In this presentation I discuss somatic psychology and the role of body in psychotherapy, as well as the mechanisms of character formation.

1. Introduction to Somatic Psychology
Homayoun Shahri, PhD, MA, LMFT
http://www.ravonkavi.com
homayoun.shahri@ravonkavi.com

2. Guest House (Rumi)
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

3. Life Viewed as a System
● Open, Complex, Dynamical, and Self Organizing
Systems

4. Introduction to Systems Theory
● A system can be viewed as a group of interacting,
interrelated, and interdependent elements and bounded
processes.
● Systems transform inputs that are consumed into outputs
that are produced.
● Systems are characterized by their boundaries, which
separate them from their surroundings. This boundary may
be real or notional but it defines a finite volume, within
which the system operates and exchanges energy or matter
with its surrounding. Systems are also characterized by their
internal laws of functioning.

5. Introduction to Systems Theory (Cont)
● The dynamical system concept is a formalization in which the
behavior of the system is said to be dependent on the time and
position of the system in space.
● Complexity in a system indicates how relationships between parts
give rise to new behaviors and how a system interacts and forms new
relationships with its environment and surroundings.
● Complex systems are open and dynamical, and tend to be self-
organizing.
● Self-organization is the process by which the system may form a
structure or pattern in its behavior without an external entity or
element that’s affecting it.

6. Introduction to Systems Theory (Cont)
● Example (Paramecium)

7. Paramecium
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn3MTYNe8mM)

8. Wilhelm Reich, M.D.
● Student of Freud, and president of Vienna
psychoanalytic society
● Recognized as the father of somatic psychology
“Only the liberation of the natural capacity
for love in human beings can master their
sadistic destructiveness.” Wilhelm Reich

9. Alexander Lowen, M.D.
● Student and analysand of Wilhelm Reich and
founder of Bioenergetic Analysis
● Introduced “Language of the Body”.
● How to determine the inner workings of body
(psyche) by observing it.

10. Language of the Body
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghZg34hKeCw)

11. Self-Portrait (David Whyte)
It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need to change you.
If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand.
I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living falling toward the
center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and
the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.

12. Human Nervous System
● Central Nervous System (CNS)
– Brain, Spine
● Peripheral Nervous System
– Somatic
● Afferents (Sensory)
● Efferents (Motor)
– Autonomic
● Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS)
● Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)
– Dorsal Vagal Complex (DVC – unmyelinated)
– Ventral Vagal Complex (VVC – myelinated)

13. Central and Peripheral Nervous System

14. Optimal Window of Arousal
- Sympathetic Nervous System
- Hyper-arousal
- Social Engagement System
- Ventral vagal complex
- Optimal window of arousal
- Hypo-arousal
- Dorsal vagal complex

15. Drive, Repression, and Identification
1. Drive seeking expression
2. Environmental negativity
3. Redirection of the original drive
4. Drive turning against itself
5. Drive seeking alternative expression
6. Muscular Armor blocking the drive
“I came to consider the instinct as nothing more than the motor aspect of pleasure.",
Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Orgasm

16. Old Object Relations, and Introjects
● Identification with environmental negativity, and/or
introjection (7)
“And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within
himself but hasn't the courage to express”, Wilhelm Reich

17. Mother, Father, Child Triad
● Formation of the psyche of a child
“Psychic illnesses are the result of a disturbance of the natural capacity for love.”,
Wilhelm Reich

18. Character Structure
● Sum total all repressed ego instincts (drives) and their
frustration, resulting in introjects, formation of false self,
and formation of muscular armor

19. Character Armor
The CHARACTER is the totality of the mechanical, automatic
and unconscious ways of reacting, by which the individual maintained
his or her psycho-physical balance; a balance that makes
sure that the feelings, emotions and bodily impulses which
for various reasons have been blocked, remain separated
from the consciousness of the individual. (Alexander Lowen)
Reich named this CHARACTER STRUCTURE -
the CHARACTER ARMOR, because of its function as a defense.
This armor has a bodily side in the form of chronic
muscular tensions, where the repressed material is hidden.
(Alexander Lowen)

20. Exercise (courtesy of Robert Hilton, PhD)
● Find a partner.
● Share your experiences of when you feel you are not real or live
in a false self – as well as when you feel anxious and/or
dissociate.
● Share with your partner how you hide your real self, and what
imagery do you use to describe the hiding place (Basement,
Behind a Curtain, etc).
● As you describe your experience, be aware of any physical
contractions or movement in your body, and share them with
your partner who is empathically listening.
● Reverse roles.

21. Wild Geese (Mary Oliver)
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

22. Reference
● Toward an Integrative Model for Developmental
Trauma – Homayoun Shahri (http://goo.gl/UahNKP)