this work is now. Longing for and Fear of Intimacy What we want most in life is love. What we're most afraid of is love. Sad but true. Millions of people are plagued by the ambivalence: You want it and push it away. Just when you find someone who does love you, can love you and wants to love you, you sabotage the relationship in some way. Are you single and longing for love but some how can't find a partner? Have you ever experienced having to choose between a person who is available and loves you - and someone who is not willing to commit, or unable to give adult love - and you choose the one who cannot love you? Are you always in love with the person you are not with, and unable to accept the love available to you in your present relationship? Have you had serial partnerships always leaving when the romance dies away and the going gets tough? Have you lost your sexual desire for someone you love even though, otherwise, it's a good relationship? Or perhaps your sexual responses are great but you do not open your heart to love? If you answer yes to any of these, you are longing for and fearful of intimacy, a fear of true love. Why? It is because the child in you has been wounded in the past; so deeply and painful that you, as a child, had to stop that pain in whatever way you could: cutting off feelings, stopping your deep breathing, by tensing your body, and by living a fantasy life. As adults we still use these means to protect ourselves from our childhood wounds and the people who wounded us. Only this time we look at our wife or lover and see Mommy; or our husbands or lovers and see and feel the feelings we felt with Daddy, good and bad. If we don't choose people who are like our parents, we make them like our parents. Ultimately we do this so that we can heal the pain of our past, grow up and get on with life. Harville Hendrix says, "We get married in order to finish our childhood." Only then, can we go on to have an honest, soulful, complete relationship. It takes work and most of us want to quit before it's done. We fantasize that it would be so much easier with someone else. Possible, but hardly ever true because it's us making it hard and, we bring ourselves along to the next relationship. (I am not suggesting any of us stay in abusive relationships or ones where our partner refuses to work on him or herself.) Meanwhile, we numb our feelings to avoid unhappiness. We really do want love. Our primary struggle is for happiness but because of our past wounds and fears, our aim becomes the avoidance of unhappiness. Our conclusion: "If I do not feel, then I will not be unhappy." The unhappiness we seem to avoid will come back to us in more painful indirect ways; the bitter hurt of isolation, loneliness, the feeling of missing or having missed the true goodness of life, and without being the most and best we can be. We also believe that if we isolate, stay alone, that we can avoid our pain. This is a solution we used as children so we try it again and fight against giving it up. Our fear of recreating our original pain will not allow us to have love now. What once was our protector now becomes our saboteur. Our distorted Lower Self's feelings fight to keep us from having what we truly want - love. Our self-created demon kicks up the most when we get closest to having love - now: "You can't have it; you're too bad, stupid, worthless." The demon may change your vision so that your love partner looks like the worst monster in the world. "Get far away from him/her." Status quo, isolation, no feeling, is better, less frightening - in the short run - less soulful, less satisfying in the long run. But we feel trapped and stuck in our old ways, and we must work like hell with the assistance of heaven to get unstuck. John Bradshaw said that the only time we may feel happy and free is when we're single. Maybe true for many of us. It's easier. We only have ourselves to be with but ultimately not as satisfying and does not have the growth potential of partnering. We are born to connect with others - our biological, emotional urges move us constantly along toward connection with others. Our spiritual desire is toward that of union with another human being; it is the closest we usually get to experiencing Oneness on earth. The Pathwork guide asks - "How can you receive what you long for - love, belonging, communication - If you neither feel nor express the occasional glimpses of feelings that the still healthy part in you strives for? You cannot have it both ways, though the child in you never wants to accept that." We cannot belong and be loved while we dull our world of feelings into a state of numbness which prohibits us from truly loving others. Core Energetics can help us to feel our deep feelings and transform the pain so that we may be loving and allow love in. Let's look at the challenges of partnership as the next great adventure of life. Take risks - open up. Feel everything we can possibly feel. And remember, we have choice at every moment. We can choose love over fear every time (well, as much as we dare). We can create love in our life. This is today and we're adults. Most of us don't really live with Mommy and Daddy; we just have them internalized. It's time to let them go and embrace the possibility of now. Suggested reading: Pathwork of Self Transformation, Eva Pierrakos; Core Energetics & Love Eros and Sexuality, John C. Pierrakos; Getting the Love You Want, Harville Hendrix; Creating Love, John Bradshaw. YOUR BODY IS YOUR UNCONCIOUS MIND: The Interrelatedness of Psychology and Medicine Modern science is beginning to get excited about what ancient Greeks practiced in Athens and Crete , and indigenous people all over the world have known for thousands of years. Science is proving that mind and body are clearly not only interrelated, they are one. We are bodymind. Candace Pert, Ph.D., an internationally known and highly respected neuro-biologist has proven that emotion is not generated in the brain; it is generated in the cells themselves -- all over the body. Therefore our bodies are truly our subconscious minds. Dr. Pert, author of “Molecules of Emotion”, with her husband Dr. Michael Ruff, were the first to begin study in what is now well known as psychoneuroimmunology. Pert says that emotions are chemically instigated at the cellular level, which is where unexpressed emotions are stored. This overwhelmingly indicates that mental, emotional and physical trauma, and shock, when not expressed at the time the event occurs, creates energetic blocks which lead to later problems. We now know that what Sigmund Freud termed the “subconscious mind” is actually a measurable physical process. Freud explored awareness outside consciousness and showed that when we banish traumatic experiences to our subconscious mind, they later emerge as physical and mental ailments. Our suppressed emotional events influence our physical well-being. On the cellular level, emotions are literally created chemically. As we store unexpressed emotions on a cellular level, illness can be caused by this stored and trapped information. Therefore, it stands to reason that to heal from our ills, we must express the information accumulated in our bodyminds. Wilhelm Reich, MD, a student of Freud, is world renowned for his innovative therapy which treats human beings as living, moving entities full of the life energy, that he called orgone. Reich stated that when life energy is blocked due to emotional distress, illness is produced. Dr. John Pierrakos, a student of Reich, creator of Core Energetics, has studied the interface between held emotions and illness, for over 40 years, and has taught that specific developmental wounding creates specific disease processes. Dr Pierrakos' book Core Energetics: Developing the Capacity to Love and Heal , explains how Core Energetics combines psychology, new physics, spirituality, and energy field and charka system theory. Once considered to be only in the realm of the spiritual and metaphysical, Dr. Candace Pert's research is now revealing the scientific underpinnings of the charka system. Pert says that charkas are “minibrains”: points of electrical and chemical activity that receive, process, and distribute information from and to the rest of the body. Alexander Lowen, MD, also a student of Reich, co-creator of Bioenergetic Analysis, with John Pierrakos, MD, writes extensively on the interface and impact of the emotions on the body. In his book, Love, Sex and Your Heart , Lowen explains that difficult childhood experiences impact the human body and particularly the human heart. Many people in our culture suffer heart disease. Certainly diet and modern day stresses contribute to failing hearts. Most importantly, says Lowen, children who suffer lack or loss of love in childhood suffer heartbreak. To survive they suppress their pain by rigidifying the chest wall, which limits breathing, movement and feeling, therefore creating a continuous stress on the body. Dr Lowen says, “It is the existence of this kind of stress, in my opinion, that predisposes so many people to heart disease.” He goes on to state clearly that “Only a person who is not afraid to love can be reasonably secure that his heart will remain healthy.” It is well known that people with “type A” behavior are statistically 7 times more likely to have heart disease and heart attacks. People with “type A” behavior have tight mouths and jaws, tense bodies and body postures, rapid finger tapping, are competitive, compulsive, etc. People who exhibit these behaviors are defending themselves from painful childhood histories or current emotional stressors and can help heal themselves by expressing held emotions which will soften and relax their entire bodies, making them less likely to be physically and mentally ill. Examples of bodymind influence from my own practice are numerable. Two representative cases are: a 40 year old man, who presented with serious long term irritable bowel syndrome/colitis, was able to express his unresolved childhood pain of his mother's death, and his physical symptoms resolved in just a few months. A thirty five year old woman, who for years, had daily severe migraines, was able to release the energy that was blocking her emotions, rage at an abusive father, and her headaches soon vanished. Physical symptoms of dis-ease are clearly emotionally connected. Working energetically with the deep emotional and spiritual issues can move and transform the stuck energy that creates dis-ease such as, fibromyalgia, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, some types of chronic pain, migraines, sexual dysfunction, and TMJ among others. Working with the Body and its energy also helps to heal the issues we commonly consider psychological, such as, panic attacks, depression, anxiety etc. People who work with all aspects of themselves, report feeling more alive, having more sexual feeling, singing better, and being more spontaneous and joyful. What can assist you in your quest for healing your bodymind? Many modalities assist the bodymind healing. Bioenergetic Analysis, massage, Rolfing, osteopathic and chiropractic are among them. Healing modalities that work the emotional, mental and spiritual levels of existence are Homeopathy, Acupuncture and Core Energetics. Among them Core Energetics uniquely addresses the psychological, emotional, and spiritual directly through work with the bodymind. Anti Anxiety Wisdom: Core Energetics Transforms Anxiety to Free Us Anxiety is a huge epidemic in our society. More people are on medication for anxiety than ever before. Anxiety is the cause of many mental and emotionally related symptoms and because we are bodymind our physical symptoms are most often caused by anxiety run amuck. Anxiety occurs when worrying about possible negative outcomes, or ruminating about something after the initial thinking process has unearthed what we can do about a problem. Anxiety is about living in a negative situation that we feel we have no capacity to change. We lose the ability to trust ourselves to cope with whatever comes our way and lose faith in the universe to keep us ultimately safe. Over time, anxiety shows up in our body in many ways, if not resolved will cause misery, then illness. In fact anxiety can be a killer. We often respond to life by turning our attention to the negative, sometimes with panic. Adrenaline rushes in to help us deal with our perceived emergency, that our bodies' primitive mechanism treats the same as if we were being attacked by a saber toothed tiger. Only this time we don't run, scream, or fight. We are “civilized” and often times the danger we are up against is living the modern life of going to a job we hate, living with a bad relationship or marriage, not talking back to our boss, or parents, and being out of control about the quality of our air and water. We live in cities where we drive in stop- start traffic that puts us behind the wheel for hours a day. All this while we clench or teeth, our guts stop working properly, our stomach churns out acids, we have nightmares, or lie awake, our hormones go wild, we go numb and may have outbursts of disconnected anger. Anxiety gone untreated also affects our minds and thought processes, our emotions and feelings, and our spiritual well being. We cannot think straight. Our thoughts may seem to make sense, to us, but they are distorted. We lose the capacity to see our own issues and think logically about how to make positive changes for ourselves. Our emotions become unbalanced -- blocked, distorted, or over active. When we lose connection with our spiritual source - our well being, sense of peace and general safety is disturbed. We don't know why we are here in this life, our purpose escapes us. Life can seem too hard, too lonely, too frightening. Always, our unresolved childhood issues and woundings come to the surface and cloud our present reality. It's just the way life works. Something happens in the present that reminds us, usually unconsciously, of our past, and the emotions from our past lock us into behaving from that same wounded child state. If we were abandoned or threatened with abandonment as children, we probably are terrified of being left now. This underlying terror keeps us in situations which are not healthy for us as adults but our emotional child's way of experiencing life tells us that if we are left we will die. We feel this because- that is what would happen to a child who is too young to care for him/herself. This creates a state of high anxiety. If we grew up in a family that did not allow emotions to be freely expressed, or even talked about or acknowledged, were allowed to express only “good” feelings- like happiness was OK but anger, and sadness were not-- we were set up to become anxious adults. People need to express all aspects of their emotional repertoire in a safe environment. Research tells us it's healthier that way. Some behavioral symptoms we can look for that tell us we have undiagnosed anxiety are as follows: Difficulty relaxing; Having to do something all the time to feel relatively comfortable; Dislike or downright hate of being alone or conversely feel uncomfortable being with others; Overeating; Eating foods you don't want and aren't good for you; Smoking; using drugs or alcohol to medicate; Use of TV or computer to keep from being with yourself; Awaking after a couple of hours of sleep thinking about problems for the umpteenth time; indulging in disconnected or unsafe sex; staying up doing things or watching TV even when you are tired. These are all signs of anxiety. It is essential to your mental; and physical health to process and transform this anxiety. Core Energetics works to transform anxiety, leaving us feeling able to be our Core selves. Free, spontaneous, and more peaceful. Many people search for medical answers for their suffering and end up taking medications rather than searching for the cause of their neurotic anxiety. Probing for ways to make life changes and better ways to deal with problems to provide a true cure rather than masking symptoms is the way of Core Energetics. Working with the body is essential as that is where we manifest anxiety. The Integrated Bodymind Psychotherapy of Core Energetics is most helpful for many people suffering from anxiety. To begin or continue your healing use these simple but powerful tools. Love, Eros & Sexuality: The Three Stage Rocket of Relationship It doesn't take rocket science to get to love, but it does take more understanding than Hollywood , the music industry or most of our parents teach us. The majority of us are confused about what love is, which causes us much misery. We long for love and don't find it. We settle for less, are unhappy, and our culture supports our misconceptions. The majority of love songs and movies are about Eros. Listen to the lyrics, watch the films; they call up teen-age images of life full of sex and romance. Eros brings to mind the image of cupid hovering overhead, pulling his bow back and zinging the arrow of “love” right at the heart of the usually unsuspecting. It hits the target and we are smitten. All reason leaves. We feel we are floating - the opposite of having our feet on the ground. In the most positive sense Eros opens us to new possibilities; our partner brings up all our best, most creative traits. As an evolutionary process our minds and spirits expand because together we can be more than we are alone.(1). Romance makes us want to get closer to the object of our good feelings and since there is nothing physically closer than sex -- we do it. Sex can be the bridge between Eros and love. When sex is added, we have uranium-power for our transformation and are on our way to love. Sex is exciting, energetic, expansive, and it helps create more Eros -- especially for women. Studies show that the more sex we women have the closer we feel to our partners. We want to stay with them or move in, get married, and have babies. This urge is even greater when we have orgasms say sex researchers. (1) Our biology creates this strong urge to couple for the survival of the species. If you don't want to desire the person, don't have sex. Sex connected with love is the best we human beings have to experience the bliss of the union we long for. Sex alone is not love nor is it sexuality. Sexuality has to do with who we are as individual alive beings. It is our very nature and allows us to feel our most animate. Western peoples have split sex and love, the heart and the pelvis, one from the other. Unified sex is powerful and pleasurable but our culture supports images of sex cut off from love every minute of every day. To be truly sexual we must find our creative spark, our spontaneity, our passion for life itself. If we are cut off from our sexual flow we must work to unblock those wonderful forces within our bodies. With time Eros tends to die out. Our shadow side surfaces and the personal demons we have not yet tamed roar their mighty roar. Just as our partner brings out our best, s/he predictably brings out our worst. Fear, anger, psychic pain and sadness are some of the emotional issues we probably stuffed down as kids which now need to come up and out to transform to love. (3) In the best sense we pick our partners so we can bring to consciousness and move through these stuck places.(4) But sadly we or our partners usually then feel we must leave the relationship to find that initial excitement again… and again. We come to expect never ending romance in relationship. We are not taught how to find and create love. We end up with hurting hearts; or -- in dead-end mediocre partnerships. But wait! It takes work and commitment to get to Love. And just when most people are leaving a new relationship the chance to find true love is at hand. Getting to love needs a three stage rocket. It takes Eros and sex to blast us out of earth's gravitational pull and into the realm of true love. Reaching and sustaining orbit takes revealing to ourselves and our partners, our shadow -- our shameful demons. We must be genuinely honest and find our deepest truth. Along this path we will have profound life lessons that we share with our partner and together we can solve life's problems and experiences life's joys. This is what moves sex and romance into the realm of true love. Eros and sex can and should remain part of partnered love and what makes our partners sexually exciting to us and us to them is the constant discovery of new things about ourselves and the other. One never knows all about the partner because we are all constantly discovering, evolving, and learning. Love is an adventure of revelations. Partnership and marriage are one of life's most spiritual paths. To stay in Love's orbit we must practice unconditional positive regard for our partner, loving them even when they reveal their dark side to us as we hope they will love us through revealing ours. Stay in orbit by keeping the spark of Eros alive, enjoying the excitement and pleasure of sex and embracing the practice of love as growth potential at its most thrilling. 2), Hot Monogamy, Patricia Love 3), Core Energetics, John C Pierrakos MD (4) Getting the Love You Want, by Harville Hendrix, PhD Also suggested: Songs, Do You Love Me? From Fiddler on the Roof (a real love song) “Falling in Love with Love is Falling for Make Believe”, (Eros) Breastfeeding is Essential for Bio-Psycho-Spiritual Health Oh! Did you see the national news in December that told of a young mother being kicked off a Delta airplane by the stewardess, in Burlington, VT for discreetly breastfeeding her baby, in her seat? Her husband was in the seat next to her. I was horrified! I wondered what had happened to the stewardess in her childhood to disconnect her from such a basic natural human function. My guess is that she had not been breastfed. I was happy to learn that La Leche League in Vermont staged a “Nurse-In” at the Delta counter in Burlington shortly thereafter. I have a lovely image of a group of young mothers nursing their babies in front of that Delta counter. Delta did apologize, as well they should. That news article prompted me to write to Delta, sign a petition and now to write this article. Later I discover another article more shocking. Read on. I began my career first as a La Leche League Leader, then midwife before I became a psychologist and international trainer of The Core Energetics Evolutionary Process. I am experienced in the joys of breastfeeding having breastfed my three sons; two of them weaned themselves, one of whom can remember his breastfeeding experience. When I worked at Georgetown University Hospital in the early 70’s, one of my jobs was to teach nurses and doctors about breastfeeding and assist brand new nursing mothers. Breastfeeding is the most natural and essential of connections that human beings have. And many humans in westernized countries are being deprived of their birthright often because mothers don’t have enough correct information. But when people are deprived of the right to breastfeeding because of patriarchal misinformation and institutional prejudice, those of us who understand need to take strong action fast. Preserving Healthy Traditions Less than three months of breastfeeding is the norm for American mothers who pitifully must go back to work after 6 weeks of leave time. This is mainly because of our distorted cultural priorities that put stuff before healthy children. It’s also because we are the only “modern” nation in the world that refuses to adopt a national Family Policy. What is this doing to our children who are deprived of this exceptional nutrition, immunization, and contact with their mothers? And what of the adults? Remembering the Many Benefits of Breastfeeding Benefits for Babies The best studies have told us for many years now that breast fed babies are physically healthier. Breast milk is virtually always available, sterile, portable, and the right temperature. It comes in nice containers too. (Read La Leche League’s best book, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, was written over 45 years ago and has been updated regularly.) Essential Benefits for Human Brain Health Starts Before Birth James Prescott PhD, Neuro-Psychologist, formerly with The National Institute of Child Health and Human Services in Washington DC, well known for his cutting edge studies on human bonding and breastfeeding, researched violence among over 50 of the world’s cultures over thirty years ago. Dr Prescott tells us that In major studies, it is now well known that a Serotonin deficit creates problems in human subjects. Depression and violence is present when mother love, mother bonding and breastfeeding are absent. The damage to human children is done in the first weeks, months and years if there is lack of what they need most. Prescott says that the human brain needs what breast milk contains and the breastfeeding experience of holding, movement and what we call love, does to assist the brain to be healthy. Children who are breastfed and lovingly carried and held close to mother’s body for the usual two plus years for the most part become adults who are calm, and peaceful. Breastfeeding, positive sensory stimulation, and physical affectional bonding, insures normal brain development, Prescott tells us. Babies who do not get what they need often become depressed and more alarming, violent. Prescott thinks that this explains the epidemic of deprived infants who grow up to become children who kill children without remorse or feeling. By not supporting mothers to stay home and nurture their babies our culture is creating more psychopaths and sociopaths, who do heinous acts without consciousness he believes. Since human babies have brains that grow enormously fast in the first two years of life, and calves (goats, sheep [soybeans?!] etc) do not, (their cloven- hoof- bodies need milk to create the ability to stand immediately after birth, walk within the first hour of birth and soon run from predators) it makes sense that human milk should be fed to human babies unless there is no human milk available. Nurturing our mothers to feel safe, stay home, be taken care of by our governmental system will enable them to raise healthy children who become healthy adults. Working to change rules so mothers and fathers can stay at home with their young children must become one of the top a priorities in out nation. Benefits for Moms Psychological Advantages There is less postpartum depression among women who breast feed. Breastfeeding produces hormones that keep moms feeling good. Oxytocin, sometimes known as the bonding or love hormone, is made more so by breastfeeding mothers. Oxytocin is also present during sexual intercourse creating a bonding that helps keep couples together so that they stay together to best raise their offspring. Again an important survival mechanism. Candace Pert, PhD, internationally known neuro-biologist, thinks that the strongest hormones in human beings are the ones that create loving bonding for Families. Breastfeeding mothers also create more opioids, natural morphine-like chemicals that create good feelings and enhance bonding, and other chemicals such as endorphins that are all about pleasure. No wonder breastfeeding moms and breastfed babies are so serene most of the time. A mom who feels good is better able to feel good with her baby. They are a nursing couple who merge together in a state of real pleasure and contentment. It has been shown that when one has pleasure negative thoughts and feelings are at bay. (See James Prescott PhD’s -- past psychologist with NIMH-- research on pleasure, touch, bonding and aggression) Breastfed babies are usually content and feel safe. These psychological advantages of feeling truly safe and secure are essential for human babies to grow into mentally and spiritually healthy human adults. Breastfed babies enjoy long “in-arms” time with mommy. They have more skin contact and eye contact…both vitally important for attachment and trust. The eyes are said to be the windows to the soul, and gazing into a baby’s eyes and baby looking at mommy is one human connection to the blissful state, that baby experiences. The other is in the mouth-nipple contact that baby makes with mother. Very like the connection baby has intrauterine with umbilical cord and placenta connecting to mother where baby is always fed and therefore feels more secure. The blissful state currently written about in neuro-biology, tells us about the endorphins and peptides that are in the human brain and body when people experience what they term their “spiritual experience” are the same we experience in sex and other blissful states such as deep meditation. (Read internationally known, scientist and brain researcher, Candace Pert, PhD’s Molecules of Emotion and her latest, book, Everything you Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d). Baby’s mouth intimately contacts the mother’s nipple as milk and nurturing energy flow from mother into baby. Baby at mother’s breast is exactly the right distance for the newborn to be able to focus on mother’s face. The eye contact baby and mother make throughout the breastfeeding time is essential. It’s about love, the kind you can see and experience. Sometimes nursing is Mommy’s first awareness of human merging with this blissful state we sometimes call God as well. (For wonderful images see Alex Grey’s amazing anatomic and energetic painting of a mother breastfeeding her baby in his beautiful book, Sacred Mirrors). Touch Breastfeeding works on a supply and demand system, therefore Mom must feed baby when Baby indicates hunger. Consistently. This way Baby learns that another human will fulfill her basic food needs when they arise….when Baby needs food. The life sustaining elixir will not be forthcoming only when Mother wants to produce it (after her hair appointment, or washing up the dishes after lunch or when the clock says, the pediatrician prescribes, or mother-in-law demands.) By having this life or death need met, the baby grows into a child who experiences the greater world as safe or at least benign. Tradition Backed By Science Alexander Lowen, MD, co-founder with John C Pierrakos, MD, of Bioenergetics Analysis, talks about the nipple being like a penis and mouth a vagina. Without that early connection sexuality is likely distorted, theorizes Lowen. (Read Lowen’s Language of the Body and Lowen’s Love and Orgasm. Both classics). Wilhelm Reich, the father of body psychotherapy wrote about the importance of breastfeeding for the mental health of the child. (Read Reich’s book, Children of the Future) Lowen wrote in his classic, Physical Dynamics of Character Structure, that breast feeding for three or more years is best for the child and impacts hugely on those later adults’ mental and physical health. Donald Winnicott, MD, famous for his work with mothers and their children, writes that three years of breastfeeding makes for the healthiest children and later adults. Sexual Dysfunction at an all Time High Why do we Have Problems with True Intimacy Babies learn communication and intimacy skills by interacting with their primary caregiver, first by gazing lovingly into her eyes while she looks upon them with unconditional love. As stated above, babies also need to touch skin and be touched on their bare skin a lot. Skin is the largest organ of the body and it is informed by millions of years of genetic information that says “touch me.” Babies who do not get touched and held die. Period. In the early nineteen hundreds many babies in orphanages in New York and elsewhere died because they were not touched. These babies were fed sufficient amounts of food and kept clean and dry. They died from lack of touch. Babies who are touched and held most are shown to have higher IQs and are more content. Read Touching: The Human Significance of Skin, by Ashley Montague, which is the prototype for most research on touching worldwide, and a fabulous book. Being Taught What Nature Intended Too few women have been taught by role modeling to use their bodies as nature intended. After all, breasts evolved over millennium to nurture babies! A colleague reported to me his experience in graduate school recently when a young woman in her mid twenties, a fellow student, learned that human breasts are for feeding human babies. She was shocked! “You mean breasts are like cows udders”! She exclaimed in a horrified voice. My friend was amazed that anyone could make it to the age of 26 without knowing that breasts are for feeding babies! I have met several women in the USA that have never observed a mother breastfeeding her baby. Men and women in our culture are taught that breasts are sexual and primarily for sexual pleasure and women think breasts are for attracting men. This is very sad and concerning to me. The following is an excerpt of a true news article and is adapted from "Breastfeeding a Crime?" by Linda Folden Palmer According to the Dallas Observer, after responding to the photo clerk's alert, Richardson police in Texas reportedly considered the pictures to contain sexuality. A Child Protective Services supervisor, without any information beyond the photos, ordered the children to be removed from their home. The story goes on and is horrifying because people who were not educated, had serious bias and in my opinion, sexual distortion, managed to have children removed from good parents because of an innocent photo showing mom breastfeeding a 12 month old. Fifty parents wrote letters and many parents sent their own breastfeeding photos to the authorities. When the story hit the national news the parents got their kids back pronto. But what a sad state of affairs! Severe pain has been created by ignorance and distorted sexual beliefs. Linda Palmer calls it a run in between Bible Belt Texans and natural innocent Peruvian parents. In our culture many girls watch extreme plastic surgery TV shows like, The Swan, which teach girls by example that however they look is not good enough. Many women on these shows have breast augmentation to feel OK. Sex is flashed on MTV and in other media while loving connection, family caring, touch between children and adults is seen infrequently or not at all. I have known mothers who because of some religious beliefs hide their children’s eyes when loving physical contact is shown between a man and woman on TV or a movie, but allow these same children to watch human beings being shot, beaten, blown up and obviously killed. This truly distorted behavior and belief gives our children a message that killing is normal but loving sex is not. A mother breastfeeding a baby on prime time TV? Let me know when and where you have seen that please. Mothers who Don’t Breastfeed Suffer Too Mothers who Must Work Every caretaker that is with the infant while mother is working must be chosen for her warm and caring qualities as well as her ability to care for the baby on a practical level. The care giver must be encouraged to hold, carry, touch, talk to and make eye contact with the baby every day throughout the time Baby is in her care. Caregivers Unable to Nurse Case Examples Involving Lack of Breast Feeding/ Early Physical Bonding In his session it became clear that he had early deprivation and lack of breastfeeding went along with that. His mother was hospitalized after his birth for 4 months during which his father took care of him. Fred rejected his mother when she returned home, and refused to take the bottle from her. He continued to reject her, no doubt causing her pain and concern. As Fred grew, he was told his fist word was Daddy. Fred told me that intellectually he was not attracted to any particular part of a women, he desired a whole healthy integrated relationship. He realized however that he had been always attracted unconsciously to women with large breasts. One woman he described having a short relationship with, was not really a women he wanted to be with long term, but he felt safe and secure, and slept better than usual, while lying with his face next to her breasts. I met another man, I’ll call Will, while teaching Core Energetics in California. I was doing an exercise with the whole group but I was paired momentarily with Will. Something shocking occurred when suddenly with no warning Will had me by the throat with the look of murder in his eyes. I looked him in those eyes and choked out “Will, it’s me, Pam. Let go! ” Just as suddenly he realized what he was doing and let go. Immediately he sobbed deeply. He was sorry he said. In working with this experience with the assistance of the whole training group, Will told me that he was afraid to be near his infant nephew because he had images of strangling a baby. This frightened him a lot and he was ashamed to tell anyone about his feeling. I encouraged him to tell me about the baby that was inside him, and what had happened to that baby after he was born or at birth. Will said that a short time after his birth his mother became seriously ill and was bedridden in the room next to the one he occupied alone. He was cared for by a rigid aunt, his mother’s sister who only held him when she fed him. Most often he lay in his crib with great painful longing for his mother, he recalled in an abreaction. It was excruciatingly painful to be so close yet so far from her arms and he choked himself off when he experienced over and over that crying never brought the relief he sought -- to be held and nursed by his mother. He choked his feelings off and continued to feel choked in his adulthood. His pain became fury as he helplessly awaited a care taker to love and nurture him. At that moment in the group process I described above, he transferred his past pain to me and I became both the desired nurturing mother figure and the hated torturer. He instantly “snapped’ and wanted to strangle me. Years later Will reported happily, that he never had the urge to strangle a baby again. Will got married and has a son of his own who was breastfed by his wife. Will carried, held and nurtured his son at every possible chance. The baby grew well and is now a very happy contented child. I once worked with a client I’ll call George. George wanted to be tied up during sex so that he could not move. He wanted to get over that because although stimulating he found it also painful emotionally. Besides, his wife didn’t really like it. She said, “Then he can’t touch me, and that doesn’t feel good to me.” In working with his sexual issue we discovered that he not only had not been breastfed, his mother was quite frightened about her own body and he never remembered seeing her without all her clothes on and did not remember ever really being allowed to touch her. As a child he longed to touch his mother but then became cut off and angry. He stopped his painful feelings to the point where he would not allow himself to want to touch her or be touched by her. Unconsciously George re-played this out in sex with his wife. He longed to touch her and could not, making it both arousing and painful. After re-experiencing his pain about not being physically nurtured by his mother he lost his desire to be tied up during sex. What Else Happens to Adults Deprived as Infants All of these habits in some way use the mouth, tongue and lips in similar ways a baby sucks at the breast. These are forms of self soothing that would normally come from the infant’s mouth being in contact with mother’s nipple. Baby also is soothed by touching mother’s skin and hair. Babies who are not allowed to touch mother’s smooth skin will touch their own hair and may become adults who twirl their hair unconsciously. These babies who want to touch mother’s soft skin must settle with touching themselves or feeling a soft toy or blanket. You may remember the image of Linus, in the famous American cartoon Peanuts. Linus had his blanket with him always and when his mother washed it he would stand outside at the clothesline and hold a corner of his blanket while it dried. When mother is not or can not be the soother the baby transfers his desire to someone or something inanimate. Psychology calls those things transitional objects. The transition is from mother to object. I knew one little boy who was weaned too early directly to a cup (that was the taught technique for a while in the 60’s) who chewed paper from napkins for over a year. Transition away from mother is certainly not a transition that should be made too early, and much better when the transition is from mother to another human being. Babies who are supported by touch and breastfeeding are adults who grow up and find another adult to love and bond with in intimate relationship. Adult Relationships Based on Early Deprivation Both men and women, who have been deprived of early nurturing, usually pick bad partners. These partners are often demanding, cruel, and controlling. But the deprived child, now living in the adult body, tries to change to please them, to try to keep a relationship that they feel is better than no relationship at all, and thus giving up their true inner self. Giving up your inner self creates a situation where a person is not able to be content in life or to find their own deeply satisfying and spiritual work in the world. In losing their core, their true self, they spend a life devoid of deep personal meaning. They are too afraid to feel the pain of the deprivation they experienced as infants and toddlers. This is even more tragic because feeling that pain now is the gateway to their healing and freedom as adults. How Psychotherapists Can Help The dilemma of deprivation takes a particularly kind, gentle, grounded and clear intervention. These are issues that must be dealt within the bodymind as they reach into the cellular memory. Sadness and rage must be felt and released from the bodymind. The therapist must have the ability to nurture unconditionally and teach the client to eventually stand on his or her own two feet in order to compassionately take care of the infant and toddler within. But what if you weren’t breastfed or held and have transference with your client about his or her early needs? Perhaps you want to touch a client to get your touch needs met, or can’t tolerate feeling your client's needs. You may avoid the entire issue of early deprivation or keep your client at arms length so you won’t feel your own pain. This is a huge issue for practitioners and is a challenging problem if not addressed in oneself. You can not fake clear, grounded unconditional care for your client. If you suspect any of these issues are yours, get some help. Go back into therapy and talk to your supervisor about what is happening right away. Clients be Alert to Your Early History Core Energetics Therapists Some of the issues that lack of nurturing creates are what Core Energetics calls character type, and one type is the deprived person who has fear of being abandoned, lacks trust of another, is disconnection from his or her real needs, refuses to ask for what they want, is co-dependence, has feelings of weakness, can be very demanding, acts aloof, and may be terrified of the very thing he/she longs for -- intimacy. Skillful seasoned therapists work with these basic issues and what they create in the clients’ life in adult years. Core Energetics Heals Bodymind Therapy: The Time Has Come - A Message for Psychotherapists We are one flowing vibrating mass of chemicals, electricity and ultimately -- light. We are an integrated whole. In this age of new science and holism regarding both mental and physical health, it has become clear that we human beings connect and flow as unified body-emotion-mind-spirit. Most psychotherapists have not been trained to work with their clients using this information. Our academic culture is still most comfortable teaching theory-- using the mind and possibly dealing with deep emotions. But the body? No. The body is viewed as separate from intellectual pursuits, religious thinking and emotional balance. Doctors and research scientists, as well as ancient medical practitioners who integrated body-mind-emotion-spirit, (such as acupuncturists and homeopaths), know that what we once thought of as body and mind must now be treated as bodymind. Psychotherapy has the opportunity to follow this lead; to keep up with the latest findings so that their clients can heal in the deepest way possible. Western knowledge of the bodymind connection originated with the work of Wilhelm Reich, MD in the early 1900’s, followed by the creation of Bioenergetic Analysis, by Reich’s students Alexander Lowen, MD and John Pierrakos, MD, in the 1950s. Pierrakos created Core Energetics in the early 1970s. Only recently has this knowledge of the role of the body in the treatment of dis-ease of any sort come to be viewed as important in psychotherapy. It is still the rare therapist among us who has learned to interpret the body’s clear messages when treating a client. Now writers exploring frontiers of psychology who are applying neuroscience to psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are constantly alluding to the importance of the body. We often hear about the importance of non-verbal communication, body messages; in the early mother-baby pair, in adult relationships of many sorts, and in the psychotherapy office. But how can we practically apply these ideas in our practices? First, we need detailed training in the anatomy of emotion. We psychotherapists rarely know an acetabulum from a piriformus, much less know that the physical body can inform us about how and why our clients think and emote the way they do. We have not been taught that every muscle tension connects with and can express a withheld emotion. We never learned this in our academic psychology and counseling programs where we trained to be therapists. Our training was way too brief. The typical master’s degree program that prepared the majority of us to become psychotherapists and counselors is set up to whisk students through the academic part of our learning in one short year. So, even if it were seen as important, not enough time could be taken in our short training to give much more than rudimentary information about counseling psychology theory. The next year we were already on the job…being a student therapist in a real life setting, usually overwhelmed with just keeping our heads above water. We were pressed to act without any chance to learn about the mind-body connection. If we continued in our academic programs, perhaps we entered another four years in a conventional Ph.D. program which also was not able to prepare us to integrate body and mind. We may have been curious about how to use the latest science of neurobiology and the bodymind techniques we had heard about, but most of us did not have a chance to get the training we needed to do it. Some would have liked to become experts in the growing field of Core Energetics, or other modalities such as Bioenergetic Analysis, considered to be the fore runners in body psychotherapy specialties. Core Energetics is the first Western truly holistic approach to psychotherapy. It is an evolutionary process that uses the body as a base for therapeutic work. Core Energetics works with all known levels of human existence – body, emotions, mind, will and spirit. Core Energetics Institute South offers a 4 year professional training program in the Core Energetic Evolutionary Process. In order to provide an opportunity for therapists to learn more about the body in psychotherapy, I am offering a workshop on June 23rd and 24th, which will allow you to explore this new exciting field of study. Tris Bescher, anatomy instructor and musician is joining me to offer you a full two days of energetic experiential learning. You, as a curious psychotherapist, counselor, helper, nurse or other care giver, are encouraged and welcome to join us and learn more about the body and integrative, holistic psychotherapy. In this training workshop you will first begin to experientially and didactically learn, about your own body-- and what messages your body has for you. Then faculty will teach and assist you in observing and reading each other’s bodies. This learning will enhance your own life and your professional life. You will learn to be more grounded and alive both personally and professionally. You life can be more interesting and fun! What Can A Good Couple of Therapy Hours Do?© Core Energetics sometimes may seem miraculous. The results that can often be obtained in a short time, by a well trained and experienced therapist are truly remarkable, but when you understand Core’s basic philosophy and study the depth of the integrative techniques used, it becomes demystified. Let’s look at the following case to better understand the power of Core Energetics. Below you will read that Susanne was helped in one extended session in a way that a team of physicians had not been able to accomplish in a year. Her physicians lacked a vitally important part of the puzzle -- body and emotions are one. Susanne, an intelligent, young professional woman in her early 30’s entered my office for the first time looking miserable. She walked stiffly; shoulders squared and raised, her head gave the impression of being glued to the top of her rigid mechanical looking neck. Indeed, Susanne soon told me that she had been in an accident just about a year ago. While riding her bike, a car hit her and she was seriously injured. In fact she told me that she had been in pain for the entire year. All the time. She said that it hurt to talk, and thankfully I knew how to gather much of the information in other ways. She had surgery that fused four of her lower cervical vertebra, C5 and 6 and C6 and 7, and had a titanium rod inserted that held her neck so she could barely bend it. Her eyes were dull, and even her hair lacked luster. She looked more than sad, she looked despairing. Susanne, once very athletic, being accustomed to running, biking, and doing yoga, now looked emaciated with very little vital force appearing to run through her. Her once strong muscles had begun to waste away from lack of use. She had no affect and said she was on an antidepressant, prescribed by her psychiatrist, that she explained made her feel nothing. “I’m numb.” She went on to describe her hopelessness, “I feel that God has abandoned me.” I observed her body, how she moved, breathed, and held herself. With her permission I then palpated the muscles of her upper back, neck and then her occiput -- meaning I palpated the lower part of Susanne’s head as it met her neck. I felt muscles that were like steel bands, and the hard lumps of muscle tissue that had become spastic particularly at the muscle insertions near her skull. I knew this had to be very painful to the touch and Susanne flinched and yelled when I touched her fairly softly. Then I felt her jaw, another spastic area. I knew that she tightened her jaw originally to keep from crying out or shrieking rage or pain. Now spastic, her jaw tensing was out of her conscious control. I sensed by looking at her contracted muscles and by intuition, that Susanne had been gripping the handlebars of the bike when she was struck. She held on tightly trying to keep the bike upright, so she wouldn’t fall. Almost a year later she appeared to still be holding on so she would not hit her head on the hard surface of the road. Her body had gone into survival mode as it should have, but no messages had come through later to tell her she was safe. Her upper trapezius and other levator muscles were still in shock and had never relaxed. They continued to anticipate danger and hadn’t let go for the last twelve months. Because Susanne’s upper back, shoulder and jaw muscles particularly, had become chronically tense, and spastic, they were hurting and complaining like hell. A pain always says, “Pay attention! There is information here for you to learn about your healing”. I asked her if she had cried after the accident, and had she gotten angry. She said no. I told her I experienced her as stuck in mid floor like an elevator that could not go up or down. If she could go down to the depths of her suffering, she could then feel her pain anger and sadness. Only then could she transform her stuck ness back into her life force. Her own life force could heal her, but not while being blocked by the tensions she was experiencing. Each of us must go down into our depths, and feel our darkness before we experience our light, I knew. Susanne needed her metaphoric elevator to go to her basement of deep feelings before she could then take that elevator up again, see the light, and find that God had never abandoned her. It was with her fear and tension that she was blocking herself from feeling her connection to God. I knew from my own experiences in life and over 35 years of working with clients that when she unblocked her held places she would automatically re-connect with her inner and outer God. I had Susanne kick and helped her begin to express her anger, then her rage. I was cautious to check in to see if any activity was making her neck feel worse. It did not. With my support and encouragement, Susanne let fly her rage at the woman who hit her and who had then immediately blamed her for the accident. At the end of the session I asked, “What do you experience now”? Susanne said, “I am not in any pain.” She began to cry tears of relief and newfound hope. Session Two Susanne told me her pain was diminished since last session, and that sometimes since her session she was pain free. Most importantly, she now had hope. She told me she cut her anti-depressant medication in half, and that “yesterday I cried all day. It felt really good.” She smiled genuinely over this fact. “I plan to get off the antidepressants completely”, she told me. I reminded her to check with her MD for how to safely come off her medication. She announced that that very day was the year anniversary of her accident and that it was her day to feel. But when she started to look inside for her feelings, she said she felt good. I suggested that we start by celebrating a years passing. “Now you have turned the corner, you are getting better! I said, “You will no longer think of yourself as a women who is in pain, you are now a woman who is well, who is sometimes in pain.” Susanne repeated that fact out loud and then laughed with pleasure. What Happened? What Now? Core Energetics teaches how to approach and touch the body with reverence; and to sense information that is available by educated touch. Psychotherapists are most often taught they should not touch their clients at all. At the very most, psychotherapists are taught that we might shake hands or perhaps, but rarely, touch a client lightly on an arm or shoulder to show empathy when he or she is feeling deep painful emotions. We are taught that otherwise touching a client can get you in big trouble. Maybe sued. Many people in the United States are pathological about touch. Many people long for touch and for some unconscious reason deny themselves or do not know how to unlearn years of teaching often caused by distortions in religious thinking. (For more information on touch read my article on Breastfeeding above) Therapists need education about integrated health care, and psychotherapy that includes the body. What clients need is educated, clear, healing about bodymind integration. We as therapists/helpers need to learn educated empathetic touch along with a deep understanding of the fact that our bodies and minds are functionally identical. When we begin to really understand that concept within ourselves, we need to teach clients that their body mind emotions and spirit are one. Training Available for Professionals -
For further information please Suggested reading: What does Dog Training have to do with Human Psychological Health?© When I was a kid I wanted to be a veterinarian. Back then I liked dogs better than people. I experienced them as more genuine and more affectionate. And they often were. I had a dog (cat, horse, hamster, ducks, and every other animal my parents would allow) and along with my best friend Linda, saved strays and naturally studied dog and human behavior. In my early teen years I began to think humans were pretty fascinating too. I watched people intently, I made up stories about strangers by looking at how they walked, moved, talked and interacted. I didn’t know then that doing this was the beginning of my career as a body psychotherapist. When I was grown, an old boyfriend sent me a box of letters that I had written him as a 16 and 17 year old. There were pages of descriptions of my observations about people I had simply observed at a distance and some of people I knew a bit more. I was studying Bioenergetics at the time he sent them and I was amazed at how astute I had been as a teenager. Maybe I had a gift at gathering information by feeling and observing and now I know each of us has the ability to get information from others body movements, body appearance and their energy fields that create their physical shapes. (Read Language of the Body, by Alexander Lowen, MD, Core Energetics, by John Pierrakos, MD. And Desmond Morris, talked about body signals in his fascinating book, The Naked Ape).
Cesar has a list in his book Leader of the Pack, that everyone considering getting a dog would benefit from reading. He tells us what one must do to have a mentally and physically healthy animal. He starts by telling us that dogs must be walked/exercised 45 min twice a day. He explains that dogs are naturally hunters and their ancestors walked through a large territory each day in search of food. Only after finding enough food do they rest and then play. The walking rule in itself would deter most dog owners who think that letting Rover out in the back yard to “do his duty” for 5 min a few times a day is all they need to do. Rushing off to work in the morning and coming home after fighting traffic to let Rover out a few minutes just won’t cut it. Neither will tying Rover out in the back for an hour or two, or letting him out in the fenced yard for the day. Those that already have a dog they treat this way probably wonder why the dog is neurotic. Cesar tells us that if we can not or will not follow all 10 of his rules for taking care of dogs, “Do not get a dog.” I think the dog world and the people world would be a better place, if those people who will not or can not follow Milan’s rules actually do not own dogs. It pains me to see dogs that should be running tied up all day long. It makes me angry at the owners when their dogs ceaselessly bark from behind fences. I am annoyed at the people who allow their dogs to jump on me and seem not to have a clue that their little Fifi or Fido has completely taken over the household and is their boss. (read the charming and well written book by, John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog.) People have unknowingly made their dogs neurotic, annoying, and sometimes dangerous by not knowing enough. Human Children Please go to my website and read my recently updated article on breastfeeding, bonding and healthy babies. I have been interested in the mental and physical health of Human Babies for over 45 years. First as a young mother with my own children, then as a La Leche League Leader, and Midwife, later as a student of human psychology, Developmental psychology, and neuro-psychology. In the early 1970's I was blessed to know and learn from James Prescott, PhD, neuro psychologist. (see below) Now I am interested in the latest developments in neuro-psychology. Reading Leader of the Pack inspired me to come up with my own list for potential parents. Dr. Pam's List The below list is obviously meant to show the best possible scenario for human babies.
Dr Pam's Rules for Becoming a Parent: What it Takes to Raise a Healthy Human Being
When adopting a baby or toddler or know you will be care taking a grandchild or other family member because the mother is not available
Suggested reading: Medicating for Inconvenient Emotions There's An Elephant in Our Living Room Not Their Fault We All Need a Place to Do Our Own Work Below are the stories of some who sought my help. CASE I: Dottie came to me referred by an ex-client of mine. Dottie had been in conventional therapy for years, said it had helped initially but now she wanted to go further than her last therapist knew how to take her. At 58 years of age Dottie told me, "I really want to live the rest of my own life!" Dottie felt like she was walking through a sort of fog. We worked together about 5 months using Core Energetics principles, with lots of movement, and expressing long held emotions. I especially encouraged her to express her anger at how her parents had not been physical with her and never taught her that feeling, touching and sex were all part of normal human behavior. At the 5 month mark, Dot had made regular progress. She said she was feeling better, had taken my suggestion to ask for cuddle time with her husband and that was happening. I began thinking about the possibility of her beginning to come off her medication. I brought it up in our next session and Dot casually told me that she had gone off her antidepressants a couple of months earlier because she had felt so much better. She said, "I feel like the fog has lifted and I feel more alive than I have ever felt in my life"! (I was glad she was OK because going cold turkey off meds is not safe.) CASE II: A man I'll call Edward, came to me to "feel better, more alive and to get off my medication if possible." Edward was a 30 year old highly educated first born child, who began taking care of his younger brother and his mother, he said, by the time he was four. He had to be good, be right, behave, and be perfect. He had continued to emotionally take care of his whole family up to that day. Medium height, a bit overweight, he sat very physically still, hardly moving his chest to breathe, and talked a lot with a flat sounding voice. Edward cried some but said he was not angry. He told me that sometimes he thought an angry thought but never acted angry. He thought that acting angry or speaking angrily was not acceptable in polite society. He told me that he tried to commit suicide as a teenager but what he realized was he was really trying to get his parents to take care of him. He had been in and out of "talk therapy" for 15 years. I suggested that he was angry, "Why wouldn't you be angry when you had to be the adult in your family at such a young age? And why wouldn't you be angry when you were expected to be perfect. No one can be perfect, especially not a child." With that permission he admitted to me and to himself that indeed he was angry. In fact he was furious. We began to work with his body at the first session. Each time after that we would work with his bodily feelings, emotions and his energy. Quickly he began to feel better. In only a couple of months he began to take better care of himself and to put his own needs first. His voice became stronger, and he had more color in his face and movement in his body. "I feel better each time I come here", he said. "In all my other therapy, we'd talk about my feelings and memories but I was left with them at the end of the session. I felt worse every time and I'd go home and just feel awful. But now it's amazing! I can't believe how much more alive I feel!" Edward continued to express his emotions, and freed himself from ideas that he was in charge of his adult parents and his grown brother. He went off one medication early in his therapy and with the help of his Core Therapy and a physician consultant, successfully weaned himself off his anti-depressant. The key to becoming alive and free of medication was his continued expressing of his emotions, especially the ones he was taught were socially unacceptable. In Core Energetics we know that to heal we must go through the lower self, the wounded child, and the so-called negative emotions. Only then can we truly reach our true self which is our Core. CASE III: Shelly was nine and in 4th grade when a letter arrived from her teacher asking for a parent conference. During that conference that I attended with the parents, at their request, Miss Jackson said that she was sure Shelly had ADD and she should be evaluated and placed on medication. It happened that I knew Shelly's family and I had known Shelly pretty well since she was three years old. Shelly was a very bright energetic child; someone who needed a lot of stimulation both physically and mentally. (I wondered what education the teacher had to make these statements and this diagnosis that she was "sure of".) Shelly had always done fine at school up till now. Later I talked with Shelly about what was going on. "I just hate my teacher," she told me. She doesn't give me enough time to finish my work and if I don't finish I can't go to recess." Upon further investigation it turned out that Shelly's mother started treating her differently around her 9th birthday. Mother had a difficult family history herself and struggled a lot with her own mother starting at age 9. History was repeating itself as it most often does and that on top of a less than mediocre teacher created Shelly's problems. I explained to Shelly's Mother that we all - Recreate in Order to Overcome Childhood Hurts. (Pathwork Lecture # 73) Mother understood this and began to make appropriate changes. I spent time with Miss Jackson, who seemed to dislike children, and think they should all behave the same. Miss Jackson did not understand when I suggested that a child who could not sit still or finish projects should not be punished by having to sit still and not be allowed to go to recess. If she was not allowed to go to recess, Shelly therefore could not run off the extra energy she was building up due to both her frustration and her simple biological needs. Obvious to me is children of all ages are not made to sit still for long! Since Miss Jackson was not open to change, I recommended to the principle that Shelly be moved to another class with another teacher and that no matter what - she should not lose recess as a punishment. I suggested that Shelly have more time for physical activity and not be made to sit for long periods. When this was accomplished Shelly did fine the rest of the year. And her subsequent school years. She is now 23 still energetic, out spoken, her unique beautiful self and doing fine. Were she a child of different parents she would have most likely begun the slippery slope of medication. CASE IV: When Angie was 14 her beloved sister died and Angie was quickly medicated after she collapsed sobbing on the floor. Big emotions were not allowed in her family, they did not know what to do, the doctors ordered the meds - and her sister was never spoken about again.
A Tribute to Alexander Lowen©
Al, as his friends, students and colleagues called him, co-created Bioenergetic Analysis (with John Pierrakos) and is best known for his innovative, and vastly important contribution to psychology and all Body Psychotherapies in the US and world wide. I am saddened by his passing and know that he achieved his task in life; his time had come, so I meet this news with a quiet and grateful heart. I first met Al when I was a young mother, in the late sixties, when he came to Washington DC to give a workshop. I was enthralled with his knowledge of a method of Body Psychotherapy that I instinctively knew could save my life. And it has. I went to Al’s office in Connecticut a couple of years later for a private consultation. Al told me that I needed more energy in my pelvis to make it fuller. I was proud of my boy-like pelvis, but when Al told me that I could have more feeling, and much more pleasure, I was willing to allow it to grow! He whacked my back, manipulated my neck and I screamed. I felt great when I left there. I went on to study Bioenergetic Analysis professionally and practice it still, 40 years later. Many people thought Al to be pretty tough, but on several occasions I felt his soft and vulnerable side. I saw Al cry at a workshop and felt his heart open, as he shed a tear, at his 80th birthday when I went to tell him how grateful I was for his life and all he’d done for me and for the field of psychology.
Thank you Al. Your life touched me in deep and profound ways. I will always be grateful. I hold you in my heart and I will never forget you. Rest now. Be at peace. You deserve it! *** Below is an article I wrote in 2006 after visiting Al at his home. Al was then 95. My Visit With Alexander Lowen I had the exhilarating pleasure of spending a few hours with Alexander Lowen, at his home June of 2006. I had wanted to visit Alexander Lowen for several years, longed to just sit and “hang out” with the genius who wrote all those wonderful books [Al wrote 14 books] that taught me so much. The first one I read was, The Physical Dynamics of Character Structure, now renamed for public consumption, “The Language of the Body”. And wow! What an eye opener for me at the tender age of 23. Lowen was a great writer and his brilliant, easy to read books have changed the course of psychotherapy forever.
Somehow 4 years had slipped by since I first thought of going to spend time with Lowen, and here I was on a very rainy Friday standing with anticipation under a canopy knocking at his door, at his beautiful home in New Cannon, Connecticut. Al, as his friends, students and clients call him, greeted me with a big smile and a spry step. He was happy to see me and invited me to sit in the living room. This was the same room that held a Bioenergetic Exercise Class, led by his wife Leslie, which I had participated in when I was there 23 years ago. Do you remember that joyful picture of Al being held up on Leslie’s feet on the cover of their exercise manual? It’s my favorite. Al and I sat down and within minutes Al wondered if I wanted to go see his office. I certainly did and we walked around the corner to the small space that looked the exact same way it had when I had my first private (and profound) session with Al, about 35 years ago. No frills - it was furnished with only, a small chair, a bed for kicking and the famous Bioenergetic Stool. A small shelf held a copy of every book Al had written and had been published. He told me there were others he had started and hadn’t yet completed.
The sparsely decorated office spoke that nothing else was needed but Al’s genius and vast experience as he worked with his clients. He told me that he still saw clients in the mornings. Most were Bioenergetic therapists themselves. Here in Al’s office, I tucked my chin down and put the top part of my head on the mattress and turned a summersault. I got a little dizzy and didn’t like that. “That’s because of the tension in your neck”, he said kindly. He told me, “I do summersaults every morning. It is so important to soften the ego, the thoughts, and to release the tension in your neck.” I noted… ‘This is interesting; within 5 minutes of my arrival Al Lowen has me cheerfully turning a summersault in his office.’ I was game for anything he wanted to show me. I wasn’t going to miss any opportunity to learn from the master. So I turned more, about 5 in all and each time I felt better, less dizzy. Al Lowen has lived a full and remarkable life. Still working to keep flexible and flowing, he is an inspiration to me and to you though his books and his students, even if you never met him in person. For over 50 years Al has been teaching us to live fully in our bodies…now. I still see Al clearly, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye, saying with a smile, “Don’t forget to breathe”! To find out more about Bioenergetic Analysis and Alexander Lowen go to http://www.bioenergetic-therapy.com Sexuality & Core Energetics: Part One ©By Pamela L. Chubbuck, Ph.D. When my great aunt died, my beloved great uncle confessed to my father, his favorite nephew, that the reason he and his wife of almost 70 years, had not had children, was because they had not had sex after the first week of their marriage. In fact they only had sex once. That was about 100 years ago now and the thought of living a sexless marriage today is shocking. Or is it? More couples than you think live sexless marriages/relationships. It's only shocking because it is a secret people keep close -hidden in the realm of their masks. Can I help? ***** (Please note that I am offering three dynamic weekend workshops on Sexuality & Core Energetics. You are invited to join us!) Sexuality & Core Energetics: Part Two ©By Pamela L. Chubbuck, Ph.D.
But how? We will look at how below in the case study. Do people come to a therapist and say, I'm numb? Sometimes. They may finally reveal - I have no sexual urges, or my sexual urges are focused on the internet and not my husband or wife. Or as my client Bill said, he is numb when he is with someone who loves him and turned on by someone who just wants sex but does not want a relationship.
The answer is always in the body. Eminent psychotherapists, Alice Miller, Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos have said, "The body does not lie". (See Alice Miller's book, The Body Does Not Lie, 2006) Wilhelm Reich, founder of Reichian therapy, that Bioenergetics and Core Energetics stems from, said; "The body is the frozen history of the person"; and taught others to read the body language of blocked emotions. Reich described Orgone energy as an energy that is part of everything living, which included sexual energy. Reich had a lot to say about sexuality which is worth finding out about. Go to www.wilhelmreichmuseum.org and read about Reich and his work. Keep in mind that in Core Energetics we know that people recreate childhood wounds in order to heal. This pattern of doing something over and over can look like masochism, stupidity or a death wish. But when someone recreates a pattern in his life because of a childhood wound that has been repressed, it opens up the possibility for that person to learn, to finally see what they are doing and hopefully change. (Read Pathwork lecture #73 Recreating In Order to Overcome Childhood Hurts. Go to www.pathwork.org and click Lectures.) Client: 52 year old. No kids. Never married. "I always followed Zing sex - you know, exciting, no commitment, no love. It got me nowhere- now I'm trying a relationship with someone I truly love and like. That person loves me... and I shut down completely sexually. Completely. I want to be happy and in a good marriage. Help!" I will call this client Bill. Identifying details have been changed. Bill had been in conventional psychotherapy for 20 years before he came to me. He had experienced little to no body work. He had gotten better in some sense but one thing he could not shake - he was always "falling in love" with women with whom he could not have real intimacy with, he told me. With them sex was great he revealed. Zingy. But currently with the one woman who really loved and wanted to be with him - he was mean, he said. He allowed her to pleasure him and then told her to leave - never wanting her to be there when he woke up in the morning. Stereotypically this sort of story is about men. But I have known women who do this sort of thing also. It is not gender specific. It is more specific to the childhood experiences the adults have in common. What could make Bill deny himself real love, I wondered? His story unfolded and began to make sense. Bill loved his mother and hated her also. He had repressed memories that began to come to the surface in a dream just after he entered therapy with me. Bill relayed his dream to me - I was asleep in my childhood room and bed. A shadow figure entered from the right and came to my bed and hovered over me. I was frightened and wanted to wake up, which I did but with the foreboding that the figure had touched my penis which aroused me. I felt that I was suppose to do something I both wanted and did not want to do. I felt really frightened - terrified - and confused. As months of therapy went on he began to remember more and understand where his numbness came from. Slowly and with difficulty he remembered. His mother was sexually, physically invasive with him from age 4 to about 8. Bill was aroused by his mother and that arousal was too much for his child body to handle. It was frightening and overpowering to his childhood level of energy, Bill had to cut off his feelings and become numb in order to maintain his very soul. (Selfhood, essence, independence). Because of his early experience of sexual overwhelm, he continued to distrust women and try to control his feelings, which he did very successfully. Bill held a strong negative belief that he was bad and did not deserve to feel pleasure. He believed that if he allowed himself to feel sexual pleasure he would die or be killed. His father would kill him, he would die of embarrassment, and God would punish him. He held his body rigidly to keep from feeling. He became and stayed numb. Later we discovered that it was to keep from feeling the pleasure he felt when his mother touched him to stimulate him sexually. He loved her and he knew what they were doing was just not right. Bill felt it was his fault that he wanted these pleasurable feelings from his mother. During one session he remembered that at age 4 he decided to never feel love and feel his body at the same time again. As an adult, he would only allow feeling with someone he did not love and did not love him. It was so much safer. He kept this pact with himself for 48 years. Now at age 52, as he began to understand, he even more fervently wanted to live more fully and feel deep love and sexual pleasure with a woman who could really love him. And he longed to love genuinely as well. Many sessions were needed to begin bringing his body back to life. Bill kicked, raged, cried, and screamed out his hate and pain toward his mother. She had ruined his life, he said. Months of hating and then expressing his betrayal, and hurt, were necessary curatives. Time and time again I assisted Bill in feeling his body and his emotions and working to connect the two. I also truly cared about Bill and did not think he was bad. I told him. I loved the 4 year old inside him when he could not. We also looked at his belief systems/negative beliefs. Some of them were: "All women are bad. Women will hurt me. And the one I thought most important - I will die if I allow myself to feel." first touching on his hidden deeper pain. Often this happens when one begins to do depth psychotherapy especially when Bioenergetics or Core Energetics or other forms of Body Psychotherapy are utilized. This was disheartening for Bill until I explained to him that the process was moving along as it must. And he was making strides in getting better. Right now Bill is trying to be intimate with a woman who loves him and he loves. They are in a committed relationship. It's not easy and they both are willing to understand what has happened to him in his childhood. Bill is practicing holding his process with tenderness and showing compassion and love to his inner 4 year old who still hurts a lot. Bill is becoming alive! He even feels moments of joy! He is grateful for all his progress. And he will continue to improve, feel more, be happier, as long as he continues to do the psychic and physical Bioenergetic and Core Energetics work that he must. Feeling compassion and care for the child inside each of us is essential to our healing. Be sweet with your inner child. Care for her/him the way you would respond to a real flesh and blood child that you love. We can all become more alive and less numb if we decide to really work on our issues with an integrated approach. Talking alone does not work. We must work with the bodymind to get the deeper relief we need and want. © by Pam Chubbuck, Ph.D.
How have we managed to be able to have more and more pleasure as years go on? Good Sex at 89! What is The Life Force? How Does The Life Force Get Blocked? The constraints our parents the church, and society put on us create difficulties in relationships, work, and in our seeing life clearly which then even distorts our ability to make good political choices. Sexual expression is not always blocked by obvious trauma. (See September Newsletter Vital Sexuality Part 2). Many of us who have to heal from sexual blocking were never abused, abandoned or even explicitly taught sex was bad I, like others, started out as a vibrant baby. I climbed and crawled early. Around 4 and 5 I pooped outside behind bushes and experimented with playing “doctor” with a little boy down the street. I vividly recall riding my tricycle three houses away to one of those encounters. Later I was still an alive girl who ran, rode horses, swung on a trapeze and climbed trees. I liked boys and had a wonderful older brother as a role model and protector. My dad was an excellent male figure. Strong, grounded and kind. My mother never said a negative thing about sex, but her energy told me that she was not comfortable with me being that alive.” I’m sure my father became uncomfortable with the feelings he had when he was around my high energy preteen sexual streaming. Dad and I were always close and he was the parent who held me and hugged me. He was my nurturing parent. But - he backed away when I first was growing into womanhood.
I had a decade of Bioenergetic and Core Energetic therapy before I could allow myself body shaking (literally) pleasure. I needed and got more years of these body psychotherapies to reclaim my full sexual self. I thank John Pierrakos for being so clear that sexuality is a natural part of the Life Force and for knowing how to help me live in every single cell. Why are so many couples complaining about low sex drives in older years? Men and women. The ones who want sex are usually married to the ones who don’t want sex. One client whose husband is not interested and another whose husband wants sex too often for her. Another whose wife wants sex but he does not. Case: Client: 40 year old, Three kids. "I hate my body. I don't want to have sex with my husband. My breasts sag and I don't want my husband to see me naked." Many people have negative body images and don’t seem to be able to easily get past them. Many men and women are cut off from their bodies and some hate them. People who hate their bodies can and do create disease processes to occur. A woman who hated her left breast (and her mother) developed breast cancer in that breast. With medical treatment and body psychotherapy she recovered and has stayed cancer free for over 15 years. Where does this body hatred come from? You are not born with this issue. It is something that comes from how you are treated as an infant and child and/or what subtle messages were given to you by your care givers. A girl whose mother does not like her own body must overcome what her mother can not give to her - the joy of being a woman. She must find that for herself and needs a powerful loving female role model to show her how. I have written about this need extensively in my book Passages into Womanhood: Empowering Girls to Love Themselves. The answer is found in the body. The body is the frozen history of the person, said Wilhelm Reich. The body does not lie. Said Lowen, Pierrakos, Miller and well – me. Move to Get Unstuck! Since sexuality is a body phenomenon it is impossible to fully reclaim your sexuality by talking. To fan a sexual ember to flame, you must move your body! Moving your body can unstick the stuck places by making molecules move! John Pierrakos used to say that we needed to heat up the whole system – body/emotions especially - which would make our literal molecules move faster and by doing that they could transform into something better. We can heal! Heal Yourself! Reclaim your vital sexuality! Although this work is not easy or a magic fix, I and many others have had exceptional healings with the work of Core Energetics and Bioenergetic Analysis. It’s worth it! You too can come more joyously alive! What Happens When Trauma is Hidden? I began pondering the fact that, in general, therapists understand that people who were literally abandoned, physically and or sexually abused, lived in war zones and other obvious tragedies, have suffered greatly and need understanding, compassion and many years of psychotherapy to get “better”. But what of those people who had childhoods that looked good, and did not have obvious trauma? Over many years I have known clients that experienced subtle emotional ordeals who were extremely traumatized as well. Many therapists do not understand the trauma that comes from not being seen for who they truly are. The essential being - some call it the spirit or soul - of the child is ignored. Some parents do not even have an inkling that such a real thing exists in each human being, and needs tender nurturing in their child. People with mothers who say, “I sacrificed everything for you”, and use that to manipulate them as adults - are hard pressed to show hatred toward their martyred mother. Mothers who are that self absorbed are probably trying to overcome lacks in their own childhood, by insisting on getting what they did not get from their own parents - from their offspring. Giving a parent what she lacked in her own childhood, cannot and must not be the job of the child to remedy. Each individual is unique. We come here (earth plane) to be our unique selves. Each of us has an exclusive essence which is biological and I believe spiritual as well. The exclusive combination of genes that make up each individual’s DNA has never been on earth before and will never be again. Having our essence denied is a terrible wound, but one most people, including therapists, do not fully understand. To be unseen can be a killer. To be denied on this most basic level kills our Life Force.
Never, should a mother think or act upon the idea that - you came from me therefore must be like me. Mother must never, act out the idea that ‘you are here to make me feel good about myself, to take care of me, or to say you love me’ - even when I give you reasons to hate me. But mothers do act this way and say these things out of their own lack and unconsciousness. Are you allowed to hate your mother? It just isn’t done! It’s considered a sin. But many people can’t get better until they can admit and feel their deep hatred and anger toward the mother who was not able to give them unconditional love. Alice Miller said, “Wherever I look, I see signs of the commandment to honor one's parents and nowhere of a commandment that calls for the respect of a child.” Let’s look at the case below. When Monroe entered therapy, at age 40, he didn’t know who he was, or what he really wanted to do in his life, just that he didn’t feel good. In fact he felt next to nothing. “I feel like I’m walking through a fog”, he said. Monroe had a job and family but was not satisfied. He thought that there must be some work he would like to do in the world but didn’t know what it was. He loved his kids and wife but felt numb most of the time so had a hard time showing his affection. Rarely, but sometimes, he got very angry and yelled and that scared his wife. Monroe was raised by a mother whose number one task in life was to be perfect. And of course she wanted a perfect son. Mother was an expert on the use of her mask self: false, unfeeling, aloof, and subtly manipulative. Mother professed her martyrdom to her son, when she reiterated how she had done everything for him and he should now at least show her that he loved her. When she did that, Monroe felt guilty, and like a bad son. After all Mother had been a single mother and did her best. Didn’t she? She didn’t hit him, or yell, or leave him like some mothers did. Monroe was an only child and spent most of his time alone but Mother had provided music lessons and books to read. Working, she said, to give him everything he wanted, Mother focused on a college and career she thought would be “good for Monroe.” What he thought he wanted was actually what Mother wanted for him. And perhaps what Mother had wanted as a girl child growing up. When Monroe first began therapy all his feelings were repressed. He had a hard time making spontaneous movements, sounds or letting any emotion “leak” out. If emotion did emerge he was afraid but tried to hide it by laughing, smiling or going numb. Later when asked to do something that was designed to bring up emotions or practice spontaneity, he would stop and say, “This is just silly.” As therapy progressed he and I would laugh when he would say something was silly, because it was obvious that silly was more life affirming than whatever Mother thought was appropriate. Monroe’s negative belief was that any time he showed his feelings…something bad would happen. When asked what, eventually the answer was; Mother won’t like it. When asked, “Then what”, he replied, She will be even more gone than usual I can’t take care of myself. What will happen to me? That would be enough to threaten his very life as a small child. Mothers who aspire to act perfectly are not acting human, and therefore children of these mothers do not know how to be human in the sense I will explain. Human beings are imperfect and can admit it. It is no big deal to them since no one is perfect. Human beings are, spontaneous, alive, angry, sad, sexual, and joyful. To be fully human is to be able to freely love and decide who to trust and who deserves your love. And then to be able to give it.
Often it is very difficult for children of parents who did not model warmth, genuineness or truth telling, to work “well” in their therapy. Since they want and feel they must be perfect for mother, everything they and the therapist do is called into question by them. Even the therapeutic process in which they must do well - whatever that means to them – must be somehow perfect. Children of perfectionist parents do not feel entitled to allow themselves to experience their suffering as much as they actually suffer deep down. These people are angry. They are furious! Often they are sick. Because the body does not differentiate suffering of the mind and body mental and emotional suffering not expressed becomes somatized and often shows up in many different physical illnesses. (See the case of Alice below) Parents who do not see their children as unique and separate beings do them vast harm. Parents who see their children as part of themselves, to be molded and manipulated into clone-like images of themselves - kill their kids Life Force. Forgiveness Some therapists urge clients to forgive their parent and live in the now. But forgiveness comes only from within, not from someone telling you it’s a good idea or therapeutically wise. Forgiveness is overrated in our culture probably coming from the Christian belief that to forgive somehow gets you into heaven more surely. But fake, mask forgiveness only pushes the real feelings, which must be felt to heal, deeper into the unconscious thereby making healing more difficult and take far longer. Therapists Must do Their Own Work Therapists who go along with this idea of forgive first, or that because a parent did not physically or sexually abuse you, you are OK and should get over it are probably poorly trained or unaware of their own transference issues. Honor Your Mother: Even When It Makes You Sick Case II Unknown to Alice, at 24, she had never made a decision that she was not sure her parents would approve of. She was especially concerned about her mother, as her mother was known by some few who knew her well, to be controlling, hyper-critical, and furious. But Mother held tight to her mask of Good Christian Woman when in public. Only at home, and almost always when Dad was at work, did she let her Lower Self out, becoming – raging, abusive, and what I called, demonic. Mother was filled with hate for her own mother who was also abusive. Alice’s mother insisted on love and respect although she did not earn it. She used distorted religious pap to make her case for her children to love her. Alice hid behind her own phony mask that said to the world, ‘I am the perfect Christian-Good-Girl’. This mask, as masks do, got her much seemingly positive attention from her mother and from her church group. But living in the mask ultimately assassinates our own deep being. Our Life Force. Alice was taught and believed that any problem would be healed if she followed the rules that her pastor laid out – and were taught to be God’s Word. One of them was to honor your mother and your father. Apparently she believed, even if your mother exhibits crazy behavior, she must remain cheerful and stuff her true feelings beneath her consciousness. She must fake it to the world and pretend that all is alright and her family is above reproach. Alice quoted scripture, when any of her feelings started to immerge. She really believed that all problems her mother had would be cured if only her mother would pray more. And her own problems were caused by her imperfectly executing her faith which she felt she had to monitor and work on daily.
Looking good to the average unaware person, her denial of her truth – her spontaneous life force – plus her anger, fear and hatred of her mother, could only make Alice sick. And it did. Alice was sick much more than the average young woman her age. Starting as a young teen Alice always got the flu and had it weeks after everyone else had gotten well. She had migraine headaches, dysmenorrhea, constant stomach aches and more recently began to regularly have heart palpitations. All of these symptoms were obvious to a trained observer to be stress related. Alice’s irregular heart beats were very similar to panic attacks when one looked closely. Alice had medical stress tests and cardiac monitoring over a months time, nothing was found to be wrong with her heart. Alice’s symptoms began to dissipate as soon as she was able to kick - and yell, “I hate you” to her mother in her therapy sessions. This took some time as Alice had very little sense of her own body’s feeling reality. Alice had been thoroughly brainwashed. We had a lot to do to prepare Alice to be able to begin to feel. She had so diligently stuffed her feelings under her Ego Mask that getting it to the surface took time, education and plenty of empathy. After all, Alice had been taught, and believed that hatred was a sin, yelling at her mother was a sin and that going against her parents was going against God’s Word. Any of these feelings sincerely expressed could land her in hell. And that was frightening beyond words. Literally. Alice made slow steady progress in therapy. The most difficult for her was when she realized she began to challenge the rhetoric she had been taught in her strict fundamentalist upbringing. It was terrifying for her to even question what she was taught to believe without using the possibility of her own intellectual thought.
A parent does not know what that deep flow is unless the child reveals it. In order to find and reveal his or her deep flow a child needs to have unconditional love, support, nurturing, and freedom to be. A parent must take on the job of raising a child to have an independent spirit and to be nurtured and sent out in the world to be his or her own person when ready. In therapy clients must be taught to be loving to the little child inside themselves that is screaming to be seen. Loving and caring for the child within takes time and attention. We often treat our inner child terribly - worse than we would ever treat a real child, because we hate our neediness above all. Why? Because our unmet needs cause us terrible pain and cause us to suffer, so we suppress our feelings and then hate the part of us that makes us remember and hurt still. Please take your small inner child in your arms and ask "what do you need"? *********** *Love Thy Mother: By titling this piece Love Thy Mother, I in no way imply that fathers are not extremely important to creating health or neurosis in their offspring. Fathers can and do demand love, discount children, act cold, aloof, be absent, blackmail kids into doing, and saying what is expected of them. Children are also coerced into being who father wants without father paying attention to the essence of the child. In my 35 years as a psychotherapist more clients cite their mothers as being the ones who demand love after not being fully present for their children more often than fathers. Dads just seem to disappear. Mothers stay around and act the martyr. Because we grow in our mother’s body and spend more time on average with our mothers than our fathers I have chosen to focus on mothers. In the future, fathers will have their own day. The Therapeutic Power of Sex: Healing & Enlightenment Through Pleasure © By Pam Chubbuck Ph.D . Enlightenment is the ultimate outcome of healing. On a physical level, feeling good and being healthy is a sign of well being. Wonder of wonders, strong, vital, loving sexuality can help bring about both vibrant health and enlightenment. So If We Are All Having Sex -Why Aren’t We Healthy: Or - Why Aren’t We Having Sex? We are more afraid of pleasure than we are of pain. Pain we are familiar with, and it often becomes too much of a “friend”, so we keep it around like an old pair of shoes. Pleasure, however, is something we have blocked because some caretaker has felt uncomfortable with his or her own physicality. When we feel a caretakers discomfort we automatically block our pleasure. Jumping, shouting, playing too loudly, touching ourselves, pooping and peeing freely, wanting to touch and be touched, and the natural way of feeding for an infant - breast feeding, may have been frowned upon by caretakers. We block our natural flow to please the ones we must rely on for our very life. I have written three other articles on sexuality that may assist you. You may access these by looking at other articles above, and seeing all three. Core Energetics Has Become the Expert on Unified Sexuality. In the Psychotherapeutic Realm, Core Energetics is Number 1 in understanding the process of healing the body/mind that gets you to spiritual expansion. Since we are all fundamentally sexual beings we must be open to healing that part of our innate nature.
John Pierrakos, therefore Core Energetics, incorporates eastern philosophy which includes sex as sacred, pleasure as a way to enlightenment and pleasurable sex as a healing modality. Spirituality merged with western medicine and psychology through Core Energetics becomes a most powerful healing modality. In the early 70s when I was in professional Core training, I heard John talk about the divine sexuality that he experienced with his wife Eva. Students sat on the grass outside the barn, at what was then, The Center for The New Age of Man. With sun streaming through the trees, I will never forget the rapturous look on Johns face and the deep love he exuded when he talked about his sexual connection with his wife. The words he used have stuck in my mind for over 3 decades. I have used the feeling that it elicited in me, to gage my own spiritual/sexual connection with other, and to guide my clients through the often turbulent waters of relationship. I learned that when coming together sexually, the potential for healing is tremendous. Being honest and clear with a partner, leads to the intimacy we long for. John talked about taking responsibility for our own pleasure and not blaming others for our lacks or frustrations. John taught that by being real - revealing ones self to other - (real means the combination of the Lower Self and Higher Self) we share our true selves. By revealing the dark places of our sexual realm to our partner, we create profound intimacy that leads to expanded energies and feelings of love and ecstasy. When I was in my early to mid 30s I was working with John to expand my capacity to tolerate pleasure; sexual pleasure. The more intensely pleasurable the physical was the more frightened I became. I then blocked my feelings and sensations to avoid my emotional pain. I froze or disassociated, or went into my mask. Of course John and I worked on what had blocked me in my childhood and still had a hold on me in the present. He also encouraged me to tell my partner - during sex - that I was scared and to stop or slow down until I could start to move again without fear. Luckily I had a partner who was also working on himself and was open to healing in this way. I had powerful healing by being true to my deepest feelings. For Fun - Let’s Look at Some History The Chinese taught the energy principles of male yang and female yin. They knew that sex was a healthy activity and could heal physical problems. And they knew sex should be joyful beyond day to day happiness. These ancients taught that through sexual connection people could merge with each other energetically as well as physically and experience God/dess on earth. Around 1500 BC ancient Ayurvedic medicine was organized and taught the balance of body/mind/spirit, sexual health being an important part of the balanced health equation. Tantra, meaning to manifest and to expand spirituality, was born in India more than 6,000 years ago. Tantra challenged the acetic beliefs of that time, purporting that sexuality was a doorway to the divine, and that earthly pleasures, such as eating, dancing and creative expression were sacred acts. In weaving together the male god Shiva and female goddess Shakti we create a harmony which enhances health and allows us to experience heaven on earth. With Christianity’s Birth a period of darkness followed. In the middle ages, the body was considered bad/of the devil and mind and spirit holy or saintly. Sex was believed to be banal at best and ungodly by many. Woman who truly enjoyed sex were often thought to be witches or prostitutes and sometimes put to death and/or tortured. Male sexuality was regularly overlooked but men were also sometimes punished for their natural sexual urges. Freud (1856 -1939) taught, among other important innovations, that people could become physically and mentally ill if they repressed their sexual urges. Freud wrote a small volume called Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Given the era that Freud lived and wrote in, (100 hundred years ago) most people were afraid to read about sexuality. In 2005 psychiatrist Leon Hoffman wrote, “Freud's ideas teach us the value of intimate personal attachment and its key place in mature sexual fulfillment.” Freud saw sexuality as fundamental yet never fully satisfied for women especially. Wilhelm Reich MD (1897 – 1957), a contemporary of Freud, was the first Western psychiatrist who taught that working with the body was essential to healing psychological and physical issues. Reich took patients off the “couch” and began to teach them to heal their bodymind through moving stuck energy. Patients hit, kicked, screamed and beat the “bed” to heal. Reich had a lot to say about sexuality and how the repression of the sexual force made people neurotic and physically ill. Among his many other books, Reich wrote The Function of The Orgasm in 1942, and The Sexual Revolution in 1945, (well before Masters and Johnson wrote “Human Sexuality”) He postulated that repressed sexuality created anxiety that he charted in his books. Reich became the leader of his time in understanding and teaching about human sexuality as part of the life force he called Orgone. Doctors Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos, students of Reich, created Bioenergetic Analysis (analysis of the body’s Life Energy) and created the concept of grounding, which assists people to be aware of who they really are in the world. It assists people to move forward toward dreams and own their sexual reality as human beings. Eva Pierrakos, founder of The Pathwork, taught that physical, mental and spiritual energies must be balanced. Sexuality was to be honored and practiced as a way to unification with God. Loving sexual union with another human being is the closest way to know God in our lives on earth. Eva’s’ lecture The Spiritual Symbolism and Significance of Sexuality, combining psychology and spirituality, may be read for free at www.pathwork.org John and Eva met and married, thus merging their work, which has become Core Energetics, and what we know of as The Pathwork. Their work blossomed and both offer significant opportunity for healing on many levels. Core Energetics understands the emotional and energetic issues that accompany everyone’s sexuality. Core Energetics assists people heal deep emotional issues that manifest physically. In 2010 we still must overcome childhood fears, our parents misconceptions, and religious distortions about our bodies and our natural sexuality. I am taking up the torch of sexual healing, along with some other of my Core Energetic colleagues around the world, to bring the opportunity of healing in this powerful way to many people. Allowing the Life Force to flow through all of our cells is vital to our healthy existence! Sign up for our next dynamic workshop Love Eros & Sexuality with Pam Chubbuck Never-Ending Erections: Viagara As Mask © Viagra as Mask
Case: Bob’s Experience Psychotherapists and physicians are sometimes too quick to suggest Viagra for any male penile dysfunction. A Marriage Therapist had asked, reported my client, if he would consider Viagra when he brought up a sexual issue in couples therapy. Bob was a bit shocked by that question as the therapist was known to be holistic in philosophy and he had not even attempted to explore what underlying problems could cause Bob’s physical/emotional distress. Bob is a 60 year old man who has been married for 39 years. He and his wife are committed to each other, love each other and their sex life has fluctuated from good to poor back to good and sometimes “damn good”, or non existent over time. Many couples experience this sort of variation over a 40 year period. My professional experience has been that if couples do not work on emotional issues the times of sparse or non existent sex can turn into a permanent way of life. This is sad for anyone who longs to live fully before dying. Of course sometimes these sexless marriages lead to divorce if one member of the couple won’t look to his or her deeper issues. (See my article on Sexless Marriage on my website We are aware that at times it is a spiritual imperative to leave a marriage when the work of that marriage seems to be completed and there is nothing else to learn there, or if there has been too much hurt to bear. But let’s keep looking at Bob’s experience. Bob had complained of thinking he was ill and was going to die in the last few months. We will see how this ties into his sexual complaint below. Bob has had many years of therapy so that doing the below described work of exploration into his subconscious was relatively quick and easy. As we explored Bob’s experience it turned out that having and sustaining his erection was not the issue, having an orgasm was the problem. This was a relatively new dilemma for him. Some have called our sex organs our little brains. Candace Pert PhD, brain researcher and author of Molecules of Emotion, tells us clearly that our brain resides in all body parts thus explaining cellular memory. So let’s consult genitals for more information! I instructed Bob to kick and shout then to ask his penis to talk to him. He did and soon he had a response. He shouted as he kicked furiously - “I don’t trust her to be there for me! ...I won’t be that vulnerable! ...She wants to be in control and there is nothing I can do about it! Aha! No one likes to feel helpless, vulnerable or fear abandonment. Sexual connection should be a powerful and an empowering experience. Bob also had a history of fear and humiliation at the hands, literally, of his mother. He was slapped repeatedly for moving or touching himself as an infant when his mother changed his diaper. This information was recently revealed to him by the use of hypnosis during one of our sessions in the last 3 months. I know that somehow these two events are linked in his cellular structure. This connection we will continue to explore in future sessions. As we proceeded with the work, Bob told me that he could feel his pelvic floor tense and his lower back begin to hurt. Bob’s anger at his perceived helplessness contracted the muscles in his pelvis, and lower back so tightly that he could not ejaculate or attain an orgasm. His infant trauma of betrayal by his mother when he should have been having pleasure paralleled his perceived and real betrayal in the present. Bob had learned to tense his entire pelvis and surrounding areas to keep from feeling the great sadness and rage he experienced yet was punished for expressing. Bob softened after letting out his fear and rage. As we worked together he realized that he had a choice to have his own enjoyment or hold it back. If Bob held back because he was angry at his wife he hurt only himself. He could therefore not have the pleasure his body deserved and was meant to have. Bob left his session feeling better, more alive, grounded and happier. And he did not feel like he was going to die. The feeling of impending death in my analysis was that of holding back, killing his own life force as he held his breath, pelvis tight, and did not allow himself pleasure. Bob now understood on a body level, that the choice he wanted to continue to make would be to seek pleasure. Bob must continue to move his body and to express his lower self in order to fully embrace his human and spiritual birthright. Pleasure supreme. Just thinking about saying “Yes to Pleasure” or mentally understanding the concept would not make the change he longed for. Viagra ads promote our mask, the very defenses we who practice Core Energetics are trying to uncover. Please don’t consider Viagra until you have, (or your client has) consulted a competent holistic physician and psychotherapist. Working first on your emotional issues regarding your relationship with other and self. Please consider signing up today my workshop Awakening Your Vital Sexuality II: Love Eros & Sexuality May 28-29-20. To read my article on Love Eros & Sexuality please go to my website There are 4 more articles on different aspects of sexuality on my website. Please check them out! Past Lives in Core Energetics Kundun - a
movie about the early years of the 14th Dhali Lama
About 25 years ago I had a strange experience in which I felt my physical molecules were floating out into space around my body. I was in a class with my friends and fellow students at the first class of Barbara Brennan's then brand new school. Barbara walked by and asked how I was, I replied that my molecules felt as if they were floating beyond my body. She looked and said - they are.
Case Two Slowly she began to describe herself. She had long straight dark hair, a young nubile body, her clothing was light, colorful and somewhat diaphanous. She looked around and saw other women in these clothes. They looked oriental she said. And the architecture of the room was of the eastern hemisphere. There were two men in the room who seemed to be guards, but not fearsome. I would love to hear what happened with you. Please write and let me hear your experiences with other life experiences that have changed you or your clients life patterns. I will report on those in my next newsletter. Reincarnation in World Religions http://www.comparativereligion.com/reincarnation.html#religions Live Without Your Sexual Mask To live without your mask in general is frightening enough, but to live without your sexual mask is often terrifying. Being unmasked is something that takes courage, desire and practice. I meet people every day who are quite enlightened, but still, they can't give up their mask when it comes to sex. Let's start out looking at some client's experiences. Names and some details have been changed. However, you may find some aspect of your own story here because there are universal truths in the way human beings respond to old learned destructive patterns, as well as, what has to happen to change energetic pathways to lead to more pleasure.
Cases: Danny, an intelligent professional man, remarried at age 50 to the woman he had literally dreamed of. It was to him and to friends a match made in heaven. After a good 5 year marriage, Danny stood at the bottom of the stairs and called up to his wife; I really love you! And I have never had such great sex in my life! Less than a week later he walked in the house looking terrified. I could not get close to my wife, he told me. Some months later I pushed her out of the shower after she hugged me and I got an erection, saying; now see what you made me do! After two years of conventional talk therapy my wife regretfully left because I had not touched her with affection at all in those two years and she told me it was killing her spirit. I remarried some years later, initially all was OK and now I am repeating the same thing; I guess it's not them, he told me sadly. I hope you can help me. Susan, age 34, after a 8 year marriage and 3 kids, began therapy with me when suddenly she woke up one day and said I hate sex. She understood that most of the sexual activity she had been engaged in was founded on her mask. Her husband was astounded. She moved into another room and did not want to be touched. After one and 1/2 years of therapy she is beginning to consider having sex again some day. Her husband has been loyal and is hopeful. Paula, a beautiful young 35 year old told me she desired connected sex but, she said, as she got more excited and felt close to orgasm she went kinda blank. I just space out or shut down, she explained. She was with a partner she loved and enjoyed being with. What can I do, she asked me? (See more about Paula's healing below.) What is occurring with these people? Isn't sex a biological act that is suppose to just happen and happen well? Bells ring and birds sing and fireworks light up a Manhattan sky – just like in the movies? No. Not usually.
How do Humans Learn About Sex? In our culture, there is no really good way to learn about sex, or the cycles of life for that matter. Today children in kindergarten are reprimanded for hugging each other. Grandfathers are taken to court by their daughters-in-law who are afraid they are touching their grandchildren too much. Breastfeeding mothers are asked to leave airplanes, photos of nursing babies are thought by some to be pornographic. Children hugging their peers are suspended from school. Old people go to nursing homes and death is hidden from most people, children especially. Society has gone mad! Normal sexual learning happens at different stages throughout life. Studies show that the majority of infants are masturbating by the age of 10 months. Most children four to 10, have some sexual play contact with their peers. This is how children naturally learn about their own body and the body of another. I vividly remember at age 4, riding my tricycle to my friend's house and “playing doctor”, in a tent in his front yard, . I still recall the pleasurable sensations and am glad that no one shamed me as I was learning about my body at that young age. Older children normally touch, look at each other naked, and sometimes just lie down together to learn and feel good. Sometimes they are copying what they have seen older kids or parents do, or what they read about sex, and in this age, likely saw on TV or a computer. Most kids are having some kind of sexual experience in their early to mid teens. These days we read about how cut off that may be. Girls giving “blow jobs” in the back of school buses to boys they hardly know for example. “Doing it” because their peer group expects it is, of course, total mask. Later these women often need therapy to get past their disgust at themselves.
Sexual activity with a significant partner usually begins in late teens to early twenties, but with the presumption that sex is something you should already know how to do. Few have satisfying sex and even fewer orgasmic sex. (Boys usually ejaculate but do not have full body orgasms that are only possible when the body energy flows without fear. Girls often fake it.) Young people pretend to know, pretend they've done it before, pretend to like it. Pretending is always a mask. First Sexual Encounter is Usually Negative Healing From Mask Sex
Early childhood is a time of exploration of own body and that of other leading to learning how to pleasure self. Teens begin to learn more about being who they are as individuals and if they have not masturbated before they begin now. They also begin to seek merging - mirroring the infant stage as biology urges connection. They share some pleasure by touching and more pleasurable deeper kissing. When in our twenties we should be learning more about our own body and that of partner. They question how can I bring pleasure to him or her? In normal positive experiences we learn to care more for feelings than the ability to perform. In our thirties we can be aware that we are on a true path seeking sexual intimacy. We must discover that sexual intimacy is about shared pleasure that can and will end with satisfying In our forties, fifties and beyond we continue this process of discovering ways to feel deeper and more profound pleasure. To achieve this we seek deeper and more profound connection with other that eventually leads to the energetic merging that is most like our merging with the divine. Spiritual merging is our goal. Connected sex is the vehicle to attain that goal. What Shall I do If I Did Not Grow Up in an Indigenous Tribe? What if I wasn't breastfed? Am I doomed - my mother/father pretended sex did not exist? Doing the Emotional and body work of Core Energetics and Bioenergetic Analysis is the place to start healing. Core Energetics is designed to assist you awaken and heal your bodymindspirit. These modalities are the experts on healing from sexual wounding. The Healing Alchemy: With a partner you care about and trust, you can heal immensely.
Real intimacy, that turns into love, happens by revealing to other what you think and feel you must hide. Tell your hopes, fears and especially talk about sex in this context. Share your sexual history growing up, your first sexual experience, and your feelings and emotions about all of this. Consider what you hide, first from other then from yourself. Your shy little boy? Your lusty woman? Let them show. You may even dare to share some of your sexual fantasies. And later play with them. Client Story: Fear of pleasure is a huge problem for most people.
Coming Alive Sexually As you remember Paula cut off before orgasm, and I explained to Paula that her body was like a vessel that could and did hold energy. Since her body was constricted due to her fear, when pleasurable feelings/energy poured in - her body could not contain the good feelings. She would be flooded with energy that was too frightening to feel. She either stopped the feeling or became overwhelmed. Now her job was to literally stretch her capacity to feel good. First I suggested she work (play!) to let go more fully during masturbation. She had less trouble here as many people do. She already could achieve orgasm on her own most of the time. It is easier to let go to oneself because you are always in control of your own pleasuring – slowing down or stopping, speeding up, changing position etc when you want to. And no one else can hurt you, which is often what you fear.
No? Yes! This “yes” should then be said aloud - to her partner, to herself, to god, (small g signifies that I think God, big G, wants you to have pleasure) to whomever was saying no - or without audible words to herself during sex. With each stroke of his penis (or whatever he was doing that was pleasurable) she could say yes. The body can only experience orgasm when we let go, not through tensing up or willing it. So practice letting go, letting go, and letting go. Practice saying - Yes, yes, yes! I advised. This Yes, is the Higher Self longing for life and pleasure. Claim Your Body as Your Own! Kick your parents out of the bedroom, along with your grandparents, brother, priest, nuns, minister etc! You don't want them, you don't need them, and their negative messages. Tell them it's your body and you can do what you want with your body! Find the positive messages and embrace them. Sexual Healing Start with early development tasks and move on from there. The Infant needs -Holding and pleasuring, licking and sucking. This becomes kissing. Touching & stroking first limbs, shoulders and back then belly, butt and last - all parts of the body including genitals. At all stages slow down or stop if anything becomes frightening.
Explore! Discover! Allow surprise and delight!
If you are doing this with a partner ask for and give feedback. That feels good, ummmmm, yes, sigh, etc. Or I don't like that as much as what you were doing before, please do that other thing again. Whatever you are doing – alone or with a partner: My client, Paula healed herself over years of practice and allowing. She now has better sex than she ever imagined. Don't forget that to change you must move your molecules!
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