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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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Deep Water
The body throws us into our most pressing issues and our most immediate
concerns. Unlike gentle counseling, which takes us step by step
till we are ready to face delicate subjects, the body throws us
into our most gripping issues. Unlike Voice Dialogue, which begins
with the primary selves and gradually uncovers the disowned side,
the body usually takes us directly into disowned territory. (Exceptions
are protectors as primary selves that emerge occasionally.) Swimming
with the body, there is no shallow water.
Facilitating the Self Behind the Symptom
Conscious Body and The Self Behind the Symptom offers a sophisticated
map of the body-psyche terrain. Elements of the map can occur in
any order, but they do occur like clockwork. Here are some of the
components: We talk to the Rational Mind and allow it to report
the history of the symptom and medical treatments. The Psychological
Knower offers its conjectures about inner causation of the symptom
– how convincing these guesses can sound! We then speak with
the Gatekeeper of the Body-psyche, the part that does not want to
do this process, thank you very much, even if the client has flown
on the Concorde from Europe for these sessions. We have now cleared
the decks for the Self Behind the Symptom to appear, and the facilitator
has begun to make deep energetic connection with the client.
The client then goes through a full body relaxation and waits in
the energy pool of the symptom – waits for images or messages
to appear as if in a dream. We have literally stepped into the unconscious.
From here on, the facilitator asks energy questions only; we are
no long interested in information, we are following energy. The
client uses whatever access channel is most productive: most people
get visual or kinesthetic images, some draw or journal, many move.
In this symbolic realm, eventually out of the mist of symbols a
self begins to appear, with its particular point of view or need.
Now things get DRAMATIC. We encourage full energetic presence as
this disowned self flushes the body with fresh, new energy, be it
yearning, yelling, weeping, skipping merrily, or any other form
of expression. Always we stay aware of opposites that arise. The
primary self may hover near, and we delicately speak with it as
well, honoring its perspective, asking its permission. (For example,
if a Playful Child is making a grand mess and a Responsible Grown-up
expresses embarrassment, we deal with both, so that Child can play
full throttle.) Emotions may surface, and often a Gatekeeper of
Emotions steps up, too. (This would sound, for example, like, “I
want to cry, but I’m never allowed to cry.”) As the
energy flows, the client lets it flow directly from the symptom,
like air whooshing out of a balloon. Touch may be a part of the
session.
In sum, when we step into the body-psyche without the Rational
Mind, we step into the land of dreams and symbols, and when we stay
with the symbol long enough, it leads us to the Self Behind the
Symptom. It is all energy – the body symptom, the symbol,
and the self behind it. With the sensitivity of Voice Dialogue facilitation,
sans Mind, sans Knower, sans Pleaser or Caretaker, we can wade into
the living body-psyche and go trout fishing.
The Adventure
Some symptoms are easy to figure out. A faint “I’d
like to take a day off” may glimmer in the background of our
consciousness as a disowned self whispers in our ear. If we ignore
the initial subtle message, this self may appear in a form we can’t
miss – our body. The adventure comes when we start with a
symptom that has no apparent cause and we discover the self behind
it.
I’m not a fanatic. Not everything that happens to us has
a deeper underlying cause. Environment, diet, lifestyle and genetics
factor in, as do the activities of our daily life. When I danced
professionally, I received reflexology, a method of Chinese foot
massage that treats points in the feet which connect, through energy
lines called meridians, to every organ of the body. One day the
reflexologist found a very sore spot on the ball of my foot.
“If this is sore, you may have liver problems,” he
said.
“Or maybe it’s sore because I’ve been jumping
on it for four hours today,” I retorted. I love and respect
reflexology, but my problem that day was simpler. If you’ve
been painting a ceiling and your neck hurts, there is probably no
deep underlying issue there, though you could find a self that would
rest more or would hire someone else to do the job. Maybe my foot
was expressing someone in me that said, “Judith, four hours
of jumping? Please!” Even so, common sense, or a good therapist,
can pinpoint the underlying causation of many symptoms. No need
for a map.
A mystery awaits. We can begin with any physical symptom and move
inward to discover the self, usually disowned, that is trying to
find life by getting our attention through the body. Though we are
in the realm of the psyche, we can track the inner terrain with
the diligence and objectivity of a scientist. This technique lets
us discover the psycho-energetic dynamics underlying any physical
symptom.
When a self in us is ready to be known, it leaves a trail, much
as Hansel and Gretel left a trail of breadcrumbs so they could be
rescued from the witch’s gingerbread house. The unconscious
works through the body. A pain or illness comes like a dream comes
– unbidden, generous, bearing gifts of great measure. Unknown
parts of us feel foreign, only because we’ve never met them.
Yet they are real, in us, in our psyches and in our cells.
Some selves are easy to discover, like a relaxed couch potato
that is yearning to exist in the life of a busy executive. The adventure
begins when we start with a symptom that has no apparent cause and
we discover the self behind it. Finding the Self Behind the Symptom
is a delicate, sophisticated process that involves energy sensitivity
and openness to the inner world.
It is crucial that we not focus on physical healing as the total
goal, but rather an opportunity to use illness or pain as a transformational
journey through which we become more fully who we truly are. Finding
the Self Behind the Symptom sets up a course of growth and expansion
as we incorporate whole new vistas into our lives. The greatest
reward is to know our selves.
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Contents
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