disturbance in our embodiment. What illnesses have we had, and which ones did we manifest, and how might we have used these in our life story? This is not a form of diagnosis (like Louise Hay) but more looking at how we see our bodies in terms of health or illness. Much has been written about this theme from various health perspectives: traditional medicine, social health, spiritual path work, and complementary medicine. The bio-psycho-social model is now considered as the most appropriate one in traditional, conventional medicinal treatments for illness and chronic pain: this means that illness and pain are a combination of biological, psychological and social influences. But this model still sees us, the affected, as a fairly passive component in illness: it is something that happens to us. However, with the concept of embodiment, we can perhaps consider the interaction of ourselves with bodily illness in a much more active light. Has our body ‘failed’ us by getting ill? Is our illness a result of our dissociation with our body: what warning signs did we ignore? Do we perhaps (consciously or unconsciously) use illness as a hiatus, a respite, or an interruption to our normal existence or our working life? In what ways might this particular type of illness that we have manifested actually work for us? Or – a serious illness having happened – can we use this as a turning point in our lives. (Sachs, 1984, 1985) Self-Esteem: From a self-esteem perspective – how we see ourselves, and often how we see ourselves in relation to others – how we dress, how we present ourselves, our body stature, our aura – there are very different messages depending on how we are ‘embodied’ and on our mood. There are so many factors associated with embodiment involved in self-esteem that it is almost difficult to differentiate these. I write about some of these in the previous article on doing effect body psychotherapy without touch (Young, 2005a): body awareness, vitality, affect, body language, self-image, expressive forms, etc. One of my clients said to me recently, “I don’t do mirrors.” She was not grossly fat, but only somewhat over-weight. But she could not look at herself, possibly because the prevailing cultural images of anorexic pubescent femininity were causing her to deny her own self-image. Her embodiment was affected. The depression that she was experiencing was, in part, related to a deterioration in her relationship with her husband. She said she had taken some steps to ‘correct’ his faults, but she also became quite confused when I asked why she might have “kept her lip buttoned” for the previous 20 years. It became much clearer when we started to talk about her self-esteem. She was brought up with some classically feminine mores: women don’t speak up or challenge their husbands. We worked firstly on imaging what the inner image was: what would she look like, how would she be, if she could step out of this ‘fat suit’, if she could reclaim her self-esteem? Could she identify with – and like – that ‘inner’ person: in part the person she once was, but also, in part, the latent potential – the person she knew somewhere she could be? Then, how can that inner person, that more real part of her self, nourish and support herself in more productive ways, in ways that did not involve comfort eating, or keeping quiet, or not doing the things she wanted to do, when and how? Day-to-Day: From the individual’s daily perspective of what do we daily do to our body, what do we eat, how much do we exercise, how well we sleep, or how we dress, are all indications of what sort of day-to-day relationship we have with our bodies. What is the continuum of our embodiment? This may be a culmination of genetic components, physiological development, childhood stories, family habits, self-esteem, traumas, and characterological formation (Keleman, 1985: Macnaughton, 1997). Embodiment is a continual changing process throughout our lives. Were we allowed to enjoy the use of our bodies in climbing trees and playing in the woods and fields, or were we prevented from doing this by concrete pavements, notices saying “No Ball Games”, or our parental inhibitions to torn and dirty clothes. In Body-Psychotherapy workshops, I often use a ‘script’ that takes people through these influences as an introduction to “The Body that Brought Me Here”. Continuum: Where and when and how we can (learn to) dissociate from our bodies is not so relevant. We will almost inevitably do so at one point in our lives: maybe from the experiences of loss of contact with the mother (Bowlby, 1997; Leidloff, 1975; et al.); maybe during an illness; maybe as a result of abuse; maybe when we had to wear shoes and go to school; maybe when we were traumatized (van der Kolk, 1996; Rothschild, energy & character vol.37 may 2009 41
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