POETRY: THE LANGUAGE OF LIFE Language in The Biodynamic Process by L aura Irvine Fourth Year Dissertation submitted to the Institute of Biodynamic Psychology and Psychotherapy (now IOBM) as partial fulfillment of the requirements for: CERTIFICATE IN BIODYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 1995 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE iii BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION:TWO DREAMT WORDS iv SOMATONE BUFONIC 1. LANGUAGE IN PULSATION 1 1.1 The Pulsation of the Organism 1 1.2 Qualities in Pulsation 3 1.3 The Words in Pulsation 4 1.3.1 Tension 4 1.3.2 Charge 5 1.3.3 On into the Firing Zone 6 1.3.3 Discharge 8 1.3.4 Recuperation and Integration: Concept Formation 9 2. PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT AND LANGUAGE 11 2.1 Introduction 11 2.2 Tissue Layers: Biodynamic Character Types 12 2.3 Organic Transference 13 2.4 The Ocular 15 2.5 The Oral Phase 16 2.6 The Anal Phase 18 2.7 The Oedipal Phases:Phallic and Genital 1 9 2.8 The Ethical Personality 21 2.9 The Esoteric Phases 23 2.10 Full Poetic Language: The Three Degrees of Freedom 25 2.11 Biodynamic Structuralism 2 7 2.12 Language as Crossing a M embrane 28 2.13 The Energetic Nature of Poetic Expression 29 2.14 The Biodynamic Significance of Poetry 31 3. BONDAGE 33 3.1 Interruption 33 3.2 The Startle Reflex 3 3 3.3 Armour 34 3.4 The Linguistic Content of Psychosomatic Symptoms 36 3.5 Linguistic Catches 37 3.6 Secularisation 39 3.7 Mental Armour and Energy Blocks 3 9 3.8 Trapped 40 4. BIODYNAMIC THERAPY'S LINGUISTIC FORMS 4 3 4.1 The Epic 43 4.2 Biodynamic Massage's Poetic Form 44 4.3 Affecting the Semiotics of the Motoric Ego 46 4.4 Experiencing: Like Water for Hot Chocolate 47 4.5 Narrative and Drama 48 4.6 The Ironies and Paradoxes of Healing 5 0 4.7 Silence 51 5. POETRY ITSELF 53 5.1 Life Within 53 5.2 The Gaze 54 5.3 The Gods 54 5.4 Arcadia a.k.a Nature 55 5.5 Man and Woman 56 5.6 Angels and Membranes 57 5.7 Drugs, Madness and Illness 58 5.8 Time, Grief and Eternity 59 5.9 Songlines, Fluids and Flow 60 5.10 The Flux 61 GLOSSARY 63 BIBLIOGRAPHY 68 Preface iii The purpose of this dissertation is to show how when language speaks from the experience of life in the body, it is poetic; and to characterise a biodynamic experience through poetry - its primacy, potency, its authenticity, its poetic qualities and the emancipation it offers. The biodynamic concepts and theories are stated baldly, as are Kristeva's theories of language and development. I have shamelessly incorporated my reading of her thesis (published in English as Revolution in Poetic Language) into the biodynamic perspective and gone on to use her theory to illuminate the linguistic role of various biodynamic techniques. My understanding of the Biodynamic work came through the tireless work of my teachers, Mary Molloy, Michelle Quoilin, Peg Nunnelly and Michele Harris; my tutor, Michelle Quoilin; my training director and supervisor, Mary Molloy; and my own psychotherapist, Michele Harris. Thank you all very much. Thanks also to my training group, known as IBPP2, who so vividly shared the truth of these principles through all the biodynamic phenomena we experienced together during our 4 year training. I would also like to thank Lynette Spence for the loan of her books, Ann Dowker for access to her pioneering research into children's poems and to Lindesay Irvine, Fiona Fleming-Brown and Sanjay Nazerali for their poetic knowledge and sensitivity. With especial thanks to Elaine and Paul Ashford for their deep and substantial conversations and longstanding friendship. iv By Way of Introduction: Two Dreamt Words Hear the connection between sound and body: Somatone I dreamt about Gerda Boyesen on a boat. She was holding individual audiences with people. When I went in she gave me a word and the word was Somatone. I was told as I left that she was dying, but she looked very much alive. Somatone is a word like biodynamic - its meaning is apparent in its roots - the sound of the body- but has the added bonus of onomatopoeia resonating with its significance. This meaningful sound offers the qualities brought by working with the sound of clients' peristalsis* which is the hallmark of the biodynamic work. The word somatone came up from the depths of my own body/psyche - can it therefore only be meaningful to me? And here the sense that language used to communicate about requires an existing in-depth understanding from the audience before the communicator can be understood (a gap bridged otherwise only when shown not said, Wittgenstein 1 ) : Buphonic The dream about this word was a working definition of buphonic. An eccentric expert defines it as: "Able to discourse on two topics expertly - but if there is a slip from one to another - look a buffoon to those listening." This dream condenses and names a new concept, derived from my own experience of trying to talk about my biodynamic work within the context of, or just after talking about, my community animation work. And vice versa. This dissertation is an attempt to build a detailed understanding of how language arises from the body, and to highlight the importance of communicating the energy (poetry) before it can be discussed. * See glossary 1 Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein 1 Chapter One I. Language in Pulsation 1.1 The Pulsation of the Organism Biodynamic Psychology was developed by Gerda Boyesen when she found her own experiences, as a physiotherapist working with psychiatric patients, were best explained through Reich's insistence on a literal as well as a metaphysical understanding of Freud's psychoanalytic ideas. To explain the roots of emotional experience in the metabolic processes of living tissue, Reich posited the existence of orgone energy as the organising principle for the phenomena he observed in simple life forms as well as human beings 1 Boyesen found the notion of a life energy, orgone, which within the healthy body acts as bioenergy, mediating all the metabolic functions, the most satisfactory explanation for the beneficial psychological consequences in her patients, experiencing physical abreactions 2 • Most importantly Reich emphasised the movement of energy through tissue draws fluid and mediates the 'four beat' formula of life, within which all vital functions can take place. These beats are tension, charge, discharge, recuperation. As energy builds up in a cell or an organism, sometimes through the intervention of mechanical pressure (exercise, work), it attracts fluid and this builds up a pressure within each individual cell, from the inside on its membrane. This in turn has an effect on the electrolytic balance bringing an electrical charge to the membrane. When this pressure 2 reaches a certain point, known as the firing zone, the cell's membrane discharges, the bioenergy passes through, the fluid moves away and carries various electrolytes and metabolic waste across the membrane away from the cell. The cleansing effect of this discharge on the tissue (the Function of the Orgasm) is followed by a recuperation within the cell or organism. 1, 2 Biodynamic psychologists refer to the global pulsation within an individual as the vasomotoric cycle because the effects of this cycle within the complex of the human body have major consequences on the blood supply to different tissue strata, depending on where in a cycle an individual is 2 • Their views have decentralised Reich's emphasis on the orgasm in favour of tissue specific discharge as a mediator of health.(This decentralisation of the orgasm has increased the subtlety biodynamic work without undervaluing the orgasm's role in a healthy individual). In tension the blood supply becomes constricted in the blood vessels supplying the viscera, the heartbeat quickens and the blood supply to the lungs is increased. As a charge builds up blood concentrates in the arteries to the voluntary musculature. (Where the excitation is mediated by both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems, as in sexual arousal, it will be involuntary muscle tissues which benefit from an increased blood supply). In discharge, the blood from the voluntary musculature is drained, to carry away waste products from exertion and blood also flows quickly away from the lungs carrying reoxygneated blood. With recuperation, the blood supply to the visera is restored and the muscles 'relax' without the tension of full blood vessels. 3 The most positive emotional experience of such a cycle would be excitement, joy, love and peace. The most negative fear, mania, hate/sadness, boredom/depression. Other emotional states: anxiety, obsession, compulsion, rage, contactlessness, insecurity relate to chronic or acute interruptions and disturbances of the vasomotoric cycle. 1.2 Qualities in Pulsation The symbolism of seasons in this life cycle is obvious and hence all nature can draw on subtle distinctions in phases and offer analogies to feelings. David Boadella has suggested there are four neurotransmitters which mediate this lifecycle in an organism - adrenaline, dopamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin 3 . These give the four Greek humors: melancholic, choleric, sanguine, and phlegmatic. And in psychological disturbance: anxiety, psychosis, neurosis and depression. These will give a voice and a style to verbalisation and symbolisation associated with the relevant part of a cycle. Gerda Boyesen noted the importance of nitrogen and its seltzer bubbling effect in the cells at the point of expression. 2 I would further suggest that the four atoms of life are emphasised within each phase at cellular level - hydrogen (water and positive ions); nitrogen (breaking down protein, releasing byproducts); oxygen (breathing, releasing carbon dioxide, and water); and carbon (drawing in nutrients). 4 Here are the four elements of mythology, astrology and witchcraft: water, fire, air, earth. These elements bring the quality and character to each phase of pulsation. 1.3 The Words in Pulsation 1.3.1 Tension The language of tension is rarely well-defined, or reasoned. Rhythm and repetition are the most notable characteristics of the language of building tension, possibly eerie, which can begin to build a charge. At a cellular level this tension may be built by the rhythm of beating villi (tiny hairlike folds in the cell's external membrane) 'singing the body electric' 4 "Round and round the rocking chair Till it's half-past three Look up when you hear the bell And you'll look at me" (L.Irvine, Against Suicide) 10 As an individual gathers their energy, they may also seek the language of others to structure their understanding as they enter the unknown (in the event the individual is not conscious of which need is being served by this particular life cycle). Where there is little energy readily available colloquial language provides many mottos and aphorisms to help 'psyche up': "To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, That thou canst not then be false to any man.".(Polonius in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare) 5 In such cases the energy drawn may only ever be mechanical and the phenomenon of someone 'going through the motions' without the bioenergy offers only the appearance of completion - the tone and resonance of words becomes the vital clue that someone is 'with' the bioenergy. Magical thinking, incantation and spells can also function to call upon energies ready for action. Language in tension works with the overall aims of the individual to build the charge and in the absence of sufficient bioenergy of its own, may call upon apparently unrelated mythological concepts, which have a deeper physiological effect: harnessing one life cycle to another. Thus propagandists, who aim to harness needs, and other manipulators such as advertisers who aims to create a need, to build attention, will in the words of Absolutely Fabulous Edina, "Call upon everything that is pure and good and true and associate it with toilet cleaner." 5, 6 1.3.2 Charge Once there is a charge, the tension continues, but there is a condensation of language and electricity towards the point or purpose, the relevant individual is about to concentrate their activity upon. "But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror's magic sights.. Or when the moon was overhead, Came two young lovers lately wed; 'I am half sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shallott. 11 (The Lady of Shallott, Alfred Lord Tennyson) 6 Biodynamic psychologists place particular emphasis on a phenomenon they call rooted talking - where words are 'connected' to the original depths of an individual where the tension originated. These rooted words can often revitalise an incompleted cycle and carry an individual on into a relevant firing zone, in some cases the vocalisation itself constituting the relevant action. 1.3.3 On Into the Firing Zone "A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, He rode between the barley sheaves, The sun came dazzling through the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot. 11 (ibid.) Once fully charged, the firing zone carries an individual's charge through into activity and discharge. "She left the web, she left the loom, She took three paces through the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot."(ibid) Cycles can pass from charge to discharge through activity which can be, or be accompanied by, expression. Expression can be vocalisation, singing, performance, or even a rite of passage. It will be voicing love, constructive anger, creativity, worship, sadness. If expression is not rooted in the appropriate vasomotoric cycle, an individual will go on expressing the same thing in the same sort of way, recycling emotions, but never making it through into discharge. 7 Revealing, in fact, that they are still in the charging phase, and the emotions they are expressing are not yet ripe (for overripe see below). The sort of feelings voiced are more likely to be frustration and anxiety. Sometimes circumstances , internal and external prevent an individual acting upon their firing zone and they continue charging - more and more cycles, incompleted are pushing for release. Verbalisation under these circumstances is known as emptying, which, when fully rooted, can be very structured and clear. However overcharge often results in chaotic and even meaningless verbalisation, in a desperate attempt to relieve an unbearable tension. If an individual is listened to, however short on meaning their words seem to be (and much work has been done listening to other languages), some of this tension is relieved and an individual can begin to become clearer about the various intentions behind their clogged up membranes. John Cole's political commentaries, satired in Private Eye, illustrate how satisfying emptying can be: Hondoubtedleythe Right Honourablemember for Wales and theborders tagliatelli mozarella. 7 With communication established an overcharged individual can begin to find the best way to communicate more precisely and eloquently their deepest meanings. Where individuals are not heard and their tension continues to build the meaning behind their words becomes more and more obscure, carrying them further and further away from their needed audience. 8 1.3.4 Discharge The physiological experience of discharge brings the phenomenon known as streamings. As energy passes out of the cells, these sweet secretions give the coursing of pleasurable sensation through the body. Soft, gentle, words with only a trickle of rhythm and there may be little squeaks, groans or grunts, tears and sighs. Known by Reich as the little sounds, Boyesen found their equivalent in the sounds of peristalsis*, the sounds made when the gut moves, which all biodynamic practitioners use as a gauge of movement through life cycles. Similar physiological discharge indicators are: urinating, breath release, defecation. 2 "The rain falls in strings, beads To be counted. It wears Out the night and the rock; All things succumb to it. I cannot tell if time Is being washed away, Or, if this is time, made Tangible as water. My fever has returned, Like an icy river. In bed alone, I am Dissolving. Flesh becomes Like the wet sacks out there, Abandoned in the dark Of the garden, lapsing Slowly into the earth" (Night Rain, Edward Lucie- Smith) Where long overdue cycles have moved quickly there may be abreactions: emotional and physiological: crying, sweating, nausea, diarrhoea, the '1,000 year' tiredness and even haemorrhage. Where discharge is effective and complete however there is more room in the body and psyche for bioenergy and within three days of 9 genuine discharge an individual will feel revitalised, healthier, more themself and more ready for what life brings next. 1.3.5 Recuperation and Integration: Concept formation Following physiological discharge, the body rests and the psyche 'integrates' the experience of their latest vasomotoric cycle. In this they may suddenly recognise something never fully understood before - the 'aha' of psychic integration. In Piaget's dialectic development formula, concepts- formed by experience, differentiated from not experience, thesis, antithesis, synthesis - offer opportunity to verbalise or mentally manipulate what has been learnt. 8 If there are no culturally available concepts or explanations for their experience they may form new concepts in order to categorise their experience. Where these are not shared, experiences which debatably could be described as private language may develop. By using familiar words for their new experiences they may also be misunderstood by individuals lacking the experience to conceptualise what they are hearing. Where these experiences are shared or become 'universal' they form part of 'bodies of knowledge' and where there is bioenergy new energetic 'fields' can be created. Where an individual has successfully communicated their personal experience their body no longer needs to contain their knowledge, but it is contained in their energy field, available to them and others when needed. Picture the silent, knowing expert or lama. 10 "To know serenity the dove must fly far from its dovecote, its trajectory informs it, distance, fear, the racing sky are only understood in the return The one that stayed at home, never tested the boundaries ofloss, remained secure, only those who win back are ever free to contemplate a newer surer flight. Being arches over the huge abyss, and the ball we dared to release in space, fills our hands differently when it comes back, heavier by the weight of where it's been. (Return, Jeremy Reed) * See glossary 1 REICH, WILHELM, The Function of the Orgasm 2 BOYESEN, GERDA, MONA LISA AND EBBA Collected Papers, 3 BOADELLA, DAVID The Charge of Consciousness 1977 4 BRADBURY, RAY I Sing the Body Electric 5 REICH, WILHELM The Mass Psychology of Fascism 6 Absolutely Fabulous, BBC2, Comedy series 1995 Edina played by Jennifer Saunders 7 Private Eye ran a regular column From Westminster, satirising John Cole for many years, the example given here is illustrative, not accurate. 8 BODEN, MARGARET Piaget 11 Chapter Two 2 Psychosexual Development and Language 2.1 Introduction As well as mediating the homeostatic function of pulsation, the bioenergy is also considered the biodynamic mediator of development. Biodynamic developmental stages include Freud's sphincter defined psychosexual stages: oral, anal and phallic, which occur in childhood as sphincter mastery and a developing relationship with the world and then in adolescent sexual development. Biodynamic psychology has added the early occular stage and differentiated between what they describe as phallic and genital stages, which are similar in boys and girls. It has also placed a strong emphasis on a transformation from organic transference in the womb to an energetic transference which helps to mediate development. The bioenergy thus functions as a unifying drive towards development: the maturing of a real energy field coherent in its containment and in the form it gives to everything that is life. More than Lacan's lamella, an imaginary organ with the function of seeking out that which is missing, it is an intelligent force seeking out what it needs to mature. As Lacan quotes Heraclitus, "To the bow is given the name of life, and its work is death." Via sexual maturity and sex 1 Without the bioenergy experience is indeed reductive. Bioenergy is the emotional vertical* organising the horizontal structures of development, focusing on maturing sphincters, through 12 which the energy can then pass, transforming its role and leaving behind a complete psychosexual revolution. While the energy is focusing on a sphincter, an individual's whole meaning and language, like water rolling down a plughole, revolves around the biologic of this movement. 2.2 Tissue Layers : The Biodynamic Character Types Before this driving co-ordinated thrust towards individual autonomy the body's tissues have been forming and differentiating within the womb, mediated by the bioenergy. Genetic factors as well as microenvironmental ones can have an impact on whether one layer dominates the others. Here again we find an early basis for Freud's character structure: The layers of endoderm, mesoderm and ecotoderm, which go on to form the involuntary muscles of the viscera,the voluntary muscle of the musculature and the nervous - tissue of the central nervous system. These represent the psychic elements of id, ego and superego*, respectively. (Although in biodynamic psychology the connection to the tissue layer is made explicit with the id canal and the motoric ego: the superego is seen as the result of a rationalisation following a developmental interruption, rather than a normal psychic structure; which would be the higher self, in contact through the skin and senses with the transpersonal.) The heart is a special case: cardiovascular muscle has characteristics of all three layers and tissue types and indeed represents the unity of the self. Once formed the passage of bioenergy through these tissues in later life creates a different pattern of character structure. The bioenergy 13 flows from the core of the body to the periphery. If this flow is free and unimpeded at any level the 'sunshine' personality - radiating life and attracting people to them with what people often term charisma. If energy is getting trapped in the nerve endings or at the skin level there is the prince or more often the princess (sometimes called the troubled sunshine). If energy brings a lot of power to the muscles, the 'warrior' personality is seen. Once a warrior, always a warrior, but if the energy is not trapped a warrior does not pick a fight, but uses his/her ability to act to further higher or spiritual causes, able to rest. If the energy has not moved beyond the bones the 'stone' personality is manifest - unaffected by their environment, their energy is safely fortified. Stone characteristics are useful self preservers when they do not deny the free movement of energy when it is safe. (These character types parallel the Ayurvedic medicine types). While these tissues are formed in the womb, the character structures are coping strategies adopted later in life and even when there is an underlying predisposition within the tissues themselves, these can change, once the bioenergy returns to its intelligent and developmental pathway. 2.3 Organic Transference "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" (Plato) The first reassuring messages of life and the right to develop come as nutrients and other hormonal and immunological communicators to 14 the foetus. As the foetus establishes its base in the womb, its first world, its placenta develops and forms the focus for this organic transference, communication at the deepest level. Energy is available in its most primary form to the infant from the mother. With a permeable membrane between mother and baby this organic transference of energy can take place freely. This symbiotic contact shifts to an energetic connection after birth, through which information about, and endorsement of, energetic development can be carried. "I'll sail on your smile, I'll ride on your touch I'll talk to your eyes that I love so much.. Please don't leave me please stay Please don't go away" (Ne Me Quittez Pas, Jacques Brel) 15 Biodynamic psychologists differentiate this from the transference neurosis which arises when this transference is disturbed. At this point the development is likely to halt, the child withdraws from the mother (or need denier) and contracts against their own needs; aggression, fear of deprivation, guilt and loss of self-esteem accompany the loss or absence of meeting. "If you go away, on this summer day Then you might as well take the sun away.. For what good is life, without loving you Can I tell you now as you turn togo I'll be dying slowly till the next hello" (ibid) 15 Organic transference is thus vital for not only for psychosexual development, but to initiate the pathways of life and the unfolding of our true qualities and nature. "My grandmother had a very interesting theory. Each one of us is born with a box of matches inside us, but we can't strike them all by o ur selves;.. the oxygen would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle can be any kind of food, music, caress, word or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches.. the combustion that occurs is what nourishes our souls." (John, Like Water for Hot Chocolate, Laura Esquivel) 2.4 The Ocular In its neonatal form, the infant's gaze is the first movement of energy from the baby's core to its periphery. It is the vertical's first arrival in the world. Energy incarnating comes to a focus in the gaze. The eyes and ectoderm establish a relationship with the environment, primarily via the mother, to ensure a sense of safety within which all other activities and developments can take place. Occular contact with the mother follows the major transition of birth and the first breath. In the absence of full contact and communication with the mother via the umbilical cord, the baby's disorientation in this new environment needs stabilising by the reassuring touch and comfort of mother, and where the ectoderm cannot be touched, the reassurance of a familiar and comforting gaze. There is no voluntary control over the iris, the first sphincter reflex the baby experiences outside the womb in response to light. However there is also the autonomic 'softening of the eyes', as the irises relax in recognition or positive response.