Scripts People Live

by Claude Steiner

  24

  The Therapy of

  Joylessness

  Establishing contact with one’s bodily responses of joy and pain is the process of Centering indispensable in work with drug abuse.

  Centering body work as applied to script analysis is in its pioneering stages. However, enough is known to be able to make some preliminary statements which readers may find useful.

  Centering body work is based on the systematic reestablishment of contact with one’s bodily functions. This process can be effectively approached through the breathing function. Breathing is an effective approach because it is both involuntary and under voluntary control. Most of the time we breath involuntarily; it happens “by itself’ just like our heartbeat, the movement of our bowels through our intestines, the filtering of the blood in our kidneys, and so on. However, unlike the other functions mentioned, breathing is also under voluntary control. As a consequence, control of breathing is a very good beginning in the process of regaining touch with the rest of our body’s functions.

  Our breathing is usually shallow and insufficient. If we force air in and out of our lungs, by breathing first into our bellies, then into our chests, and up into the shoulder areas, and then exhale completely, we drive an unusual amount of oxygen into our lungs, into our blood stream, and eventually into the cellular tissue of our whole body. The result of this hyperventilation is that areas of our body which are split off and operate at very low levels of feeling energy become energized. When these areas of our body which are split off from our Center and are basically dead to us—hypertense or inactive and flabby—are oxygenated and energized, we become aware of them; they actually feel dead, paralyzed or highly wound up. The person now experiences the part of the body which is split off as it really is: paralyzed, inactive, clumsy, tight, twisted, detached, and so on.

  For instance, a woman, Ann, who had beautiful, long legs was usually not aware of them except when people stared at them or as she put garments on them to show them off or to hide them. (She did not think them beautiful but silly and ugly-looking.) Her legs did not feel like anything except occasionally when they hurt from walking too much. Generally, they just “moved around down there” getting her from one place to another. Her gait was slightly awkward as she walked with her weight placed on her toes rather than on her whole feet. She felt about her legs as one feels about a bicycle: they were locomotion devices and not part of her—unlike her face, head, shoulders, and breasts which she felt very connected with and where she felt her Center to be. Deep breathing, energizing her legs with excess oxygen, caused her to suddenly feel her legs. The split between her legs and her “self was temporarily gapped. She now was aware of how her legs always felt, without her head, her Center, knowing it. The feeling in her legs was, she realized for the first time, that they were dead, and as if wrapped in a tight bandage like a mummy’s legs are. She also realized that they (her legs) longed to take great strides; that they wanted to be bare and exposed to the wind and sun; that they hated to be certain of leering looks which usually came from men.

  Later, the vividness of her “leg feelings” subsided, but she retained a tenuous yet very real sense of them. She was especially aware of her legs longing to walk, climb, run in the air and sun. She became aware of the body injunctions about her legs, mostly sex role-based, which said “Don’t spread your legs (it’s sexy),” “Don’t bare them (they are provocative),” “Don’t run (it’s not ladylike),” and attributions like “You have beautiful legs (sit still and let the gentlemen look at them).” She decided to buy short hiking pants and let herself walk wherever she wanted to. If people looked at her legs, she hid them if she disliked their looks and let them be if she enjoyed them. Her legs changed physically; they became firmer, more graceful; but, more importantly, they became part of her Center, gave her much pleasure, and received much welcome attention from herself and others. She probably will get around on them gracefully and vigorously for as long as she lives, unlike her mother who at age sixty-five can only shuffle from place to place and has lost all sense that her legs could be able to transport her swiftly and competently.

  This single, dramatic example of Centering through breathing is just one of the ways that Centering body work can help in defeating banal and tragic life scripts.

  I am aware of the fact that the above account is incomplete, especially with regard to the techniques of deep breathing that bring about such changes in consciousness. This is not unintentional; as I said before, my understanding of this approach is incomplete. Bioenergetics as developed by Wilhelm Reich is being practiced by people who have a great deal more experience in it than I. Interested readers can learn or seek therapy from one of them. Needless to say, I recommend that the choice be made carefully, just as I suggested in the section on Common Sense in Chapter 18. There are some techniques for Centering which I have used effectively in groups and which I shall describe now.

  Breathing

  As explained above, deep breathing brings us in touch with our body and our emotions; it can tell us what parts of our body are dead, what parts of our body are alive, and so on. Ideally, breathing should be slow and deep, with the lungs going from complete inflation to complete deflation at every breath. This would keep the body fully oxygenated in the most efficient way. Instead, people take short, frequent breaths at the top or at the bottom of the breathing range and often hold their breath completely when scared or anxious. With some people it is as if a large invisible hand were wrapped around their chests, making it impossible to inhale fully and forcing them to breathe into their bellies. With others the squeezing hand is wrapped around the belly preventing full exhalation.

  Incomplete inhalation or exhalation causes shorter, more frequent breaths; oxygenation is chronically incomplete. Inhalers never clear their lungs completely. When they do, through deep exhalation or coughing, the air is stale and old. With lungs fully inflated, it is easy to shout and scream but hard to plead, cry, or whisper. Exhalers never fill their lungs completely. With lungs deflated, it is easy to whisper or cry but hard to speak with conviction and volume. Thus, when I feel that people need to express tender feelings, I ask them to exhale repeatedly. Conversely, I ask people who need to be strong, angry, or convincing to breathe repeatedly at the top of their breathing range.

  People in group therapy often launch into long, emotionless accounts which leave the observers without the slightest idea of what’s going on. Their statements seem to emanate from their mouths automatically, while their body, racked in fear or pain, huddles tightly into itself. By the simple device of deep breathing it is possible to facilitate the establishment of the connection with the body so that an actual, clear account of the situation emerges. When the person is asked to do three or four minutes of deep breathing and then to repeat the story, having now established some contact with the feelings associated with the situation, her story now becomes comprehensible. It has a point; it feels real; people can empathize with it and comprehend it; it can be dealt with. The above two techniques are, so far, the only ones I can recommend with confidence to transactional group therapists for routine use.

  Centering

  Centering is barely hinted at in this chapter. It needs to be understood and explored and translated for use in group therapy. At this time I am personally involved in investigating this form of script analysis. I don’t have additional techniques to offer here. I can only suggest what benefits this work could bring for people who might pursue it.

  Free of bodily injunctions and attributions, I believe that people could learn to use, train, and control their own bodies in the same elaborate and intricate way in which they have learned to use, train, and control their minds. People would be able to regulate their heartbeat and blood pressure; they would be able to slow down or hurry up their digestion and metabolism. Women would be able to bring on their menstrual periods. Men would be able to control ejaculation. As people learn to have power over their bodies they might be able to
kill malignant tumors by controlling their blood supply. They would be able to fight infections and eliminate toxic substances far more effectively than most people can now. They would be able to do things with their bodies which are considered “miraculous” by medicine today.

  On the other hand, people would be more sensitive to pain and noxious stimuli and would be unable to smoke or drink coffee excessively or tolerate, much less enjoy, oppression and persecution without constant painful awareness of it and a resulting constant tendency to throw it over. They would become sensitive to the side-effects of drugs and unable to overlook them. They would not need drugs to regain touch with their bodies.

  Such persons would deeply enjoy their body functions. Moving, breathing, standing, running, sleeping, straining, relaxing, crying, defecating, sex, and orgasm would all be unitary, organic functions involving the whole person pleasurably.

  Having been spared script attributions such a person would not overuse and eventually overdevelop any part of the body, such as his head, to neglect the rest of it. He would not have an inflated chest within which the heart works itself to early exhaustion. She would not have an overdeveloped belly, full of feelings which have no place to go because she can’t have them accounted for.

  People whose minds are in good touch with the rest of their bodies can be said to be Centered as opposed to being split-off. When Centered, all of the physical functions work in harmony and unison; the person is physically focused. Centering has been taught and mastered in the martial arts for centuries. When a martial arts black belt is under attack and she means to defend herself, the whole of her faculties and functions is focused on that task. Her breathing, heartbeat, circulation, vision, hearing, and all her senses and musculature are Centered around self-defense. She hears no voices in her ear saying “You’re going to die” or “Better run.” Her legs don’t tremble, she has no contradictory impulses to flee or plead or surrender. When she receives, deflects, and retaliates a blow it is done with as nearly all of her concentration as humanly possible: a fearsomely powerful, completely focused, thoroughly honest act in which every fiber of her being is involved.

  In the same manner as described above, people can think, play, love, intuit, speak, listen, or be completely quiet. People who are Centered emanate energy and are seen by some to show a special aura, sometimes called charisma, which never fails to inspire others (mostly favorably but at times with antagonism). The kind of personal power that comes with Centering, when complemented with the full use of one’s loving capacities and one’s capacities to think rationally and intuitively, is a firm basis for autonomy. Cooperative relationships between autonomous human beings are, in my mind, the foundation for the Good Life to be explored in the next section. So far as Centering goes, I hope to learn a great deal about the subject in the next years and encourage my readers to do the same.

  Figure 15

  SECTION 5

  THE GOOD LIFE

  25

  Cooperation

  About three thousand years ago, Moses descended from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments. One of these Commandments was “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” At that time it was a novel thought that one was not free to kill one’s fellow human beings. In order to conform to it people had to believe that it was a command from God Himself. Today we may be coming to a point in history where sanctioned killing will not only not be permissible but it may actually come to a virtual end. When killing and torture are no longer allowed in the affairs of people, the next step may be to get rid of lying and deception. And eventually, perhaps, the misuse of psychological power—power plays —will be given up by people as well. Perhaps people will come to believe that everyone is born equal, and equality will not only be talked about, but will be reflected in the feelings and actions of most people. Cooperation between autonomous, independent, powerful human beings could then be the rule rather than the exception.

  Cooperation on a large, international scale is a far distant dream. However, cooperative relationships are possible between people under special circumstances; and, as far as I can see, large scale cooperation can only come about after many people in many small groups learn to cooperate with each other.

  Cooperation Rules

  How then are we, who live in a society in which there is plenty, to take advantage of this plenitude? The answer is: cooperation. Cooperation is a mode of interpersonal relations which, based on the assumption that there is no scarcity of basic needs (food, shelter, space), provides an opportunity for everyone to have everything they need.

  One very good context in which to learn and struggle against individualism and competitiveness and toward achieving cooperation is the couple. The situation in which two people are in an intimate, long-term relationship is a situation in which the seeds of individualism and competitiveness cause great trouble and can be successfully defeated. Individualism and competitiveness are best pursued as a person standing alone. If one has no close ties to anyone, one hardly notices how individualism and competitiveness are destructive forces. It first becomes clearly destructive in a couple or family situation. The couple is the most available and protected laboratory for personal relationships, and a situation for which people have a great deal of energy to struggle. Thus, cooperation is most easily worked on in a couple. Also, cooperation is easier between two rather than three or more people. Therefore, this section devotes most of its attention to cooperation between two people, but applies to all sizes of human groups.

  Two people who decide that they want to enter into a cooperative relationship need to agree on several things:

  1. No scarcity. There is between them a satisfying quantity of what they need from each other. This agreement is not necessarily always obtainable since in some cases people do not have what they need for each other. Some people cannot provide the freedom, security, willingness to share, support, and knowledge that others need. For instance, with respect to sexual needs, one person may want to have sexual intercourse twice a day, and the other person may not want to have any sex at all. When the discrepancy between what people want is so large that there can be no compromise, there is in fact a situation of scarcity which cannot be remedied. In the above situation it’s not very likely that a cooperative compromise can be achieved. However, in most situations the discrepancies are not so large, and a cooperative compromise can be arrived at. A more common situation might be the one in which one person wants to have daily sexual intercourse while another person would prefer to have sex only every third day. Here, based on the assumption that there need not be scarcity, compromises can be arrived at so that both people can feel satisfied. For instance, one couple in such a situation agreed that the person with larger sexual needs would be willing to masturbate while the other person held and gave her loving strokes. This took the pressure off both and eventually equalized their sexual wants.

  We have found that cooperation of this sort tends to bring about a plenitude of what might at first have been scarce. The above exemplifies how artificial scarcity comes about. This couple had a “sexual” problem which could easily have become complicated into a case of “impotence” for the man as he became more and more anxious due to her sexual demands, ending in complete scarcity of sexual strokes for both. The “problem,” however, was based on their strict adherence to stroke economy rules which do not allow sexual self-stroking, especially in the presence of another person. But, as he asked for what he wanted and she compromised, they broke down the stroke economy and created sufficient and satisfying sexual strokes for both of them.

  2. Equal rights. Given that there is enough of what is needed “to go around,” the next agreement is that both of the persons have equal rights to satisfaction and equal responsibility in the process of cooperation.

  A person may be aware that there is enough to go around and still not be willing to share and struggle to bring about the equalization of what there is. For instance, sex-role scripting causes relationships between men and women to ha
ve built-in inequities which, on the whole, favor the man. For example, it is expected that women will do a larger proportion of the housekeeping even if both are employed, and most certainly if she is not. She may work at home as long and hard as he does at his job, but it is assumed that he is entitled to more leisure time than she. If she asks for equal leisure time he might agree that he gets more but be unwilling to equalize it based on his male privilege.

  On a more subtle level, men are encouraged to expect to get more nurturing strokes than they give. Typically, when confronted with this inequity, they acknowledge it, but may not work to change it—once again, holding on to their privilege.

  The inequities are not always in favor of the man, however. For instance, women expect men to do most of the work in their sexual life. Men are supposed to initiate, direct, and successfully complete sexual relations. When this inequity is pointed out women often balk at giving up their privilege, and refuse to work to change it.

  One couple’s work toward cooperation developed as follows:

  She wanted nurturing and caring strokes when she got sick or when she was afraid. He knew this, and even though he knew what she needed he did not comply with her needs. He didn’t work on the problem on his own accord. He would give her the strokes when she asked, if she asked “nicely,” but never initiated nurturing. He didn’t show any interest or put any energy in sharing the strokes he had for her.

  For a while, she tried to deal with the problem by withdrawing her strokes for him, but this only created further scarcity and did not solve the problem even though it equalized the flow of strokes.