– Version française: cliquer ici–
In preparation for the 21st IIBA International Conference in San Diego, October 2011
The North American and New Zealand Institutes for Bioenergetic Analysis (NANZIBA) is happy to invite the IIBA International Community to its first virtual BOOK CLUB
Object : Neuroscience clinical applications to Bioenergetic Analysis
Author : Allan Shore
Title: Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, Norton & Company, Inc., 2003
Chapters: 2, 3, 4 and 5
Delay: From today until mid-July, 2011
In this 21st century already, many bioenergetic contributors have shared with us their visions of links between neuroscience and Bioenergetic. Edith Liberman, Christa D. Ventling, David Kuniansky, Bob Lewis, Helen Resneck-Sannes, Angela Klopsteck, Guy Tonella are among those contributors. They have published articles in our Clinical Journals of the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis.
For instance, Helen Resneck-Sannes wrote in her article entitled The Embodied Mind (2007 edition) « It appears that stimulation from caregivers during the first few years of life is necessary for the forming of those muscular, visceral, and sensorial structures that go into the building of the form and functions that Bioenergetic theory has labeled as character » (p. 46).
In other respects, Allan Shore for his part writes in the above book (p.31) « …hypotheses about the nature of the internal structural system that is altered in psychotherapy has been corroborated in a PET imaging study demonstrating that patients show significant changes in metabolic activity in the right orbitofrontal cortex and its subcortical connections as a result of successful psychological treatment (Schwarts Stoessel, Baxter, Martin, & Phelps, 1996). These results are supported by a large body of studies in the neurosciences indicating that although the effects of environmental experiences develop more rapidly and extensively in the developing than the adult brain, the capacity for experience-dependent plastic changes in the nervous system remains throughout the lifespan… (Rosenzweig, 1996).
Still, Allan Shore writes «…response of psychoanalysis will have to involve a reintegration of its own internal theoretical divisions, a reassessment of its educational priorities, a reevaluation of its current predominant emphasis on cognition, especially verbal mechanisms, as well as a reworking of its Cartesian mind-body dichotomies. » (pp 203-204).
Considering that at the heart of his therapeutic approach Lowen himself many decades ago integrated mind and body both in theory and in practice of Bioenergetic Analysis with accent to body work, considering that « we must continue to build from the legacy of its creator » (Tonella, Paradigms for Bioenergetic Analysis at the Dawn of the 21st Century, in the Clinical Journal of the IIBA, 2008 edition, p. 28).
QUESTIONS
1. Can we consider movements, exercises, charges (bodily, emotionally), part of the Bioenergetic trademark, as repairing stimulation from us bioenergetic therapists ?
2. What are the clinical distinctive applications to Bioenergetic Analysis following from the latest researches in neurosciences as presented by Allan N. Shore?
3. What have been the effects of reading Shore on your clinical interventions and on your patients?
Please respond or comment using the form below whether or not you will be attending the San Diego Conference. Please add your name, your IIBA Membership Status and your basic professional title.
Michèle Dupuy-Godin, SOQAB, moderator
James Byrne, After Dark Grafx, web specialist
Emmanuel Bernet, SOQAB, information assistant
Writing about Bioenergetic Analysis and neuroscience many colleagues refer to the books of Shore. To me it seems they are not precise enough and not up to date. We should use much more the original sources of neuroscience researchers as Edelman, Damasio etc.
On the other hand we should become aware that the hypotheses of different researchers in this field are really not congruent, above all some conclusions of there results. E.g. the conclusion that there is no free will able changing behavior. Accepting this hypotheses means psychotherapy makes no sense. Or the hypotheses of Jochim Bauer about the “mirror neurons” which are responsible for deep empathy with our clients and other persons is not really grounded in the pertained experiments. The important question on this issue is not how our brain deals with the received information but by which channal the brain gets the information when you do not see, hear, your communication partner is far away.
Do not forget neuroscience deals only with the processes of our brain. But besides our body is much more. The human beeing is organized as a network and our brain is an important part of it – but only one part. And BA deals with the whole body.
Last not least our brain is only functioning when it is developed well enough. But at the very beginning of our live there is no well enough developed brain. Nevertheless there is a giant well organized process. That means there should be other regulating systems -necessarily not god- and we should become aware of.
for me communication between the infant and her/his mother or figure acting as a mother is the most important factor for the brain, thus the body, thus the character, thus the person to develop, and beyond there is can we say enough love -
Good morning,
Maybe it is time to ask ourselves WHY NEUROSCIENCES in link with Bioenergetic Analysis -what is the use of it? -
Good morning, have you slept well? – I did -
The more I read Schore’s chapter 2, the more I find interesting links with Bioenergetic Analysis. For instance, right at p. 34, Schore speaks of Bowlby and of Freud both contributors to a developmental theory. On this matter I consider that Lowen grounds the bioenergetic characters in the development of the human being. And, the therapeutic accompaniment, in the memory of the unconscious that is reached through our bodily and relational techniques. So do Schore relating to researches locating this unconscious in the human right hemisphere which “mediates the functional development of the unconscious mind”. This unconscious system which appears very early in life, well before verbal conscious functions, located in the right-brain, the right-mind, is a corporeal one. The consequence of developmental, relational, sensory, emotional experiences.
I would be happy to receive your feedback.
Have a good day
Dear Mahr:
I agree with “all of them (bodily parts) are related each other”. Does that mean that when I work with a segment of the body I also work with changes in the neuronal system, with the brain? – I support that the perennity of the therapeutic effects passed by those changes, all over; biologically, physiologically, psychologically: body and mind –
And what about dissociation?
Mr. Mahr,
I will come back to you soon – some of your questions are mine -
Dear Rainer Mahr:
The beauty of Schore consists partly in sharing with us other scientists knowledge. For instance this citation from Damasio, 1994: “The fact that the right hemisphere contains the most comprehensive and integrated map of the body state available to the brain”. Does this confirm that when we as Bioenergetic Analysts work with the body states (physiologically, sensitively, mnemonically) we work altogether with the brain? In an homeostasic, united way? This could seem an evidence. Can we cite Lowen and his faith in human entirety? Hope to read you again…
from the beautiful Baie St-Paul, Charlevoix, Québec, Canada:
I like this citation from Schore p. 152: A guiding principle in this investigation is embodied in the assertion that “any comprehensive theory of affects needs to include the physiologic segment as well as the psychoanalytic” (Panel 1974) -
As Bioenergetic Analyst, don’t you like it?
Dear Michèle Dupuy-Godin,
yes as a Bioenergetic therapist I accept that all affects needs to include the physiologic segment. The need to include the psychoanalytical one – I don’t know. I do not know which psychoanalytical theories of today are relevant above all in this case. I think today and with the knowledge of neurocience and all the other biological processes psychic proscesses can be described and understood indepedent of pschoanalytical concepts.
About the effects: The affectcs do not have only a physiological segment. Neuroscience say that the affects are the result, a product of bodily processes. In the limbic system all information of the status inside the body and all information from outside, from the social world are collected and checked. ‘Everything is ok or this or that should be tuned or modified.’ The result of that decision you realize as an affect as a feeling or emotion. You get this decision like a picture at your screen. So yo become able to modify your patterns your behaviour etc. Therefore affects and emotions are so important to keep human beeing alive. And for that it is very basic that people are aware of there emotions and able to understand and to follow them.
Dear admin,
tough at the moment I cannot check the citation of Damasio you have mentioned I think he is only talking about where bodily schemas are stored in the brain. It does not explain so much of all the complex processes going on in the brain.
You are right when we bioenergetic therapists work with the body we work with the brain too. The human beeing is a biological one. Therefore all processes are physiological. The psychic phenomenas are the result of these biological processes. Our psychtherapeutic work tries to modify biological regulation systems. In bioenergetics we are talking of the ‘funnctional identity of body and mind’. That is the same understanding of neuroscience talking of all human processes are biological and psychic phenomans are the result of them.
But the brain is only one part of the human being. There are a lot of other parts very important for human life. All of them are related to each other. The brain will not work without them. It needs their information, their support etc. For example the autonomous nerve system works partly independent, outonomous of the brain, much more integrated in different organs than in the brain. And we can modify it by touching, moving etc. That is one of the important discoveries of Reich. It was the base of its vegetotherapy.
So I think we have to develop our understandig of therapeutic processes from a very biological level of the human beeing.
For that Shore’s concepts are not so helful to me.
excerpts from Schore, chapter 5, p. 157, “sympathetic and parasympathetic components are known to have different timetables of development, resulting in unique physiological organizations, at different stages of postnatal life-is’nt this an invitation to the different characters tension rings in bioenergetic analysis and to their links with the right brain through the ANS? – the tensions rings becoming precised targets…en route for psychobiological repair…
Nice Blog !!! your the best
What has happen? I am missing some comments!
I am also missing comments from the IIBA international community -
But indeed I appreciate your “presence” Rainer Mahr-
Here is a sentence from Lowen’s book entitled Pleasure: “I have learned that the pathway to emotionl health is through the body” – I would like to parallel this position to Schore’s position affirming that the baby’s reactions to mother’s regulations of his/her needs (being body needs from the start in life) are the essential components for the developping right brain neuronal network, for the right brain health – the right brain being called the emotional brain-
Thus could we make the following equation:
baby expressed bodily needs + caregiver/baby intersubjectivity + regulation (pleasure/displeasure) = ± baby’s health all over (integration of body sensations, emotions, neuronal development)
Neurosciences reinforcing Bioenergetic orientation and deepening our therapeutic art?
Yours comments?
I am sorry! The sentence ” I have learned that the pathway to emotional health is through the body” is from Lowen’s book HONORING THE BODY, p. 7 and not from PLEASURE –
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Let’s make a link between this second affirmation from Lowen: “The body doesn’t lie – a functional identity of body and psyché” and this proposition from Allan Schore that the right brain autobiographical memory is the unconscious, creation of the baby preverbal phase, that can posssibly be reached on an attachment and nonverbal therapeutic mode –
Bioenergetic analysis relating mainly on a nonverbal and sensorial way would then be the pertinent psychotherapeutic response –
How do you react?
Dear Mrs. Michèle Dupuy-Godin
I agree to your equitation: baby expresses bodily needs and the caregiver reacts fulfilling these needs. This is a basic pattern to establish a good development of the baby. It is my understanding of relation. Relation is communication on a verbal, non verbal, bodily level etc. saying “You are ok with your ideas, wishes. Yes go on, you will get it or perhaps it will not be the best for you.” Psychoanalysis calls it “mirroring”. The effect of it will touch the whole person – the body, the emotions, the ideas, the mind. Bodywork in bioenergetics will give the person support in the same way. The question if verbal or body work is the best depends on many patterns. Sometimes one word will touch the person so deeply that it will change the whole life. Or you will have such an effect by body work – mainly if the problem is caused very early in the preverbal phase. It may be stored in the musculature or in the autonomous nerve system.
But the proposition from Allan Shore that the right brain autobiographical memory is the unconscious… I cannot understand and agree: The right brain at the whole has not this specific function in neuroscience of today. There is only a specific area in the right brain – the right prefrontal cortex – which is part of emotional and social processes. The other and very basic part of emotional processes is the “limbic” system.
Yes, neuroscience confirms our basic hypotheses of the functional identity of body and mind. But the neuronal network is not the whole person. It is part of the whole body with specific functions of regulating and coordinating many processes in our organs, musculature, cells etc. There are a lot of processes going on without regulating by the brain. Therefore they are not touched via brain – on the verbal way.
In bioenergetic we have to describe more precise with which intervention we can touch this or that part and process of the person. Therefore we should study much more physiology and not only neurobiology – and above all more detailed and precise than Shore seems to present. As long we cannot do it in a better way we can try to eliminate all tensions, all norms, rules etc which hinder the person to regulate itself. Our main task is to establish self – regulating processes. Being successful in this way sometimes we therapist are sitting, looking at our clients doing nothing while the client is creating its own healing process. Doing nothing is hard work sometimes – above all for a bioenergetic therapist.
Cordially
Rainer Mahr
Greetings Rainer Mahr,
I agree with you that one of our tasks as therapists is to establish self-regulating processes. To achieve this goal, we address the needs of our patients by reading and reaching their defenses (created to protect them from early life suffering), through recognizing and working the body tensions embodying those defenses. My main tool as bioenergetic therapist is bodywork. And I also use words, like in interpretations or sharing fantasies.
Nevertheless, I am continuously aware of the effects of bodywork. Can it cause dissociation in the person for different reasons: fear of secret violence, of external judgement, shame, etc…? Would the use of my words have the same effects? It becomes then essential that I introduce the right exercice, the good silence or the right word at the right time. To do this, I need to be attuned with my own body decoding. Then in the here and now of our therapeutic encounter, the respect and repair of the regulating processes lead to the patient self-regulation, as I therapist resume the earlier caregiver functions. Do we, the patient and myself, reach then the non-verbal, implicit memory as proposed by Schore?
We as bioenergetic therapist consider that our memories are embodied in our tensions. Memories of those non-regulating earlier answers and their negative effects? Non-verbal memory hidden in the dissociation as repeated by Allan N. Schore?
Schore calls Unconscious this preverbal implicit meory and locates it in the right prefrontal cortex. On this subject, I like to recal a sentence taken from Lowen, Honoring the Body, p. 163:
“Bioenergetic therapy works with the body through appropriate exercises. In addition, Bioenergetic therapy works with the mind by helping the individual understand that these tensions were developed unconsciously in childhood in response to situations that threatened him”.
The words “understand” and “unconsciously” are important here.
Could “understand” mean bodily-re-experimenting the very early non-regulating treatments of the needs? Emotionally reviving the experience? Leading to possible repairs of the trauma? Could “unconsciously” mean reaching the implicit memory, the non-verbal, “under” memory”?
Could Lowen concepts and axioms, and Allan Schore’s presentation of neuroscience results using different languages be complementary? Could we expand this complementarity by refering to their different notions of pleasure and energy (that we could eventually discuss )? Can we say that Bioenergetic Analysis can enrich neurosciences and vice versa?
Concepts are always reducing. Human being is so beautifully complex and at the same time so imperfectly limited… Consequently, I propose that the developing medical imagery technics expands our art as bioenergetic therapists, especially in the field of the nowadays more frequent borderline characters.
…………………………………………………….
Rainer Mahr, let me thank you for our virtual conversations. You have been a sunbeam for me and for the Nanziba Book Club. I hope sincerely to meet you in San Diego at the IIBA International Conference next October.
Yours truly
O que venho estudando na PUC/SP nestes últimos anos :Abordagem Psicossomática em área específicas :Estudos sobre a neurociência da psicoterapia, onde Knox,Cozolino,Wilkinson,The Boston Change Process Study Group,Solomon e Siegel, vem me trazendo explicações em que posso entender sob o olhar dos Novos Paradigmas para a Análise Bioenergética no Alvorecer do Século XXI-Guy Tonella,venho há anos frequentando vários workshops, tento integrar a AB dentro de um princípio de uma abordagem interdisciplinar e a psicoterapia chamada por Siegel de neurobiologia interpessoal, vem me auxiliando muito os achados da neurociências em relação ao sistema neurônios espelho e plasticidade neural.Mas tenho muito ainda a aprender.Sem falar ainda sobre Healing Trauma de Salomão & Siegel,2003.
Penso que tenho muito a aprender neste encontro com pessoas que venho acompanhando nestes anos todos,Bob Hilton, Robert Lewis,David Finlay,Virginia Hilton,Angela Klopstech, Rainer ,Helen Resnick-Sannes,e muitos outros.
Esta integração é muito importante para nós Analistas bioenergético, pois na PUC percebo o quanto os junguianos vem crescendo e integrando tais conhecimentos,porque não Análise Bioenergética, tendo um olhar para pesquisas?
Parabéns por este Congresso Integração Cérebro,Mente e Corpo: Implicações Clínicas e Terapêuticas da Neurociência.
Mariangela Gargioni Donice
We are sorry not to understand the Portuguese language – we hope to be able to share with you at the upcoming IIBA International Conference in San Diego –
Michèle Dupuy-Godin
I really liked the article, and the very cool blog
Dear Michèle Dupuy-Godin,
I hope I have understood well enough your comments so you will find some answers.
I am not afraid of causing dissociation in the client while I am always aware of his or her bodily reactions. It shows that you are very present and engaged with the client´s process. When he tells anything of his life and you see the eyes become wet perhaps you can say: ”I have the idea you become sad just now. Isn´t it?” The client will feel understood and seen. Perhaps he will start weeping. Or he is astonished about my idea will ask me why I have this idea etc. We can talk about his split from his emotions.
This is my favorite way to start body work – from talking to the emotions, feelings, sensations and tensions.
I think the therapist helps the client very much by answering his questions (verbal or non-verbal). “Yes I hear you, yes I understand your needs, go on with your ideas, it is your right to be, or be aware of the risks, etc.” That is the same thing caregiver will do to children in their early life – give security and needed information, encouraging to create his own identity and way of life. That is my understanding of good relationship – that is good or precise communication. In this way we reach the person very deeply. It is much more than the concept of implicit memory etc. of Shore. It seems that this concept describes not very precise the neuronal reality. But it is of no importance where and in which way the brain will handle our inputs. Important is that the brain gets the information to go this or that way.
I also cannot follow Shore´s hypotheses that the unconsiousness is located in the right hemisphere of the brain. The understanding of neuerosience of today seems to be that the brain will forget everything which is not needed to survive or to make life more secure or easier. That means physiological that the involved synapses are cut off. This will happen everywhere in the brain. In therapy sometimes we need old memories to become able to understand our behaviour patterns and for reflecting and creating new patterns more nearer to our reality. In this case through our awareness and work – mental or bodily- the needed synapses will link to the neurons and find the way to the old stored memories.
Here comes up a very important issue for bioenergetic: A lot of memories are stored anywhere in the brain. But the brain is not the whole person. That neuroscience only talks of processes in the brain is not their fault. It is their topic. But there are all the other organs and their cells. They work in similar ways like the neurons even though they have different functions and different ways of communication and regulation. Some parts are regulated by the brain itself ( muscle tensions) neuronal or by hormons. Other parts have their own regulating systems ( autonomous nerve system etc.) So their are memories which are stored in the organs, in their cells. It is above all for very early memories when the brain is not well enough developed to store anything. Besides – in the very beginning of ones life their is no brain for regulating anything. That means that there must be other or additional regulating systems in the human being. Today it can be shown that their are (morphic fields, biophotons). But that is an other topic.
So you are totally right: Bioenergetic can enrich neuroscience showing that the brain is only part of the human beeing with special functions not less but not more.
The brain will work totally different if it is seperated from the information of the body. Close your eyes and you will have totally different experiences. You live an other life.
But we have to enlarge Lowens understanding too: Not everything is stored and regulated by the body. Many patterns of behaviour, many ideas of life, moral, religion, etc. is stored in the brain and can be touched there very well changing our way of life and the status or habit of our body.
There is a treesome of Emotion, Cognition, Behaviour.: Each behaviour is the result of thinking and ideas. And sensations, emotions, feelings lead to cogniton. For changing any behaviour you have to touch all the others- cognition and emotions.
Finally you talk about complementary of pleasure and energy. I think both terms are not well defined in bioenergetic which is a problem for everybody talks about but everybody has a different understanding. About energy there is an article of me on my website written in English: http://www.bioenergetic-mahr.de. Use the button “Eigene Artikel”.
I like very much this discussion of important bioenergetic issues and would like to go on in this way or to find sometimes other oportunities to have similar exchanges. But I will not attend the next IIBA conference.
Cordially
Rainer Mahr