Ch 1 - THE NATURE OF BODY ORIENTED PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPEUTIC IMPROVEMENT

CHAPTER 1:

THE NATURE OF THERAPEUTIC IMPROVEMENT,
TO MAKE US BETTER PERFORMING AND MORE SATISFIED
PEOPLE, AND HOW THIS TREATMENT FITS INTO DOING THAT

This chapter includes a description of the stages of childhood development
and how difficulties in that development create psychological problems.
It also puts psychological therapy, including release processing,
into the context of a larger, spiritual view of life-long personal development.


Did you ever wish you had a method for unblocking the unconscious reactions in your mind; the ones that keep coming up from your gut, even when you 'know' better? Past & Present Life Release & Alignment Therapy is such a method. It recognizes that our automatic reactions are rooted in events of the past, especially in the first few years of life after conception. And it employs techniques that are able to change how we experience these roots so that our lives are aligned in a positive, versus a negative way. In this regard, it's similar to other kinds of therapies, but it has some unique and distinguishing elements that are very important for creating good results.

To see how, and why, this particular treatment works, it helps to understand some details about the use of therapy for removing blocks and the negative behaviors caused by these blocks. Therapy is not simply a matter of going through a release process, getting up, and having all our problems go away. Releasing the old material is indeed a very large part of the system, and without doing that part, we can’t make our own conscious improvements very well. Yet the very process of releasing, using these methods, helps us become aware of our makeup and defines what underlying issue or issues are creating the problems we're concerned with. So these therapeutic processes not only help us release parts of the issues, they also help us see the themes of our life, so we can see how the specific problems are part of a larger, overall condition, or upbringing.

Most people believe they have conscious volition in just about everything they do. But that isn't accurate. Most people are, in fact, being run by their reactions to things much of the time, even if they don't think they have problems that need psychotherapy. We behave much more inharmoniously, from unconsciously caused reactions, than we care to believe.

Everybody has 'buttons' that get pushed. Why? There are three reasons. The first is that we really don't see life as it really is, and so we react to it inappropriately. With real religious practice we can identify these errors and correct them. The second is that we are stuck to the residues of events in our past, and they run us. The bulk of this book deals with this phenomenon. And third, most of us just don't have enough concentration power to stay aware in the present moment even part of the day. So when the material from these past events comes up, our consciousness thinks these thoughts are us, instead of being able to be aware that they are just thoughts from our old embedded “stuff.” This problem is handled with breath concentration meditation combined with the treatments in this system of therapy, as well as many others.

The conscious mind is really like a big computer screen. Anything can be written on it. We get objective data from our senses, and we bring up objective memories about things in the past or the plans and projects we'll be making. We also have subjective, emotional feelings and thoughts that come up in relation to different events we experience. Morris Netherton PhD, and others, have indeed discovered that many of these emotional behaviors are not coming out of our own, aware, conscious volitional thoughts. They are not our own aware actions. Instead, they're patterns of behavior we 'picked up' in the past and are still with us. These patterns are borrowing our bodies and conscious minds at those times, and we just think we're purposely doing it.

All therapies are focused on restoring some amount of conscious, volitional action and self-awareness. Some treatments work to remove the past material from us. Others add to this by replacing it with ideas and experiences that help us grow and function better. Still others actively help us change our behavior. Psychotherapy, counseling, meditation and body or energy treatments of one sort or another can help us focus in on the key points of our issues, and then come up with solutions that are effectual.

The first step in all therapies is to objectively recognize and identify the existing viewpoints and behaviors. In this process, the more articulate and clear we are, the better. In what kinds of situations do our buttons get pushed? Can we accurately describe and list the feelings and thoughts that come up in these situations? They come from value judgments, or decisions we make about what we think is happening to us. Can we write down what they are? And then what do we do in these circumstances after we make those decisions and have those thoughts and feelings?

The purpose of Netherton's, and other therapies, is to discover what we do, determine why we do it, and change those behaviors into something more satisfying. If we can see, and change, some overall pattern, we may be able to prevent ourselves from getting into bad situations in the first place. And if we can't prevent the situations from happening, we may be able to change how we relate to them. Whether the method chooses to examine what occurred in our past or not, focusing in on our current behavior is always the first step.

In the largest sense, one might say that ALL of our inappropriate behaviors are derived from our ignorance of what our life really is. True religious experience shows us that we are all the same One Universal Life; that there are no separations between you and me; and that when we act as if there are separations, we cause problems for ourselves and others. The major problem with the concept of separation is that it creates fear and self-centered anger and greed. Since a psychotic person behaves according to a very inaccurate view of reality, all of us are therefore acting insanely, because we don't see things as they really are.

But Oneness doesn't mean we're all an undifferentiated blob. The reality is that we're all One Life and, at the same time, just who we've always been.. This Universal Livingness has no fixed form. It can appear as anything. Therefore, it can, and does form into everything we see and everything we are. Everything in our physical world is a manifestation of it; everything is One and everything is just as it is .It turns out that each of us is a uniquely different individual. Everything that's ever happened to us has made us what we are today. The goal of true religious practice is to be who we are but not act as if we are separate from anything else. This makes us truly 'grown up' people. 'Enlightenment' is what we call this state. And a regular breath concentration meditation practice is a good way to move in this direction.

The foundational problem is ignorance; if we knew who we really were, we'd act that way. But stuckness is also a problem. We're stuck to our bodies and intellectual thoughts; we identify with them. And besides getting us locked into stubborn ego stances, the psychological trouble with identification is that most of what we identify with was applicable years ago, and is out of touch with current reality. We call these neuroses, and probably everyone you know has them.

So psycho-therapeutically, we can look at inappropriate behavior and still be in harmony with this bigger picture. The therapy developed by Sigmund Freud MD, Wilhelm Reich MD and their successors explains that as human beings, all our deep-seated blocks are developed in our early relationships with our parents. We do not pop out of Mother and, in a few months, start operating as adults. We go through a growing-up period lasting several years, during which different parts of our bodies and minds develop.

This explanation is correct. But it's not the whole picture. Regarding who we are and what we do, childhood is one link in a long chain. Netherton's therapy addresses our problems in this larger context. Yet the patterns we develop in childhood are the very same patterns we developed, or became attached to, before and after these few years. Childhood is also a time in which we physically embody these patterns. And while a description of the stages of childhood development was not part of my own Netherton training, it is in many other past experience release therapies, and it's very helpful to understand it whether you're a therapist or client.

What happens to us in each of these stages sets up patterns of behavior that stay with us. Reich found that by working with the physical manifestations of the patterns he could eliminate them. And in that process, he would release memories of the original circumstances that had set up the patterns in the first place. Lots of previously unexpressed emotion would come out. Netherton's method is similar but emphasizes expressing the 'words' that come out of the stored "energy packets" instead of just feeling the physical manifestations, such as an over arched back, or a tightly held jaw or an inability to cry. In my own therapy, I find it most effective to use both together.

Our development actually starts way back at conception. What happens to us as we're growing in Mother's womb has a significant effect on our lives. These nine months have been carefully studied and written about by Stanisloff Grof PhD, and others. Morris Netherton also emphasizes working with the prenatal period and I describe its importance later in this book.

The pre-natal is of particular importance in the way children take after their parents. If the mother had problems with her mother, and got married in her early teens, the same kind of thing can very likely happen for the daughter. If Mother was alcoholic, there is the possibility that the child will be alcoholic. This is because all the thoughts, emotional feelings and experiences of mothers who are pregnant go right into the subconscious mind of their unborn babies, and set up a series of unconscious instructions. These unconscious patterns are further emphasized through the child's actual experiences with the mother and the rest of the family. Sometimes, the issues for Mother in the pre-natal don't come up until later on in her offspring's life. Issues centered around marriage, being a mother, having a career and certain illnesses all may surface only when these events happen in when we're adults.

Programming in the prenatal is not new information. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's mother was said to have decorated the room in which she spent much of her time during pregnancy with pictures of beautiful and interesting buildings.

Yet all psychological patterns take on their on form in childhood, and the stages of childhood development after we're born are an important place to start understanding ourselves psychologically. This understanding also helps us make better sense of the pre-natal information. Low self-esteem is one of the most important aspects of negative behavior patterns. We try to compensate for some shortcoming. Upon investigation, people often find that their mothers, and even fathers, also have some of these same esteem issues, but perhaps have handled them a different way. If they are the same, therapies that work in the pre-natal will show it. They will also show up in infancy and in the rest of childhood. So childhood development is a good place to start. It is also an easy way for people to see the actual parallels between physical growth and psychological growth.

These childhood stages have been described in great detail by Reich and many of his successors and are in wide use today. A good description of the patterns I'm now going to describe is documented in Alexander Lowen MD's book Bioenergetics and in Emotional Anatomy by Stanley Kelleman. I'll summarize some of what Lowen says and add some pertinent information of my own.

What happens during our childhood determines, in a large way, the kinds of people we will become. It will determine both our behavioral strengths and our behavioral weaknesses. These traits develop in our relations with other people, especially Mother. They do not happen in isolation. They are a function of how we inter-connect with the world. On a psychological level, they describe each individual's interconnection with the whole.

Throughout this text, I'll describe how the issues created in our childhood relate to the later, and even to the earlier periods of our lives. In this next description of the particular stages, I've purposely minimized the details of my explanations so there isn't an overwhelming amount of information. Here, and in the rest of the book, I'll provide you with the most pertinent information from other disciplines that better clarifies the Netherton material.

Lowen described the Pleasure Principle. All living beings find expansion pleasurable. We grow by energy expansion; even physical, mental and social expansions are energies. And until about age seven, our love and sexuality are the same energy. So it's pure life force expansion, just like a seed that sprouts and grows into a plant.

As humans, we grow outward from a sperm and egg. As we grow through the stages of childhood, we grow both physically and psychologically. Expanding into the world around us is pleasurable. However, when we meet with a response that causes us pain, we recoil and contract. If it happens enough, we know not to expand that way again unless we want to experience the pain another time. Thus, we become trained to hold ourselves back. We do this by sending nerve signals to the specific muscles that would otherwise expand and express that kind of feeling. We hold and tighten muscles. This shortens and hardens what we call the 'connective tissue' that surrounds and goes through all our muscles and determines their shape.

So a real physical block is created. It blocks our abilities to expand our energies and physical movements in the particular directions we created, or were forced upon us. We cannot move those muscles to their designed full length. We also cannot expand our energy field in that direction. As long as the block is in place, we cannot express ourselves that way even if we intellectually want to.

This is what Reich discovered. And it's why he was able to clear the blocks by working directly on the musculature in combination with verbal therapy. Structural Integration Bodywork actually re-lengthens the connective tissue. Combining it with Reichian and Bioenergetic therapy techniques can clear the body of many of these restrictions faster and more completely than muscular manipulations alone.

Each type of block manifests this way. In Bioenergetics, Lowen gives actual illustrations of where the blocked flows are located in the body. And Kelleman's book adds illustrations and very informative text.

Inside Mother, we were housed and fed in a protective womb. We were even directly connected through the umbilical cord. That was our world, and we did not relate to being physical individuals outside it.

After we are born, all that begins to change. And it changes psychologically as well as physically. It's been discovered that what happens to our bodies and what happens to our minds are not two different things. It is a parallel process and what happens to one happens to the other. This is called Bodymind. You may know about this by having read of the recent discoveries involving our immune systems.

This fact has also been revealed in other ways through the work of Structural Integration Bodywork practitioners, Reichian and Bioenergetic psychotherapists, homeopaths and psychological researchers. You can see how forming the blocks in the musculature by holding ourselves back would be one part of this Bodymind connection.
Being physically outside of Mother, we are still dependent on her. In fact we are still energetically bound to her even though the umbilicus has been cut. During the first three or four years of life outside the womb we are supposed to gradually dissolve this binding connection, as we become unique individuals. As we grow, this does physically happen. But the difficulties we encounter along the way set up the psychological problems we take with us into adulthood.

In the beginning, we have to first be accepted. If nobody wants you, who's going to feed you, change you, touch you and take away your fears in this strange new place? We even have to be accepted for what we are: tiny kids who cry, who can't speak or understand English, and don't know how to fit their requirements into their parent's schedules so it's convenient. If there's a problem here, our development gets a 'hitch' in it. And when we grow up, we'll have issues about being accepted and fears about not being accepted will sometimes arise. Even when children are loved and accepted as they get older, if they weren't wanted as infants, even for a short period of time, some of this earlier experience will remain inside them.

This acceptance is independent from what we do. Whether or not you believe that we are souls incarnate on earth, we were born because Mom and Dad did something physical. Their wishes and actions are responsible for us being conceived and being born. As a physical entity fresh out of the womb, we have done nothing to cast judgment on ourselves. Only in the later stages of development after this one are likes and dislikes for what we do relevant. Acceptance means being validated as a living entity, whether you're right or wrong about a particular subject. And if you weren't accepted, some parts of you may run into the issue of invalidation later on.

Acceptance is the foundational element of interpersonal relationships. (If you don't believe me, ask a member of a minority group.) Some kids start off with difficulty because they aren't wanted. Their very existence is challenged.
How does a mother express her non-acceptance of the baby? Angrily looking at it and cursing it is one way. Abandoning it is another. Some people were actually attacked and one person said that during a process, they could remember the needle coming in to abort them. You can imagine how these terrorizing incidents can affect a newborn infant physically.

Next, we have to have our needs met by others. This dependency is necessary because we are physically unable to do it by ourselves. It is also biologically advantageous because mothers' milk has a number of nutrients that are supposed to fortify our immune systems for the rest of our lives. However, being fed food that isn't good for us can set up patterns of having to accept other kinds of things that aren't good for us, and missing the ones that are good.

The effect of being held and touched has been proven to be physically necessary for growth. Touching stimulates growth hormones that are found in the skin, it provides physical inter-connection and it psychologically nourishes. Getting our needs met by our parents also tells us that all the responsibility for this is not on our shoulders alone. If our parents respond when we need them, and are there for us even before we have to ask, then we'll get the impression that the world is like that, too.

Being willingly helped with our needs also develops bonding with both our parents. This bonding is energetic, biological and sociological as well as psychological. From a metaphysical standpoint, it's also spiritual and reconnects us in physical form with our kindred spirits. It's very important to bond inter-personally because it substitutes for the mono-personal, or bi-personal, kind of relationship we've had since conception. Biologically, we are growing out of that relationship into another. Psychologically we have to do the same thing.

Getting our needs met and being accepted are also two sides of the same coin. Almost immediately after birth, they are important at the same time. This is where the issue of not being wanted because of what we do comes up. Some parents don't accept their babies when the children cry and scream, asking for their needs to be met. So these infants learn a pattern which might say, "You can't be accepted and get your needs met at the same time." Then these grown ups learn not to ask for their needs. If the child is hit when it cries out for its needs it can get the message, "If I ask for what I want I'll get hurt. So I better not ask." I have met adults who say they expect other people to know what they need without being asked. Upon investigation, it turns out that these people had been stopped from overtly asking for what they wanted when they were infants. Other parents just aren't there. So this message becomes, "No use asking for it, it's never going to come."

This damages a person's sense of faith in being taken care of at the times when you absolutely can't do it all yourself and you must have the help of others.
Psychological issues involving dependency are often created at this time. If a person is missing a parent, such as a father who is always away on business, or just wasn't there emotionally, that person may have an issue about something or somebody missing in their lives. Once they grow up, the source of that missing-ness is located inside them.

The next stage of development involves becoming independent from Mother. This occurs after we get used to physically being able to care for ourselves to some degree. We can walk around, use utensils, we have teeth so we can chew, and we can even dress ourselves at times. We start investigating around the house. We've started evaluating what we can do in our environment, rather than just reacting to bodily sensations.

At this stage of development we might have problems if we can't separate from our dependency on Mother. She must help us and acknowledge that we are 'another person,' even though it's a young one.

One of the hitches that starts to develop here involves a mother's vicarious satisfaction through the achievements of the child. Alice Miller has written about this quite well. While all loving mothers want to see their children do well, those that have been frustrated in doing 'their own thing' may place a particular kind of pressure inside their children. Some people feel this is a kind of 'smothering.'

When a mother needs to get her satisfaction by having the child grow up to do what she would like it to do, a conflict can occur between what the child wants to do and what it feels it should do. This split can even be a contributing cause of migraine headaches. This person will have trouble accepting that he (or she) will get his needs met if he does what he wants to do instead of what he thinks he should do. In these circumstances, the should part is what other people want him to do. There may be the need to separate from the family in order to pursue one's true wishes in life.

In the next stage we learn about closeness in relationship. And problems occur if others do not allow us to remain independent at the same time. Can we have close relationships with people without having to give up our autonomy? Many people grow up in families where being close and open in a relationship with Mother or the family at large caused them to experience physical or psychological pain. So while they can be really nice people on the outside, inside they hold back on closeness. Some people are so afraid of being manipulated by others that they have to manipulate them instead. That way they aren't vulnerable. Others always have to be on top, or be in charge, so they aren't controlled. Only then are they the charming, outgoing folks we know. They're safe. They can't participate in relationships where others are equal to them.

Other people were raised in chaotic family situations. Opening up emotionally opened them up to all the chaos, even to being scolded and hit. Things have to be orderly to be safe. Some people were even judged by how they kept things orderly. When their adult world gets too busy and they have to clean it up before other people see it, they can become emotionally upset. If it's because they believe that the judgments of other people will make them pass or fail, their fears of survival and being acknowledged enter into their activity and can actually hinder their better judgment and ability to do the job most efficiently. Some very capable people can panic or even get ulcers in these situations. This pattern is also influenced by what happens in the acceptance stage and also in the commitment stage that comes a few years later.

By now, you might be seeing that many of our problems have their roots in dilemmas We are forced to choose between two things, both of which we should be allowed to have: acceptance vs needs, needs vs independence, independence vs closeness. The path we are forced to choose at each of these junctures determines how we will continue to relate as we grow up. We usually choose the path of least pain that is the path of least confrontation against Mother's will. As you'll see later in this book, all of our deep-seated issues stem from losing confrontations with bigger, controlling individuals. I call these 'foundational experiences.'

The confrontations set up a pattern in which we can relate to each kind of challenge in one of three ways. We can confront, battle and lose. This is what happened originally. We can stay in loneliness or repressed expression. This is what we were originally forced to do after the battle. Mother might even had said, "Now go to your room and stay there." Or we can avoid the issue with food, drink or other forms of unconsciousness. In Netherton therapy, these are called the three types of trauma. All occur in the formative incidents of our childhood. None is satisfying.

The choices point us in a particular direction. And not all of it is bad. What's bad is that we get stuck in only one kind of behavior. And that causes problems. Theoretically, we can grow in all directions, like a sphere. But because of our environment, some directions are blocked and others are opened. When we're punished for acting in one particular way, we're usually stroked for acting in another. So we grow in the direction of pleasurable responses and avoid the painful ones.
Growth patterns also occur depending on whether someone else is there for us or not. When no one's there, either physically or socially, we have no contact with the rest of the world, so there's no interpersonal activity. That expressive part of us doesn't develop. When our parents are there, we develop through the connections they have open to us. Thus, how our parents feel comfortable relating, will be how we are allowed to relate with them. This will stifle the parts of the child that aren't acknowledged.

It's painful to have no one there either physically or emotionally to communicate with. It's also painful for those parts of ourselves who have no communication outlets either. Conversely, it is pleasurable to make contact. In this way, our life force learns to express itself in specific directions and we take on particular 'forms.' Whatever happened to us as we were forming shaped our ways of relating in the world.

It's important to note that it's what happened to us. The adults of our little world shaped our experience. Netherton offers a linkage between this and our spiritual intentions, which I will describe later. But all therapists agree. In the physical body, the bigger guys make the rules.

Here's a list showing how one direction results in well-developed attributes, while the opposite direction is blocked.

Rejected people can get in touch with their creative aspects. They work well alone where these energies can be contacted and put down on paper or canvas. They can become artists. But they may also feel isolated in their interpersonal lives, and be afraid of certain kinds of contact.

People who were forced to take care of their own needs because other people didn't, become good at it. They can be very self-reliant. Yet they have a hard time delegating authority and can end up being overloaded, having to do everything themselves. Some feel pressured because they are afraid of falling behind. So they can become very good independent achievers and can end up running their own successful small businesses. Men with this form can also become very good providers and loving fathers and husbands. They are responsible. However, they can become stressed out doing it.

People who must avoid being controlled or manipulated always have to be on top, so many become business or organizational leaders. From these positions they often do quite a lot to help others and can be very enjoyable people. But in the areas of life that mean survival they are unable to allow others to relate to them as equals. In these cases they must be 'superior.' When there's a challenge to their security some of these people 'must be right,' and other people 'must be wrong.' In some people, this can accurately be observed as arrogance. As I mentioned, those who are stuck to avoiding manipulation will be very hard to join in close partnership. It is usually impossible. Either they won't fully open up or they avoid being pinned down at all costs. Many women who marry men who provide but don't really open up eventually become frustrated with this issue. Some kinds of people who cannot be pinned down also frustrate those of us who are 'goal oriented achievers.' Teamwork and solid growth are replaced with continual changes and frustrated efforts.

It's important to remember that these are what Reich calls 'Character' traits and are not the whole person. They are learned behaviors that became a part of an individual and can be removed with self-awareness and special kinds of therapy. Similar trade-offs occur at the later stages of childhood development, too. I'll mention these as we go along.

It's also important to understand that these behaviors are how we've been 'sculpted' to expand, and that expansion is a pleasurable movement outward into the world of our deepest love, organic sexuality and life force. The fact that it got distorted means the person needs a treatment that releases, develops and rebalances the patterns. It does not mean we should blame them. All of us have these things. And the people who brag that they have no issues need it as much as anyone.

The next stage of development after learning how to have close relationships involves learning to have personal freedom in these relationships. Do we get a chance to run off and do our own thing, and then come back to the partnership? Or are we always the one who has to take care of so many others, and not get time for ourselves? Are we so afraid that the bottom will fall out that we think we are the one who has to keep that from happening?

People who choose to give up this freedom and care for others can become great caretakers. They make good mothers and homemakers and have the right attitude for being healers or any other professional or service position that is truly driven from the desire to help people. But they can also feel deprived and unfulfilled inside themselves. Although these people really help others, this 'character' pattern is different from the kind of service that comes out of real religious satisfaction. If the block to self-fulfillment is released, more satisfaction will occur. Often, these people break off their relationships so they can be on their own. In that way they have the 'space' to do for themselves. This also may be the wisest decision when the other people are stuck to a controlling 'character' trait.

This stage of 'freedom in closeness' development occurs when we get our feet on the ground and start running around and playing on our own. Some of it is at the anal stage of development. When a child of this age of four to six is confronted by the parent, he (or she) may stomp his feet and stand her ground. To enforce the parent's direction, this is where some kids first get spanked, and that is a significant experience with many features, sometimes including an increase in rebelliousness and sometimes a give-up hopelessness.

The stage of developing freedom is followed by the stage of developing commitment. This completes the process up to this point. Learning about commitment happens in the genital stage of development, when we shift from being little kids to being little people. This is also the time of sexual differentiation. What happens here defines how we make or do not make commitments in our relationships. It also defines what kinds of commitments we make. Here are two kinds of issues mentioned by Lowen.

Some people were never able to live up to their parent's expectations, even though they have been constantly trying, and may not even be aware this is an issue. Many rise in achievement, but are still unsatisfied. So an acknowledgement issue is created. "When will they ever acknowledge me?" or "I'm never acknowledged for what I can do," can become a problem. This kind of pattern is created when a child is in a relationship with its own parent who him or herself is unsatisfied in that arena. The good side of this trade-off is that it teaches people never to give up, no matter what. The trouble with that, however, is that they keep getting forced to give up when they physically run out of steam, or when their back hurts or they get run down.

In the second example, little girls who've been Daddy's girl suddenly find the relationship changed, by him. The father no longer relates as closely. And the girl doesn't know why. She may form the question of "What did I do wrong?" Reichian Therapists say Father avoids the little girl because she now has sexuality. Girls who get that impression, true or false, push their sexual energies down. Robert Johnson describes this pattern in his Jungian parable book She. This situation can make a teenage girl, or woman, very suspicious of compliments or approaches by men. The early experience created doubts about the long term commitment that follows initial intimate contact. In childhood, the relationship she had with the opposite sex was suddenly taken away, by the man, and she didn't know why. It's an open question, and that carries the suspicion into other contacts.

Theoretically, this can also happen to boys in relation to Mother, but that happens very rarely, if

In a way, these people have already given up. But it also forces them to become great investigators, propelled by the question, "Why?" They can become quite smart.
So these are the stages that we go through as we develop from totally dependent infants into self-functional youngsters. And all kinds of things happen. There are other systems that modify this description and add to it. But the important thing to realize is that almost no one grows up through these stages without a 'hitch.' Most of us get a few of them, at different places.

We also develop different attitudes that express these blocks in different ways, and all of them need to be cleared in one way or another. As infants, we're told "You can't," or "You won't," do such and such. When we get to be little people, at about age five, "can't" is a situation that we don't like to live with. So some of us adopt the mother's side of the scenario we've already got inside of us, and say, "I won't." "I won't" is also an attitude we adopt to stand up for ourselves and even to oppose parents. It's sometimes encouraged to grow during spankings when a parent says, "You won't, do such and such." "I won't" gets slapped right into the child's body and sub-conscious mind. When we get a little older, we find out that a stubborn childish attitude isn't the way to get what we want in society. So we buy into the guidance of "I shouldn't." When we grow up and assume the position of teacher to others, we share what we've 'learned' by saying "No one should."

Few people come to therapy to relieve anything besides "I can't." But in the process of attempting to help them, the therapist notices the client starting to do battle against the process and the therapist him or herself. This is the client's "I won't" being transferred onto the current situation. At these times, the focus of the therapy will need to be on the events in which the person adopted the "I won't" behavior and then when it had the "You won't" statement thrust into him (or her).

People who get stuck to "I shouldn't" and "No one should" are identifying their sense of security with a particular kind of action. They haven't separated who they are from what they do. It can become a battling ego trip, supported by a transference of the "I won't" underneath. This can also be phrased as "You won't get me to change my position." You're right if you recognize this as a game these people play. Meditation techniques that take the people out of their heads are helpful. Lower abdomen breath concentration also builds up an inner self esteem that the person can shift his or her identity to. That will also provide a stronger inner 'core' from which all the other stages can be released much easier.

Ironing out the hitches that develop in all the time periods is a major goal of almost every therapy, whatever techniques it uses. Then we aren't forced to always act in one way. This provides choices. And the choices allow us to live more of our lives harmoniously, and in greater satisfaction. Sometimes, our well-developed ways of doing things are excellent choices for the situation. At other times, they're not.

When we're stuck to behaving one-sidedly, it's even hard to intellectually understand there's a better way to relate to our situation than the way we're used to. This is because it's been a part of us as long as we can remember and the part that's been blocked never had a chance to develop even for a few years. When our lives tell us that we must change to survive, a long process of discovery, development and release of blocks will ensue.

All behaviors can be viewed as attempts to achieve satisfaction. Behaviors that come out of blocked and distorted patterns of our true, heart expressive energies are doomed to dissatisfaction. Reich and his successors have proved this and seen the positive results that follow the clearing of the blocks.

Morris Netherton's discoveries shed new light on Reich's well-developed understanding. They tell us that some of the reasons for our behaviors are not just what Reich and his followers understand. And they give us tools to do a better job.