Page    1   2   3   4   5   6   of this article. Armoring  -  Man in the Trap   The following day I saw her again. She said she had had the impression of a child being thrown to the floor against the wall, and added that she had always had a tender spot in the right parietal region of her head. One winter it had bothered her so much that she had consulted a physician, telling him it was driving her insane. She had mild choking spells this time, but they were easily stopped and she was able to keep her mouth open and so prevent cyanosis. A picture of a man over her crib came up. It was a man, a dark man, who choked her and not the woman, although a woman was there. It seemed to have happened in the daytime. "I hate the man," she said, "I could kill him." For several sessions after this time the picture of her mother hitting her with a frying pan came up and mild choking attacks continued. Convinced of the reality of these incidents, she asked her mother about them. Her mother told her that she was illegitimate and that during the pregnancy she had tried unsuccessfully to induce an abortion. After birth, she had induced her lover to get rid of the baby, and he had choked her and left her for dead. On another occasion the mother had hit her with a frying pan and knocked her unconscious. It is in this way that single traumatic events are contained in memory, in the body's armor and reappear as the organism is mobilized. But no memory is present if the armor is the result of attitudes in the parents. The most malignant to overcome are the implied, unspoken prohibitions imposed gradually at each stage of development. The specific purpose of the chronic muscular armor is to hold back and assist one to conform and thus reduce anxiety--to hold back unitary moments (emotion) and in the deepest sense to prevent the orgasm reflex, which allows complete giving or surrender to biological emotions. The armor says "no" to this surrender. Emotion must be taken literally as "moving out," and a natural emotion includes the moving-out of the whole organism as a unit. That is, the whole organism normally takes part in all emotional activity whether pleasure, rage, or anxiety. The two basic movements are outward to the skin and environment (aggression), which is expansion or pleasure, and movement inward to the center (withdrawal), which is contraction, pain, and anxiety. 23 Movement into the musculature allows the organism to fight with rage or flee with fear. Armoring first occurs in the diaphragm in an inspiratory con-traction 24 where holding is most effective, but the basic conflict involves the pelvis (Oedipus conflict). Therefore the pelvis is always last to be dealt with in therapeutic removal. If the pelvis were to be freed first the individual could not handle the sexual impulse and either confusion and disintegration would follow, or else earlier problems would be carried into the sexual life (especially) sadistic impulses). One exception is in depression, where the low energy and great inhibition make early freeing of the pelvis safe. Armor, may be identified by an increased sensitivity to touch (ticklish instead of pleasant) except in heavily armored in-dividuals where only touch is felt. Seven segments can be differ-entiated in the armor. Each segment includes the whole cross section at that level of the body, so that there are several rings at right angles to the spine. In addition to the rings of armor, one will usually, find that one side of the body, left or right, is more heavily, armored than the other. The underlying cause here is not yet understood, but it has nothing to do with right- or left- handedness. Adler speaks of the male side and the female side; and Deutsch points out the good right side and the bad (sinister) left side. The seven segments of armor 25 are the ocular, oral, cervical, thoracic, diaphragmatic, abdominal, and pelvic. They are usually freed in that order except that the chest is most often mobilized first so that it can be utilized to build up energy in the organism and provide additional inner push to help in both revealing and removing other blocks. Each segment responds as a whole and is more or less inde-pendent of other segments. But this independence should not be taken too rigidly, since we are dealing with a total organism which functions with an interdependence of all segments. Any one segment may fail to respond completely until further segments are freed. For example, deep holding may not appear in the throat until the pelvis is reached. With each release of a segment, armoring in earlier segments will recur and require further attention because the organism is not used to movement and tries to return to its former immobility. It must be gradually accustomed to free mobility. In schizophrenia and epilepsy one may find little muscular armor, the armoring being largely in the eye segment. When this segment is freed the organism, unable to stand the increased free energy, contracts lower down and builds up a muscular armor. This in turn must be broken down. In certain cases, usually where more highly charged emotions are concerned, the organism, apparently unable to find a suitable equilibrium by armoring, withdraws energy from the part involved or even from the whole musculature. Such a withdrawal of energy is known as anorgonia. It is important to determine the main character trait or attitude of the individual (the red thread 26 ,) because he will react to all progress through this trait and it soon becomes the main character defense. The trait may be socially acceptable (modesty, shyness, reserve, aggressiveness) or socially unacceptable (dishonesty, cheating, etc.). For example, a modest person will react to every advance modestly and never enthusiastically, while a cheat will try in every way to cheat you of success. The principle of therapy is quite simple: merely- to remove the chronic contraction which interferes with the free flow of energy throughout the organism and thus restore natural functioning. In practice it may be extremely difficult and complex. There are essentially three avenues of approach, the importance of each depending on the individual case although all three are a necessary tool in every therapy,. They are (1) increasing the inner push on the organism by building up its energy by breathing, (2) directly, attacking the spastic muscles to free the contraction and (3) maintaining the cooperation of the patient by bringing into the open and overcoming his resistances to the therapy and the therapist. This last is extremely important because the patient will in every way try to maintain his immobility and try desperately not to reveal himself. It may seem incredible that the patient who wants to get well fights so fiercely against therapy but behind this is intense fear of expansion and movement. He may do this so skillfully that it takes time and much ingenuity to unmask his methods. He may overtly cooperate beautifully, even bringing out emotions that please everyone but the whole thing may be meaningless from a therapeutic standpoint. One can never work mechanically but must watch the needs of the patient by observing his bodily expression and by sufficient contact to allow yourself to feel what he is trying to express or even hide. When the patient begins to feel his own restrictions and gains sufficient contact with his organism so that he knows what he is holding back he can be very helpful in his therapy. His lack of contact is one of the most difficult problems to overcome. This is dealt with under problems of contact. Breathing may in itself overcome minor holdings and does help to reveal and overcome more severe blocking. The patient is asked to breathe fully without forcing and to allow himself to develop a rhythm which soon becomes easier and freer. In most patients this will soon produce tingling in the fingers and lips. If this breathing continues, the sensation increases to strong and sometimes painful currents resembling sensations from an electric current. The fingers stiffen and begin to flex and become im-mobile. This may continue until the whole arm is involved and eventually the chest and face. At this point the patient can stop his breathing only with difficulty and the situation becomes dan-gerous to life. The contraction must be overcome. This is done by stopping breathing and manually mobilizing the fingers and arms. Classical medicine calls this stiffening of the fingers and arms tetany and explains it as over-oxygenation with lowering of the alveolar carbon dioxide resulting in alkalosis and diminution of ionized calcium. We look upon it as contraction against the movement of energy which is beyond the individual's tolerance. That this seems reasonable is found in the fact that later in therapy patients may breathe as much as they like with no con-tractions. These may reappear after each breakthrough to a new level. Following release of the fifth or diaphragmatic segment, soft breeze-like sensations will be felt moving down the body. These are pleasant and give a three-dimensional perception of the body. They are called streamings. The chronic contraction of the skeletal muscles can be worked on directly, the organs and tissues only indirectly. To mobilize a chronically contracted muscle one must first increase the contraction to a point which cannot be maintained. The muscle thus overstrained must relax. This is done by direct pressure on the inner muscle with the thumb, by irritating or stimulating it, such as by tickling or pinching. Direct pressure is the usual and most effective means. One will find near the insertion of the muscle a very sensitive spot where contraction is greatest and it is here that the muscle responds best to the stimulus. Pressure here will relax the whole muscle. These points have been called trigger points in classical medicine, where sometimes they have been injected with Novocain to produce relaxation. Of course the muscle will only contract down again unless the emotion (and ideas) that is being held back is released. For this reason groups of muscles that form a functional unit in holding back emotions are worked on together. Occasionally one muscle in this group may act as a trigger, causing the whole group to respond. Anxiety is the basis for repression and is behind all contrac-tion. If it were not for the anxiety the emotion would not be held back in the first place. The organism is always trying to control anxiety and cure is effected by forcing the patient to tolerate his anxiety and express his forbidden feelings. The most important emotion to elicit is rage (hate) and until this is released he cannot allow the softer feelings of longing and love to emerge. This is done in all seven segments.    next page   Page    1   2   3   4   5   6   of this article.   Footnotes 23  This is incomplete. Actually anxiety is produced only where there is contraction against expansion. back to text 24  The diaphragm area is where the sympathetic ganglia are located, and as previously explained, breathing in is a contraction from the standpoint of the total organism although it actually expands that area. back to text 25  Reich discusses these extensively in Character Analysis and The Function of the Orgasm. back to text 26  See "The Layering of the Armor," p.61. back to text