Sexuality & Core Energetics 
- Vital Sexuality Part Two -
Healing From Sexual Numbness  

©By Pamela L. Chubbuck, Ph.D.

Sexual numbness is a symptom of a general energetic problem that many people simply live with because they think there is nothing they can do to feel more. People think- it's just my age, my medication (could be!) my spouse/ partner no longer turns me on, I've been disappointed too many times, and so forth. (Think of one you have told yourself or heard from a friend or client.) Many people are numb and have been unfeeling for so long that they experience numb as normal.  Therefore these folks don't even know that they are capable of living more fully. Most everyone can be more alive by feeling more emotions, breathing more fully, and experiencing more  pleasure in their bodies. And of course that includes feeling more sexual.

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.

Clients come to therapy and present an issue they are struggling with. A presenting complaint is usually the road sign pointing to the deeper issue the person must deal with to get and feel better. A road sign is what is "up" for someone that makes them uncomfortable enough to seek professional help. Their road signs must to be taken seriously and compassionately but seen as the tip of the therapy iceberg. Ask; "Why are they really here? What is underneath that would cause these symptoms to arise"?

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.

               
People create physical symptoms when they are too afraid to experience their emotional pain. They somatize their emotional experiences. Including of course sexual issues. This is usually quite unconscious. People would for example, rather than feel how angry they are at their mother, transpose their feelings into heart palpitations. People often cut off their sexual feelings if they were taught that sex was bad unless sanctioned by marriage (god) and are having sex outside (and sometimes inside) of marriage. Women have migraines rather than admit they want a divorce from an emotionally abusive husband.   Men can't have an erection; women can't have orgasm, when they are coldly holding in rage. Men and women go numb rather than feel their emotional pain. This numbness effects sexuality of course.

And - People become numb when they have experiences that many people, including therapists, would think are 'inconsequential '. For example: Mother is cut off from her own body and is afraid of the life force in her daughter; A father who is afraid of the feelings he experiences when his daughter becomes  a luscious teenager, even though he does nothing impropriate; A mother who wants her daughter to be just like her and has no sense of her as a separate entity; A father who is afraid of his own sexuality because he allows himself to be brainwashed by the church he belongs to.
 
Let's look at a case that I mentioned in the August Core South News that I hoped would entice you. Here's the first case. Another case will be in the Oct Core News:

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 who 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."

Focused, intense Bioenergetic and Core Energetic body work to enliven him and to unblock stuck energy was needed to assist him in feeling and connecting his body and mind. Memories and feelings began to intensify,

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.  
 
Much later he was able to begin to feel some love. The feeling first started in his heart and then moved to his pelvis. More time and much body work were needed to help Bill connect his heart feeling to the sexual feeling in his pelvis. It was a beautiful moment when Bill felt this connection in his body for the first time!

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 Bio Energetic 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.

(Please note that I am offering three dynamic weekend workshops on Sexuality & Core Energetics. You are invited to join us!)

Pam Chubbuck is creator of "Say Yes to Life!"  DVDs. Two hour long classes!  For more information or to order - go to www.core-energetics-south.com and click on Products - a video clip of Say Yes to Life! is also available below.

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