A history of the evolution of the framework of Bodynamic Analysis

Before the development of the concept of responsiveness, Marcher had initially worked with the concept of breaking down armor. Problems with this approach led her to seek out new methods and eventually a concept of hypo-responsiveness (Appendix 1). The new ideas led her to feel she had solved the problem that came from an approach that only worked with breaking down armor. She shifted away from talking about breaking down or getting rid of a defense system, the common approach at that time. Now she saw that the defense system was an appropriate response to a difficult historical experience, and that while it might be an inappropriate way of behaving in many contemporary situations, it was not negative in itself. She began to focus more on the rigidity of the defense system, the fact that a client seemed compelled to face certain situations in only one way. She saw that if the rigidity could soften, the client would have more possibilities for responding to the environment. Essentially, as a client became more conscious of their defense system they could recognize when they were going into it. They then became able to choose to go in or not. When you are able to make a choice, the defense has become more like a resource. Thus it is the ability to decide about one’s behavior that could make the behavior a resource and not a limitation.

As knowledge of the muscle functions grew, Marcher began searching for a system to organize all this information. The first organizing system was simply chronological. The muscles were broken down into all those that were activated inside of consecutive three-month periods. This system was quite unwieldy. It had too many boxes (time periods) and these were not easy to relate to adult behavior. Marcher examined Reich’s and Lowen’s ideas of character structure that also organized information historically. While these were more related to behavior, they had some of the limitations discussed above.

Marcher chose instead to look at the major developmental themes for each stage. She began to see how the psychomotor function of the muscles came into play in relation to the specific theme and developmental tasks for each stage. She was inspired by the work of Frank Lake who wrote at length about the classical "schizoid" and "hysteric" character structures (11). Lake showed that these greatly differently appearing structures arose from different responses to events in one and the same developmental time period. Marcher recognized that these two structures corresponded to an overall hypo- and hyper-response, respectively, to events encountered in that time period. She generalized this dual possibility of response to all character structures. And, additionally and quite importantly, she realized that there could be a good enough experience at any developmental stage, leading to a third possibility: a healthy or resourced position for that stage. This addition was influenced by the educational system in Denmark that was describing healthy development and functioning. With a model of healthy development teachers could look for what was not there, what learning had not happened, and help children to get what was missing. Marcher applied this to therapeutic work with adults.

How a muscle’s response changes from life situations.

Our experience has shown that the Bodymap reflects a combination of a person’s historical development and what is currently happening in a person's life, emotionally, cognitively, socially, and psychologically. If a person who had never done any therapy was mapped periodically over many years, we would expect his map to have some changes, probably small, reflecting their changed life situation. Life’s stresses are different, people have come and gone in his life, he has entered into different life phase issues, etc. Character patterns seen in the map are relatively stable over time and tend not to change significantly (at least for the better) without therapy or other significant efforts at personal growth. Sometimes we will see a situation where a person's character stance is strengthened in a negative way when he is hit hard by a loss or a shock, or a life situation of some kind. He may become more rigid or resigned, or both.

We often speak of the teenage and young adult years as the time when the final set to our character takes place. If life treats us reasonably well during these years, we may soften our stance toward life and be able to focus our energies on positive life goals. If however, life is hard, a person may become more locked into his structural stance toward the world. An historical review of these stressful years can often be correlated with "darker" muscles on a map.

Character Structure and the Bodymap

Character structure is a term used in psychology to denote a person's typical patterns of behavior, especially in stressful situations (1,2). These patterns are created when the environmental response to early behavior is less than adequate in an ongoing way. From a psychological perspective, at the heart of each character issue is an unconscious or preconscious decision about who one will be in the face of the world as experienced at the time the character position is formed. E.G., "I'll never cry again - people always laugh at me." "I have to hold onto my opinion, or else I will lose my ability to think."

Different schools of psychotherapy have their own theories about what character is and what kind of "types" there are. Historically important contributions to characterology have been made by Freud, Reich, Lowen, Erikson, Boadella, Keleman, and others. The contribution made by Bodynamic Analysis is detailed in reference (3). In Bodynamic Analysis, character structure is also seen as those particular patterns that can result from attempts to deal with different developmental tasks or issues. While the idea of characterology comes from early psychoanalysis, the Bodymap makes the character levels more than just psychological descriptions. It makes them more concrete, and less metaphorical. From a somatic perspective, Bodynamic Analysis has correlated the sequential developmental stages with specific muscles and their associated psychomotor functions. Thus the pattern of hypo-, hyper-, and neutral responsiveness of the sub-group of muscles corresponding to a given developmental stage give us a literal depiction of that stage, and tell us a great deal about the characterological imprint from that stage (See Appendix 2, Fig. 3, for example).

An empirical knowledge of the psychomotor functions of the muscles in each stage has allowed us to define the stages more precisely, in terms of their developmental tasks and the associated motor activities. It has enabled us to distinguish the activities of one stage from another, especially when the stages overlap chronologically, and allows us to understand better how the lack of resources from an earlier stage affects the later stages. This empirical knowledge has led us to recognize and describe two later developmental stages not described by Reich or Lowen. While Freud and Erikson characterize the ages 5 to 12 years as the latency period, Bodynamic Analysis divides it into two periods with different developmental tasks.

After amassing a tremendous amount of information about motor development, and by observing the interaction between the psychological and emotional developmental processes, the Bodynamic system of character structure evolved into seven character stages or types. Each stage is based on a specific developmental theme and is named after that theme. The seven stages are:

EXISTENCE (intrauterine period to 3 months postnatal.

NEED (1 month to 18 months)

AUTONOMY (8 months to 2 1/2 years)

WILL (2-4 years)

LOVE/SEXUALITY (3-6 years)

OPINIONS (5-9 years)

SOLIDARITY/PERFORMANCE (7-12 years)

These stages are depicted in Appendix 3. Each character structure has three possible "positions". These positions to which of the three types of muscle responsiveness is most predominant for this character structure These are named the "early position", the "late position", and the "resourced position" (formerly called the healthy position). Looking at the subset of muscles that correspond to a given character structure (.e.g., Appendix 2, Fig. 3 depicts the Will Structure, 2-4 years of age), if we should see more hypo-responsive muscles, this indicates an early position for this structure, showing more resignation at that particular age/stage. In the late position we see more hyper-responsive muscles, indicating a struggle with control. In the resourced position, we see neutral and mostly the lightest hypo- and hyper-responsiveness. Typically people possess a mixture of positions, indicating different experiences and responses to the environment and to the tasks of the different ages. For example, a person’s Bodymap may be said to indicate an early existence position, a late need position, a resourced autonomy position, etc. Overall there are 21 possible positions, corresponding mathematically to over two thousand different combinations possible.

It is important to recognize character structure as only a description - a map and not the territory - and that each person is more complex than their patterns of muscle responsiveness. What the Bodymap can provide is deep insights about how a person functions. A typical Bodymap has significant amounts of all three types of muscle response: resource, hypo- and hyper-response. How these various responsivities interact, how different developmental levels and different layers of abilities express themselves, determines one’s unique character. With the Bodymap these patterns are revealed in very clear ways, ways new to psychotherapy. Thus we are able to be more precise and broad in our understanding. In fact the Bodymap has and is showing us new ways to think about character and personality. It helps us to form a container in which we explore and experience the unique resources, subjectivity, and needs of each client.

In addition to character structure, there are other broad concepts that are used by body psychotherapists to describe how clients function. These concepts include grounding (primarily developed by Lowen), centering, boundaries, contact abilities, etc. These concepts relate more directly to the body, and are often spoken of as attributes, e.g. "I tend to lose my grounding in some social situations". Bodynamic Analysis addresses these concepts with its elaboration of ten "ego functions". These ego functions extend the description of human functioning from a body oriented perspective. They also provide a second large framework that renders the muscle response information directly useful in psychotherapy. This framework addresses the body even more directly than does character structure. The ego functions themselves are comprised of related resources, and include abilities from many developmental stages. They are named for the themes and psychomotor abilities that they relate to: Connectedness, Stance in life, Centering, Boundaries, Grounding and Reality Testing, Social balances, Cognitive Skills, Energy management, Self Expression, and Interpersonal skills. The list of the ten ego functions and their components in Appendix 4 gives a sense of how they are used in interpreting a map.

The analysis of a Bodymap in terms of these ego functions opens a completely new possibility for psychotherapy. No longer are the functions simply metaphors for human abilities and potentials. Each ego function is comprised of a number of resources whose presence or absence in the body can now be measured. The Bodymap show us how much resource, hyper-, or hypo-response a person has in each area of ego functioning. It tells us how well we may expect a person to function in a particular area. For example, if a person is hypo-responsive in the muscles corresponding to the function of "standing up in the world" (a resource included in Positioning), then certain basic tasks in life may often be experienced as overwhelming. For example, he may have difficulty holding a job, or dealing with the everyday stresses of relationships. If on the other hand, this person is too hyper-responsive in these areas, he may handle stress well, but be locked into strategies that lack flexibility. He may be governed more by a narrow range of repetitive behavior, rather than being responsive to the situation at hand.

Every ego function has it's own developmental timetable for unfolding. For example, an infant in the womb has little sense of a boundary or ability to defend it. As he matures, newer abilities in that function emerge. With each successive stage, he becomes increasingly capable of sensing and holding boundaries. From an analysis of a Bodymap in terms of ego functions we can trace the course of development of a particular ability, and pinpoint age levels where resources are developed or where there appear to have been problems. Typically, adults have good resources in some areas and have lacks or rigidities in others. The functional analysis of the map provides a thorough and multi-layered picture of a person's abilities.

The Bodymap can be used to help a person understand their present functioning in terms of their own history. The information it contains helps individuals understand how they might tend to respond under stress, in relationships, at work, and in achieving their own personal goals. The Bodymap can also be used to clarify people’s description of themselves. For example, take the statement "I don’t have friends". The map might show that the person has the ability to draw people towards them. But it might also show that the person lacks the ability to push people away, and that friends can then become a great burden. The map can also give indications about specific issues that could be focused on to help get maximum benefit and growth from therapy.

We think of our work as a mirroring process that helps people sense what they do. We do not use a medical model of illness and cure, nor do we see therapy as simply a corrective experience. We assume that certain structures (character positions, ego functions, rigidities and resignations) have evolved with which the person may feel stuck. Usually, they have seldom had a clear experience of these structures. When appropriate we may try to hold someone in the experience of a structure until they can sense it in their body. In relation to us they can begin to feel this structure, this place they live with. As we work with them to promote a new and positive experience, the power of the habitual structure (or lack of structure) diminishes. An opening to new, possibly unknown options becomes available. New capabilities are developed and the person has more choices available in their life.

As discussed above, the empirical research done by Lisbeth Marcher and her colleagues at the Bodynamic Institute, Denmark has shown us that each muscle is connected to specific psychological issues. With the aid of this knowledge and a Bodymap, the Bodynamic Analyst can pinpoint muscles that are likely relevant to an issue being worked on. The Bodymap implicitly contains a prescription for therapy that says, "Bring these (darker) muscles towards resource". We do this by working with the corresponding psychological issues, or by building related resources. Building these resources can often allow an issue to come more into consciousness. In general, we use the body to bring into awareness the person’s historical response to an issue we are currently working with. By stimulating the content of the muscle, either through specific, attuned touch, or by using the muscle in specific ways, we can help a client to sense their impulse, attitude, sensation, emotion, or even decisions related to this issue. They become able to understand a problem and their response to it differently. Since the core of an issue can often be addressed directly, a more rapid resolution and a fuller integration are frequently achieved.

When we believe a person is working with a particular character position or ego function, this will guide our interventions. When working with a client we find it important to ask ourselves what we are doing moment to moment. The process of exploration of structure is always one of trial and response. In one session, for example, three existence stage interpretations were responded to with love/sexuality material before it was recognized that the latter stage had risen to the surface. The client’s response tells us about the correctness or appropriateness of our analysis or choice of intervention. Are we truly listening, or only wanting to hear what our theory tells us is relevant? Are we too sure about what we are doing, and possibly missing new information?

Starting therapy

The Bodynamic Analytic approach to the start of therapy incorporates a number of elements. One is the Bodymap, analyzed in terms of character structure, ego functions, and the presence of indications of shock trauma. A second is the client’s report of his history. This will be pursued further if there are specific questions arising from the Bodymap. A third is the desires the client has for the outcome of therapy. A fourth is the therapists evaluation of the client’s resources, and his present level of functioning, stability, and support. These will be considered in formulating a contract that the therapist makes with the client. The contract makes explicit the goals of the therapy and the areas the therapist believes need to be explored to achieve these goals. Whenever possible, an estimate of the duration of therapy is made.

Building resources

Each person has a mixture of neutral, hyper- and hypo-responsive muscles corresponding to their own history. The map shows exactly at what age levels and in which ego functions a person has resources or is lacking them. The map can tell us, for example, whether a high-functioning person may have abilities from later developmental stages, but have missing resources, or "holes", underneath, from earlier stages. This person may get security and respect from their accomplishments, yet have anxieties and feelings of depression that go unacknowledged and unrecognized. Having these feelings recognized and addressed by the therapist can be very affirming and relieving. In this situation resources missing from the earlier stages must be built up before the defenses from the later stages are confronted, and before regressive work with the earlier stages is attempted. Otherwise, the person may be thrown into an anxious or depressed state very different from what they are used to and how they envision themselves. This state will be lacking in resources and can be quite disruptive to their life and to the therapy.

Conversely, a person having a lot of day-to-day difficulties may be discovered to have early resources that can be built upon. In general the map can alert us see contradictions and congruences. This may lead us to question whether specific information is missing from our knowledge of a person’s history, or indeed, from their own knowledge.

A basic tenet of Bodynamic Analysis is that when people can awaken inner resources they will live fuller lives. In therapy this manifests as one of our basic principles: that working with areas of resource and flexible functioning will spontaneously begin to mobilize areas of decreased functioning. Thus, we usually work on relatively resourced areas first, corresponding to lighter colored muscles on the map (Fig.1). New and positive physical, cognitive, and emotional experience in the present can lead to a change in the responsiveness of related muscles towards more resource. Sometimes this change is immediate, and generally it becomes more permanent with repeated positive experiences that lead to a re-decision. This change in muscle responsiveness is quite different from only having a new cognitive awareness about an issue. In the latter case, when the related issue arises a person goes through a process of realizing that he does want to act in the old way, and deciding again to act in the new way. When a new imprint is established in a muscle, the person will not only have a new cognitive awareness about the issue, but will also reflexively respond to this issue in the new way.

Working with hypo-responsive muscles: Waking the impulse.

Recognizing patterns of resignation, as shown by the hypo-response in muscles, provides us with a very powerful tool for understanding people’s behavior. When we are in a state of resignation or hypo-response, the danger is that we cannot sense our impulses. Over time we may come to recognize the fact of not having certain impulses, and to feel the pain of that, but we may not sense the impulse itself. In the deepest resignation, we lose even the pain of not having an impulse, and all traces of the impulse become unconscious. Resources are absent and we are in a state of forgetting. In its extreme, each defense has great existential costs, but the hypo-response often places stronger limitations on behavior and makes being in an inherently stressful world more difficult.

In working therapeutically with the hypo-response we are often teaching and sometimes in the role of a teacher. The corresponding missing ability was either never learned, was given up, or is not sufficiently sensed or trusted. The therapist provides understanding, support, contact, relevant information, and contextual insight in helping the person towards a newer, affirmative, appropriate experience of the issue being worked on. Somatically, through support, words, gentle touch, or gentle movements, the task is slowly to reawaken the impulse in the muscle. The more hypo the muscle, the more gently it should be awakened. The same is true at the psychological level. In response, the person often may feel "I can’t"; "I don't want to do it; It's too hard; It's too scary"; etc. In a supportive way we may first help a person to sense or move their body until they feel an impulse related to this issue. While hypo-responsiveness is a kind of defense, since issues tends to disappear from consciousness, there is less resource in this defense than in the hyper-responsive defense. To confront a hypo-response can bring a feeling of being overwhelmed, or a sense of being asked to do something you can't do. Strong confrontation of people with significant hypo-responsiveness can lead to feelings of disintegration, fragmentation, or mistrust.

Working with hyper-responsive muscles: Challenging the defense.

Patterns of hyper-responsiveness present a different challenge. The hyper-responsive muscle over-controls and holds back the impulse it contains. With related issues the person had to learn to hold back and to control. There is a sense of holding back, of pushing, and/or of control of energy. He may fear that if he lets go something terrible will happen: e.g., that he will be attacked, or he will lose his ego control. He desires to be met in his intensity, yet fears being overwhelmed. In working with hyper-responsive muscles, one goes up to the boundary and metaphorically, solidly but respectfully knocks at the door, signaling: "Hey you in there: I’m here, I see you, and I can handle what you've got. Come on out. I insist.". We may help the person to stay in the experience of the structure without any distraction, movement, conflict, or interaction that might take them out of the experience. If they leave the experience, we help them to keep returning. Whenever possible, we attempt to stay with one issue, preferably at one age level, until it is resolved. In our experience, this greatly increases the probability that the resolution of the issue will be integrated in both body and mind.

When working with issues corresponding to hyper-tonic muscles we can be more confrontive because there is enough energy present to handle this. In fact, this is often what a person needs in order to sense himself. The therapeutic task is to release the energy in the defense in a way that is not experienced as dangerous, and to balance this with the fact that addressing these issues too lightly may not be of much help.

Re-testing

After major life changes have occurred during a course of Bodynamic Analysis, or for research purposes, we may partially or fully re-map a person to see what responsivity changes have occurred. Most often the new map is lighter, with lighter degrees of hyper- and hypo-responsiveness. Sometimes, for people who have tended to be more hypo- overall, many of their muscles will have moved toward light hyper-. They have gained more defense and more structure. This often shows up in their life as being better able to tolerate stress at work, more intensity in relationships, etc. At times, however, muscles are seen to be even less functional, having become more hyper- or hypo-responsive. Or they may even move from hyper to hypo or the reverse. At first this was surprising to the original Bodynamic researchers who developed the map. But since it happened often, they came to understand it as an indication that there are layers to the defense system that emerge in different contexts. When a person who has a strong, early defense system (early existence, for example) starts to have more emotion and body sensation, starts to feel more alive, he may first begin to sense the need for more defenses. Thus some muscles may become darker, usually for a temporary period. This can be seen on the map and discussed with the client.

A new map or a partial map of selected muscles, can also help us by indicating what is or is not working in therapy, and how we might need to re-focus the work. Are we not taking into account certain elements of a person’s structure? Are there other aspects of the self that need attention?

A new map also provides an objective tool for assessing a person’s progress in therapy. In this way it complements the therapist’s and client’s sense of the progress that has taken place.