The Philosophical Basis of Somatic Psychotherapy

The central premise of somatic psychology and body-based psychotherapy is that the events of our lives, and the feelings & beliefs these events create inside of us, register most deeply not in the cognitive realm of the conscious mind but rather in the physical body. Most of us learn early in life that certain feelings are not safe to express, and so we find ways of repressing those feelings. The ways in which we repress our feelings are, at their most basic level, somatic in nature, or “body-based”. Muscular contraction, manipulation of breathing, movement, facial expression, voice and posture are just some of the myriad ways we repress our deepest emotions by hardening our bodies and creating a kind of physical armor. Our bodies represent a “frozen history”, telling the story of all our past experiences with an immediacy and undeniability that the thinking mind could never dream of tapping into on its own.

It is very unfortunate that such critical wisdom still struggles to find its way into mainstream psychology textbooks, and I consider it part of my duty in my career to make this information more widely available to the public. Somatic psychology is still not very familiar to most people, and there are clear reasons for this. Broadly speaking, Western culture has systematically devalued the body for centuries. Organized religion sees the body as sinful. Many spiritual traditions aim to transcend the body to connect with the divine. Philosophy, since Descartes, has regarded the body as inferior to the rational mind. Capitalism promotes consumerism at the expense of physical health. Today, our culture still regards some human bodies as more valuable than others based on sex, race, age, etc. We have an industry developing around “sex robots” and other forms of artificial intelligence that seek to replace the human body. In almost every way imaginable, we as a society have silenced the wisdom of the flesh.

To speak more directly to the history of somatic psychology and psychotherapy, we find some of the roots of the cultural suppression of the body in 20th century Vienna. Though in his earlier work Freud was very much interested in the mind-body connection, as the culture of psychoanalysis evolved and his allegiances shifted, he essentially abandoned his most free-thinking student, Wilhelm Reich, who, determined to investigate the implications of Freud’s early work, was thus left without a major platform to widely share his research.

It was Reich who, over many years, studiously observed the physical manifestations of psychological defenses in the hundreds of clients he saw in therapy. Reich mapped the configurations of the various muscle groups of the body as they corresponded to psychological trauma and the emotional repression that results from it. In Victorian era Vienna, such investigations into the direct, here-and-now expressions of the body sparked major controversy. In addition to his unorthodox ideas regarding the body, Reich was also interested in reconciling Marxism with psychoanalysis, and publicly promoted very progressive ideals such as free access to contraceptives among young people and the rights of women to have abortions.

In light of such a scandalous backdrop, Reich’s most famous publication, “Character Analysis”, in which he introduces the concept of “muscle armor” was rejected by the psychoanalytic community for “political reasons”. It did not take long for Reich to become exiled from the psychoanalytic community entirely. This exile has had devastating consequences for the dissemination of Reich’s work. Everybody and their grandchild knows of Sigmund Freud, but how many know of Wilhelm Reich, the genius who took Freud’s early ideas so seriously as to invite his own professional and social demise? Very few people indeed are aware of the rich realm of inquiry for which Reich laid the foundation.

There is much more that can be said of the early formations of these ideas and the research that supports this view of the mind-body connection, but I am not writing here to defend the legitimacy of this tradition; others have done that already, and the research & literature is out there for those interested.

Here I would like to consider more closely Reich’s notion of “armor” that we carry in our bodies. What is it, exactly? It is years and years of careful containment of our vulnerability, our emotional pain, our confusion, our hatred, our longing to be seen, heard and loved, manifested in chronic muscle tension & spasm, restriction of movement and expression, and the resultant fragmentation of our emotional lives. The body is a master at hiding our own nakedness from us, and without seeing this, it is natural to try to make a home in this armor, buying into the illusion that this is who we truly are, that this lack of aliveness and vigor is all there is.

One way that I have found to further unravel this armor and move closer to the nakedness of my own heart is to slow down and pay close attention to what happens in my body whenever I feel a desire for connection with a stranger. I notice how my body navigates the perceived danger of seeing and being seen by them. What is the first sign of fear? How long do I look before averting my gaze? Do I brace myself in preparation for rejection by shortening my breath, tensing my muscles, or subtly altering my posture as I walk?

I try slowing down to such a degree that I’m able to track what happens in my body as I move closer to a person. Can I see the person just with my heart and my senses? Or do evaluation and avoidance override my experience and cut me off from my bodily sensations? What would happen if I moved directly toward the deep fear of having my naked heart exposed and seen? What if with each step toward that person my defenses began to crumble at my feet? Who would I be, then, by the time I got close enough to touch them?

This is not a crusade to invade personal space and make people uncomfortable. Tremendous insights can be gained by tuning into this realm of experience without going beyond the normal social boundaries of everyday interaction. Our bodies are pregnant with information about our attachment patterns, our beliefs about intimacy and closeness, and all the ways in which we continue to protect ourselves from exposing our vulnerability to people. Living in flesh, we inhabit a gold mine of personal wisdom that is ready to reveal itself and point the way back to our naked hearts if we just tune in and listen carefully. We as a society are not good at listening carefully to the subtleties of our experiences. We are being called to return to a subtle kind of listening and perceiving that has been largely abandoned.