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Involving our bodies is important as part of all co-counselling techniques. When caught up in specific Patterns we can behave as though parts of our bodies and minds are split off from the rest and from our awareness. In our Persons however we are integrated harmonious wholes.
Co-counselling is an intensely body-orientated approach to personal change. Effective discharge always involves us bodily. So why devote a special section to 'bodywork'?
One reason for emphasizing the bodily aspects of co-counselling is that involving our bodies is the key to the successful use of co-counselling techniques, and we want to emphasize this. Secondly, in our experience there is often confusion inside and outside co-counselling in this area. People sometimes misunderstand and complain that co-counselling is too verbal. Co-counsellors are sometimes wanting to know about new techniques because they feel stuck in their counselling. While this can be for all sorts of reasons, we have frequently found that such people have strong Control Patterns about physical involvement and hence are not actually using the co-counselling techniques.
The word 'bodywork' is an import into co-counselling from other personal change systems. Since some counselling /therapy/personal growth systems are very verbal, a variety of corrective reactions have occurred. Out of Freud came Reich, and so on. However, when you look at what Reichian and Bioenergetic therapists, Alexander teachers, or Rolfers do with their clients, you will find they typically engage in a lot of verbal work: to make connections, and links, and generalizations.
A useful preliminary tip to remember and practice is INVOLVE YOUR BODY IN APPROPRIATE ACTIONS TO WHATEVER YOU ARE SAYING--GESTURES, POSTURE, FACIAL EXPRESSION, VOICE (TONE AND VOLUME). Involving your body in this way will make it easier to re-experience your Distresses, easier to contradict your Patterns, and to build new life skills to replace patterned actions.
Talking in the present tense helps you get the 'feel' of what was happening. Suiting actions to words will help further. (Sensory memories are stored separately to verbal ones.) When repeating a word or phrase, say it LOUDER and then again LOUDER STILL. This increases bodily arousal, which is likely to take you into specific feelings. Notice what your body is doing and try to exaggerate this. Maybe fist clenching, hand wringing, crouching down. As counsellor, you may notice such actions, and want to make a suggestion to the client. A typical co-counselling intervention is "Do that again." or "Clench your hands tighter," or--often more powerful--a suggestion to do the opposite.
Interventions such as, "What are you doing with your fists?" or "What are you feeling?" on the other hand tend to result in clients getting into their heads, and trying to respond with reasons or interpretations for the sake of the counsellor. Co-counselling suggestions take people past analyzing their posture or feelings into discharging the Distresses they represent.
If no words seem to go along with the action, try making a noise; let it come out as it will. You are fitting back another piece of your self, one that is often cut off. Your voice will often betray the feeling that's around; maybe anger, fear, or revulsion. You can then ACT INTO the appropriate Discharge. ACTING INTO DISCHARGE consists of going through the appropriate bodily motions for discharging a feeling you catch a hint of. It can act as exploration and will often trigger off genuine discharge processes.
When using "What's Left Unsaid" or any kind of Role-play, make sure you put in the appropriate actions. These may involve standing up and walking around! If you find you get cramp or counsellor's knees, check how much you involve your lower body. Always sitting on the floor may well be a 'living up to others expectations' Pattern adapted to co-counselling norms. Try doing a whole session without sitting down at all; you are likely to be much more conscious of the physical parts of your Patterns, and to include them in your work. Many of these suggestions will enhance your awareness of Patterns.
As you become aware of your bodily Patterns you can start contradicting them: before, during, and after counselling sessions. Some Patterns which seem very widespread in our culture include: looking at the ground; not looking at people; sagging at shoulders or hips; occupying minimum space. Contradict them: Look UP! Straighten UP! Throw your arms UP! Or, more accurately, do whatever best contradicts these Patterns for YOU.
Words are important too. The aim is not just to become your sensory experience, but to integrate all aspects of your experience. Find your physical contradiction and add to it your celebratory phrase, and the two together will be more powerful than either separately. We need the words to generalize our experience.
Any verbal contradiction in a counselling session needs bodily contradictions adding to it. You can contradict patterned posture, voice level, voice tone, rate of speaking. Look in a mirror to see your habitual expressions and postures and the way you walk. Listen to your voice on a tape recorder--maybe tape some sessions. Find and use contradictions to ALL the rigid pieces of yourself.
Some patterns seem to exist specifically to prevent Discharge. You might notice words in your head that say, "That's foolish/childish /unnecessary." These Patterns include strong muscular tensions which inhibit the 'letting go' processes. It requires great effort to block Discharge. Such patterns are known as Control Patterns. You often need to work on such controls before you can reach other Patterns. The patterned thoughts which are part of Control Patterns often say that discharge means being 'out of control'--a terrible sin in British culture!
It is ironic that, in reality, being able to discharge means being more able to choose your feelings, being more in control. CONTROL LOOSENING is the general term given to describe working against such patterns--generally physical ones. A form of Control Loosening already mentioned is Acting Into Discharge. This is a technique for when you already have some idea of what the distressed feeling is.
A different starting situation is when you are too distressed to work or Discharge. An example of this state is when people say they feel 'shut down.' They are now at the opposite end of the attention spectrum from trying to re-experience Distress; they are trapped in distress. They will need Attention Switching to achieve a Balance of Attention. However, being shut down is a low energy state and it is difficult to get going on 'New & Goods' or 'Random Pleasant Memories.' Physical arousal exercises are easier to do, and act as Control Loosening. Actions worth trying are: running round and round the room without bumping into the furniture, hopping, jumping on the spot, doing cartwheels--anything which increases bodily arousal.
When using Direct Bodywork you will be getting into your Distress by using bodily manipulations, without any scanning or verbal work. This can be achieved using massage, pressure on sensitive points, stress exercises (as in Bioenergetics), and hyperventilation. These techniques, whether used actively by you as client on yourself, or passively with the counsellor manipulating your body, tend to put you in touch with chronic Distress--usually reaching back into your childhood. This means they are powerful techniques, and we recommend you use them only after you have a fair amount of experience and can discharge relatively freely. It is also a good idea to work with an experienced counsellor, since you are bypassing the usual safeguards which in co-counselling usually ensure you do not get further into Distress than you can handle. You need to know that your counsellor can fish you out of deep Distress if you get caught in it.
Having got into Distress through the Direct Bodywork, you can then use other techniques to work as usual. Firstly Discharge as thoroughly as you can. Secondly explore the features which re-stimulate the Distress; and discharge more as necessary. Thirdly, make a clear distinction between past and present. Build positive Directions which can take you out of the Distress by operating against the Patterns involved. This latter suggestion is, of course, not only for your co-counselling sessions, but also for the life situations where Restimulation is likely. For further discussion see section on Target Practice techniques.
Sometimes people say "But how do you square a counsellor intervening by Direct Bodywork with the idea that the client is always in charge?" We would say there is little difference between asking your counsellor to say, "I really love you," and asking them to cuddle you. Similarly an intensive contract may encourage your counsellor to pick up every distress-word you say and make a suggestion about proceeding, or to push a thumb into your tense lumbar musculature. In either case the client may have asked for what they get, or not. The precise nature of the contract may have been agreed or not. The issue of the verbal or physical character of interventions is another issue, separate from the type of contract.
However, physical interventions do feel very different from verbal interventions. And, role-playing apart, verbal suggestions like, "Try doing X," can be rejected before experiencing them. This is not necessarily the case with physical ones. A thumb in the small of your back can only be removed. So, make clear contracts with your counsellor. If you make an intensive contract then your counsellor's suggestions could take the form of direct manipulations of your body, without asking your permission first! Of course, you can make it clear to your counsellor what you do, or do not want, in this area.
When you are a client you can act in a self initiating way, or you can respond to the suggestions of the counsellor. This is not the same as active and passive, since both modes will involve client activity. The initiating-receiving polarity exists as much with bodywork as when other methods are used. Thus:
The feelings-map image can be used to illustrate ways in which discharge-oriented bodywork fits into the basic co-counselling strategies. Remember the core condition for Discharge seems to be a Balance of Attention (between an awareness of our Distresses and an awareness of present safety.) PLUS bodily arousal.
Thus the antidote bodywork offers for the 'talking head' syndrome involves Focusing on Specifics and this can be portrayed so:
Contradicting bodily patterns, going against the feelings, can be attempted in many ways. It all depends what you are going against! For instance:
| If you are shut down, try for bodily arousal. |  |
| If you are too tense, try for relaxation. |  |
The first of these possibilities is typical of Control Loosening methods. These are particularly useful when you feel shut-down, gloomy, guilty, depressed.
| Acting Into Discharge involves both bodily arousal AND focusing our thoughts. You Act Into Discharge when you already guess what the distress is about, when you have a known target. |
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| Direct Bodywork on the other hand typically starts from a neutral feelings state. Now you aim to move directly into an aroused, distress conscious state: but you do not know where you will end up. | |
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Experiencing the loosening and freeing of your physical being, and the freeing and integration of your voice, is very exciting and liberating. Initially any such control loosening is useful. However Patterns can persist in different forms; thrashing around and being noisy can be compulsive too. If you find yourself thinking, "I'm the best (noisiest) client around here," take another look at yourself. Use the cues of repetitiveness, rigidity, monotony, to spot this type of Pattern or acting out, and work to move on.
The differences between Discharge and patterned feelings, or acting out, can be observed at a bodily level. Discharge not only acts to relax muscles but, in addition, discharge processes are antagonistic to wholesale muscular tensions. When someone is acting out you can see that large groups of muscles are tense; a hand, an arm, a leg or the whole body. Similarly patterned movements are going to involve whole segments of the person's body in a rigid way. When you are used to observing Discharge, you will be able to spot clients starting to discharge and then stopping it by tensing up their muscles. This may happen many times in a few minutes, or even in a few seconds. It also happens to you when you are client of course, but it's harder to see past your own Patterns.
When complete relaxation into the Discharge does occur, this is frequently highlighted by the client re-evaluating afterwards; up will pop some relevant memory or new thought or new association.
Last, but by no means least, any celebration of ourselves is Target Practice for the person we can be. Once again, words need to be united with bodily actions. Is my tone of voice confident and celebratory? Does my posture indeed signal celebration of myself to others? Can I look my counsellor proudly in the eyes?
Move from general celebrations to specific enactments of them: "As a creative person I will ... redecorate my room/make a new dress/ think of a new way of communicating X ..." As you do this simulate the actions involved as appropriate.
We sometimes notice that even when clients put a lot of energy into intensifying Distress, they may put little into celebrating. Try leaping joyously in the air and shouting, "ME" or "YIPPEE!" Always stand up for celebrations. When clients are celebrating, counsellors can very usefully push them by making suggestions like "Louder," and, "With actions."
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