Wilhelm Reich: How Repressed Emotions Are Stored In The Muscles As Tension

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Wilhelm Reich - an outstanding Austrian psychoanalyst and thinker, the founder of body-oriented psychotherapy. Reich introduces the concept of "armor" of character, which manifests itself at all levels of human behavior: in speech, gestures, postures, bodily habits, facial expressions, behavioral stereotypes, methods of communication, etc. "Armor" blocks anxiety and energy that has not found a way out, the price of this is the impoverishment of the individual, the loss of natural emotionality, the inability to enjoy life and work.

To relax the body armor, Reich developed a number of special techniques, including: direct body manipulation; work to imitate and provoke emotional states; performing special movements and physical exercises; work on the release of sound in case of emotional stress.

Early Childhood Conditioning (Emotional and Psychological Conditioning)

Attempts to stop energy occur in connection with our early childhood conditioning and in connection with the natural and intelligent need of each organism to preserve its life. A child who grows up in a home where expressions of anger are simply not tolerated or allowed learns not to express anger in order to win the favor of their parents. By blocking the feeling and holding back the energy, the child gradually becomes an energetic and emotional cripple.

Every time this child is angry, he can be locked in his room, beaten, shouted at him, or his parents can humiliate him verbally, therefore, the love from the parents that he needs disappears. He quickly realizes that if he wants their love and affection, he must find a way not to get angry, or at least not show this feeling. He becomes stiff, tense and unnatural.

Parents who constantly swear, or a parent who beats or constantly intimidates a child, create a combination of fear and guilt in him, which can exist for his entire life. Such a child will inevitably be in fear or even horror most of the time. Fear creates incredible stress, both psychological and physiological, and it becomes absolutely impossible to live and feel such fear and stress. It becomes necessary for the child to find ways to block the experience of such feelings in order to exist while maintaining a relatively healthy psyche.

The same happens to a child who is constantly exposed to situations that hurt him, psychologically or physically. He finds ways to kill his feelings so that he doesn't feel this pain.

Not only negative emotions are unacceptable. Children jump and run and make a lot of noise, which is a natural response to the liveliness and pleasure that they feel in their bodies and all of their being.

Children are always told to calm down, to be quiet, to sit still, or to contain in some other way this overflowing stream of joy and excitement. They find a way to diminish bodily sensations by holding back their breath and straining their bodies so as not to be the cause of the upset feelings of their parents, teachers, and others from the depressed society in which they live.

And it seems that the strongest taboo is directed against those rivulets of the stream of natural pleasure with which we are all born; the desire to touch, the desire to be touched, the desire to feel the sensual pleasure of our own bodies, to melt and dissolve in another, uninhibitedly expressing our sexuality.

It is our sexuality, more than any other expression of our energy, that is suppressed and turned inside out by our conditioning. Our bodies learn to say no to this flow, and our minds control, suppress and destroy the greatest natural gift that existence has given us.

What is Ripple?

Ripple is one of the reasons for the emergence of living organisms. The principle of energetic charging and release, which Wilhelm Reich called the Orgasm Formula, is that energetic "pump" that allows life to re-create itself again and again. The natural phenomenon of bioelectric or bioenergetic pulsation can be observed at all levels of biological organization, both in cells, body systems and organs, and throughout the body as a whole, using the example of sexual and emotional reactions.

The fundamental property of the acting forces of the material as well as the energetic world is polarity, which consists of two forces, positive and negative. Our very physical existence and, of course, the same applies to the entire universe, depends on the complex interaction of these two opposite and yet mutually supportive forces.

Ripple is movement between these poles; it is a swing from one aspect to another and back in a cyclical, rhythmic movement. The simplest pulsation in the inorganic world can be seen in the circulation of the planets around the sun and moons around the planets. As a reflection of this planetary movement, we can observe the annually repeating cycles of the seasons, the change of day and night, and the rhythmic ebb and flow of the world's oceans.

In the organic world, pulsation is the fundamental phenomenon that is the foundation for the physical and energetic functioning of living organisms. Each of the microscopic cells pulsates when it sucks in food from the outside and throws waste out of itself. Amoebas (unicellular organisms) contract and expand in a constant rhythm, and the plasma or the liquid contents of the cell flows, pulsating, inside the cell.

Our heartbeat, which sends blood to pulsate through our veins, is a pulsation, the presence of which we can feel at any moment, if we want to notice it strongly enough.

Probably the clearest pulsation in the body that we can be aware of is breathing, and it is this pulsation that we directly work with in Pulses. Breathing enters and leaves the body, and these inward-outward, contraction-expansion rhythmic forms are the basis of the pulsation of the vital force in the body.

It is breathing that is the link between the physical body and the energy or emotional body, which is why deep breathing will stimulate both bodily sensations and emotions, and can cause an energetic release, expressed both physically and emotionally.

Energy

Air is not the only thing that flows in and out of the body with a pulsating breath. Air, or rather oxygen, is a component necessary to maintain the physical body and its metabolism. The bioenergetic functioning of all living organisms is based on something different; life energy or life force that is invisible and therefore immeasurable. Life energy floats freely in the atmosphere and enters the body and accumulates in it with the help of breathing.

Wilhelm Reich called life energy Orgone energy, and this is the same energy that has been known in the East as "ki" or "prana" for centuries. Reich believed that the energy of Orgone is that creative force that is the basis of our sexuality, and, in fact, everything that lives and grows in the Universe. Fluids in the closed space of an organism or body are the mediator through which the energy of life flows. It travels through body fluids bioelectrically.

The contraction or expansion of this energy in the body is what generates physical movement as well as the subjective experience of feelings such as pleasure or anxiety. Energy rushes in a stream, seethes and pulsates throughout the body; in Reich's understanding, it is the way in which the flow of energy moves in the closed membranes of cells and bodies determines the predominantly rounded forms of all organic forms of life.

Breath Ripple & Charge & Release

As the pulsation of the breath deepens, a charge of energy builds up in the body and this charge is contained within the physical limitations of the body, namely in the skin, muscles, fluids and nerves. There is a structure in the human body that is more like a tube-like structure than a spherical structure, with breath as the medium of pulsation.

Imagine a hollow tube that begins with the opening of the mouth and larynx and continues all the way down to the bottom of the body. On inhalation, the breath is drawn into the body, into this hollow tube, mainly by the downward oscillation of the diaphragm; the resulting opening or expansion of the entire musculature, from the mouth to the lower abdomen, pelvis and genitals, allows the entire body to absorb the incoming breath and vital energy.

It is the throbbing beat of the breath inward. At the peak of inspiration, the direction is reversed, and as the diaphragm oscillates upward, air is thrown out of the body. At the same time, the musculature of the entire trunk is gently closed as the breath is released. It is the outward blow of the pulsation of the breath.

Each inhalation is a small act of energizing, each exhalation is a small act of releasing energy. This charge can be felt as a tingling sensation or trickles of energy spreading to different parts of the body, a feeling of fullness, and as a significant increase in the level of arousal in general. The skin may turn reddish, blush, the body may sway slightly, and the movements may become wider.

Sexually aroused genitals provide us with a very clear example of what bioelectric charge is. The charge of energy also creates a certain tension in the body; the energy inside tends to expand outside the body, and the stronger the charge and excitement, the stronger the tension. The charge creates the potential for release.

At the peak of energy charge and tension, the body looks for a way to release the energy contained within it; energy spills out from its boundaries and spontaneously and convulsively flows into orgasm.

Reich argued that sexual orgasm is a natural, biological way that the body resorts to in order to independently regulate the internal level of energy. The release of energy through orgasm leads to the release of excess energy and therefore tension, leaving the body in a state of relaxation.

It will be important to reiterate that the energy release qualities we are talking about here are spontaneity, involuntariness, and freedom from conscious control. Sexual orgasm is not something to be done, but rather something to surrender, to be allowed to happen.

Raikhov's Orgasm Formula

Wilhelm Reich was intrigued by the energetic charging and discharging that takes place in the body and found that it was this natural process that was disrupted in most of his patients. Reich's neurotic patients almost always complained of some kind of sexual dysfunction, and he found that these patients were always emotionally blocked as well. They have lost the ability to surrender to feelings or emotions spontaneously and without resistance.

During the course of therapy, patients, by reaching a state of high energy charge with the help of breathing, invariably released energy in the form of a powerful emotional or physical burst of energy. After several months of this release-oriented therapy, patients noticed a significant improvement in their ability to surrender and enjoy their sex life. It gradually became clear that both sexual and emotional expression (and suppression) operate on the same energetic principle.

This principle, discovered by Reich, was called the Orgasm Formula: Charge (Tension) => Tension (Charge) => Release => Relaxation. This rhythmic four-phase formula describes the natural, biological self-regulation of energy levels in the body. During our daily activities, we increase the energy in the body. During sexual activity, the release is triggered by "bioelectric" saturation, which produces an energetic release through involuntary muscle contractions. The excess energy is thus released.

Let's look at the Orgasm Formula in light of what energetically happens in the body during lovemaking. Sexual charge or arousal can be felt in many places throughout the body, but gradually focuses in the genitals when the charge is high. With genital penetration, full body contact, movement and deepening pulsation of the breath, the charge becomes even higher, and as a result of this there is a tension related to arousal.

At the moment before orgasm, body movements become involuntary. With the onset of orgasm, the muscles of the genitals and the entire body experience a series of involuntary convulsions that trigger the release of bioelectric energy. When released, the charge that was focused in the genitals spreads back throughout the body and to its periphery, creating subtle waves of pleasant sensations throughout the body. This is the relaxation phase of the Orgasm Formula.

The Orgasm Formula applies to feelings and emotional release. If a person blocks or suppresses an emotion, then the energy of this emotion is stored in the muscles in the form of tension. By increasing the charge of energy through breathing (as we do during the session), we will get an increase in tension as an effect, since the muscles have to strain even more to keep the block. (With such a lot of tension, we can easily work the muscles by hand.)

When the charge (and the energy behind the emotion) becomes too strong for the muscles to hold, the energy is spontaneously released in the form of an emotional outburst, which can include body movements, sounds, and feelings. As a consequence of the energetic release, the musculature (which is no longer tense and does not hold the block) can enter a state of relaxation that is usually experienced as pleasant.

Pain / Pleasure Pair

During unhindered crying and sobbing or loud laughter, the whole body is in a state of pulsation. When a person learns to block crying, which is an expression of emotional pain or laughter, an expression of joy and pleasure, the pulsation of the body decreases and the feeling becomes numb.

For example, when a child experiences emotional pain that they perceive as too much to tolerate, they will try not to feel it. By blocking crying, the child separates himself from the experience of pain. Breathing becomes less deep, feeling and pulsation decrease, movement almost stops, and all energy is compressed when numbness sets in. Blocking pain is the same as blocking crying, because if a person allows himself to cry, then he can afford to feel sadness, grief, pain.

In both anger and fear, energy is directed: anger is directed outward, and fear is directed inward. During the blocking of pain, both external and internal pulsation beats are reduced, and the whole body feels less and less and becomes dumber and deader.