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Re-formulating the ‘body/mind split’ (see also ‘Body/Mind Integration’ on www.soth.co.uk)
Reichian psychotherapy and psychoanalysis polarise around the conflicting polarities of the ‘European Split’ (i.e. simplistically: Reich taking the side of the ‘body’, analyis taking the side of the ‘mind’). I would like to attempt to re-formulate a selection of traditional concepts from a position which integrates Reichian and analytic perspectives, in a way which both enters and embraces the experience of that split. In summary, I will do this by attempting to re-formulate: • Reichian concepts relationally • analytic concepts holistically and energetically • structural concepts as processes and relationships • medical model assumptions from a ‘wounded healer’ position as paradox and conflict
The ‘body/mind split’ Reich had a clear notion that it is the chronic opposition of body and mind which is at the root of neurosis. He (and Lowen after him, as expressed in his metaphor of horse and rider for the body-mind relationship) worked with the idea of the ‘functional identity of body and mind’. The neurotic body and mind are chronically split, the healthy body/mind experiences spontaneously the wholeness of that functionial identity.However, the term ‘body/mind split’, if taken literally, lends itself to being used in a split way (as illustrated in my article ‘Relating to and with the Objectified Body’ in Self&Society 27(1), p. 32 - 38). The tradition of Body Psychotherapy has suffered from an ‘anti-head’ bias, both in terms of theory and in terms of practice. It’s perfectly possible and quite common for body therapists to re-enact the client’s body/mind split in the relationship whilst theoretically pursuing a clear idea of body/mind integration and ‘wholeness’.It’s very hard to think about the ‘body/mind split’ without taking sides either way and therefore splitting (e.g. as Perls used to say: “Lose your head - come to your senses!”). It has been argued that the term ‘split’ in this context isn’t quite consistent with its general use in analytic language. But rather than inventing new terms, I’d like to present what I consider a more refined and differentiated meaning of the concept. The term ‘body/mind split’ may remain fruitful if used as a shorthand for the opposition between spontaneous processes and reflective processes. This way of re-formulating Reich’s idea of the conflict underlying neurosis is not without difficulties, either, but, I think, is closer to the actual experience. It’s also consistent with complexity theory and notions of ‘emergent’ versus ‘established’ structures.Ken Wilber has comprehensively described the conflicting modes of consciousness involved in the underlying conflict (which he calls - in some ways more precisely - the ‘European Split’).For me, then, when I use the term ‘body/mind split’, ‘body’ is only shorthand for ‘spontaneous processes’, ‘mind’ is shorthand for ‘reflective processes’ (from here onwards I will use quotes around ‘body’ and ‘mind’ to indicate this wider sense). Keeping this translation in mind, it is clear immediately that ‘spontaneous processes’ actually include far more than strictly physical ones: apart from biochemical, neurological, physiological, vegetative, muscular and sensory processes there are sensations and proprioceptions, internal and external movements, impulses derived from drives, instincts or object-seeking needs, feelings, images / fantasies / associations, voices (internal & external) and to some extent even thoughts (e.g. the paradox of obsessive thoughts arising spontaneously). Although all of these spontaneous processes have a physical aspect in some way, many of them are usually considered to have primarily psychological significance, consequently they are commonly labelled ‘mental’. So to lump all these spontaneous processes together as ‘the body’ is utterly misleading. In the same way that spontaneous processes are not exclusively physical, so reflective processes are not at all exclusively mental. What do I mean by ‘reflective processes’ ? Human beings (as we know them) seem to be both blessed with and condemned to the capacity to interrupt, react against, hold back and reflect on the spontaneous processes outlined above. In the context of the term ‘body/mind split’, ‘mind’ is only useful as a shorthand for this capacity to interrupt and hold back spontaneous processes. ‘Reflection’ then captures several interweaving meanings: there is the human capacity to ‘reflect’ on oneself, on one’s impulses, motivations, place and purpose in the cosmos. This includes the capacity to symbolically - through ‘reflection’ - contain one’s impulses, rather than having to act them out. But ‘reflection’ also reminds us of Reich’s ‘turning against the self’, where one’s impulses are chronically turned against themselves, creating what he called ‘character armour’. So in this widened definition of the ‘body/mind split’ from ‘mind’ into ‘reflective processes’, again it is clear immediately that ‘reflective processes’ actually include far more than strictly mental ones.Following Reich it is obvious that the inhibiting functions of ‘reflection’ operate throughout the body/mind system, and can become the chronic, automatic habits of Reich’s ‘character armour’. In this case chronic ‘reflection’ manifests - according to the principle of ‘functional identity’ - in chronically tense muscles, chronically restricted breathing, etc.But beyond this, as modern neuroscience shows, mental processes are indistinguishable from somatic and emotional-relational processes and interdepend on them. Damasio conceives of ‘cognition’, ‘reflection’ and ‘self image’ as (mental) brain processes based on the constant monitoring of the body’s current energetic state in space and relation. And there is a simple logical reason why - in order for mental reflection to be able to inhibit or repress the body - it can not just be a mental process: in order to be effective, the force which reflects or reacts against a spontaneous movement needs to affect all levels from the mental right down to the physical. This can be a deliberate, temporary reaction (i.e. a holding, containing form of reflection), or it can be a chronic, fixed, habitual pattern which occurs outside of awareness. The first one is an important source of human creativity (Jung’s opus contra naturam). It’s the latter which Reich considered to be the root of ‘neurosis’ and which deserves the term ‘body/mind split’. I would think that it was one of Freud’s great contributions that he formulated the apparently irreconcilable opposition between the pleasure principle and the reality principle, between what he calls primary process and secondary process, and eventually Id and Ego. From within patriarchal history we pursue the fantasy of mind over matter, and it appears as if our mind were operating on our bodies, as if the body/mind relationship was just a one-way operation. And towards the end of the 19th century that was the dominant scientific fantasy (i.e. positivism and reductionism) which Freud blew a hole into: he dared to say that rationality was NOT the only or even the dominant logic controlling experience and behaviour. He took the risk of saying that there was a meaning and a logic outside of the rational mind, irrational but intelligible. He ‘listened’ to hysterical conversion symptoms as if there might be a meaningful communication contained in them, in opposition to rational intention. We can think of it now as oversimplified to see it as ‘body’ in conflict with ‘mind’, but it was a revolutionary step then. And that was what Reich latched onto and saw himself developing, true to the origins of Freud’s work. Following Reich’s intuition, the main reason to keep the term ‘body/mind split’ is because it does justice to our experience of internal conflict between spontaneous and reflective processes. In the split some spontaneous processes are chronically at war with other reflective ones and the potential (at least temporary) wholeness of the body/mind becomes habitually aborted through being fragmented, split and conflicted. The essence of the ‘body/mind split’ is that both ‘mind’ and ‘body’ lose their aliveness, their rootedness in process, their mutual interdependence and become fixed, static, objectified. Processes turn into static entities. Relationships (internal and external) turn into power battles around fixed and habitual positions. The ‘mind’ becomes dry, sterile and defensive, rationalising its flight away from life, pain and conflict. The ‘body’ becomes mechanical and addictive, oscillating between lifelessness on the one hand and insatiable greed and compulsion on the other. Once processes have appeared to turn into entities (like ‘my personality’, ‘my ego’, ‘my addiction’), it then becomes essential that as therapists we have an objectifying language which does justice to the objectified experience. So whilst on the one hand it’s experientially evident that in most of us ‘body’ and ‘mind’ are separate and at war, it is also true on the other hand that ‘body’ and ‘mind’ are utterly inseparable, intertwined, antagonistic and complementary aspects of the same thing - their separation can only be an illusory construction. I see this as one of Reich’s revolutionary contributions: the idea of the ‘functional identity’ of body and mind. From here, holism (as comprehensively described and defined by Wilber in “Sexuality, Spirituality & Ecology”) is only a step away. Because we’re clearly dealing with a paradox, the term ‘body/mind split’ must remain confusing. On the one hand I want to hold onto it because it conveys an important experience and a valid focus for the Reichian tradition, on the other hand I am trying to expand the meaning of the term ‘body/mind split’ to the point of it becoming non-sensical. As Walt Whitman said: “I contradict myself ? Very well then - I contradict myself! I am large, I contain multitudes.” ‘Body/Mind Integration’ In my perception of the bodywork tradition, the notion of ‘body/mind integration’, (in the sense of ‘being fully embodied’) has frequently been used as a tool for objectification of the client. Bodyworkers (including myself) have rather relentlessly pursued it as an agenda, as something which the therapist brings about in and on behalf of the client. However, that is to blindly enact the objectifying relationship which the client already has with themselves. The fact that many clients are positively demanding and crying out for this enactment doesn’t make it any less counter-therapeutic: they don’t know any better. All they know is that they experience their body as an ‘it’ which their so-called ‘identity’ or ‘personality’ sits on top of and is supposed to operate upon. Now that the client’s ego has admitted failure in this department (they’re not successfully managing to operate on their spontaneous processes), of course they assume that therapy is more of the same: a better and maybe cleverer auxiliary ego (in the form of the therapist) operating more successfully upon this clearly unruly and pathological ‘body’. This merely re-enacts the original relationship which was the origin of the ‘body’ being split off as an object in the first place. The only way we get out of this is by getting into it. As therapists we do not want to shrink from the danger of objectification, from the certainty of re-enactment: it’s an important element of what brings the client to us. So we want to have it, experience it - in the room, in the here and now, in the contact. We want to hold the tension between co-experiencing the client’s worst reality and/or their potential release from it into their best possible reality. If we want to stand a chance of holding this tension, we don’t want our habitual assumptions to trip us up. As mentioned above, it’s therefore important that we don’t habitually assume ‘body/mind integration’ as our taken-for-granted normative goal. It is not something any ego - the client’s or the therapist’s - can force or bring about. Our intentions, awareness, actions certainly do have an influence on it happening or not, but we can’t make it happen. It’s only when we don’t idealise ‘body/mind integration’ as a goal or an objective, that we can begin to use it as a tool of perception. To the extent that the therapist is at home in their own body/mind experience (whether that in itself is harmonious, conflicted, ecstatic or dissociated), their perception of the current degree of ‘body/mind integration’ (in the client, in themselves and in the ‘energetic system’ between them) can become an avenue INTO inner and outer relationship, into a fuller body/mind experience of the unconscious dynamic.
Michael Soth © 1999
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