Life is a train of moods like a string of
beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which
paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own
focus. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Rhythmic Integration is a way of understanding that leads to
fuller, wholer living. It is based on mastering a succession of body patterns that
our energy cycles through as things change.
Energy
Energy is a life
fundamental. Knowing the way it lives within us, and how it shapes our living is
key to self-knowledge.
The amount of energy available to us changes through time. It depends on our intake of vital
supplies: the food we eat, the air we breathe, and how our metabolic system puts
the two together.
The amount of energy we
have depends, too, on how we spend it.
Energy is spent in many ways. e.g. temperature regulation, hormone production, immune responses. Just the magnitude of ongoing cell production suggests the dynamo of energetic excitement going on in our life.
These things are mostly outside our conscious experience. We can be quite conscious of other energy expenditures however: feelings of sensations and emotions, physical movements and personal expressions.
Energy PatternsEnergy is spent in many ways. e.g. temperature regulation, hormone production, immune responses. Just the magnitude of ongoing cell production suggests the dynamo of energetic excitement going on in our life.
These things are mostly outside our conscious experience. We can be quite conscious of other energy expenditures however: feelings of sensations and emotions, physical movements and personal expressions.
Energy patterns our body. As we move patterns change.
Some of this is obvious. A standing body is
different from a sitting body. The pattern in each instance is
different, and easily changed.
Less attended to is the consistency and implications of the total patterning of peoples' bodies.
Bodies may be soft and round, twisted and fragmented, thin and lanky, squared off and solid, etc. There can be a mix of shapes in one body, e.g. thin legs and hulking upper torso. Because these things are usually slow to change, we grow used to them and see people looking in characteristic ways.
Other patterns involve specific parts of the body which take away from its harmony and balance. For example, shoulders are consistently held high, or the pelvis is locked backwards.
More fleeting, and often passing unobserved, are small movements that come and go. Breathing may stop momentarily as the chest holds, or the eyes may flicker from side to side, or the head may jerk backward for a moment. If we're not attending to them, these details may escape our attention altogether.
Bioenergetic Analysis
Bioenergetic Analysis is a psychotherapeutic approach, developed by Dr. Alexander Lowen, that looks closely at the way the body is shaped, and how it moves.
Bioenergetics looks for physical disharmonies and disjunctions, things that take the individual away from natural movement patterns. It relates how a person's body distortions function psychologically.
Bioenergetics labels a series of distorted patterns in the order that they are formed in critical early developmental periods. Each label defines a person's character in psycho-pathological terms: Schizophrenic, Schizoid, Oral, Psychopathic, Masochistic and Rigid Structures.
Further; Bioenergetics:
Less attended to is the consistency and implications of the total patterning of peoples' bodies.
Bodies may be soft and round, twisted and fragmented, thin and lanky, squared off and solid, etc. There can be a mix of shapes in one body, e.g. thin legs and hulking upper torso. Because these things are usually slow to change, we grow used to them and see people looking in characteristic ways.
Other patterns involve specific parts of the body which take away from its harmony and balance. For example, shoulders are consistently held high, or the pelvis is locked backwards.
More fleeting, and often passing unobserved, are small movements that come and go. Breathing may stop momentarily as the chest holds, or the eyes may flicker from side to side, or the head may jerk backward for a moment. If we're not attending to them, these details may escape our attention altogether.
Bioenergetic Analysis
Bioenergetic Analysis is a psychotherapeutic approach, developed by Dr. Alexander Lowen, that looks closely at the way the body is shaped, and how it moves.
Bioenergetics looks for physical disharmonies and disjunctions, things that take the individual away from natural movement patterns. It relates how a person's body distortions function psychologically.
Bioenergetics labels a series of distorted patterns in the order that they are formed in critical early developmental periods. Each label defines a person's character in psycho-pathological terms: Schizophrenic, Schizoid, Oral, Psychopathic, Masochistic and Rigid Structures.
Further; Bioenergetics:
- Notes correspondences between distorted body patterns and character pathologies: a body with twists and fragmenting breaks in movement flow are manifestations of a Schizoid Character, a long thin body manifests an Oral Character, These psycho-pathologies are seen as the result of difficulties that occurred during the period of early development, from the womb to six years of age.
- Attends to chronically held parts of the body, and understands them in relation to the feelings and movements they restrict or suppress. Chronically held high shoulders, for example, often indicates fear that is not being experienced and released. The holding stops movement from happening, emotional expression.
- Aids the person to loosen held areas, release their block feelings through expression and find the historical source of their holdings by examining personal history for distorting experiences "written into the body."
- Finds that working through and releasing held areas results in emotional expression, fuller breathing, an increase in capacity to develop energy and more aliveness in the body.
Rhythmic Integration & Bioenergetic Analysis -- The Rhythmic Cycle of Change
Rhythmic
Integration carries Bioenergetic
insights beyond pathological concerns. When using its understandings and
methods, much of its focus is on normal growth and the psychological
strengths that become available in early development. The chart below
shows the relationships.
Rhythmic Integration ( RI ) & Bioenergetic Analysis ( BA )
Development Capacity Pathology
The Body Area The RI World The BA Character
Senses
Dreaming
Schizophrenic
Reflexes
Creating
Schizoid
Oral Structures
Communicating Oral
Chest & Diaphragm
Inspiring
Psychopathic
Sphincter Muscles
Analyzing
Anal
Skeletal Muscular
Solidifying
Masochistic
Muscular
Alteration
Achieving
Rigid
The Rhythmic Cycle of Change
How each positive psychological capacity, matures; what each offers to our personality, is shaped by our unique history of experiences.
Together,
the sequence
of positive capacities that Rhythmic Integration describes provides a
template for how we live through the process of change: The Rhythmic
Cycle of Change;
Dreaming, Creating, Communicating, Inspiring, Analyzing, Solidifying, Achieving.
The Capacities of the Rhythmic Cycle that developed naturally in our early history have the potential to become skillfully employed in later life. Those that were left undeveloped, however, tend to be avoided, or weakly utilized. Those used repeatedly, defending us against trauma, are likely to become sticking points that stop the flow of change, and leave us with negative feelings, and depleted aliveness.
When things get stopped in a phase of the Cycle, one of three things may happen. We may compensate for it, find another way to employ its strengths, or move to get the critical body area mobilized so that we can proceed along on the course of change.
Dreaming, Creating, Communicating, Inspiring, Analyzing, Solidifying, Achieving.
The Capacities of the Rhythmic Cycle that developed naturally in our early history have the potential to become skillfully employed in later life. Those that were left undeveloped, however, tend to be avoided, or weakly utilized. Those used repeatedly, defending us against trauma, are likely to become sticking points that stop the flow of change, and leave us with negative feelings, and depleted aliveness.
When things get stopped in a phase of the Cycle, one of three things may happen. We may compensate for it, find another way to employ its strengths, or move to get the critical body area mobilized so that we can proceed along on the course of change.
For a Change
Cycle to develop fully, the ability to move through all its phases will be necessary. We may have the skills to
able to do this for ourselves, or we may find others to
provide capacities we lack. To do this well, knowing our weaknesses and allowing
others to provide their strengths are real assets.
As individuals, we can
learn to move into or through any of the capacities of the Cycle of Change with greater facility. We can learn
to recognize sticking points that are typical for us. Where we find weaknesses, we can
work to free ourselves and strengthen them.
Developing mastery of all the patterns gives us choice as to when and where to employ them, and allows us to fully move through he Cycle of Change to experience the wholeness that enriches our lives.
To learn more about the Rhythmic Integration and the Rhythmic Cycle of Change see:
Robbins, R. Rhythmic Integration: Finding Wholeness in the Cycle of Change.
NY:Station Hill, 1990.
To learn more about Bioenergetics and its character structures see:
Lowen, A. The Language of the Body. 2006.
Both titles are available from www.amazon.com.
Developing mastery of all the patterns gives us choice as to when and where to employ them, and allows us to fully move through he Cycle of Change to experience the wholeness that enriches our lives.
To learn more about the Rhythmic Integration and the Rhythmic Cycle of Change see:
Robbins, R. Rhythmic Integration: Finding Wholeness in the Cycle of Change.
NY:Station Hill, 1990.
To learn more about Bioenergetics and its character structures see:
Lowen, A. The Language of the Body. 2006.
Both titles are available from www.amazon.com.