michaelsamsel

Considering massage as a uniformly delivered product shows what usually happens, not what could happen (excellence) If one subscribes to an energy model, the hypothesis might be entertained that some massage uses one energy system (or person) to help move energy in another system (person). But if this happens, it probably happens less than people think it is. Most of the participants in this board are interested in excellence (what doesn't usually happen)

That's a tall order but I'll try a few sentences. My website on this topic is linked at the bottom. Reich's vegetotherapy took place with the patient laying down, and he used over-breathing, direct pressure, and his own personality to bring about release of suppressed affect. He didn't (nor did Lowen) worry much about integration of affect, the idea is that natural drives are naturally gracious. Reich largely gave this up in the 40's and 50's to concentrate on cancer, orgone accumulators, weather, cosmology etc Lowen stayed with the psychotherapy context. He got the patient up on his or her feet, sought to improve grounding, breathing, and vibration to improve the amount and circulation of energy (He was shier about using the term orgone, (but not the concept) He concentrated on releasing the stabilizing muscles around the joints with stretches, stress positions, and expressive movements.. Lowen used expressive exercises (hitting a bed with a racket, kicking, yelling, etc) to cultivate emotional expression but there was and is always a huge misunderstanding that he encouraged catharsis. He did not, the expressed emotion is meant to be ego-syntonic and ultimately transferable to real life. not a hysterical event that become addicting but doesn't transfer. Lowen minimized working via the transference (that had been Reich's stock and trade) And quite importantly, Lowen systematized character analysis with his five part typology. Character analysis doesn't change the body, but it sends the participant back to bodywork when he or she prematurely thinks he or she is done because it shows that new goals often are just more of the original problem. I have come to prefer stronger, more focused exercises than Lowen's like ST, chi gung (the Taoist energy health and healing model is completely similar), Pilates, Bercelli's TRE etc but Lowen is unique with character analysis, including the need to surrender. He insisted on the need to change the body but wrote that the resistance to change is ultimately in the character. http://www.reichandlowentherapy.org/

Kit's answer covers well the dynamic model of character armor. And as Kit writes, stretch therapy is much more than a release. However, if you want to know how to work with armor in a therapeutic relationship (or with your self), the work of Alexander Lowen is much more practical.

Reich was under more the Malinowski spell--matriarchal sexually free state to start with, then with agriculture came control of livestock breeding, and patriarchy, and control of sex and all that. Of course aggression is a primary drive, violence (not the same as aggression) is a secondary drive. And Reich wasn't having any when it came to thanatos, he thought there were other reasons psychoanalysis frequently had small effects, like not working the armor in the body. Stretch therapy works on the muscular armor and frees the _natural_ aggression that may have been perverted by the armor into coercion and control. Change all the individuals and the civilization will change. Hopeless to change the civilization from top down because armored individuals will run even more amok. Of course that seems a losing battle.as we read how much effort and consistency is needed for all of us on this board to achieve even modest advances in mobility (well worth it of course)

But Reich maintained that violence was the result of repression ('secondary drives') not the reason for it.

So true! That is why the Pilates tradition blocks effort and struggle (Likewise, Alexander Lowen writes about "the neurotic attitude of trying.") Yet so many people make effort their target.

I am a late bloomer, starting mobility work at 55 and changing my body considerably in 3 or 4 years (with Pilates as well) Random control trials might at times capture what usually happens, but they do a poor job studying excellence, that is what can happen but usually doesn't because of human factors. I think members of this forum are attempting excellence and some of us achieving it. You can't think and talk your way into flexibility, you have to work your body consistently. Of course you have to work at the 'edge' but the consistency criteria will take care of that since if you don't work your 'edge' you will get bored and quit when the novelty wears off (what usually happens). As for strength and flexibility, if you develop an excellent amount of both you can feel how they are related Check out on instagram kineticX/endrangestrength.

There was a long pinned thread started by Olivia basically addressing this point but I can't seem to add to it anymore. I just wanted to share this link https://www.energyarts.com/blog/bruceenergyartscom/taoist-yoga-man-suitcase Most people seem to experience considerable relaxation with increasing muscle length but I guess the two things can be separated

Rumination is like an addiction, always available, always easier. Maybe each thought distorted or not gives a drop of dopamine...Maybe the 'bootcamp' format of cross-fit is an attempt to provide a treatment for 'being in your head all the time' I tell my clients that stretch is a direct effective treatment for rumination.

Freud's talking cure seemed to work strongly and quickly in the early days, then seemed to become less powerful and much longer as the years went on, even as the analysts were becoming more sophisticated. Lowen hypothesized that at first, Freud talking to patients about sex etc was such a shock that it actually was an autonomic nervous system intervention (like a reset) and that the shock changed the holding in the body. As patients became more sophisticated and knew what topics would be discussed, it faded back into a conversation. A zen enlightenment must work like a shock, one imagines. My experience has been that if I can get a client to actually work the body, (and it is a really hard sell, even among those that come looking for 'somatic therapy' ) they progress so much more. Maybe I'm not much good at the talking part. Hence speaking from my experience may be only speaking from my experience. But I'm not trying to be dogmatic. Point taken that there are examples of successful 'top-down' work as well as successful 'bottom-up' work

I am a bio-energetic therapist and an avid amateur practitioner of ST, which I recommend to 98% of my clients. Alexander Lowen's message is: change your body, change your life (changing your mind is implied in changing your life). It doesn't hardly work the other way. Trying to change your mind or life will not change your body (and so you really aren't changing your mind or your life by trying to change your mind or your life, if you aren't working directly with your body) Alexander Lowen wrote 13 book all still in print if you are really interested in body based therapy. My website is www.reichandlowentherapy.org

I myself can't understand my 2016 post in this thread. As for my recent post, I was basically saying I myself can't understand my 2016 post. In the summer of 2016 I was undergoing some neuro-feedback work with an optometrist that was aimed at the ciliary muscle but also affected my subjective sense of relaxation--but that is another story. At that time I must have felt I had some insight relevant to this thread but perhaps not.

My response was a year ago so I don't recall so clearly what prompted it. I (or the optometrist) was getting some brainwave reading with the neuro-feedback, but not with my stretching routine. I did mean to use the word simplistic as in 'overly simple' as a pre-emptive way of fending off criticism if I was talking through my hat which clearly I was! I think I did want to convey that I felt at times I went through a beneficial (for integrating the stretch) qualitative change as opposed to a quantitative change in relaxation level. Your point is well taken that one shouldn't use terms like alpha or beta impressionistically

Jim, by 'inappropriate' do you mean it is inadvisable in a business sense, or are you referencing a moral standard Mike

I'm going by how I look and feel and how others look and feel after Pilates. Emphasis on harmony and grace. All subjective. But go watch a advanced Pilates practitioner walk across, the room. More attractive than an Olympic gymnast IMHO I'm over my head with explaining any thing in a kinesiological way but professional dancers have extended careers decades overcoming injury. Also there is no prohibition about doing any thing else, most of us live in free countries