ak,subconscious,left brain,right brain,
Repression Of Symptoms: The Need For Psychic Work In Physical Illness Part 2
05/11/08 11:29 Filed in: AK and The Mind
Let me give an example from my clinical work with a patient in the medical office in Basel, Switzerland, where I worked for 8 years: From time to time, a patient had bleeding, infected, stinking sores all along the side of his tongue. All the medicines he received including antibiotics were ineffective in curing these wounds. After a few weeks they went away by themselves, only to return a few months later. I asked my patient, “When you have these sores, what can you not do; what are you prevented from doing?” He answered, “I can’t be around people. The wounds are not only ugly but my breath is so foul that people find it repulsive.” I asked him, “Do you take time for yourself and do things all alone?” He answered with irritation, “I have to work hard to support my family. And when I come home, the kids want my attention. When they go to bed, my wife wants my attention and then I have to sleep before going to work in the morning. So I have no chance for time for myself.”
I asked my patient if he took time for himself before he was married, and if so, what did he do? He answered that he played squash (alone) and read books. So I gave this prescription, “Play squash alone and read books.” He said, “Do you think it could be that easy?” I answered, “It’s worth a try. Nothing else has worked and this seems to be what your body is saying. You symptom forces you to be alone. So take time alone and perhaps you won’t need this symptom.” The patient never returned. I chanced to see him on a tram many months later. He smiled, pulled a folded-open paperback book from the back pocket of his trousers and said, “I take time for myself now and the sores have never returned”. Note that colloidal silver, echinacea or perhaps cat’s claw-una de gato (potent anti-infectants and immune system stimulators), which were not known or used in the clinic at that time, could have very likely been successful in preventing the outbreak of his sores. However, he would likely have had to continue taking them indefinitely and thereby would have lost the chance for learning a very much needed lesson. And, if I am right in my assumption that his symptom was a communication from his subconscious to his conscious mind, taking an effective remedy would be ignoring his own subconscious communication—a common medical and psychological error today. When we are closed to receiving communication from (or via) our subconscious mind, we are out of touch with our own feelings. We don’t even know what we really want. As a psychologist, I’m so often amazed that my patients simply do not know what they want out of life. When I ask them what they want, the answer is most always, “I want that my symptoms go away!” I ask them if their symptoms are what they do not want. When they agree, I ask them, “Well then, what do you want?” In response, most stare at me blankly. They have no idea what they do want. Worse, through social conditioning and negative experiences, they have lost the ability to dream and hope/expect that the quality of their lives could significantly improve. It is not only in the field of AK that basic psychological knowledge is lacking. Most people seem unaware of basic psychological facts that could improve the lives of us all. One of these basic facts is that our conscious awareness is only one part of our total self. By definition, the subconscious mind encompasses all parts of ourselves of which we are not consciously aware. This includes all the information encoded in our DNA which defines the structure and functions of our bodies including all healing processes. If the chemical processes involved in healing a small cut were typed on paper, they would fill a large library! Luckily we do not have to consciously direct these processes. This would be too big a job for our conscious minds. Even activities that we must consciously learn such as walking are swiftly turned over to our subconscious mind as habits, allowing us to attend to other pursuits. Imagine what it would be like if you had to consciously take each step like when you were a baby. You would not be able to do anything else at the same time. Thank goodness we all have a subconscious mind! Within the subconscious mind are psychological patterns of behavior that have provided for our survival for countless generations. These archetypal modes of behaving include the nurturing and protecting mother, the successful hunter, the fighter, etc. When a particular archetype is active, hormones are released into the blood and we become biochemically prepared and motivated for specific types of activity. In the ideal case, the appropriate archetype becomes active and motivates our behavior as needed. An important part of psychotherapy may be assisting clients to disassociate with inappropriate archetypes and identify with ones more appropriate to their life situation. In specific cultures at particular times in history, certain archetypes are more predominant than others. The archetypes may be observed in personal dreams and in the mythology of world cultures. Their psychic activity forms a much larger part of our personal behavior than most of us suspect. We think that we are individuals following our own personal course of action. In reality, most of what we do is determined by the archetypes that are currently active in our society and in each of us. Our subconscious mind, in which the archetypes reside, is just as much a part of the totality of our selfhood as our conscious mind. In fact, it is much larger; more vast in scope. The conscious mind is like a small island upon the vast ocean of the subconscious. Any yet most of us define our self, that which we call “I”, as being only our conscious mind. In doing so, we ignore and thereby repress a great part of ourselves. Our conscious mind has been compared to the masculine, Yang nature. It is projective, outward oriented, goal oriented, aware of one thing at a time (digital), quick to be aroused, active and then passive. The conscious mind thinks with words and numbers which have discrete meanings. By comparison, our subconscious mind is feminine or Yin in nature. It is attractive, inwardly oriented, timeless, aware of many related things simultaneously (analog), slow to be aroused and continuously active. The subconscious mind “thinks” with symbols that imply many different meanings simultaneously. Note that every individual person, male or female has both a conscious and a subconscious mind. Indeed many females today have a more highly developed conscious mind (which we have defined as a masculine attribute) than most men. So these definitions are not to be construed as sexist—defining women as only having feminine or Yin attributes. These principles can be seen in the form and function of the reproductive organs—which physically define the difference between men and women. The male reproductive organ projects outward away from his body. When stimulated, it (he) is quick to be aroused, very goal oriented and interested in only one thing. If he obtains it, he is very active for a short time, and then passive for a long time. These are qualities of the masculine nature. In contrast, the main female reproductive organ is within her body. When stimulated it is generally slower than the male to become aroused, more dependent upon and interested in many aspects of the whole situation (mood, ambience, tenderness, feelings of being cared for and valued. etc.). Her arousal can last for a much longer time. And if the reproductive act is successful, she goes through continuous inner and outer activities to create and sustain a child. The main tool of the conscious mind is language, constructed of letters, words and numbers. The centers for speaking and for understanding language are located only on the left side of the brain. Indeed many of the qualities we have defined as conscious-male-Yang have a connection with the functions of the left side of the brain. Similarly the functions of the right side of the brain are related to what we have defined as subconscious-female-Yin. Recent research into the function of the two sides of the brain has revealed a tendency toward the following separation of activities and qualities:
Left Brain:
controls the right side of the body
symbolically relates to the father
career
willful activity, control
science
logical thought
drive to succeed
separating
focus upon details
ability to deduce details from a great quantity of information
words
rationality
Right Brain:
controls the left side of the body
symbolically relates to the mother
home
spontaneous activity, play
art
intuition, fantasy, dreams
desire to enjoy
uniting
focus upon interconnections and meaning
ability to re-conceive the whole from limited information
melody
creativity
The cultural preference for the right side can be heard in the language in phrases such as “he has the right”, “That’s the right thing to do” and “Right!” meaning correct. The suppression of the left side can be heard in phrases such as “left out”, “linkish” (German literal meaning - “Lefty”) meaning uncoordinated and stupid. Left means “communist” or even worse!
In Western culture, the educational process emphasizes almost exclusively the right side (left side of the brain). Most all of what we call learning occurs through the use of letters, words and numbers—which are processed exclusively on the left side of the brain. Thus what we call education is training of only the left side of the brain. Seen in this light, it is no wonder that so many people display symptoms of being imbalanced. And as a result, most psychological imbalances require more attention to and development of the qualities of the left side of the body—the right side of the brain.
A man who is out of touch with his subconscious mind and ignores or more actively suppresses its communication (symptoms, feelings, intuitions, hunches, day dreams, night dreams) will not be able to lead a fulfilling life. He may obtain monetary success and status symbols (car, home, holiday, etc.), but deep and lasting joy will elude him. The story most of us had to read in high school of suicide of Richard Cory (that Paul Simon made into a song) is a example of the misery of many rich people. Worldly success is no promise of happiness.
A man who ignores or suppresses the communication of his subconscious mind will also tend to ignore or repress communication received from the women in his life. He just won’t be able to understand them, even if he wishes to. In my opinion, this is the psychological underpinning of the social problem of repression of females. Most women are still more in touch with their feelings than most men. However, this problem is not limited to men. In our culture, women are also trained to ignore the messages from their bodies, from their subconscious minds. The following is an extreme example of such a case:
During a session in my first year as a teacher of Alexander Technique, a female patient in Basel, Switzerland, came to me with peculiar symptoms. She awoke daily between 4 and 5 AM and vomited. After medical diagnosis found nothing organically wrong with her, she was sent to me. She had a colorless character with no specific desires or wishes other than getting rid of her symptom. One day she could find no baby sitter and brought her 5 year old daughter to the session. Her daughter sat motionless and said nothing for the during the whole session. Healthy five-year-olds do not normally sit still and quiet that long. This alerted me to a big control issue in the family and made me suspect that my client’s symptom might be caused by a neurosis. During another session, the client said, “Nüüt, nüüt”. I asked her what these words meant. She translated them into high German for me as “Nicht, nicht” (not, not). I asked her why she said these words. She answered that I had tickled her. Now, a normal response to being tickled is not utter without emotion, “Nüüt, nüüt” but rather to laugh.
She had her vomiting late in her sleeping hours, the time when her over-controlling conscious mind was at its weakest. The body language of her symptom was a forceful throwing back out of the body what had been pushed into it. From her behavior, she had obviously “swallowed” repressive social conditioning for her whole life. She had provided no conscious resistance to this life-constricting and life-denying training. By vomiting, her subconscious mind, which was active and without the normal restraints of conscious repression during sleep, seemed to be symbolically throwing it all back out. I would interpret her body language as saying, “I won’t take it anymore!” I mentioned that for her problem she should consider psychotherapy. She replied, “It is too late to change now”. I asked her way it was too late. She said, “Because I’m already thirty years old. I’m too old to change now!”
Many women simply accept the biblical (or some similar) injunction that they are naturally subordinate to men. This is the typical “wife syndrome”. In Switzerland where I have lived for many years, many of my married female patients report that their man earns the money and that he doesn’t ever even tell her how much. She gets a certain amount each month to run the household, buy herself and the children clothing, etc. Beyond that, he buys what he wants with no discussion with her.
Rebelling against this type of injustice, many modern women have learned to be successful in a “man’s world.” They have usurped the usurpers. A woman has to be far better than a man at the same work to be considered an equal, and many women are doing exactly that. It is very unsettling to men that women are able to be even more successful at traditional male activities than they are. Slowly, the efforts of these woman warriors is changing the landscape of male-female relations and obtaining the rights of women.
However, these females who can be better males than the males are not an example of archetypical or ideal femininity. Indeed, as a feminist university professor revealed to me, “I would much rather sit at home and enjoy the good life of pleasure and leisure. But I must do battle, in very unfeminine ways, to obtain and defend the rights of women.” Similarly, men who train for war (and thereby learn to ignore their feelings of compassion, etc.) are not an example of ideal masculinity.
As with women in the “battle of the sexes”, our subconscious will produce symptoms and syndromes as a kind of protest and corrective measure to our unhealthy lifestyle. Perhaps diseases such as cancer, heart disease, arthritis, rheumatism that plague us today are in part the communication or even the revenge of the long-suppressed subconscious mind. The language of our subconscious may be saying, “If you won’t listen to me and correct your ways (structural, chemical and mental), then I will make you suffer until you do. If you still won’t listen to me and make the needed changes, you will die.”
If this is true, how can we learn to understand our bodies when they speak to us in the language of our symptoms?
Muscle testing can be used to reveal the emotion behind the symptom, and who expresses/expressed the emotion to whom. Muscle testing can be used to determine when, with whom, and under what circumstances the problem started. When the nature of the problem has been located, muscle testing may be used to determine the corrective procedures to apply and in which order (priority) to apply them. But, as Goodheart stated, we can only test what we know.
There are many books that list the possible psychological causes of various symptoms. For such information, one may read the works of Louise Haye, Thornwald Detlefsen and others. Some of the apparent underlying factors that I have seen in my clinical experience are listed below. It is not to be implied that all problems have a psychological cause. But any problem that exists for an extended period of time will have an emotional and a mental aspect, whether these were original causes or not. In either case, determining and clearing the emotional/mental aspect of the problem can assist the healing process.
--Dr. Robert Frost
Applied Kinesiologist