Written for my 1976 B.A. Portfolio for Antioch.
Linked from Psychotherapy overview
Fall Quarter Sep-Dec 1975
1. Describe your participation and responsibilities in this learning activity.
This is the newest of my current projects. I started seeing Meri in Reichian oriented therapy in November. I had seen her three or four sessions in October of last year, but had to stop for financial reasons. My participation consists mainly of doing the exercises that she directs me through. We usually begin by talking about what has happened since the last time. Then, while I am lying on my back on a soft mat, she asks me to slide my feet up so as to raise the knees and to begin to breathe deeply, with the mouth open. This can lead to any number of other exercises, designed to charge the system and work through energy blocks. The work is primarily non-verbal. My responsibility is to allow these energies to come into play without blocking them, if possible.
2. Describe new skills and knowledge derived from this learning activity which contribute to your Degree Plan. Feel free to attach additional pages as necessary.
Skills. In this short time the skills revolve around the ability to breathe through energy blockages, or to release tension by pounding, yelling, etc.
Knowledge. I have begun to learn what are the form and the range of techniques used in a Reichian session. These include special breathing techniques, massage, pounding, talking, yelling, etc.
3. Self-Assessment: Evaluate this learning activity. Mention such things as the quality of the experience itself and its personal significance to you.
Quality. The most distinctive element of this experience so far is the sensitivity of the therapist to my physical state and the ability to direct the session so as to focus on and then work through blockages. I think that her sensitivity must be of a very high quality.
Personal Significance. I originally went into talking therapy because of a sense of no meaningful relationships, especially with women. This eventually focused on certain blocks I had against physical intimacy. The work with Meri, even in this short time, has allowed me to tolerate a higher level of excitation, and therefore feel more comfortable in intimate situations with women. To me, that’s pretty significant. Actually, if I’m going to feel good about myself as a therapist, I definitely feel I will have to work through this area of difficulty. I feel this Reichian work may be the key.
4. How did you demonstrate this learning to your Degree Committee? If there were any material products of this learning activity, please describe.
Written evaluation by Meri Lehtinen
WINTER QUARTER JAN-MAR 1976
1. Describe your participation and responsibilities in this learning activity.
Every other Thursday I spend one hour in the afternoon at the office of Mari Lehtinen. Reichian therapy is a little like a cross between deep massage and psycho-analysis, with the emphasis on the deep massage. The basic theory is that repressed material is somatic as well as psychic, and that it is held in the body as chronic muscular “armoring”. The idea is to break down this armoring and regain the natural energy flow of the body. There are a number of techniques used to break down these blocks. Usually a session will have about four main parts. First I do certain deep breathing exercises to get the flow going. Then, when I encounter a limit, Meri will prescribe certain forceful movements designed to push through the holding. Thirdly, this will usually lead to spontaneous forceful movements such as shouting, hitting, or kicking. This spontaneous part can be really exhausting. The last part of a session is a time of settling back down. Usually during this time I feel very light and relieved or else very quiet and deeply grounded in my own body and feelings.
2. Describe new skills and/or knowledge derived from this learning activity which contribute to your Degree Plan.
There are two things going on here. One is the mechanical level of the exercises and movements. The other is the deep, non-verbal, emotional changes they put me through. I will discuss the first here and the second under personal significance, but this is a very artificial split. They seem much more subtly related than that.
Breathing: To start the flow I lay on my back, feet on the mat, knees bent, mouth open, breathing deeply. Inhaling, the air fills the chest, exhaling it is released with a sigh. A second technique is to balloon the stomach on the exhalation, and suck it in on the inhalation. This creates a teeter-totter effect between the stomach and chest. The therapist pushes down lightly on the diaphragm at the end of the out-breath. The overall effect is a deeper breath and stretching of the muscles that usually hold the trunk rigid.
Movement: The movements are associated with releasing tensions. Eyes: Open the eyes very wide on the in breath and squint them very tight on the outbreath. This releases muscular holding in the head and face. The therapist aids by vigorously pressing areas of the head and face. Chest: Lying on the back, arms pointed straight up, elbows locked. On the outbreath four quick bursts extending left, right, left, right arms, simultaneous with four shouts. Breaks down holding in the chest. Hitting and kicking: There are various combinations which lead spontaneously into a temper tantrum effect, with wonderful relief of tension. A great opportunity to get it all out without hurting anything or anybody.
3. Self-Assessment: Evaluate this learning activity. Mention such things as the quality of the experience itself and its personal significance to you.
Associated with all these movements has been some very deep emotional materials. In the session after seeing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, and right after my best friend got fired from Hathaway for having too open and healthy an attitude, I was very angry. I took about 80% of it out in my session. The remaining 20% lost me my job, but it was really beneficial releasing most of it in a neutral place. In the session immediately after visiting my grandmother in the intensive care ward I was profoundly shaken. I was able to contact that grief in my session, and came closer to crying than I have in twenty years. I can feel a direct relationship between the sessions and the fact that when I started I was very shy and withdrawn around women, but now I’m finding that I put out a very sexy vibration which is bringing around some very interesting women. Part of the reason for all of this is the trust in the therapist-client relationship. None of this would work if the therapist was simply a mechanic. But she creates an atmosphere which seems safe enough to open up areas that have been strongly defended for years.
4. How did you demonstrate this learning to your Degree Committee? If there were any material products of this learning activity, please describe.
Evaluation by Meri Lehtinen
Central Staff advisor’s comments:
A very important part of Ed’s development!!
EVALUATOR: Meri Lehtinen
1. A brief description of your relationship with the student relative to this learning activity; your professional and/or academic qualifications. You may attach a resume.
Edward Levin has been my client in Reichian body release work for about 13 sessions, seeing me every other week for an hour. I have had training in Reichian work with Dr. Alexander Lowen (two training workshops), Dr. Charles Kelley (a year), Dr. Philip Curcuruto (1 and ½ years), and have, most importantly, done my own Reichian therapy for about six years altogether, with the above therapists, and with others, such as Dr. Jack McIntyre and Dr. Francis Regardie.
2. Describe your expectations for the student in this learning activity.
I would expect him to be able to contact and express his feelings more completely, to have a freer and higher energy level, and to have a better understanding of the interrelationship of the body, emotions, mind and spirit.
3. Describe the student’s learning in this activity, based on your expectations. Mention observable growth, skill development, information mastery, aesthetic sensibility, or other evidence of acquired learning.
Ed has made very significant progress in his ability to contact and express his feelings, especially “aggressive” ones, whether sexual or otherwise assertive. This progress in the sessions has already made significant differences in his life, in the form of positive developments in his work and love potentials. He also has an ability to tolerate and handle a much higher energy level, which in the sessions is mainly visible in a capacity to breathe deeply for a much longer period before signs of anxiety become observable. This higher energy level probably accounts for his new sexual attractiveness as much as his ability to assert himself. Altogether, I feel Ed’s progress has been very satisfactory, especially considering that he has only had sessions every other week, which is usually discouraged, as it is difficult to make sustained gains with such a long gap between sessions.
SPRING QUARTER APR-JUN 1976
1. Describe your participation and responsibilities in this learning activity.
I continued bi-weekly sessions with Meri Lehtinen. The responsibility remained to be as open as possible to the exercises presented, and to be uninhibited enough to follow the spontaneous flow that they suggest. There is also a responsibility to remain open in daily life and not contract against the deeper physical and emotional flow which has been released.
2. Describe new skills and/or knowledge derived from this learning activity which contribute to your Degree Plan.
This quarter I have learned the following new exercises:
A) Head and neck: Lying on the back, on the inhalation raise the head very slowly to the chest. On the exhalation suddenly release all muscular tension and resistance in the neck,
and let the head drop to the foam pad. Releases tension in the neck muscles which are chronically contracted from a fear of letting the head fall.
B) Chest: Standing with legs slightly bent, feet shoulder width, toes pointed slightly in, arms extended in front at chest level. Exhale with a shout, pull the arms back quickly so they practically touch behind the back. Inhale and return arms to front extended position. Repeat vigorously with each breath. Opens the chest and throat areas.
C) Upper and lower back: A piece of apparatus known as a Lowen bench, which is like a gymnastic side horse without pommels, covered with cloth, is used. Turn your back to the bench and lie back on it, draping your body over it, allowing the head and arms to stretch to the ground. Breathe deeply. Stretches the back muscles, opens the chest cavity.
D) Pelvis: Lying on the back with feet on the mat, tucked close to buttocks, knees bent. With a sharp exhalation and shout snap the buttocks off the mat, pivoting the pelvis forward and leaving the entire back on the mat. Keep pelvis off the mat until full exhalation is completed. Lower it during the inhalation. Promotes flexibility between the lower back and pelvis, encourages energy flow through the pelvis.
E) Legs: Lying on the back with feet on the mat, tucked close to the buttocks, knees bent. On the exhalation let the legs fall out to the sides. Raise the knees back to upright position on the inhalation. Relaxes muscles on the inside of the thighs.
Many of these exercises will trigger off a spontaneous emotion, quite frequently painful, physically, as the body armor is stretched and broken down. I have learned to pound or kick the mat while yelling in order to stay in touch with the change while releasing the energy stored up as anger or constriction.
3. Self-Assessment: Evaluate this learning activity. Mention such things as the quality of the experience itself and its personal significance to you.
This is a very supportive situation in which to try out new physical sensations which I have been too afraid to try with a partner. The main significance for me this quarter is that I have actually begun to experience in daily life a sense of losing control, of my rigid, armored control systems breaking down. I knew this was the goal when I started, but that doesn’t make it any less frightening or disorienting. I feel very ambivalent about contacting my deeply repressed anger and aggression. I find myself deeply in touch with ambivalent feelings toward situations, rather than my former surface positive politeness. I have known I had a lot of repressed anger and resentment, but now that it is surfacing I’m making myself pretty obnoxious in some social situations. I realize that this is a phase which will pass as I begin a new integration taking these deeper levels more fully into account.
4. How did you demonstrate this learning to your Degree Committee? If there were any material products of this learning activity, please describe.
Evaluation written by Meri Lehtinen
EVALUATOR: Meri Lehtinen