A specific intervention (“Stop Technique”) is introduced by Grabher (2010, p. 17) to illustrate how the Feldenkrais method is applied in unlocking the frozen body:
Certain esoteric disciplines make full use of the following technique for training reversibility: The learner suddenly has to freeze in whatever position he happens to be at the instant the teacher commands him-and to keep holding this position, no matter how strange or uncomfortable it may be. But by deliberately holding still until the command to relax, the learner becomes conscious of all the typically habituated and inefficient ways in which his body’s parts are arranged. When movement is resumed, the learner has an enhanced consciousness that is the first step in learning reversibility. Gurdjieff calls this the “Stop Technique” and uses it extensively.
It is interesting to note that Grabher is turning to a technique introduced by Gurdjieff—another visionary advocate of holistic health.
Body and Mind: Finally, I wish to present one other statement made by Grabher (2010, p. 17) regarding the Feldenkrais technique. It concerns the critical connection between bodily functions and self-image:
By a careful use of methods of this kind one can overcome the bodily limitations caused by an arrested development in one’s self-image. The improvement of this self-image carries with it an expansion of the range and number of movement patterns at one’s disposal. Thus, improving our skill of reversibility goes hand in hand with a general improvement of our conscious temporal and spatial orientation.
Grabher (2010, p. 23) sums it up in this way: “[W]e would like to reiterate how crucial the control of musculature is in the control of self.”
General Treatment Strategies
How do members of our treatment team address the issue of armor – whether their clients have clad themselves in the armor (as apparently is the case with the Tin Man) or the armor has been placed on them by society and their profession or position in the C-Suite? What do members of our team do about their client’s persona? Do they leave it alone, or suggest that their client seeks out a Jungian analyst?
Taking an appreciative approach, do members of the team help their client see the value of and appropriate use of their persona (and perhaps even their armor)? Do they at least help the person they are treating identify the nature of their persona and armor? Do they help their client better understand the dynamic interaction of their persona and armor with their shifting environment?
Most importantly, as both Reich and Feldenkrais have stressed there is an important interdependency and even integration of the mind and body. Even more specifically thoughts and anxiety are interwoven. We are not anxious until we think about (envision) something, and don’t effectively reduce anxiety without doing some important thinking. Furthermore, this thinking must, using Kahneman’s term, be slow thinking. Fast thinking only amplifies anxiety. Slow thinking allows for the metabolism of anxiety (as I have described in the first essay of this series).
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