by Halko Weiss
Growing the Child Within
The rebirth and regrowth of the lost living heart of the personality is the ultimate problem psychotherapy now seeks to solve.
HARRY GUNTRIP, Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self, 1968
Michael Balint describes the “new beginning” in therapy as happening within relationship, involving satisfaction of something that was missing, and leading to character changes: “going back to something primitive . . . which could be described as regression . . . and at the same time discovering a new, better suited way which amounts to a progression. . . . Regression for the sake of progression” (1992, p. 132).
Jill had therapy over a period of two years. She was an adopted child, growing up with well-meaning but emotionally unresponsive parents. She generally held herself back from people and was easily influenced by other people’s moods, often feeling wounded by them. In therapy, Jill appeared collapsed; her eyes were wide and often full of tears. Her heart area was painful. A young, infant self was frequently present, needing calm words and gentle touch. The therapist gave this part attention and acceptance, reminding her that she was now safe and welcome. Jill, as adult, mindfully learned to recognize this baby part and cared for her. Eventually, Jill noticed how much stronger her body felt, how she was sitting straight, and how her heart felt warm. She said, “I feel like I belong now, and I want to be here.”
Exiled parts can be reintegrated in the present time, bringing empowerment and choice to the client. We must, however, hold the child imagery lightly, allowing these young parts to grow, change, and ultimately disappear into the complexity of the embodied adult, where they become parts of the whole, grown person. Kurtz (1978) described how the child is the mapmaker, constantly forming the core models of reality about the world and himself. Future experience is largely created through these maps. In therapy, we can return to the “map room” and show the child, who is frozen in time, a different reality that is congruent with growth. The new experience can now be integrated and laid down in the neural architecture of the brain. The maps have been redrawn. Working at this powerful, vulnerable place in therapy has a very special, sacred feel to it. Such opportunities should not be missed, for it is here that life-changing, therapeutic work can be accomplished, and the reclaiming of lost potential and wholeness can occur.
CHAPTER 19
Working Through Core Beliefs
Manuela Mischke Reeds
IN TRADITIONAL PSYCHOANALYTIC work, “working through” refers to “the process of having the client face the same conflicts over and over again, under the analyst’s supervision, until he can independently face and master the conflicts in ordinary life” (English & English, 1958, p. 591). In Hakomi therapy, working through is a specific stage in the therapeutic process, called the processing phase, in which the client experiences and processes core material. “Core material” refers to the beliefs that the client’s soma-psyche organizes around (Johanson, 2015). Core beliefs are often unconscious or in implicit memory (Schacter, 1992) and have a powerful impact on how a person perceives and automatically reacts to the world and relationships, giving rise to the conflicts suggested in the definition above (Chapter 7). For instance, a belief that support cannot be trusted can lead to interpersonal clashes when genuine support is offered by a friend or partner but then refused. Core organizing beliefs are often unearthed through the techniques and interventions previously outlined in this section.
Many psychotherapeutic approaches acknowledge the significance of core beliefs, but how they are worked through differs. The Hakomi orientation approaches core organizers through inviting a shift to a mindful state of consciousness, so that clients can notice and study how their core beliefs automatically affect their perception and expression (Weiss, 2008). The state-specific learning that occurred when these habits and beliefs first formed needs to be accessed through mindfulness (Baer, 2003; Brown et al., 2007) or we risk remaining at the mercy of an already-organized ordinary consciousness. This slowed-down, contemplative, or self-reflective state enables clients to experience themselves in a deeper, more truthful way (Chapter 10). At this stage in the process, the therapist trusts that if clients can experience these beliefs safely and directly, then resources or gifts from the unconscious can surface and offer expanded choices in contrast to the choicelessness or automaticity (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999) of the limiting belief systems.
In the working-through phase, clients encounter the limitations of their core beliefs both emotionally and sensorially, as well as the formative experiences that lie behind them. This experiential process brings up their grief and pain, as well as offering them insight into why these core beliefs are operating. In this phase, clients somatically experience that these limitations have produced important survival-level strategies, appropriate at the time of their conception (Chapters 8 and 23), but at the price of narrowing their options in the present. When these beliefs are experienced and transformed, clarity of mind and somatic understanding can arise, along with negotiating barriers (Chapter 17) to fuller possibilities in life.
Inner and Outer Indicators
Central to Hakomi processing in general, and working through in particular, is sensitivity to the inner and outer indicators of the core organizing beliefs manifesting in the bodymind (Chapter 3). For instance, if during early relationships the mother projects a negative or dismissive body and facial expression, the child internalizes this and reads these cues in order to navigate responses toward the mother. The child learns how to avoid the gaze of the dismissive parent, or perhaps to respond by withdrawing attention in order not to draw notice. These responses turn into internal indicators—which later in life become markers of coded experiences with a strong emotional charge. These physical expressions can be tracked from without and are often linked to core beliefs about the world (Chapter 14). Even as an adult, the client learns to track for and avoid negative responses and uses her developed strategies of not provoking, diverting attention, and so forth in response to anticipated stressful moments.
In the case of Jade outlined below, she had learned how to track for signs of dismissal and disparagement and, consequently, in our initial sessions she had a hard time taking me in. It was as if she had no inner template for experiencing kindness from another human being. These became her limitations—leading to conflicts—since she experienced intimate relationships as hostile, unreliable, and ultimately unsustainable. She was sensitive to physical cues or eye movements that would signal anger or disapproval. She could also interpret cues in that manner, illustrating Siegel’s (1999, 2007) point that the brain functions as an anticipatory machine. Or, in Piaget’s terms, our anticipations can lead us to assimilate the world we encounter into our previous structures of meaning, as opposed to accommodating our structures to new information (Horner, 1974, pp. 9–10).
As therapists, part of working through is learning about these somatic indicators of belief and meaning in order to track, contact (Chapter 14), and ultimately understand and unpack their message. This understanding needs to come not only in the form of intellectual understanding but also as a physical knowing in the client (Fogel, 2009). Fleeting moments of eye exchanges have a powerful impact on clients who are used to feeling dismissed. These clients can feel bad or depressed within seconds, not even knowing what has happened to them. The disposition to assimilate into or confirm inner meanings is strong, even though there are always multiple attractor states in play (Chapter 5). Clients find it generally easier to live with what they already know how to navigate than to enter into unfamiliar, possibly hurtful territory. In this regard, the work on interpersonal neurobiology and emotions as well as neuroscience is a rich field to explore (Cozolino, 2006; Damasio, 1999; LeDoux, 1996; Schore, 1994; Siegel, 1999).
Working at the Core: Jade and the “Ugly Baby” Story
Case Study
Jade was a 55-year-old consultant. She worked for a prestigious firm and felt successful and proud of what she did. A few
months earlier in therapy, we had discussed her desire to broaden her horizons and add some more tools to her trade. Consequently, she found a consultant training program that seemed fitting. The training institute had a promising curriculum and stringent requirements, ending in a certification to add to her resumé. Jade was excited about this potential credential and threw herself into the learning process. Now, the test for the certification was two weeks away, and she was a nervous wreck.
As we explored why this test had so much weight for her, a theme emerged. She recalled a lifelong struggle in which her mother felt ashamed of Jade’s lack of accomplishments. Jade had flunked out of college, and her mother was embarrassed. She pretended to her friends and family that Jade had actually graduated. Sworn to secrecy by her mother, Jade hid how much she was filled with anger, resentment, and shame. Now, as she approached the test situation, she felt intense pressure to perform and was riddled with insecurity and fear. She felt destined to fail, and then have to cover up the failure once again.
As Jade related her story, her body exhibited a collapsed chest. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she would wipe them as soon as they emerged. Her tone of voice sounded as if she carried a hundred years of burden. Her body was revealing the story of a secret that had been held for a very long time (Kurtz & Prestera, 1976). I asked her to slow down her storytelling and notice what she was experiencing in the moment. As she slowed down, taking in short, heavy bursts of air, she exclaimed, “You know, this goes way back. My mom called me an ugly baby.”
I was struck by the way she smiled as she said this, at the same time that she dropped deeper into her sunken chest. Her eyes were droopy and sad, and her gaze fixed on the floor in an empty stare. Her right arm dangled down beside her body, as if unattached. I was curious about the arm but sensed that this was not the right moment to invite it into awareness. Then Jade made a comment of her own: “That was the going story in the house,” she said. “My mom liked to tell everyone at gatherings what an ugly baby I really was, how I came out blue and red, and how kind of disfigured I looked. She considered that entertainment.”
As she finally let her secret out, she was no longer able to contain her deep sadness. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she stopped wiping them. Her voice and cries softened, giving her a younger appearance. I contacted her by saying, “That sounds really painful, Jade,” which functioned to keep her deepening into her experience.
As the rest of the story came out, Jade revealed that her mother had rejected her at birth due to how she looked. Further, her mother had birth complications and had hated her pregnancy, as well as the birth, and had refused to breast-feed the baby. Jade would cry all night long.
All this revealed that Jade was rejected at the most basic level: She was not welcomed into the loving arms of her mother. Life started out rough and harsh. She began her first relationship with a lie. This pattern became an identifying rhythm between mother and daughter. In adult life, Jade would repeat this pattern in her intimate relationships, forever lamenting that her relationships were doomed.
Jade cried as she remembered more details of the story and its impact. The meaning of the story continued to extend from an intellectual understanding into a bodily expression of it—into a visceral level of experience. She rocked gently forward and back, her tears covering the softness of her face. Her gaze was again fixed on the floor in a blank stare. Reaching out to her, I suggested, “There is so much sadness here. Just let this be here, Jade. I am right here with you, and I am sorry your mother felt this way about you.”
Jade continued to rock, my gentle words entering into her, her head nodding in agreement. She was taking in my words, experiencing me as a kind adult or a gentle aunt who was validating her view. This magical stranger (Chapter 18) was siding with the child, who knew in her heart that this was no way to be treated by her mother. It was an opportunity to work through an old, formative memory and concomitant belief while yielding to the integration of new possibilities of welcome.
Encouraged by her nonverbal listening cues, the stillness in her body, and her attentive gaze, I continued as the magical stranger, offering a wider perspective than the young child could ever have had at the time: “Sometimes mothers are overwhelmed and don’t know what to do with their babies. They are kind of shocked and overwhelmed by the experience. I am sorry your mom felt this way. I am sorry she could not see what a beautiful baby you were and what a lovable person you are.” I was addressing the need of the child to make sense of her experience, and the inevitable choice children make in painful situations—assuming it was their fault. This is generally the child’s safest choice, because it assumes the possibility of some measure of control, through finding out and correcting what the fault might have been.
Jade kept rocking, her eyes intermittently closing, as if she was soaking up the confirmation of her being, right in the moment. I was silent, waiting for what would unfold next, trusting in the organicity principle (Chapter 5) that something would. Her breath eased; I noticed that she and I had been holding our breath throughout this passage. I relaxed my breath and exhaled softly, and she began to breathe a little more deeply into her chest.
Spontaneously, her left arm moved across her chest, resting on her body as if in a cradle. She didn’t even realize that she was doing this. “You just moved your arm,” I whispered, and then asked her, “What is your arm wanting to do right now?” Her head turned toward the cradle; she gazed at its crook, and the rocking motion increased. She lifted her right arm, delicately cupping the left (the one she had earlier abandoned), and gazed at this arm lovingly, as a mother would do with her beloved child (the “left-side cradle”). “I love you. I love you,” she whispered. She kept whispering gentle words of love and nourishment as she rocked back and forth, tears streaming down her face continuously. Her face opened up in a loving gaze.
This moment seemed to go on for a long time. I sat back, witnessing the dance between herself, her actual mother, and the beloved mother who could not be there at her birth but had now shown up as a part of herself to provide a missing experience—what Alexander and colleagues (1946) termed a “corrective emotional experience,” what Daniel Siegel (2010) considers being a friend to oneself.
In that moment, I recognized with increased clarity the way in which this “ugly baby” came into the world, leaving an imprint of not being welcomed in her body, thus setting up the beliefs that had shaped her life so profoundly. Jade began to act out of a lifelong trance (Wolinsky, 1991) of not being fully acceptable, beautiful, or welcomed for who she was. She learned that only an alternate persona could be loved. The trance of her life was the belief that she was not lovable for who she was, but only for who she should have been, like her brother and other successful, beautiful people.
Jade had spoken in earlier sessions of how her brother was favored and how she had always felt less than him. She had taken these interactions between herself, mother, and brother for granted, never recognizing the dynamic of her assumed ugliness being reinforced each time her mother favored her brother. This is an example of the parallel levels of internal and external family systems in play (Schwartz, 1995) that would be ideal to address in working through in a multilevel manner.
After a long while she looked up at me. Our eyes met, and she smiled directly at me. It was a warm exchange between us. In that moment, I felt a genuine love for this client. She could see it. For the first time she knew how to recognize it and allow herself to feel it. No words were needed. The nonverbal exchange through the eyes conveyed it all. She could see in my eyes that she was welcomed and seen for who she was.
Then Jade pointed to her heart (on the right side) and said, “I can’t feel my heart.” I smiled and replied, “Actually, your heart is on the left side.” She bolted up, sat straight, and said, “What? I didn’t even know that that’s where the heart was in the body. No wonder that no relationships have worked out. I have been looking for love in all the wrong places!” A huge laugh e
rupted from her and we laughed for the longest time, delighting in the metaphorical as well as the literal level of her discovery. After a few liberating moments of deep laughter, she settled back into the chair, filled with the experience she had traversed. Then she softly cast her eyes away from contact with mine and smiled to herself with an expression of utmost kindness. In that moment, I knew she had updated a very old belief. She had taken a significant step toward working through her sense of being unlovable by the reconsolidation of early memories.
The Missing Experience
In her body, Jade knew that the lack of physical affection and holding by her mother was painful. She had not known any other way for most of her life. The bodily experience of not having this warmth and holding had created in her a disposition to withdraw from human contact. She was unable to give this quality of warmth to herself or to others. She also had difficulty recognizing warmth when she received it. Instead, beliefs would form that human contact was cold and uncaring; that the world was harsh and limited in warmth and kindness; and that love was conditional and had to be earned. Many of these beliefs became reality in her life, confirmed with every failed relationship.