Somatopsychotherapy (SPT) (with the emphasis on the first syllable, from the Greek «Somos’ – «body’) – SPT-stands for: «Work with somatized equivalents of mental experiences1. Fortunately, this formulation intrigued not only my children, who used to ask asked me: «How are your «somatized equivalents’ doing there?» My colleagues’ interest in my work encouraged me to think about writing the book that you are holding in your hands now.
“Filling’ of the body of consciousness
As a result of the catalysis of bodily sensations, the consciousness-body shows itself as “filled’ or, rather, realized as a set of “mental objects’. They can be “good’, such as love, joy, etc., or “bad’, such as hatred, fear, etc.
If we consider a person in this paradigm, it turns out that by the time of the meeting with the therapist, they (as a result of the elections, consciously or unconsciously made by the body earlier) have transformed into light, warmth, space, lightness – and then there is no need for a therapist, or on the contrary – into the darkness, heat, tightness, heaviness in places of linkage or accumulation of energy (substance «heat – heaviness’, as it is called in SPT), and at the same time – into dullness, cold, «aridity’, numbness in the devastated areas. In this case we have all the indications for therapy.
The “backward’ therapy
The therapy based on body sensations moves in the opposite direction to what has been developed in most modern psychotherapeutic approaches. I call them “therapy forward,” which is aimed at the release of a once pent-up emotional charge. Through the study of resistance, the dynamics of expression is encouraged. The opposite “dynamics of the suppression’ has also got some supporters. What, if not suppression, is therapy by “coding’ or “torpedo’ in case of alcoholism?
True and false alternatives
During exams in medical school, students are often asked a provocative question: are lobar pneumonia-rale in the lungs fine or large bubbled? The correct answer does not imply either the first or the second options, because there is no rale in the lungs in case of lobar pneumonia.
So, to encourage expression or suppression of emotions seems to me the same false alternative. There is at least one other way out – to return to the original situation… through the entrance. Emotional life is not a one-way street where traffic jams occur. It resembles rather a flat surface with a ball on it, which can lurch in any direction. The ball can roll back just as it can move forward until it falls from the surface. Instead of building barriers to the movement of the ball, you can change the angle of inclination… it is possible to simply calm down, refusing both expression and suppression of emotions. It is not the same as giving emotions a way out. That means getting them back in.
Perhaps a comparison to removing the detonator from the bomb would help to explain what I mean. The disposal of an explosive projectile would mean refusing both to detonate it and to conceal it. When it is dismantled, it is possible to think of the new use of the potential energy stored in it. The same uranium that threatened to destroy all life can become a filling for the reactor of a power plant, supplying both light and heat.
Thus, we can give forces the ability to stop completely, go back, and then look for a new solution to the problem, being in the new state. This is the way to discharge both dynamics.
The psychostatic paradigm
Stopping consciousness and turning it into a body is a method, that opens up new opportunities in psychotherapy. I have called it psychostatic, after correlating with better known psychodynamic principle.
The above-mentioned principle «where’ involves searching in space for the affects as charged objectified (somatized) structures and allows us to speak about «topographic (or topical) psychology’ (perpendicular to «chronological’ – in particular, transpersonal). In general, this method can be called «Topographic psychology and the psychostatic paradigm in psychotherapy.»
Therapy «backwards’, is the technique of «zeroing the patient’s condition’, calm «without annexation and indemnity’ – these are some of the names of the therapeutic part of the work.
This method is a worthy alternative to the existing methods of restoring the psychophysical balance of a person.
An eye view can melt the stones
Instead of trying to revive the almost dead (“petrified’) feelings, somatopsychotherapy offers to “dissolve’ them, to let them “die’ completely. Though, not to disappear, but to be reborn in a new capacity.
One of the discoveries of somatopsychotherapy, in my opinion, is the fact that, if a person refrains from hysterical, hypochondriac, phobic and other pathological ways of responding to the fact of the awareness of the «stones’ within them, and retains a calm, judicious attitude to conscious, this suffering person becomes a winner, they get their power back, reborn like a Phoenix from the ashes. The task of the somatopsychotherapist is to help the patient create and maintain a working tone in relation to these phenomena, without unnecessary affectation, but by understanding the significance of what is happening.
The patients can melt the stones with their own eyes, and it will not be just a «game of imagination’, but a real change to: 1) the structure of their consciousness; 2) the state of their body.
Working with sensations as a method of psychotherapy is highly effective and fast-acting. It can change the patient’s condition radically and do it without the phantasmagoric external manifestations inherent in some known types of therapy.
For my last preliminary remark, my own experience and communication with colleagues brings me to the idea that along with the division into schools in the world practice, there is a very simple division into «fast’ and «slow’ or «short’ and «long’ types of psychotherapy.
Experience makes us accept the fact that all forms of work are important. The fact that you can work with a patient for five, ten minutes, or even a year, or two, or more, and all this will be normal psychotherapy, does not seem to be a paradox.
So-called classical schools, such as clinical psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, or younger schools like gestalt therapy, tend to work over the long time. Among «short-term’ schools, there are representatives of neuro-linguistic programming, next to them, perhaps, eriksonians and some other supporters of empirical, short-term, intensive psychotherapy.
This method also draws from the intensive and short-term schools. It is good for working through traumas. However, it is as thorough as the therapies of the first «classic’ group.
1500 patients
From my point of view, this study takes into consideration the most important issues of psychotherapy.
How to bring the patients to an understanding of their inner state?
How to change that inner state for better?
How to get a sustainable result?
After 15 years of research, this method has been formed by the process of solving psychological and psychosomatic problems of more than 1500 people during 3—5 sessions of one hour with each of them.
Introduction
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