Page    1   2   of this article. SOMATIC BIOPATHIES: PART I,   Konia,   Jour. of Orgonomy V 23 no. 2   Etiology. In the asthmatic, parasympatheticotonia occurs in reaction to an underlying sympathetic excitation. The parasympathetic nervous system contracts the bronchioles and stimulates mucous production, thereby interfering with expiration (1). Although many cases of asthma are associated with external allergens or infection the underlying cause is, indeed, biopathic. This is demonstrated by the clinical observation that with elimination of the biopathy, external agents are no longer capable of inducing an asthmatic attack. Since hypertension and asthma both involve the thoracic segment, the question arises: What factors determine the formation of which biopathy? In hypertension, sympatheticotonia predominates and the chest appears tense and hard. In asthma, there is an overlying parasympathetic excitation and the chest appears softer. Crying, regularly seen in the mobilization of the asthmatic chest, may be the emotional manifestation of clonic parasympathetic excitation of the respiratory system.   Case Presentation. This patient, a 21-year-old, single, white, female office manager, had a history of allergy to ragweed and first developed asthma as a young child. Her asthmatic attacks subsided at puberty but then returned in late adolescence. Even during asthma-free periods, she always felt as if she had cotton in her chest. Characterologically, she tended to be agreeable and engaging. These traits concealed her fear of revealing her true feelings. She became contemptuous and angry in the transference, thinking me stupid for revealing my innermost feelings for everyone to see. Behind this was her fear of being vulnerable and in my power. Still, she knew emotional honesty was necessary if she wanted to get well. Facing her fears, she expressed more contempt of me. She acknowledged reading my published clinical articles in order to find weaknesses in them. While expression of intense negative feelings produced strong generalized tremors, her rage was nonetheless centered in her mouth and vagina, both of which felt like bear traps. She had the urge to throw temper tantrums but was too frightened (she felt partially held in the back of her chest). She risked speaking up with her boyfriend, a self-acknowledged milestone. She then experienced a constriction in her chest followed by intense nasty rage toward her father. Unable to tolerate these feelings, she began to overeat. More contempt and ridicule of me followed. This time, however, it served a defensive function, stifling intolerable sensations of vulnerability. Expressing this hatred allowed her misery to surface – she was getting in touch with feelings of rejection by her father. As an adolescent, she played golf with him, not out of enjoyment of the game, but because of a desire to be agreeable and pleasing. On the golf course, her father paraded her around, controlling their walking together by holding her firmly by the back of her neck. She felt them to be like a couple more than father and daughter. These feelings were intensified by her parents initiating divorce proceedings. In session, she had the distinct feeling a golf club was lodged in her throat. (5) As she experienced this, she felt nausea rising from her abdomen. She became terrified and cried in panic. Dyspnea followed and she felt on the verge of an asthmatic attack. She realized being agreeable and living up to her father’s expectations allowed her to lose touch with her genuine feelings. After this episode, she began having glimpses of what being well was like. She then had the following dream: While in a session with me, I leave and transfer her to another (female) therapist. The patient behaves in a cavalier fashion, although upon awakening, she felt unbearably sad and cried. She related the dream to her deep sadness at being rejected by her father. Both in therapy and her daily life, she gave in to deep sobbing and felt the back of her neck and chest temporarily yield. She resisted, however, reaching out fully. During intercourse, she felt her throat close. She identified this spasm with her incapacity for genital satisfaction. In session, she felt her throat armor. I mobilized the occiput and the deep muscles at the base of her neck eliciting terror in her chest and throat. A deeper and stronger murderous rage toward her father surfaced for his cold and insensitive treatment of her. After expressing this rage, she felt movement in her vagina and gave in to deep sobbing. She recalled her father’s intolerance to any emotional display – "What is this nonsense?" he would say contemptuously. She then felt a ring-shaped sensation of terror around her cervical segment, re-experiencing her father grabbing the back of her neck while going out onto the golf course with him. Because her father treated her like a boy, she acted like one and could not be soft, feminine or delicate. She viewed all men in the same threatening way, crying as she expressed her fear of me and admitting she had to "shape up" before coming to every session. She felt I disliked her and that she was literally hanging on by her fingernails, because I could disapprove of and dismiss her at a moment’s notice. This is why she had to be constantly agreeable and anticipate every move I made. Her agreeable manner protected her from rejection and, on a deeper layer, from castration. Expressing these fears produced a strong sense of well being. In session, however, she was still frightened with the same tightness being felt in the back of her chest. She then became angry with me for "controlling" her and had the urge to stab people in the back. "Stabbing" the bed while on her knees resulted in a strong sense of exhilaration. Focusing more on her pleasing attitude brought her into better contact with being in her father’s grip. She recalled that, before her parents’ divorce, she slept in the same bed with her father. During this period, she felt as if they were lovers. Experiencing these feelings was accompanied by a tightening with subsequent cold shivers traveling up and down her back. While her sexuality increased briefly, she began to wheeze. Pressure on the interscapular region proved to be too much. She became frozen with fear and felt nothing. This was followed by an intensification of her asthma. She felt caught between her asthma, on the one hand, and her fear of crying in my presence, on the other. She then felt a terror of dying centered deep in her throat, recalling how she was always too embarrassed to cry as a child. Instead, she developed asthma. As she faced her fear of crying, she was able gradually to reach out to me, giving in to deep sobs. This was followed by a strong sensation of heat in the interscapular region. She was deeply shaken. During the intervening week, her asthma intensified until the next session, when deep heartbreaking sobs were expressed. Her asthma then subsided. Again her asthma returned. She had the following dream. A Nazi puts his hand around her throat and threatens to imprison her forever. This she saw as expressing her fear of speaking up in therapy and an associated cantankerous nastiness. She said she did not want to say anything to me or hear what I had to say because she knew she would automatically agree with whatever I said. She was simply terrified of being herself in my presence. She then had a strong impulse to reach out but became very frightened of doing so. Gradually, she gave in to deep uncontrollable sobs. She felt great relief and was amazed she could express these feelings in my presence. More deep sobbing followed as she felt the lack of her father’s love. This alternated with terror from the back of her chest expressed in a typical scream, a mixture of fear combined with rage. (6) She felt the importance of crying to relieve her asthma. Crying reversed the tendency of her lungs to fill with fluid. She recalled, as a child, being taken to the doctor for antibiotic injections when she had a cold to prevent a recurrence of her asthma and being told she should not cry because this would make her asthma worse. Her mother would bribe her, telling her, if she did not cry, she could have the biggest candy bar she could find in the store. More deep sobs followed. The feeling of having cotton in her lungs gradually became less intense. The entire asthmatic process seemed to be reversing itself as she relived the earliest experiences of her illness. Her asthmatic tendency was thus eliminated. She was able to express deep longing from her chest and feelings of love. At this time, she developed a pruritic rash (seborrheic dermatitis) over her scalp, face, and shoulders, as well as the back of her neck. (7) Her biopathic tendency seemed to be moving outward, from the center to the periphery of the thoracic segment. Therapy up to this point consisted of 180 sessions.   Spastic Colitis (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) In this biopathy, the patient experiences periodic attacks of abdominal pain, gas, and diarrhea or constipation. The condition is characterized by an abnormal irritability of the bowel with resultant abdominal distress. In most cases, the syndrome causes frequent but not debilitating discomfort. In a minority of cases, however, it causes severe enough pain to dominate the patient’s life. It is a fairly common illness, accounting for as many as 40% of all visits to gastroenterologists. In one study, it was estimated as much as 15-17% of the general population has symptoms related to this biopathy (4). The symptoms vary in severity from fullness and discomfort induced by the ingestion of food or drink to severe, cramp-like abdominal pain. This tends to be generalized over the abdomen, may shift from point to point, and usually is more noticeable in the lower than the upper abdomen.   Etiology. The symptoms are based on a parasympathetic reaction to an underlying sympathetic excitation of the nerves serving the intestine, primarily the colon (1). Emotional stress or certain specific foods may trigger the appearance of symptoms.   Case Presentation. This 60-year-old, married, white businessman had a history of mucous colitis for 15 years. The frequency of attacks of abdominal pain, flatulence, and diarrhea had increased in recent years to the point of restricting his travel, rendering him dependent on the availability of toilet facilities. The attack consisted of an acute onset of abdominal pain and diarrhea following the ingestion of certain foods, especially milk products, and was aggravated by long trips. Because of this, he carefully planned his travels and did so only when it was absolutely necessary. On initial examination, the patient appeared dejected, depressed, and older than his stated age. He was also severely out of contact with his feelings. He spoke in a slow, drawn-out, controlled manner inclined to put the listener to sleep. He had the appearance of an undertaker, there was slight psychomotor retardation. Biophysically, his eyes appeared teary and sad, and he was moderately armored throughout. Although appearing depressed, the patient denied feeling sad. His life was dull and routinized, consisting of monotonous work by day and a boring marriage by night. Because the patient was a depressed manic-depressive, my primary aim was to increase his energy level by any means possible. His low energy level made it permissible even to mobilize his pelvis whenever it was biophysically indicated. The presence of the somatic biopathy required drawing energy from the lower extremities both manually and through kicking, the latter limited by leg spasms and hip pain. Chest mobilization, shouting, kicking, and hitting regularly produced an expansive biophysical reaction and a sensation of currents throughout his body. Because of severe contactlessness, he was unaware of feeling anxious when he developed bowel symptoms. It was necessary to continually focus on his emotional reaction asking him what, if anything, he felt. I also pointed out his character defenses, telling him he destroyed all spontaneity and liveliness by speaking and looking like an undertaker. Furthermore, he did not listen to others, behaving like a guru and expecting everyone to listen to his pronouncements. In addition, he subtly denigrated others and was unaware how this alienated people from him. At the same time, he behaved in an overly responsible and paternalistic manner, tending to ignore his own emotional needs. This was expressed in the following dream: He feels drained because he has to give blood to many people; he wishes there were an easier way to give blood. Much of each session was spent doing biophysical work on the lower extremities including the pelvis. I worked intensively on his hamstrings, buttocks, adductors and abductors of the thighs, producing a strong biophysical expansion with generalized currents throughout his body. Gradually, he became more lively with better contact, and abdominal symptoms began to subside. He was still restricted in his travels, however, and was still unaware of the underlying anxiety related to his bowel symptoms. I focused on how he used his overly serious and critical attitude to squelch his wife’s excitement. He suddenly became angry with me but just as suddenly lost it and began speaking in a conciliatory manner. I intensified the biophysical mobilization of anger by working on his shoulders and legs, eliciting strong, angry shouts. For the first time, he felt a sense of strength and power as anger rose from his diaphragm and abdomen. This was accompanied by strong genital sensations. Following this, he took a long automobile trip without developing bowel symptoms but instead felt the underlying anxiety as claustrophobia. From this time forward (after 84 sessions), he remained free of abdomen symptoms and was able to eat any type of food and travel without trouble. He exercised more daring with the extent and duration of his travels and became quite excited at the prospect of sightseeing in foreign countries. He was told by his daughter and others that he looked younger and more lively, and he developed a sense of humor. (To be continued)   Page    1   2   of this article.   REFERENCES 1.   Baker, E.F.: Man in the Trap. New York: Macmillan, 1967. 2.   Reich, W.: The Discovery of the Orgone, Volume Two: The Cancer Biopathy. New York: Orgone Institute Press, 1948. 3.   Wyngaarden, J.B., Smith, L.H. (eds.): Cecil Textbook of Medicine, 16th Ed. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1982. 4.   New York Times, February 2, 1988.