We begin with a story taken from a book written by Frank Baum and translated into a famous movie called The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy from Kansas has just landed in a strange land called Oz, having been carried there by one of the tornados that was all too common in the dust bowl countryside where Dorothy lived. Seeking to return to her home, Dorothy is instructed to follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City, where the great Wizard of Oz will help her with this return journey from the land of Oz (and the sound stages of the MGM movie studio). Dorothy is joined on her journey by her dog (Toto) who has been swept up with her. They are soon joined by a scarecrow who is searching for his brains.
This story about Oz and the Tin Man frames the narrative which we are about to engage in four essays. We offer a premise: what if we could assemble a team to diagnosis and treat the ailments articulated and exhibited by the Tin Man. Here is what our team would determine. First, we know that he has been frozen in time. We don’t know the duration of his inability to move—but it must have been quite traumatic for him. Will he forever dread rain (or even more generally water)? We need to provide the oil so that he can move about freely. We might even suggest that he find armor in the future that is more flexible—or at least rust-proof. There is more to be done.
We also wonder a bit about the veracity of the Tin Man’s account. How could he have been rusted so quickly after standing for a short while in the rain? Could there be some other reason for the frozen armor? Is he actually afraid of the rain or of something else that is threatening him (perhaps something in the forest)? And where did he find the armor–or did he construct the armor himself? Perhaps, it is just psychological armor.
Our diagnosis leads us to the all-too-obvious conclusion that our Tin Man believes that he has no heart—and as a result fears that he is unable to care deeply about anyone or anything. Almost immediately we recognize that the Tin Man does have a heart. Jack Haley, the noted vaudevillian and character actor who plays the Tin Man speaks with a very gentle and kind voice that leads us to believe that this man of tin actually does have a great big heart. However, his heart seems to be encased in restrictive armor. There is an issue of denial or an even deeper failure to acknowledge what is hidden away. The Tin Man banged on his chest. It seemed to be empty. Yet he does have a heart. He might have to prove to himself that he has a heart by engaging in the fulfillment of some “heart-felt” mission.
Members of the Diagnostic Team
Enter our diagnostic team. It is headed by two men whom we have recruited. They are fully qualified to help oil the Tin Man’s armor. Perhaps they can also oil the armor worn by mid-21st Century men and women. They might even be able to help heal the Tin Man’s heart—and the hearts of armored men and women of our own time. We introduce these two men. We also introduce several adjunct members of the diagnostic team who have much to say about armor and hearts.
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was born to Jewish parents in Austria on March 24,1897. He received his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1922 and became deputy director of Sigmund Freud’s outpatient clinic. Reich soon became one of Freud’s favorites and at one point was considered to be the successor to Freud in the burgeoning psychoanalytic field. However, he eventually fell out of favor with Freud (as did Jung, Adler and many other aspirants), in large part because he was moving beyond the prescribed boundaries of traditional Freudian practice. While Reich aligned with Freud regarding the importance of sexuality, he was developing his own unorthodox theories and practices regarding the nature of sexual energy. This departure from the “normal” views regarding sex would later lead to major controversy and even legal problems for Reich.
Moshe Feldenkrais
As in the case of Wilhelm Reich, Moshe Feldenkrais’s parents were European Jews—living at the time in what today is the country of Ukraine. Moshe was born in 1904 and was raised in Belarus. Having moved to Palestine in 1918, Moshe Feldenkrais worked as a laborer and began to study self-defense (including Ju-Jitsu). Following his subsequent migration to France during the early 1930s, Feldenkrais obtained a degree in engineering. He subsequently was awarded a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Paris. Marie Curie was one of his teachers.
Feldenkrais’ interest in the interplay between the human anatomy and movement became more immediate after World War II, when a personal Injury led him to begin developing his own approach to rehabilitation. Feldenkrais began to offer lectures and training programs regarding his new treatment methods and published his first book on his method (Body and Mature Behavior: A study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation and Learning). In this book, Feldenkrais (2005) touched on some of the same topics as Reich. Like Reich, he also became interested in many other topics and theories—including those offered by Gurdjieff (a noted mystic).
We have recruited two additional members to our assessment team. In the real world, they have both strongly influenced our primary actors or our current understanding of armor and wounded hearts: Robert Sapolsky and Wilfred Bion.
Robert Sapolsky
A recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Genius Award, Robert Sapolsky is a noted researcher and lecturer in the diverse fields of animal (particularly primate) behavior and human neurobiology. Over the years, he has split time between the forests of Equatorial Africa and the laboratories of Stanford University. Sapolsky combined research he has conducted in these diverse fields when writing best-selling books on stress and human society.
Wilfred Bion
Best known for his theories of small group behavior, Wilfred Bion applied his understanding of the psychodynamic nature of anxiety to the treatment of patients in England. He worked out of the Tavistock Clinic in London and was oriented to the object-relations school of psychoanalysis. Bion was particularly impacted by his own experience as a British officer during World War I and as a therapist working with the psychiatric causalities of World War II.
Now on to the diagnosis of the Tin Man (and current day tin men and women).
The Nature of Energy
Our diagnosis focuses on the encasement of the Tin Man in armor and the resulting blocking of any movement. While contemporary men and women may not be encased in physical armor, they can be “encased” in a set of psychological conditions that block the flow of that energy that is required for physical movement to taken place.
Both Reich and Feldenkrais focus on Energy – but not the hydraulic energy imagined by Freud. He was pre-electronic (hydrology was big during his years. It concerns the flow of viscous substances). What did energy mean for Reich and Feldenkrais? We must identify the options and ways that energy is identified and used in the world. Before doing so, I provide an opening gambit offered by Feldenkrais in his introduction to The Potent Self (2002, p. xli). In this statement, Feldenkrais sets the stage for consideration of differing perspectives on the source of psychic energy and different ways in which this energy is engaged:
Ideas, good or bad, get hold of us if they fit into the general background of the picture we make to ourselves of the world. Modem psychology began to flourish at a time when the thermos-dynamics theory of heat and the theory of potential were final] put on a firm basis and clearly formulated by some of the most eminent scientists of that time. Thus, the idea that energy can neither be created nor destroyed became more or less common knowledge. Any educated person knew this, and it was quite natural to formulate the libido theory on the same lines, that is, to be analogous with the energy theory. Emotional energy could accumulate, be dammed up; and, as it could not be destroyed, either steam had to be let off or sublimation had to take place. The same background prevails today and some excellent authors, who now see quite clearly the fallacy in the libido analogy, inadvertently make the same mistake with other emotional manifestations-such as aggression.
With this summary statement, Feldenkrais has set the stage for an exploration of the diverse ways in which energy has been conceived. Feldenkrais is correct in noting that energy became a favorite topic with the early 20th Century focus on thermo-dynamic energy. However, energy was traditionally identified in Western Societies as the movement of bodily fluids or bodily parts around the human body. Energy is identified as Chi. There is a general sense in most Asian societies that the natural world is a dynamic self-sustaining and self-organizing world.
By the last decades of the 20th Century, much of the attention was directed (as a result of the neurobiological revolution) to the ways in which energy is engaged in our brain. This neural energy is usually conceived as either electrical in nature (firing of neurons) or neural chemical in nature (chemical messengers and chemical “bath” and resulting reactions at the synapse). With this all-too-condensed summary, we can explore the various forms of energy that have been identified during the past century.
Tangible energy
While “Energy” is often deployed as a metaphor regarding the way in which people are motivated and devote attention to specific matters, it has also been identified in quite tangible terms – as something that can be seen (or at least measured). As Feldenkrais mentioned, the early 20th Century focus was on Energy as a thermodynamic phenomenon. It was manifest as Heat. Central to this conception of Energy was a disturbing assumption concerning an ultimate dystopic based on the thermodynamic property called entropy (each conversion of energy from one form to another form results in the reduction in overall quantity of energy). Given this property of entropy, the entire universe dies with ultimate and final diffusion of all energy)
A psychological conception of energy directly concerns the nature of attention—that which directs our senses to what is interesting and important. What is it that we should immediately process. Where do we look for threat as well as opportunity? We can readily detect this attention and the setting of priorities in the behavior of people we have observed. This is the “cognitive” dimension of Energy.
There are also the affective and motoric dimensions of Energy. It seems that Energy has often been equated to Emotional intensity. Our energy is “burning” in us and is on display to other people in our behavior. This display of energy is often manifest in our physical activity. Much as in the case of thermodynamic processes, we are converting biochemical energy to muscular energy (and movement). This is the process of “burning” the stored-up calories in our body.
Intangible manifestation of energy
While there are these quite tangible ways to conceive of (and measure) the engagement of Energy, the most common ways in which Energy is conceived when considering human behavior are often not tangible. They can only be inferred. We find Energy in Resilience. Human beings find ways in which to come back from adversity. We honor the energy expended by survivors. We speak of the unique Energy that is on display among people with disabilities or “swimming upstream” as outliers or “others’ (from a different culture or embracing a different lifestyle or gender identification).
There is also the matter of Mental health. In these cases, energy is ill-defined—but it is considered of greatest importance. Often, the state of our mental health is measured by the amount of “energy” we have and how we use this energy. Depressions is often identified by the loss of energy and even the inability to engage in action. As my colleague, John Preston, has noted, the decision to do something (take action) involves many parts of the brain. “Will-power”, in other words, is quite challenging to engage. People who are depressed often are unable to link together all of the cortical functions need to take action.
Similarly, we find that people with major phobias are confronted with energy that is unbounded—yet directed toward the blocking of specific actions (such as leaving one’s home and communicating with other people). The phobia, in turn, is built around the eruption of anxiety—a topic to which I will turn shortly. As all of our diagnostic experts would emphasize, there is a powerful connection between energy and anxiety. The Tin Man’s energy may be bound up in his armor in part because he is anxious about something. About what might he be afraid?
The impact of energy
Finally, let’s consider some of the impacts which energy (whether tangible or intangible) has on human behavior. First Energy impacts on critical points of Decision in our lives. High levels of accumulated energy are often needed to complete an important task. However, especially high levels of energy (especially when blocked) can lead to dithering (moving back and forth quickly) and polarization (bigger time/bigger picture swinging back and forth). Energy engages the activity—but the activity is ill-directed and filled with ambivalence. Like the energy found in Lightening, there are sporadic flashes of Energy in the actions taken by human beings. Energy is being converted to action; however, this action is neither consistent nor productive.
We can also see and feel the impact of Energy when we are engaged in activities that reside in the threshold between anxiety (overwhelming challenge) and boredom (lack of challenge). This threshold, called Flow often sets the stage for a highly effective use of energy. The threshold of Flow is also the threshold of learning (between demand for accommodation/challenge) and demand for assimilation (support).
Finally, Energy is engaged and helps to direct the setting of life priorities. Throughout life we are balancing different sources of energy (physical and psychological nourishment) as well as different uses of energy (constructive and destructive to self and/or other people).
Reich and Feldenkrais on Energy
We turn to the historical analysis offered by Matt Reese in his introduction to Feldenkrais’ The Potent Self [2002, p. xiii]. He is considering the perspective of both Reich and Feldenkrais on Energy—especially when compared to that offered by Freud:
. . . Freud was convinced that the needs of society make sexual fulfillment and the satisfaction of the desires of the “id,” or instinctual self, impossible: For Freud, the best we can do is to sublimate or, redirect, our vital urges. In contrast, Feldenkrais, and Freud’s disciple, Wilhelm Reich, believed that appropriate psychological conditions can allow individual fulfillment, and bring into play more optimal levels of bodily function. In parallel to Reich, Feldenkrais emphasized that our conflicts are embedded in our bodies, and ask for specific attention in the body.
Though Reich’s practical approach differed from Freud’s, their ideas about the nature of sexuality had much in common. Concerning sexuality; however, Feldenkrais differed from the Freudians both in practice and theory. The Potent Self begins with a critique of the Freudian perspective. Freud and Reich’s therapeutic process aimed to release the emotional pains held in our muscular tensions by emotional catharsis. For both, repression and its alternatives are treated as the blockage and movement of energy.
Feldenkrais (2002 pp. xliii-xliv) has this specifically to say about the role played (or not played) by energy in determining the nature and course of human behavior (especially sexual behavior). He argues against any theory of sexuality that is based upon the notion that sexual and emotional responses can be addressed as forms of “energy”:
The energy analogy does not hold good for emotional urges because there is no question of energy here, but of forms of action. Aggression is a form of behavior, not an energy. There is no such thing as dammed-up aggression that increases in pressure until the dam breaks down and aggression flows freely It is a great mistake to think that it is dammed-up aggression that produces neurotic behavior.
If energy is not the dominant way in which to understand and explain human behavior, then perhaps we have to turn to anxiety as a critical determinant. Or is it energy intertwining with anxiety that tells us about the ways in which we behave—or at least something about the behavior and ailment(s) of our Tin Man.
The Sources of Anxiety
When we are considering the nature of ailments that have befallen the Tin Man and keep him frozen, we must not neglect the second major ailment. The Tin Man believes that he doesn’t have a heart. In addressing this ailment, we must once again ask if what the Tin Man has reported is true. We know that he might have been frozen in place by disruption in his flow of energy rather than some rain rusting him in place. Similarly, he might actually have a heart but either does not have access to it or is denying its existence. This lack of access or denial can readily be attributed to the presence of powerful and repressive anxiety.
Just as the Tin Man’s energy might have been flocked by anxiety, so might his relationship to a heart that resides within him. This heart is the site of emotions that the Tin Man might find to frightening or overwhelming to accept. His heart is also the site of courage and of aspirations that he might now want to accept as part of himself. Fortunately, we have the right people on our diagnostic team. It is in the focus on anxiety that we find the richest and most insightful analyses offered by both Reich and Feldenkrais. Furthermore, they are among the most insightful analysts regarding the impact of anxiety on the ability and willingness to move forward with courage and aspiration.
It is therefore appropriate that we listen to what Reich and Feldenkrais have to say. We turn first to Feldenkrais.
Sources of Anxiety: Feldenkrais
A review of the observations offered by Feldenkrais in his extensive writing reveals two major ways in which anxiety is produced and experienced by each of us. These two sources are aligned with the observations made by several other health care practitioners who specialize in the treatment of psychosis and trauma. Feldenkrais’s two sources relate to the infantile fear of falling and the lifelong failure to complete an act that would thwart a threatening attack. I turn first to the fear of falling.
Fear of falling [Loss of support]: Feldenkrais (2019, p. 61) identifies a source of anxiety that was earlier considered by Harry Stack Sullivan to be of central importance.
To sum up, the inborn fear is that of falling. The anatomical structure makes it imperative that the next fear that can be sensed is that of loud noises. The unconditioned sensation of anxiety is elicited by stimulation of the vestibular branch of the eighth cranial nerve. All other fears and sensations of the anxiety syndrome are therefore conditioned. The basic pattern of all fear and anxiety is the irritation of the eighth cranial nerve through at least one of its branches. The fear of loud noises is not inherited and not instinctive. In all normal infants, however, that reflex will be the first conditioned one because of the similarity of their anatomy.
It is quite understandable that Feldenkrais points to the fear of falling and the accompanying motoric (physical) responses, for his work always returns to the basic impact of physiology and movement on human feelings (and thoughts). He posits the following (2019, p. 61):
Fear and anxiety are here seen to be the sensation of impulses arriving at the central nervous system from the organs and viscera. We shall see later that all emotions are connected with excitations arriving at the vegetative or autonomic nervous system or arising from the organs, muscles, etc. that it innervates. The arrival of such impulses to the higher centers of the central nervous system is sensed as motion.
Ironically, and sadly, little attention has been given to Sullivan’s emphasis on the fear of falling nor Feldenkrais’s proposal that falling is closely aligned with anxiety. It is disappointing to note that this fundamental fear which is to be found in all of us has found little acceptance in the mental health and physical health community. There is much that can be formulated regarding the way in which a fearful parent might find their fear transferred to their child when the child is being held. A nervous cradling of the child can lead to their fear that they will be dropped and that their parent’s instability could easily lead to an increase in the child’s own sense of insecurity. There may be a fear not only of physically being dropped, but also being dropped emotionally.
Does the Tin Man, for instance, fear his emotions because they will leave him vulnerable. Standing alone in the forest, does the Tin Man anticipate that there will be no one to “catch him” when he “falls” in love, hate, despair, hope, etc. Perhaps the mere presence of Dorothy, the Scarecrow (and even Toto) is sufficient to help the Tin Man reclaim his heart. He might not have to travel to Oz for this reclamation to take place.
Failure to act [freeze]: There is an important theory regarding trauma that suggests we are traumatized because of our inability (often as a child) to complete the act of thwarting the attack by a hostile entity (Levine and Frederick, 2009). We are hit by a “bully” or by our irate parent—and can do nothing about it. Even more dramatically, we are raped by an adult member of our family or are severely beaten by an abusive parent. We are weak and can do nothing about it.
Martin Seligman (1991, 1992) would suggest that we feel powerless and hopeless. Furthermore, there is no one else coming to our rescue or helping us in the future to avoid the attack. The world appears to be quite hostile. We are passive recipients of whatever the punishing world has to offer us. This becomes the “perfect storm” for a lingering trauma and accompanying state of lingering anxiety. The anxiety, in turn, produces physical and mental health impairment.
Feldenkrais (2002, p. 11) offers the following observations regarding this important source of anxiety. He notes the physical and psychological impact of a frozen state (inaction) in the face of an attack. We find no protection against the attack leading to a broad-based disruption in our functioning:
At the root of all anxiety, where education has failed lies inner compulsion to act or to check action. And compulsion is sensed when motivation for action is conflicting; that is, when the habitual pattern that the person can enact is sensed as compromising the persons security. The feeling of security is linked with the image of self that has been cultivated in the dependence period. Thus, for some people, their good looks–for others, absolute unselfishness, absolute virility, superman ideas, absolute goodness and all kinds of imaginary, untestable notions, habits of though; and patterns of behavior–have served as a means of obtaining affection, approval, protection, and care. Compulsion is sensed when there is a threat of any of these means becoming ineffective; the person feels endangered and left without any means of protection. When there is objective danger, with no means of defense, the result may be real destruction. In cases of internal compulsion, the only possible result is inner collapse, as there is no objective danger. The anxiety experienced in the face of real danger would normally be experienced by most of us. But the anxiety which is due to inner compulsion has no apparent reason; it is essentially linked with the means of getting security that the person has formed during her personal history.
Thus, for Feldenkrais, there is an important distinction to be made between “everyday” anxiety associated with some impending threat and the type of anxiety that is based in a compulsive sense that we are unprotected and vulnerable in life. We look for security and can’t readily find it. The Tin Man experiences the “real” existential anxiety that leaves him frozen in place.
Combination of Falling and Failure to Act: There is an important point when Feldenkrais (2002, p. 121]) combines a fear of falling with the fear that we can’t protect our self. He points to the physical conditions that tend to be precipitated by these fears:
All incorrect acture can be traced back to premature or too violent demands made on the person. The contractions that are maintained in all action as a personal manner of doing, irrespective of the act, always express an emotional attitude. The attitude found most frequently is that of insecurity or the masquerade of ignoring it. Physiologically stiffening the body, lowering the head, sinking the chest, contracting and flattening the abdomen-when per formed not in the course of a purposeful action, but as acts in themselves are protective acts. The reactions to falling (protection of the head from overhead threats; protection of the throat, the pit of the stomach, the soft “underbelly,” the genitals) are all produced by flexor contraction and are all effective measures that give a sense of relative security in face of sudden or great danger. They either offer a hard, bony obstacle to the threat, or they withdraw the vulnerable soft organ as far as possible. The flexor contraction is inhibitory to extensors, and insufficient tone in the antigravity extensors is the resultant rule in bad posture.
At this point, Feldenkrais (2002, p. 121) expands his perspective by identifying multiple sources of anxiety (emotional attitudes) that arise from a lost sense of security and that impact profoundly on the human conditions:
Bad acture may be due to doubt, fear, hesitation, guilt, shame, or impotence. Or to other emotional attitudes formed in one’s personal experience of the world, all depending on the kind of security the environment has brought the individual to consider as essential for her safety.
With this statement, we can return to the Tin Man’s heart. There are many feelings that he might not wish to confront or even acknowledge. This blocking of the heart contributes to and is aided by the armor (physical rigidity) that the Tin Man has placed on himself.
We thank Moshe Feldenkrais for his insights about anxiety and are ready to move on. What about sources of anxiety identified by Wilhelm Reich, our second diagnostician. Do they tend to align with those identified by Feldenkrais?
Sources of Anxiety: Reich
Like Feldenkrais (and his fellow psychoanalytically inclined colleagues) Wilhelm Reich tends to look toward the early days in the life of a child when searching for the sources of profound anxiety. He specifically proposed that anxiety arises as a result of childhood fears, a pull between the internal/instinctual world and the outside world of reality, and ambivalence regarding his relationship with important people in his life. I turn first to his reflections on childhood fears.
Childhood Fears: Reich joins with Sigmund Freud in his belief that a child holds many fears. However, unlike Freud, Reich focuses on the fear of punishment (though Reich’s focus on punishment might align with the fears evoked by Freud’s super ego). As in the case of armor being used to protect the warrior in medieval battle, the armor clad by the child might serve a protective function (Reich, 1972, p. 52):
If we trace the formation of the character into early childhood, we find that, in its time, the character armor ensued for the same reasons and for the same purposes the character resistance serves in the contemporary analytic situation. The resistive projection of the character in the analysis mirrors its infantile genesis. And those situations which seem to appear by chance but actually are brought about by the character resistance in the analysis are exact duplicates of those childhood situations which caused the formation of the character. Thus, in the character resistance, the function of defense is combined with the projection of infantile relationships to the outer world.
For Reich, the fear of punishment often shows up as shyness or childhood phobias which, in turn, create the armament (Reich, 1972, p. 157):
It turns out . . . that this first transformation of the ego, e.g. the shyness does not suffice to master the instinct, On the contrary, it easily leads to the development of anxiety and always becomes the behavioral basis of childhood phobia. In order to maintain the repression, an additional transformation of the ego becomes necessary: the repressions have to be cemented together, the ego has to harden, the defense has to take on a chronically operative, automatic character. And, since the simultaneously developed childhood anxiety constitutes a continual threat to the repressions; since the repressed material is expressed in the anxiety; since, moreover, the anxiety itself threatens to weaken the ego, a protective formation against the anxiety also has to be created. The driving force behind all these measure[s] taken by the ego is, in the final analysis, conscious or unconscious fear of punishment, kept alive by the prevailing behavior of parents and teachers. Thus, we have the seeming paradox, namely that fear causes the child to want to resolve his fear.
At this point, Reich moves to the heart of the matter, linking the fear of punishment directly to the formation of character armor and notes that the armor is not easily removed (Reich,, 1972, p. 158):
Thus, the armoring of the ego takes place as a result of the fear of punishment, at the expense of id energy, and contains the prohibitions and standards of parents and teachers. Only in this way can the character formation fulfill its economic functions of alleviating the pressure of repression and, over and above this, of strengthening the ego. This, however, is not the whole story. If, on the one hand, this armoring is at least temporarily successful in warding off impulses from within, it constitutes, on the other hand, a far-reaching block not only against stimuli from the outside but also against further educational influences.
We find that character armor can sometimes be successful in addressing childhood fears; however, it rarely is consistently successful—thus necessitating its permanent presence to defend against future fears (or childhood origins).
Inner vs. Outer world: A second source of anxiety is to be found in the ongoing pull between our internal world that is governed by instincts and our outside world that is governed by the demands of reality. We find that Reich identifies an ongoing struggle that is similar to Freud’s ongoing battle between Id and Superego on the one hand, and Ego on the other hand. Reich (1972, p. 155) offers a unique perspective, however, in suggesting that character armor is put in place to buffer this struggle and the associated anxiety:
In the vernacular, we speak of hard and soft, noble and base; proud and servile, cold and warm people. The psychoanalysis of various characteristics proves that they are merely various forms an armoring of the ego against the dangers of the outside world and the repressed instinctual demands of the id. Etiologically, there is just as much anxiety behind the excessive politeness of one person as there is behind the gruff and occasionally brutal reaction of another.
We find that Reich is not only setting the stage for a description of the armor with which we protect ourselves, but also for differentiating different kinds of armor that are manifest in diverse behavior patterns (personality characteristics).
Ambivalence: This condition is represented in a vacillation between strivings toward hate and strivings toward love that operate on the surface layer of the psychic apparatus. Reich (1972, p. p. 274) proposes at a deeper level that ambivalence corresponds to the forementioned pull between instincts and reality. The pull between love and hate resides, ultimately, at a much deeper level:
[Ambivalences] are the manifestations of a clash between a libidinal impulse ceaselessly striving for expression and fear of punishment which inhibits it and prevents it from being translated into action, Often (in the compulsive character, always) the love impulse is replaced by a hate impulse which, in the depth, pursues the goal of the love impulse but is also inhibited by the same anxiety as the sexual impulse.
At this point, Reich (1972, p. 274) offers a brief dramatic portrayal:
[D]epending upon its genesis and the depth of its function ambivalence has three meanings:
a) “I love you, but I am afraid of being punished for (love-fear).
b) “I hate you because I am not allowed to love you but am afraid of gratifying the hate” (hate-fear).
c) “I don’t know whether I love or hate you” (love-hate)
We will leave our initial exploration of Feldenkrais’ and Reich’s formulations regarding energy and anxiety with this remarkably simple insight regarding the relationships between love, hate and fear. This remarkable three-fold portrayal might serve as the base for an entire theory of interpersonal relationships. At the very least, it can serve as an important diagnostic point in addressing the Tin Man’s ailments.
The Tin Man’s heart might contain all of these mixed combinations of powerful emotions. Perhaps it is simpler for the Tin Man to remain motionless in the forest rather than make decisions about or act on his volatile and contradictory emotions. Better to remain frozen and immune to outside influences (that might trigger his emotions) than to stay engaged in living, loving, and acting. Then along comes Dorothy, the Scarecrow and Toto. . . .
We turn to contributions that can be made by other members of the team that is diagnosing the source and nature of our Tin Man’s armor and finding ways to treat the wounded heart. It seems that armor and heart are not easily understood. Successful attempts to remove the armor and heal the heart might require a diverse set of insights.
The Encased Body: Robert Sapolsky
As we consider the insights that can be provided by the additional members of our diagnostic team, there are several new questions that we might pose if we are to be effective in treating armor and wounded hearts. First, we must ask: How does the heart get encased? Robert Sapolsky provides an insightful answer. In his provocative and informative book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Sapolsky (2004) moves us onto the African Savannah and faces us with the challenge of escaping from a major predator– such as a lion! He also poses another equally great challenge: how do we deal with the stress associated with “imaginary lions”? In essence, Sapolsky is proposing that humans are physiologically ill-equipped to successfully (in most instances) run away from lions. And this leads to the encasement of our heart. Quite a leap from lions to encased hearts—but here is how it operates.
Confronting Lions
Our body moves all of the energy away from whatever it is doing when the lion is sighted. We stop eating or relaxing. Instead, we redirect our energy to the muscles, heart and other bodily functions that are needed for a successful dash to safety or for successfully whacking the predator’s head (if it’s a small lion or a less imposing animal). The stomach shuts down, for we don’t want to concentrate on eating; we want to concentrate on not being eaten. Furthermore, various slow-developing response systems are put on a back burner. We don’t have time (nor immediate need) for systems such as those needed when getting ready for reflecting or mediative practices—or sleep.
When any animal is responding to “real” predators, the response system (“flight or fight”) works perfectly. The body can handle the temporary strain of the frightening Savannah. That is why zebras don’t get ulcers–they are frightened by real lions and their physiological system knows how to adjust to the strain of fleeing from the lion. Humans seem to differ from zebras (and many other animals) in that we do get ulcers and many other stress-related illnesses. There appear to be two fundamental reasons why we are so vulnerable to stress.
The first reason is that humans tend to use a strategy other than fight or flight when addressing the challenge of an impending attack by a lion. It is the strategy of freezing. We stop in our tracks and try to remain motionless and silent. We have all seen this third strategy in operation: the deer that is frozen in the headlights of our automobile, the squirrel that freezes in its tracks when it sees us approaching the tree. Humans often prefer to use this third strategy—perhaps because we’re not fast enough to flee nor strong enough to fight.
The Freeze that Wounds
Here is where the encased heart enters the picture. This third strategy of freezing is the one that is likely to give us the most trouble in our current environment. There are two ways in which we freeze. First, we freeze when we are physically hurt. This freezing activates the healing functions of our body (the parasympathetic system). If one is about to lose a significant amount of blood, then fainting may reduce blood loss. The second type of freeze is the one we witness with the “deer in the headlights” phenomenon. We see a danger and go into an immediate immobilization. We are aroused (sympathetic system), but we stay still to avoid the predator rather than either fight or flee. We hold ourselves motionless, hoping not to be seen.
Most of us no longer live on the African Savannah and rarely, if ever, facing a menacing lion. However, human beings have the capacity to envision something that is not physically present. This capacity is adaptive (favorable for our evolution) when it comes to planning for and envisioning potential escape routes from potential predators. It is very maladaptive when it comes to envisioning lions and other predators that in reality don’t threaten us physically. These “lions” can be an over-demanding Board of Directors, an overdue financial report, a competitor for market share, or an irate customer. Our body reacts to these “lions” as if they were a physical danger.
When facing imagined lions, we find that we can only deploy a freeze pattern and are unable, ever, to either fight or flee. We are constantly aroused and yet are frozen in inaction. This stress gets translated into a host of painful mechanisms (anger, depression, or panic attacks). We learn to freeze and hold on. We never let go. The energy we have generated in preparation for the lion never gets released into either fight or flight. Sapolsky proposes that people get ulcers because they can imagine lions that come in many forms. While our mind knows that these lions don’t really exist, our body doesn’t. It prepares for the fight, flight or freeze, turns off the digestive system, begins to pump activating hormones into our body and ensures that we don’t fall asleep while running away from or seeking to overcome the lion.
Sapolsky’s analysis is certainly provocative—and he is certainly not alone in proposing that humans get into physiological trouble because they can imagine threats which their bodies don’t realize are imagined. However, there is something missing here. Other animals (at least mammals) can imagine things that aren’t there. Dogs can anticipate a walk around the block when the collar is put on them. Cats often sulk when their owners are about to leave on a trip. So, why do people get ulcers?
Wounding of an Encased Heart
There appear to be three possible reasons why we as humans tend to wound ourselves. Each reason holds significant implications with regard to character armor and the encased heart. First, humans may see more imagined lions than do other animals. Perhaps other animals are more selective about what they imagine. The sulking cat may be able to imagine the departure of her beloved owner, but she might not begin to imagine other possible misfortunes, such as a failure on the part of her owner to leave out food for her, or the potential attack on her by the family dog.
There is a second possible explanation: our image of lions may be more vivid than is the case with the images generated by other animals. We know how to make the imagined predator quite menacing, and we can flesh out this image—extending it far into the future and far out in physical space. We can readily imagine that the over-demanding Board of Directors will be around for many years to come. When we are stressed out or depressed, there is often a vision of the world never getting better than it is right now. We look far into the future and see nothing that seems positive for us.
We can also extend our imagination outward to a chain of events that could do us great damage. We can trace out the “real” and “possible” negative consequences of not submitting that overdue financial report. We can envision a world in which our competitor not only commands greater market share, but actually puts us out of business. We can even imagine ourselves not only yelling at the irate customer, who is becoming increasingly obnoxious, but also losing our job, house, and even family as a result of this one misjudgment. We are terrific at spinning out remarkable stories and can scare ourselves (and our bodies) to death with these stories.
There is a third possible reason why we as humans wound ourselves and get ulcers—and other animals with imagination do not. Other animals may have better ways of coping with the resulting stress. Obviously, some animals cope with imaginary threats by either seeking to fight against these threats or by running away from the imagined threats. They don’t just freeze in the face of the imagined threat. The fight and flight strategies mobilize the arousal system; the actual physical fleeing or fighting drain it off. Furthermore, in the case of the fight strategy, there is an immediate testing of the threat’s reality. If you begin to fight the imaginary lion, you are likely to discover very soon that it is imaginary. Conversely, if you either flee from or stand motionless in the face of the imaginary lion, you will never discover that it isn’t real.
There may be many other coping strategies that are successfully used by other animals. While no other animal, as far as we know, practices yoga, perhaps they can move into a state of consciousness that leads them out of the arousal state into a state of restful consciousness. Some animals might also be coping effectively in ways that resemble the successful coping of humans when they lived on the Savannah. They are engaged in physical activities that drain off the excess energy set in motion by the imagined lion. They live outside most of the time and thus benefit from the tranquilizing effects of the sunlight.
Even if these animals remain stressed for a brief period of time while imagining lions, they soon get some restorative sleep (having been physically active for an extended period of time or having moved into a yoga-type state of consciousness). By the way, we are not completely alone. Most of the other animals who get ulcers or other stress-related diseases (such as rodents and deer) tend to rely on this freezing strategy. Perhaps the Tin Man is human enough to emulate the ineffective response to stress. His armor is a tangible manifestation of the frozen condition.
Variations in Imagined Lions
There is another important set of lessons to be learned about human survival and the imaginary vision of lions on the Savannah. These lessons concern the differences among individual humans in the nature of imagined lions that they find to be stressful. All of us are stressed by the same things: we all find real lions to be stressful (if they are attacking us) and we all worry about our own death and the death of other people in our life whom we love. Yet, each of us also finds certain things to be more stressful than others.
Furthermore, stress has both a specific and a general impact on human physiology. Stress ultimately changes every organ in the human body. Stress is systemic, not specific. However, stress also has a very focused physiological impact on specific organs. For each of us, certain organs are uniquely sensitive to stress and this specific profile of sensitivity creates unique patterns of personality, abnormality and illness. This is where the insights offered by Reich can be quite helpful. He identifies specific muscular blockages that help to create and maintain unique human characteristics—that is what character analysis is all about.
As Reich noted, the profile of stress (and muscular blockage) may be genetically determined or established early in life. A child might be exposed to a specific stressor that has a particularly strong impact on a specific organ. Once the profile is established, the “rut” grows deeper. The armor thickens. Sapolsky describes this rutting process: “… stress responses tend to spiral up and down. First, we are triggered. Then, we react to being triggered with confusion, humiliation, and even anger (I’m angry because you scared me). This becomes a spiral of stress. For intense stressful events, we create [a memory] that never goes away.”
In essence, anything that triggers a memory of this event will trigger an intense emotional reaction that may never be resolved during our lifetime. We are caught in an ever-deepening rut. Our armor becomes rusty. Our heart seems no longer to be present. Like the Tin Man, we are vulnerable and powerless– and must wait for some other person (such as Dorothy) to help us out. Chaos theorists suggest that this process of “strange attraction” is to be found in any system that is dynamic and filled with interdependencies.
There is ongoing stress and distress for people who have established a rutted stress profile and stiff armor. As in the case of the tipping point in physical systems, there is a moment where we are overwhelmed beyond repair. We become weak and collapse. The agents that initially are there to fight the stress soon become the internal enemy. The armor that is meant to protect us becomes our enemy. We see this operating in a rather mild fashion when we “catch” a cold. It is evident, in more dramatic fashion, when one’s immune system begins to attack the body and when someone who has faced trauma in their childhood now finds themselves unable to deal with any stressful situation – even if it is only mildly traumatic.
The deeply rutted stress and character armor profile can have a profound impact on our life—both the physical and psychological quality of the life we live and the duration of our life. For some of us, stress has a focused impact on peripheral organs that are not essential to life. For most of us, however, stress hits our most precious, life-giving organs (such as the heart and digestive system). We now know that this latter (very large) group of people will live shorter lives because of their imagined lions. Or they will live long lives but remain frozen in place like our Tin Man.
Escape from Pain
We must add one other ingredient to this potent and often life-threatening mixture. This ingredient can’t be traced back to the African Savannah, but rather is a product of our modem era. In fact, it is a product of the 20″‘ century and concerns the meaning that is assigned to stress and associated pain and suffering. Prior to the 20″‘ century and the introduction of such analgesics as aspirin in Western medicine, pain was assigned a specific meaning by the culture in which the sufferer lived. There was no way to avoid the pain if we were injured or ill; therefore, we tried to assign some value or meaning to the pain and our society helped out by providing a culturally based explanation.
The pain may have signified a message from God indicating that we have committed an evil act. The pain might instead be a statement from God that we have been chosen to serve other people or to suffer for other people. Alternatively, the pain might be related to a specific disposition or view of life (we have a “healthy” or “unhealthy” attitude). At the very least, the pain indicated that we were sick or injured and thus drove us to seek a cure. Without a cure, there was continuing pain.
Today, most people just want the pain to go away. They are less interested in the cure since they can be relieved of pain without being cured. An important tension is created at this point. The physician or therapist often holds a different agenda from the patient: the physician or therapist is interested in a cure, while the patient is interested in relief from the painful symptoms. Therefore, given that pain no longer has any meaning, and we seek primarily to relieve the pain, the stress associated with imagining a lion has a double impact. We not only experience the stress associated with the imagined lion—we also try desperately to alleviate the pain that is associated with this stress.
The pain is trying to tell us that we need to do something to reduce the stress, but we wish instead to eliminate the pain–through the use of drugs, food, alcohol, or other substances. This concerted effort to eliminate the pain distracts us from the source of the pain-namely the stressor—and leads inevitably to increased stress and further efforts to eliminate the pain associated with the stress. The analgesics themselves further disrupt human physiology and leave us even more vulnerable to the physical maladies associated with prolonged stress. We numb ourselves and this numbing further strengthens the encasement of our heat. We don the protective armor identified by Reich and worn by the Tin Man. This armor and the unacknowledged heart may protect us temporarily from the pain –but at great cost.
Unforgettable Fear
Another lingering influence of the African Savannah is the reaction of a specific center in the human brain, our amygdala. Located below the cortex, this small neural mechanism appears to play a major role in our detection of dangerous entities out in the world. In essence, whenever we take in a stimulus it is processed through two neural mechanisms—the cortex and the amygdala. The cortex takes its time in processing this stimulus, providing a rational and systematic analysis of the potential of the entity represented by this stimulus to do harm. The amygdala operates in a much quicker and less thoughtful manner.
There is an immediate judgement made about the harmful or harmless nature of the perceived entity. Does this entity wish to harm us? Is it strong? Is it active? If the answer to all three of these questions is “yes” then our amygdala is triggered—even if the entity is imagined. Furthermore, there is an immediate emotional (chemical) reaction to this judgement if the entity is judged by the amygdala to be dangerous. This emotional reaction only goes away or is at least diminished after other areas of our brain have a chance to do their own, more rational and objective analysis. Following three or four seconds of deliberation, our brain usually concludes that there is no impending threat.
We have all experienced our amygdala in operation. We are walking down a path in the forest and suddenly jump backwards, with a rush of adrenaline, viewing something that might be a snake or a stick. Quite understandably, when we are living on the Savannah, it makes much more sense for us to make a wrong decision and leap away from a harmless stick than it is to hang around and be bitten by a poisonous snake. Better to be safe (and feel a little foolish) than to be sorry and risk one’s life with a toxic snakebite. There are many entities on the Savannah that can do us harm—especially if we don’t react quickly. The amygdala is our lifesaver.
It seems that the amygdala sets up primitive templates that serve as a mechanism for matching the threat and non-threat appraisals. A mental template of “snake,” for instance, might be established, such that any long, thin, dark object is matched and creates an emotional reaction (whether it is a stick or snake). Where do these templates come from? Are they wired in? Could Carl Jung (1955) be correct when he suggested that there are certain archetypes that we have inherited from our ancestors?
Our current understanding of the operations of the amygdala is not sufficient to answer this important question about archetypal inheritance, though it does appear that at least some of the primitive templates are acquired (“learned”) after birth. Recent research findings suggest at the very least that the physiological modifications that we make in our physical and cortical structures when confronted with threat can be passed on at birth to our children. Furthermore, it appears that templates (whether created before or after birth) are not subject to the usual decay function. Apparently, we never lose these templates. There really are “unforgettable” fears. And this is where it gets interesting and where the amygdala can run us into trouble when it is engaged many miles and years away from the African Savannah.
It is not just snakelike objects that end up as matches to amygdala templates; we also create interpersonal templates. If we were traumatized as a young child by a man with a white beard, then we are likely to create a template that alerts us in the future to any man we encounter who has a white beard. We have an immediate, short term reaction to white bearded men and this emotional reaction is only tempered after our cortex processes the data in a more rational manner and concludes that this particular man is not a danger to us.
We then correct our impressions—or do we? Perhaps there is a lingering fear, a subtle background emotion that influences our relationship with this person? This is the interesting and most important feature associated with the operations of the amygdala. When does the amygdala (which never forgets) cease to have an influence regarding specific relationships in our life? Do we strengthen our armor or immediately engage our persona when encountering a certain “type” of person?
The Blocked Heart: Wilfred Bion
What does it mean to block off or deny the existence of our heart? Put in somewhat less poetic terms. why do we block out and deny our feelings? Reich and Feldenkrais agree that Anxiety is a primary culprit. How then do we address the anxiety that serves as a barrier between our daily life and our heart. While our team has been brought in to provide a diagnosis, it might be time as we close this essay to consider at least one of the treatment options. One member of our diagnostic team, Wilfred Bion, has quite a bit to say in this regard.
Metabolism
Fundamentally, Bion suggests that the primary question should be reframed: what does it mean to manage and transform anxiety? To use Bion’s term, what does it mean to Metabolize Anxiety? The term “metabolism” was borrowed by Bion and other psychoanalytic theorist from the field of biology. In the case of biological metabolism, we find a process concerned with chemical reactions in the body of all mammals (and many other living organisms). Through metabolism we convert food to energy that is needed for many cellular operations (creation of proteins, lipids, nucleic acids and carbohydrates as well as the elimination of waste). A similar process is described by Bion – though metabolism now involves the conversion and redirection of psychic rather than physiological elements from an “unhealthy” (maladaptive) to a “healthy” (adaptive) state.
According to Bion, two fundamental elements exist in human consciousness and thinking. One of these elements is labeled beta. These elements are the unmetabolized thoughts, emotions and bodily states that we always experience—whether they come from the outside world or from inside our individual and collective psyches. These are Sapolsky’s imagined lions. Among the inside collective elements are the three widely acknowledged basic assumptions that underlie interpersonal and group functioning: dependency, fight-flight and pairing.
These basic assumption elements along with many other beta elements (such as dreams and collective myths and fantasies) are associated with anxiety. They represent some very important and often maladaptive elements in the human psyche that need to be transformed. The basic assumptions themselves are likely to dominate critical interactive functioning if the elements of anxiety are not metabolized. Furthermore, if we engage Reich’s analysis of character, the sources of energy blockage and rigid character formation in a patient would be found in these beta elements.
Alpha and Beta Elements
For Bion, the metabolized elements—that he labels alpha—are those that we can readily think about and articulate. These metabolized alpha elements would include the identified and articulated cause of the anxiety, as well as the impact of anxiety on the critical functions we identified above. Perhaps most importantly, alpha elements are often valid perceptions of reality and processes associated with the capacity of patients to learn from experience—and to learn that the lions are imaginary.
This is all well and good—we move beta elements to alphas individually and collectively. This is a valid description of successful metabolism among individuals and in organizational settings, based on observations and analyses offered by Bion and many other object-relations oriented therapists and group facilitators. However, this description doesn’t tell us much about how metabolism takes place. How do we turn Beta elements into Alpha elements?
One way to approach this question is to note the critical role played by psychic containers. When being addressed in a psychotherapeutic session, the emerging anxiety is contained through the establishment of therapeutic ground rules and a compassionate and nonjudgmental stance taken by the therapist. Put simply, the psychotherapeutic session becomes a safe place where a patient can reveal anxiety-filled elements of their own thoughts and actions that they might consider “unacceptable” or at least alien to their own self-image.
This still doesn’t do the trick. We would suggest that Bion (like Reich) tends to focus on the fundamental strategies of psychoanalysis in his writing about metabolism. These include such ego-based processes as the slow and careful introduction or re-introduction of unconscious (beta) elements into consciousness, so that they might be tested against reality and either isolated or transformed into productive action (sublimation). These also include a focus on dreams, fantasies and childhood memories, with the therapist helping their client gain access to this material.
The therapist also assists their client in determining the accuracy of this beta material and more importantly its impact on current perceptions of relationships and reality as well as its impact on current decisions being made and actions taken. Sapolsky would offer a translation: which of the lions are real and how, realistically, can we address these lions. After all, we are not living as weak and slow animals living on the African Savannah. We are skillful, knowledgeable and courageous. We can wrestle many lions to the ground or find a way to avoid or escape from them.
Back to Bion. Beta elements, such as dreams, are interpreted and implications are drawn regarding how the dream’s content tells the dreamer something about their own wishes and fears. Dreams enable the therapist to address the nature and purpose of beta elements, thus helping these elements to become sources of new learning (alpha) rather than barriers to the free flow of energy in the patient’s body. Bion is quite optimistic in this regard. He is inclined to emphasize that once these elements are brought to consciousness, his patient will be open to new learning from their continuing experiences in life.
When the conversion of beta to alpha is successful, learning is not distorted nor dominated by unprocessed Beta elements. Successful conversion for Bion involves the close alignment of learning to an accurate appraisal of ongoing experiences. Ego functions are in charge with regard to the personal psyches of patients. Like the Tin Man of Oz, Bion’s patients are seeking to not only loosen their armor but also heal their hearts. Like Sapolsky’s ancestors on the Savannah, Bion’s patients want to be realistic about lions and wish to learn through alpha-aligned experiences how best to address the challenges imposed by real lions.
Conclusions
With this introduction to the treatment plan that might be formulated to treat the Tin Man’s aliments, we move in conclusion to some of the treatment suggestions that would be offered by Feldenkrais in conjunction with Sapolsky, and those offered by Reich in conjunction with Bion.
Mobilizing the Person: Feldenkrais and Sapolsky
Robert Sapolsky has taught us quite a bit about stress and lions. We can take what we have learned from him and apply it to our understanding of armament and wounded hearts. His insights can help us in our treatment of the Tin Man of Oz, as well as all of the Tin men and women of the mid-21st Century (including each of us). Based on what Sapolsky has taught us, we can first propose that our heart is shielded from reality. We easily imagined lions. Second, the shield is not adequate to protect us from these lions. The shield is much too rigid for us to ever fight the lion. Furthermore, the shield is too heavy for us to escape the lion.
We suggest that the shield can do nothing more, as a rigid and heavy structure, then help us stay in place. Laden with armor we can only freeze—like the rodents do in Africa. However, the rodents can “shake off” the freeze, but humans in our shields just stand there frozen, with our heart racing away. The heart, in turn, can do nothing in its frozen state except wrought damage on other part of the human organization – as well as inflicting damage on itself.
It is at this point, with the insights that we have just gained from Robert Sapolsky, and the translation we have made of what he has taught us about life on the African savannah, that we bring back the treatment team. We now recognize that the armor and wounded heart must be confronted not just with psychotherapy but also with physical manipulations that will enable us to do something other than freeze.
We might not be able to fight our lions, but we certainly can move away from them. At least we can place some oil in the armor so that we can address the stress associated with the lions in a more effective and physiologically appropriate manner. We request the presence of the second major member of our treatment team. Moshe Feldenkrais has much to say about the oiling of joints and abandonment of freeze. He has much to teach us about physical movement.
The Feldenkrais Response concerns much more than just putting oil in the armor. It is not just a matter of squirting oil on the tin man’s armor. A Feldenkrais practitioner (and virtually every other physical therapist) will be touching the tin man’s arms and legs to help him move. The role of touch is critical. It is through touch that we most effectively convey our caring about another person and even our empathy for the pain they are experiencing. Some health care workers are allowed to touch their patients/clients? Others are not. The most important healing is often done by those who can touch (Bergquist, Guest and Rooney, 2002)?
There are other human service providers who also can touch (and heal). I am reminded of my mother’s hairdresser who attended to my mother’s hair every week following the death of my father. The hairdresser (a very wise woman) told me that the real (probably unrecognized) reason my mother (and many other widowed women) got their hair done each week was so that they could be touched. The hairdresser noted that she gently touched and lightly messaged the women’s shoulders while tending to their hair. She talked about their soothing facial expressions when touched. For the Feldenkrais therapists, touch is everything. They assist clients in moving their shoulders, back and legs. Gentle physical support is provided that enables the therapist’s clients to recover lost (but natural) movements and to find renewed flexibility and recognition of bodily functions.
Finally, it is important to listen to the Feldenkrais practitioners when they talk about moving beyond the oil and even the touch. Words are important when these practitioners are encouraging and helping clients move their body. As we will note in the second essay, Feldenkrais emphasized the role that self-image and life purpose plays in the ability and willingness of people to shed their armor and move forward with purpose.
This movement not only enables one to move without additional oil, but also provides important access to the heart. Feldenkrais (with Robert Sapolsky’s support) will propose that the Tin Man finds his heart by taking action (along with Dorothy, scarecrow and lion) against the wicked witch. It is through ongoing action that one overcomes the trauma (which is sustained because nothing is being done to complete the act of defending against the abuse or finding retribution against source of the abuse: awakening the tiger.
Healing the Heart: Reich and Bion
In his early influential (but controversial) book on the development and treatment of human character disorders, Wilhelm Reich described encrusted attitudes that functioned as an “armor.” Reich was to bring together mind and body when he proposed that this armor was physically manifest in chronic muscular spasms. Reich believed that it was possible to dissolve the armor. This in turn, would help the therapist and client to achieve a major goal of psychoanalysis: bringing back the memory of the childhood repression that had caused blockage in the first place. While Reich brought in the physical dimension of human misery, he made use of traditional psychoanalytic techniques, when seeking to identify and release the energy trapped in the patient’s body—and causes the rigidity of physical structure and spasms of the patient’s muscles. He focused on the patient’s neurotic symptomatology—particularly defensive routines (such as regression, denial, and projection).
At the heart of the matter was the blocked flow of energy caused by the pervasive anxiety that existed in the patient’s life. Much as Robert Sapolsky would note in recent years, the patient’s body was frozen in place with the potential attack of imagined lions. From this perspective, one can see the psycho-physical treatment being most effectively engaged when it attends to the anxiety associated with the character armor. Given this perspective, we brought in another member of our treatment team, Wilfred Bion (1995). He introduces the process of metabolism as a way of transforming the anxiety into a constructive form of energy that helps to liberate and complement the other forms of energy that are locked in the patients’ armament. For Bion, it is not just a matter of opening access to the Tin Man’s heart. He also believes that a healthy, accessible heart helps to convert frozen energy into active, mobilizing energy.
For Bion it is a matter first of healing the heart. Then comes the release of our Tin Man from his armor and his joining of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and Toto in their journey to Oz. However, before they begin the journey there is a bit more mending to do of our Tin Man. We ask Reich and Feldenkrais to stay with us and join the treatment team—so that the mobilization and healing are sustained—given that our characters of Oz are going to encounter many other challenges and trials that require both courage (despite anxiety) and force (making use of the converted energy). We consider treatment options in our second essay.
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REFERENCES
Bergquist, William, Suzan Guest and Terrance Rooney (2002), Who is Wounding the Healers. Sacramento, CA: Pacific Soundings Press.
Bion, Wilfred (1995). Attention and Interpretation (Rev. Ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Feldenkrais, Moshe (2002) The Potent Self. Berkeley, CA: Frog Ltd.
Feldenkrais, Moshe (2019) The Elusive Obvious. Berkely, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Jung, Carl (1955) Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Boston, MA: Harcourt.
Levine, Peter and Ann Frederick (2009) Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. Berkely, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Reich, Wilhelm (1972) Character Analysis (3rd Ed.) New York: Farrar, Straus and Girioux.
Sapolsky, Robert (2004) Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers [3rd Ed.] New York: Holt.
Seligman, Martin (1991) Learned Optimism. New York: Knopf.
Seligman, Martin (1992) Helplessness. New York: Freeman and Co.