December 19, 2008
- Anxiety pt. 1(or, Glass nearly full!) -
Recently, as you may know if you follow my research links site, I’ve been reading an online text that does a great job of breaking down Reichian-type body therapy (pun intended) for those new to the subject. My only previous knowledge of Reich came from Zac’s experiments over at Alchemically Braindamaged (which, upon review, seems to be where I found that Reichian book to begin with…)
I like what I’ve been reading and (since I get pretty focused into whatever informational flow I am following) I’ve been much more conscious of the energy blocks in my body, now that I’m aware of what they can be and how I might visualize them.
In the interest of further exploration, I “found” disc 1 of a recording of Dr. Hyatt’s, called Shotgun Tantra. And after listening to it, I have a much greater appreciation of the sarcasm evident in the comments regarding Hyatt in the AB post…
However, despite the heavily edited female “interviewer”, and Hyatt’s impressive ability to draw out a string of tangents until you think he’s made a point (i.e.: bullshit), there were a few good ideas in the mix.
The best one, in my opinion, was Hyatt’s critique of “stress/anxiety management”. He compared trying to ‘manage’ your stress levels to trying to avoid overfilling a glass that is already 90% full of water. Sure, you can try to avoid any “water” getting dumped on you, but miss even just a few drops and you’ll quickly spill over. As Hyatt points out, it would be much better to start with an empty glass, giving yourself the ability to “hold more water” as it arises.
And while I agree with Dr Hyatt’s diagnosis here, and I appreciate the other stuff I’ve been reading online, I’ve also noticed what seems to be a sort of blind-spot in the explanation of armoring and its function. I don’t mean to imply that these people are unaware of this blind-spot, just that, for me, it should be one of the core components of any explanation of Reichian therapy, and I didn’t hear it explained as such in either source.
To whit: you have tightened your armor in order to block your awareness of the internal surging of emotional energy (aka: orgone) because (for whatever reason) you can’t accept it. By loosening the armor you can once again let that energy flow, and become aware of what your body is telling you.
But this, I think, is only half the battle. Once the energy is flowing, if you don’t use your new-found emotional orgone/organ knowledge to modulate your behavior and “empty your glass”, so to speak, you’ll be stuck in a never ending (and draining) loop of misused energy. It similar to opening up the cupboard below your sink, noticing a puddle caused by a leaky drain, and only wiping up the puddle without fixing the drain because “water is supposed to flow”.
I understand that it’s hard to address this in a book or lecture, because any misuse of body energy always has a very personal and idiosyncratic cause. However, I just want to place a little more emphasis on the removal of armoring as a tool for understanding and mastering the self, rather than as an end in itself. The point is not to open up to the pain and hurt inside, but to open up and REMOVE it.
Perhaps I misunderstand Reichian therapy all together. Feel free to tell me so in the comments. However, I think we should keep in mind that Reich had a notoriously short fuse , and that he died of a heart attack in prison. Hardly the description of a freely emotional energetic being, if you know what I mean…
