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The Excitement of the Search -
Looking for the Self Behind the Symptom
By
Judith Hendin, Ph.D., N.M.T.
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Diagnostic Precision
Inner cause for disease is not an original idea, it has been around
for millennia. However, deciphering the hieroglyphics of inner causation
has never been more direct. We have a direct route from the body
to the psyche. When a symptom is not obvious, awareness of primary
and disowned selves can lead to the dynamics wrapped up in the symptom.
When we connect with the self specifically, we land exactly on the
dynamic system lying within the body. Approximations do not have
the same effect. Take the case of Glenda’s rash. Glenda came
into the office with a red rash covering her chest. Neither she
nor her doctor had a clue about what was causing the rash.
Glenda had a strong Nice self. Here is what came through the rash.
“I can’t stand Glenda’s husband coming into her
bedroom. Their relationship has deteriorated, and yet he expects
to be able to have sex whenever he wants. I feel like yelling, ‘Get
out of here.’ I feel like pushing him away.” We took
these cues from the body and moved from dialogue into physical release
work. Glenda actually pushed against a pillow and yelled at it as
if it were her intruding husband. This let the disowned self, an
angry Straight Talker, express. She felt better. We discussed the
need for Glenda to claim her boundaries. She did, and the rash went
away the next day.
Glenda had a vague sense she was angry, but didn’t know about
what. That’s an approximation. If she realizes this anger
is directed toward her husband, she’s getting closer. But
neither of these is hitting the center of the target. When she lands
directly on the self and its very particular issue, zap! She is
right at the bull’s-eye, she is exactly at the focal point
that gave rise to the symptom.
The beauty of this approach is that we ascend from conjecture into
exactitude simply because we can find the self and talk to it. Rather
than speculate, we can dial its number as we would anyone we want
to speak to. As a component of the psyche, it is available.
This differs from guessing the self by the effect illness is creating.
Many people feel they have gotten the lesson of their illness by
the way it changes their lives – it slows them down, it connects
them with loved ones, it teaches them to receive, it expands their
perspective on life. Of course, these are precious gifts of any
pain or illness. But we are talking about a different level, where
we discover the self, the motivation, behind the symptom with precision.
Sometimes the logical sense of an illness – like getting a
cold after working too hard seems like some part of you wanted to
stay home – may have subtler, more precise components. Like
the flu I got. It seemed logical that I needed down time, but when
the flu spoke, it actually expressed a particular sadness in my
life that I wasn’t admitting. I got well the same day.
I can’t tell you how freeing this approach is for the practitioner.
When we acknowledge that the body has the answers, we see that the
answer is sitting right here in front of us, in the body consciousness.
The mystery is no longer a mystery.
When body wisdom is taken seriously, it becomes a viable partner
in the diagnostic process. Can you imagine the millions of dollars
that could be saved in testing, medications, surgeries, etc., if
the Self Behind the Symptom were used as a diagnostic tool?
Each Symptom is Unique and Individual
If you share a symptom with any of the examples here, you may
wonder, “Perhaps my rash is caused by anger at someone, too.”
In my experience, we do better to approach each symptom as unique
and not try to categorize it before talking to it. The great psychologist
Carl Jung said that he treated each client as if he were starting
from the beginning. Of course, Jung had developed several systems
for understanding people, but he did not try to fit them into his
mold. He sat with each as if he were starting fresh every day.
Physical symptoms are best approached with the same latitude. When
we leave room for the body to speak its truth, we can delve inside
and get to the target without first interpreting. Here is another
example of a rash that leads to a self that is quite different from
Glenda’s.
Marianne had had an itchy, scaly rash for a couple of years that
had begun around her eyes and spread to her chest. She had consulted
a dermatologist who attributed it to stress, and he gave her a cortisone
shot to stop the itching. When we spoke about it, she said she really
didn’t feel stressed and she wondered if anything else might
be involved.
I had known Marianne for several months. She was a vivacious,
happy, upbeat woman, spiritually astute, always looking on the bright
side – at least that was the persona, the primary self, that
she showed to the world and to herself. When we spoke to her rash,
to her amazement, the other side of her personality appeared. It
said, “I’m not happy at all. I feel hopeless, at work
and in the marriage.” She cried quietly and constantly. Marianne
had been totally unaware that beneath her effervescent exterior
laid a part of her that was deeply sad. She left the office somewhat
confused, questioning, “Was that really me?” When she
returned the following week, she reported that the two-year old
rash was “100% better.”
About a year later the rash reappeared. As we worked with it,
Marianne had a sense that sexual energy in her household was confusing
when she was growing up, and she needed to explore what was normal
and what was out-of-bounds. She dove to deeper depths in herself,
and the rash cleared up again.
Not only was the self behind this rash different from Glenda’s,
but this rash brought different lessons with it at different times.
The more we stay open to the truth of our body in the moment, the
more accurate we will be.
Science has taught us to organize everything, and psychologists
and medical doctors follow suit. Even metaphysicians organize their
findings into generalities.
Selves group in a different way. There are primary selves and disowned
selves. There is underlying vulnerability that the primary selves
are protecting. There are the Gatekeepers that give or withhold
permission to enter these realms. This is the structure within which
we work.
Time Frame
Time frames for healing, if healing comes at all, vary. Sometimes
healing happens quickly because a person can unearth and fully express
a self that was being held inside. In these cases, pain can dissolve
instantaneously, or a rash might disappear within twenty-four hours.
Just unhooking from a primary self and bringing in a disowned self
solves many health problems.
Other situations take more time. A condition may have been building
for a lifetime. One client likened the search for the self behind
a body symptom to an archeological dig. As we go down in levels,
we unearth civilizations. Sometimes we take out the little brush
or the little pick and delicately extricate the treasure, and sometimes
we bring out the tractor and take mounds away.
New pain and chronic pain follow the same laws. It takes courage
to go within and discover the long-standing issues behind chronic
pain or serious illness. Newly discovered selves may radically vary
from long-held beliefs and behaviors, requiring time to integrate.
It may be a monumental task to stop being nice all the time and
say what we mean, or to stop working so hard and take time off,
or to quell the inner critic and cherish ourselves. The harried
businessman whose heart disease reveals a part that wants to spend
time with his family faces major lifestyle and attitudinal changes
for healing to take root. The woman with ovarian cancer who discovers
she thirsts to love herself more and not take care of others so
much, needs to return to this over and over again. The woman with
breast cancer who has lived a lifetime with repressed anger must
keep letting the steam out. Each of these people need to keep taking
the “pill” of the disowned self for its energy to permeate
their systems.
Caution: We cannot go into a session expecting an immediate healing.
While we may think this would be the best thing, it is not. Expecting
a miracle puts pressure on the person who is sick and on the facilitator,
and can jam the natural evolution of the healing process. Over the
years I have learned that everyone proceeds at their own rate. We
can’t rush the process. Consciousness comes in its own time.
I used to expect myself to be able to guide a person or myself
to complete healing in one session; it does happen, so I thought
if I just tried hard it could happen every time. This put me in
a terrible space. If the healing happened quickly, I was jubilant
and my ego was fed. I thought I was great and so did the client.
But when an immediate healing did not occur, my inner critic had
a field day with me, telling me I was not good enough. That was
before I saw how primary selves need to take time to make way for
disowned selves to speak through the body. We need to let go and
let the process unfold.
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Contents
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