Contents

Acknowledgements

“Have you ever received gifts? “I was asked by one of the neuro-linguistic programming specialists. Apparently, he wanted to “anchor” my state in my process of recollecting the pleasant experiences corresponding to receiving gifts, and then use it for some purpose which was unknown to me. I do not know if that specialist achieved his goals, most likely not, but I am grateful to him. When I conscientiously turned to my experience, I was horrified to find out that I could not remember a single occasion when I received gifts, until I suddenly realized that the main gift is life itself. All the others are simply lost in comparison with it.

Who made this gift for me? I do not know. But I know that my parents, who managed to survive difficult times, are a big part of it. I am grateful to them for their viability and for caring for me. This applies to all my relatives. My positive thinking, or even more broadly, my positive attitude to life is owing to my mother Elena Sergeyevna, who was also my first school teacher, and all my other teachers, among whom I remember with special warmth Galina Alekseyevna Kolobina, Valentina Konstantinovna Tarasova, my History teacher Mikhail Ivanovich Chekalin; my Philosophy teacher at Medical University lion Semyonovich Chernyak, Professor of Psychotherapy Mark Evgenievitch Burno, my internship tutor Vladimir Elizarovich Smirnov, whose clinical thinking is still a model for me; my associates Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Tsapkin and Vera Kerpelevna Loseva, who helped me, a doctor by training, to get closer to the psychological vision of a person; my friend, a “symbolic primitivist’ artist, Vladimir Boldyrev, whose creativity prompted me a number of ideas; all my patients, without the cooperation of whom this book would not appear.

I thank all my colleagues. I especially would like to mention Igor Kanifolsky (St. Petersburg), Alexander F. Bondarenko (Kiev), and Steven Shoen (USA). The experience of their work and behavior were significant for me. Thank you to everyone I have ever met.

Andrey Ermoshin

To the english-speaking readers

«Things in The Body» is the first of a series of books that describe Psychocatalysis. It has been published in several editions in Russian and has already become a kind of classic for a whole generation of specialists. An increasing number of psychotherapists are adopting the ideas of this book: to organize the reverse development of symptoms associated with the experience of problems and injuries, to lead the patients to calmness and regeneration of their state without re-traumatization and without provoking catharsis.

In most of the cases catharsis is not only useless, but also harmful. It gives just temporary relief. It does not solve the basic problems of a person, but, on the contrary, it aggravates them. Nowadays many specialists come to understanding of this fact, whereas, when the first edition of this book was published about 20 years ago, it was not so obvious.

To psychologists and even some naive doctors, the psychodynamic approach, with its working through resistance and unleashing the repressed reactions of the body, seemed attractive, although it is only an imitation of psychotherapy.

Such seduction by seemingly effective work led to many secondary problems of the patients: loss of time, effort, and resources. For some patients and clients that was fatal. They committed suicide or, having passed into the category of psychiatric patients, had miserable life under neuroleptics.

Psychocatalysis, as an alternative approach to working with neurotic patients, goes back to the traditions of the inner practices of Orthodox monasticism and, in part, to the healing traditions of Russian people. It is in this tradition that the hysterization of a patient is not welcome. What is practiced is the «shrinkage of passions’ and «laying off’ the perceived provocations on them, «letting go of fears.»

I hope that the English-speaking readers, whatever culture they belong to, will be interested in correlating their approach with this «Russian’ approach.

Other books on Psychocatalysis: «Phobias, Disappointments and Grief: A Fast Remedy», «Learn Languages Easily: Methods of Self-Regulation for Successful Learning» are also available in English. Other books: «Geometry of Experiences» and «Enigmatic Syndrome: Panic Attacks and Their Treatment" are in the translation process.

I will be glad to get your feedback: erm@list.ru.

Have pleasant and useful reading!

Author’s preface

My given body — what to do with it?

It’s so mine and so fit.

Josip Mandelstam

Two patients are talking in a surgical ward in the presence of a third person who has just regained consciousness after an operation: «Our surgeon often leaves things in the bodies of his patients. «He left a glove inside me,» says the first one. «…and I had his hat,» says the second. The newly operated patient looks at them with concern. At that very moment, the surgeon comes in and asks: «Has anyone seen my coat?»

Things in the body… First of all, I would like you to note that we are not talking about things forgotten by the surgeons in the bodies of their patients, but about the objects in the ’body’ of consciousness left there by the people themselves. They are not tampons or scalpels, but anger and resentment, disappointment and sorrow, jealousy and anxiety. Though these ’objects’ cannot be seen with X-rays, their effect on our health is disastrous.

Fuel

We usually speak about feelings, emotional charges, or affections (as psychiatrists call strong feelings, which arise in extreme situations) not as items, but rather as something fluid and striving for expression. Love leads to hugs, disgust — to repel, anger — to kill, and compassion — to heal the wounds of a neighbor. An emotional charge is sort of “fuel’ that drives a particular action.

Is that what nature conceived? When the «action’ is done, a feeling of satisfaction comes. All would be well, if not for situations in which emotions do not find their natural way out.

A person is burned

What happens to a charge when it cannot be released? Such emotions can be left “burning’ for many years if there is no way to send them to their “addressee’ or “to cancel them’. Then a person burns. In some cases, those emotions “burn out’, leaving behind an unpleasant “sediment’.

The «fuel’, which was originally light, thickens to the consistency of gas, gas — to the consistency of liquid, then liquid — to mass, and mass — to stone. Finally, we get a «petrified emotion’. Sometimes the human soul is left holding these «stones’ of mental anguish. As the cause of these emotional charges originate from the outside, we can think of these «stones’ as «foreign objects’, which are difficult to experience, understand, and to convert.

The situations that trigger strong feelings are different, however, both petrified emotions of «our own production’ and these «stones’ or «foreign objects’ that have been taken into the soul from the outside, are capable of disturbing the human condition…

A heavy stone pulls to the bottom

The basic form of loss associated with the carrying of “stones in the bosom’ is a distraction from perception and activity. The feeling of resentment in the chest “depresses’ the hands, the feeling of fear in the stomach influences the legs and all other parts of the body. Attention is taken not only from the parts of the body, but also from the parts of life. A person is “wrapped’.

Collected negative charges are not only stealing a person’s potential. They also distort it, and therefore increase the risk in a person’s life. This risk affects almost all areas: health, family, work.

Talking about health, such a risk, under certain circumstances, comes out in the form of psychosomatic diseases. The most common of them are gastric ulcers and duodenal ulcers, hypertension, bronchial asthma. The whole list occupies a lot of pages in medical manuals.

In the sphere of interpersonal relations, the harm caused by untreated lumps of resentment in the chest, or balls of irritation in the temples, or the fog of anxiety in the forehead, etc., is well known to everyone. They lead to those «twists’ in our relationships that make life so difficult. The destinies of entire generations, peoples, not just individuals and families, are collapsing. There are more than enough such examples in human history.

Creative activity also suffers from the emotions which do not find their outcome. A person does not fully use their potential and unprocessed charges spoil the results. Not to mention the fact that a one-time failure in psychic functioning can cost a person their life. A heart attack, a fight, a fatal mistake at work — the risk can manifest in thousands of different ways, and it «knows how to wait’. I do not think we should let it just happen.

Something must be done

Everyone intuitively understands this. We rely on our self-regulation: the body seeks to solve problems while asleep, or in the process of life itself. However, when in stress, self-regulation fails, and time is not a cure.

In such situations some people use alcohol or drugs, but they cannot solve the soul’s problems. In cases of failure of the body’s self-regulation, many people turn to a psychotherapist. At the same time, patients often ask the question: how do you expect to help me?

Something new

It is not about medicine, hypnosis, or psychoanalysis. Though, all of them can be used. We are going to talk about working through sensations.

This is an amazing kind of work when such expressions as «lump of resentment in the chest’, «a fog of anxiety in the forehead’, «a steel plate of control in the back of the head’, «a jellyfish of fear in the stomach’, and «a dagger of betrayal in the back’… sound like a diagnosis. «Cupid’s arrows in the heart’ seldom become a reason for complaining. People more often consider them a sign of happiness, though, not always knowing what it really means.

You do not have to be in delirium tremens

Maybe to find such “things’ inside one’s own body a person needs some special conditions? For example, is it necessary to be poisoned with ethyl alcohol to the state of delirium tremens? The doctor holds out an empty hand to the patient and asks:

«What is in my hand?»

«A wire.»

«What will you do with it?»

The patient starts to wrap it around his arm.

Is anything else needed to help people to realize what they are «carrying’ inside their bodies? Not at all! Moreover, it is not about the understanding of what is absent, but only of what is really present.

A person, encouraged by a few questions, is able to describe the «content’ of their inner space. However, they are invited to advance in this a little further than they usually do.

How many cats are there?

Very often people describe their anxiety as “cats are scratching my heart’, “my tower is bursting’, etc. In such cases a psychiatrist begins to think about the medicine for a patient and a psychologist studies the conflict in the relationship that gave rise to such a state, but it is very unlikely that the patient will be asked the clarifying questions: “How many cats? Color? Size? Did they start to tear your heart at the same time or one after another? Are the walls of the tower thick or thin? Is there anything gaseous or liquid in it? Is it like a mass or like a solid body? Anything else?”

Therapy based on sensations opens an amazing opportunity through such questions to go to the energy charge associated with the experience.

The mouth of a shepherd

I was in my early twenties when I was attacked by a male shepherd dog. In the moment, when I saw its open mouth, I automatically put my hand in and grabbed its tongue following my father’s advice. So instead of closing its jaws, it tried to unclench them as much as possible. However, I did not know what to do next. The idea is to swing the dog away. Unfortunately, I realized this later, and had to wait for the owner to arrive. When I let the dog go, it bit my forearm. I still have scars from its teeth.

Why am I telling you this? Well, somatotherapy is something like inserting your hand into the mouth of a shepherd: a movement by the shortest path, then an open confrontation with the agent upsetting the consciousness, «grasping the tongue’… As we see, the most important thing is to understand what to do next.

Three types of psychotherapy

According to the tradition started by Freud, most types of psychotherapy seek to bring out what is “hidden’ or “pushed back’. They consider dreams, free associations, and other manifestations of human mental activity, often similar to a complicated cipher. With the help of a secret code, which is known to a highly experienced psychotherapist, it is possible to open the deep mental movements of the patient during their collision and resolve the conflict.

This applies to the so-called psychodynamic tradition in psychotherapy, working with the content of symptoms in the in the collision of the soul’s motives. Since this approach considers the meaning of symptoms, it can be called psychosemantic.

The so-called clinical psychotherapy is not so interested in the meaning of symptoms, but very closely examines the basis on which they have grown. This psychotherapeutic tradition is addressed primarily to the human constitutional (body structure) and genetic type of the patient and helps a person with the specific traits of personality to find their place among other people. Clinical psychotherapy found its vivid expression in the works of Ernst Kretschmer, who, in my opinion, is a figure, at least equal to Freud.

We can also talk about another way of psychotherapy. In contrast to the psychodynamic and clinical areas, here the main interest is focused on the external elements (in relation to the basic constitutional and genetic personality type) — on how specifically the experience is expressed, and, in particular, on how much energy the body spends on its «feeding’. This approach can be called psychoenergetic, to which somatopsychotherapy belongs.

I’m not interested in “what’ and “how’ — I’m interested in’ how much’

In a simplified form, the position of a somatopsychotherapist can be stated as the following: “I am not interested in what the patients thinks or how they do it, I am interested in how much they think about it, how much energy they give it. If it is more than the “normal’ it is a disease, if it is less than “normal’ it is also the disease.

If, after a trip to England, they think they ate beef infected with «mad cow disease’ (BSE), I am not going to talk to them about the incubation period of variant CJD. I am also not going to dissuade this person that they caught a terrible disease and now they are going to die. (Especially since I do not know if they are infected or not.) I am interested only in one thing: how long are they going to think about it? Now they dedicate to this almost 24 hours a day, spending 99% of their vitality. Is that what it needs, or can it be less?

How can I make a person who has lost sleep and peace think about the amount of energy spent on the experience (and not on solving problems)? Here is the answer: through simple questions about what they experience «at body level’ because of what has happened.

The soul has a body

As it turned out, two simple questions “Where? ‘and “What ‘set in relation to experiences, lead to the fact that… the soul reveals its body! The feelings are “depicted’, and the soul, just as light, reveals its particle nature along with the wave.

The name of the method — ’somatopsychotherapy’ — emphasizes its specific feature. It works with the soul as with the body (or with the body as with the soul). However, this body is not physical, «medical’, but the body of consciousness, the «psychological’ one.

Somatopsychotherapy (SPT) (with the emphasis on the first syllable, from the Greek «Somos’ — «body’) — SPT-stands for: «Work with somatized equivalents of mental experiences[1]. Fortunately, this formulation intrigued not only my children, who used to ask asked me: «How are your «somatized equivalents’ doing there?» My colleagues’ interest in my work encouraged me to think about writing the book that you are holding in your hands now.

“Filling’ of the body of consciousness

As a result of the catalysis of bodily sensations, the consciousness-body shows itself as “filled’ or, rather, realized as a set of “mental objects’. They can be “good’, such as love, joy, etc., or “bad’, such as hatred, fear, etc.

If we consider a person in this paradigm, it turns out that by the time of the meeting with the therapist, they (as a result of the elections, consciously or unconsciously made by the body earlier) have transformed into light, warmth, space, lightness — and then there is no need for a therapist, or on the contrary — into the darkness, heat, tightness, heaviness in places of linkage or accumulation of energy (substance «heat — heaviness’, as it is called in SPT), and at the same time — into dullness, cold, «aridity’, numbness in the devastated areas. In this case we have all the indications for therapy.

The “backward’ therapy

The therapy based on body sensations moves in the opposite direction to what has been developed in most modern psychotherapeutic approaches. I call them “therapy forward,” which is aimed at the release of a once pent-up emotional charge. Through the study of resistance, the dynamics of expression is encouraged. The opposite “dynamics of the suppression’ has also got some supporters. What, if not suppression, is therapy by “coding’ or “torpedo’ in case of alcoholism?

True and false alternatives

During exams in medical school, students are often asked a provocative question: are lobar pneumonia-rale in the lungs fine or large bubbled? The correct answer does not imply either the first or the second options, because there is no rale in the lungs in case of lobar pneumonia.

So, to encourage expression or suppression of emotions seems to me the same false alternative. There is at least one other way out — to return to the original situation… through the entrance. Emotional life is not a one-way street where traffic jams occur. It resembles rather a flat surface with a ball on it, which can lurch in any direction. The ball can roll back just as it can move forward until it falls from the surface. Instead of building barriers to the movement of the ball, you can change the angle of inclination… it is possible to simply calm down, refusing both expression and suppression of emotions. It is not the same as giving emotions a way out. That means getting them back in.

Perhaps a comparison to removing the detonator from the bomb would help to explain what I mean. The disposal of an explosive projectile would mean refusing both to detonate it and to conceal it. When it is dismantled, it is possible to think of the new use of the potential energy stored in it. The same uranium that threatened to destroy all life can become a filling for the reactor of a power plant, supplying both light and heat.

Thus, we can give forces the ability to stop completely, go back, and then look for a new solution to the problem, being in the new state. This is the way to discharge both dynamics.

The psychostatic paradigm

Stopping consciousness and turning it into a body is a method, that opens up new opportunities in psychotherapy. I have called it psychostatic, after correlating with better known psychodynamic principle.

The above-mentioned principle «where’ involves searching in space for the affects as charged objectified (somatized) structures and allows us to speak about «topographic (or topical) psychology’ (perpendicular to «chronological’ — in particular, transpersonal). In general, this method can be called «Topographic psychology and the psychostatic paradigm in psychotherapy.»

Therapy «backwards’, is the technique of «zeroing the patient’s condition’, calm «without annexation and indemnity’ — these are some of the names of the therapeutic part of the work.

This method is a worthy alternative to the existing methods of restoring the psychophysical balance of a person.

An eye view can melt the stones

Instead of trying to revive the almost dead (“petrified’) feelings, somatopsychotherapy offers to “dissolve’ them, to let them “die’ completely. Though, not to disappear, but to be reborn in a new capacity.

One of the discoveries of somatopsychotherapy, in my opinion, is the fact that, if a person refrains from hysterical, hypochondriac, phobic and other pathological ways of responding to the fact of the awareness of the «stones’ within them, and retains a calm, judicious attitude to conscious, this suffering person becomes a winner, they get their power back, reborn like a Phoenix from the ashes. The task of the somatopsychotherapist is to help the patient create and maintain a working tone in relation to these phenomena, without unnecessary affectation, but by understanding the significance of what is happening.

The patients can melt the stones with their own eyes, and it will not be just a «game of imagination’, but a real change to: 1) the structure of their consciousness; 2) the state of their body.

Working with sensations as a method of psychotherapy is highly effective and fast-acting. It can change the patient’s condition radically and do it without the phantasmagoric external manifestations inherent in some known types of therapy.

For my last preliminary remark, my own experience and communication with colleagues brings me to the idea that along with the division into schools in the world practice, there is a very simple division into «fast’ and «slow’ or «short’ and «long’ types of psychotherapy.

Experience makes us accept the fact that all forms of work are important. The fact that you can work with a patient for five, ten minutes, or even a year, or two, or more, and all this will be normal psychotherapy, does not seem to be a paradox.

So-called classical schools, such as clinical psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, or younger schools like gestalt therapy, tend to work over the long time. Among «short-term’ schools, there are representatives of neuro-linguistic programming, next to them, perhaps, eriksonians and some other supporters of empirical, short-term, intensive psychotherapy.

This method also draws from the intensive and short-term schools. It is good for working through traumas. However, it is as thorough as the therapies of the first «classic’ group.

1500 patients

From my point of view, this study takes into consideration the most important issues of psychotherapy.

How to bring the patients to an understanding of their inner state?

How to change that inner state for better?

How to get a sustainable result?

After 15 years of research, this method has been formed by the process of solving psychological and psychosomatic problems of more than 1500 people during 3—5 sessions of one hour with each of them.

 Modern directions of psychotherapy and their clinical application. Materials of the I All-Russian conference on psychotherapy. — Moscow: Institute of psychotherapy, 1996, 196 p.

Introduction

Every psychotherapist and practicing psychologist know about patients’ descriptions of their bodily sensations. There is no more or less noticeable experience that would not be accompanied by a burning of the chest, or a pain in the head, or compression in the abdomen.

Different attitude to the body sensations

In classical medicine, the body sensations are taken into account to clarify the diagnosis and monitor the dynamics.

Clinical psychotherapy calls them vegetative accompaniments of experiences.

In psychoanalysis, they serve as a material for the interpretation and construction of structures, where through somatic symptoms «the body reports the dominant idea of the «subconscious’. The subject of the searches is the idea underlying the formation of the symptom.

In the context of Jungian’s approach, there can also be situations in which patients indicate body sensations in the process of experiencing certain archetypal scenes, but these feelings rarely fall into the focus of attention. More importance is given to the semantic elaboration of the symbols.

Gestalt therapy pays more attention to body sensations to establish contact with them, to find out their «addressee’, if any, and to complete the unfinished deal associated with them.

Psychosynthesis does not exclude the use of body parts to establish mutually beneficial contact between them. In this case heart, brain, stomach, ears, personified as subpersonalities, can sort out their relationship, but this process does not have the nature of direct work with sensations.

Reichian body-oriented psychotherapy attaches great importance to the analysis of the «rings’ of tension at the level of the eyes, mouth, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, forming a «protective shell’ around the body, delaying the free flow of «bioenergy’, and considers its important task to work through the «muscle armor’. However, this approach works primarily with the surface of the body.

Erickson hypnotherapists use descriptions of body sensations to create a background of reliability in the process of «soft trance guidance’. Bodily sensations in this tradition are highly valued for their credibility. With their help, hypnotherapists often receive from their clients, a credit of trust, which a person is inclined to give to someone who has correctly described at least three components of his bodily experiences. An erickson hypnotist describes what a person feels with their body but… thinks about something else.

Here’s how body sensations are characterized from the point of view of neuro-linguistic programming: «Evaluative meta-feelings about other perceptions or representations, also called emotions, feelings, or visceral kinesthetic, which are presented in the chest and/or abdomen, or in the midline of the body. These feelings are not direct sensations/perceptions, but representations derived from other sensations/perceptions.[1]" «Other sensations/perceptions» — specifically visual, auditory and kinesthetic — are the main focus of attention in NLP.

The ontopsychology of Menegetti attaches great importance to the knowledge of the doctor’s own body sensations in the process of communication with the patient and the study of «semantic field’. However, in this case the appeal to the sensations is of an official nature.

The process-oriented psychotherapy of A. Mindell touches the sensations in the prosses of working with the «channels of perception’.

There are many reports of body sensations during sessions of holotropic breathing according to the methodology of S. Grof.

We can say that every serious school of psychotherapy somehow reacts to the fact of the presence of body sensations brought about from experiences, but almost none of the existing schools work directly with them, thus remaining within the indirect use of this phenomenon. I would like to name the way it is done as external.

Psychocatalysis of body sensations works with sensations directly, «internally’ using them.

Traditional Russian attitude to body sensations

As real force that significantly affects the health of our fellow citizens, this tradition does not exist. The interests of the social experiment, which our country went through, demanded special personal qualities from its participants. The inclination to introspection was not listed among them. Moreover, its manifestations were considered almost counter-revolutionary. “The battles for the harvest’ and other “battles’ for agriculture, industry and other fronts did not include any study of body sensations. That era put forward its heroes. However, their valor was not intended to be healthy for, but rather, to be useful to society.

One of my colleagues told me a story about a group of American feminists who arrived in Moscow during the perestroika period. Instead of giving a long explanation, I will just say that she invited them to a public bathhouse… When the feminists saw the women around them, they began to cry. They could vividly imagine how those Russian women must have mistreated themselves to end up with such deformed bodies. The Americans ladies were particularly shocked by the extent of their distorted joints.

I would like to mention something about the souls of the long-suffering Russian women! Indeed, no matter what, they are distinguished by their commitment to compassion and sacrifice. It would have been necessary to have a remarkable strength of character to withstand everything that our parents and grandparents had to endure. Though, it would have been prudent to add a culture of personal care and self-preservation to such character and experience of suffering; a culture of working through the consequences of the resentment experienced.

I hope that my scientific work will contribute to the formation of such culture.

Domestic “tradition’

This is an example of attitude to oneself, and to the signals of the body, at the household level. Fortunately, this does not mean that in “the domestic’ tradition there is no other attitude to the perceived.

The Orthodox Church, especially the Byzantine monastic tradition of Hesychasm (sacred silence), which was developed in the environment of Russian monasticism, offered to be very attentive to what was formed in the mind of a believer.

I was greatly impressed by the topographic structure of the descriptions of «mind preservation’ by the Christian ascetics. Long before the emergence of any psychotherapy, they described the phases of entering into a passionate state and their ways out of dead-end experiences. Those experiences often resembled plants and animals.

We know such expressions as «seeds’ or «roots’ of passion. In the V century the monk Neil of Sinai wrote about «the foxes that live in the soul of the vindictive, and the animals that hide in the indignant heart’ or «as the water is perturbed by a falling stone, so the heart of a man by a bad word.» «As the smoke from smoldering straw bothers the eyes, so the rancor bothers the mind during the prayer’[2]. These descriptions are more than just beautiful literary images, they are documentary evidence of the experience of internal work.

The image of perception of the soul and passion is found in the following excerpt by the monk Hesychius: «Distinctive in the old Testament, the high priest decoration (a pure gold plate on the chest, with the inscription: «Holiness to the Lord’, — ex. 28, 36) has a conversion of heart purity which inspires us «to heed the plate of our heart, so that, if it is black from sin, (if we can find it) we should hurry to clean it with our tears, repentance and prayer.[3]»

«From incessant prayer the air in our minds is pure of dark clouds and winds of evil spirits.[4]" The concepts of purity or blackening of the soul, the quality of the «mental air’ in us are important for us and will be repeatedly mentioned in the book.

Sinful thoughts «come to the door of the heart and, finding it is not protected by mind, one after the other comes in, each in its own time. When one of these […] thoughts, rising to the heart, enters it, then brings with it a whole swarm of impure thoughts and, thus darkens the mind and heart, irritates the body and attracts it to the shameful deeds.[5]" The «Swarm of impure thoughts’ is not just a comparison, it is a documentary description of what is happening.

“Objectification’ of sensations in psychotherapy

To continue the conversation about schools, dealing with sensations, the method of bioenergotherapy (BEST), developed by E. I. Zuyev (St. Petersburg) should be mentioned first. BEST, as no other manner of work, enables a person to transfer to the practitioner (the operator) the nuances of body sensations. The peculiarity of BEST is that in the process of massage, which is more than just the mechanical interaction between the practitioner and the patients (which, rather, should be called work on the movement of sensations in the body) the latter are asked “strange’ questions: about the consistency of movement in the body “sensations’, the color of the inner space and other characteristics of the “body scheme’. The patient, for example, reports that their head is filled during the manipulation. “With what?” — the operator asks. The patient: “Air (water, milk, resin, lead, etc.)”. The practitioner holds the shoulder blade and asks again: “What am I holding?” The response is: “A chicken”.

Zuyev’s followers gently call the evocation of those felt images to be the product of «illusions’, the «suggestive effect’. They use this curious feedback to adjust their operational efforts, as well as to divert the patient’s attention towards the process of performing manual therapy procedures. Representatives of the BEST school also suggest: «The immersion in figurative reality is an integral part of deep diagnosis, since the patient «gives’ those images that are embedded in the structures of the subconscious. The creative application of the knowledge of psychoanalysis has limitless possibilities here.[6]»

We can say that the psychocatalysis of body sensations is the development of BEST ideas in the direction of the psychotherapeutic usage of the ability of man to recognize the «schemes’ of a body.

Spontaneous detection of sensations

“A stone in soul’ is one of those images most often experienced by patients, but it’s not the only one. “Jellyfish’ or “octopuses’ of fear, sitting in the stomach and launching their “tentacles’ in all parts of the body. “Clouds’ of anxiety in the chest, forcing the patients to wring their hands and run around the room. A “mass’ of anxiety, bursting in the forehead, preventing them from sleeping. “Lumps’ of grievances in the chest, preventing them from breathing. “Balls of despair in the throat, squeezing tears from the eyes (“globus hystericus” in Latin). “Brain-eating snakes’ of doubt in the head and “steel plates’ of situation control in the back of the head, raising blood pressure to pre-stroke levels. “Lead shoulder straps’ of responsibility hanging on the shoulders, flattening the spine. Patients often describe their sensations in these terms.

The objectification of feelings in artistic speech

In everyday and poetic language and in proverbs, one can meet such expressions as: “my problems swell my head’, or “cats scratch my heart’. Joy is usually described as big, and grief as heavy. Doctors speak about the “neurasthenic helmet’, though it is not known how to get rid of it.

It is possible to give a lot of quotes from popular songs, for example:

«Don’t go to him, don’t go, he’s got a granite stone in his chest.»

Here is an example from a novel: «A young woman is standing in a dark and cold hallway, near a tepid stove, warming her hands, waiting to be called for dinner- and, having pursed her dried up lips, thinking… about what? About Rodion? It is all nonsense, that she has poisoned him, nonsense! But what if she really has poisoned him… my God! What must she feel? What tombstone is lying on her secretive soul![7]»

There is no need to add to the list of excerpts because the reader will be able to recall such collocations, used to describe sensations in the body during the experience of various emotional states.

Snakes in the head is not a sign of schizophrenia

Being a student of the clinical school, I used to perceive the evidence of patients about their feelings as a part of the information needed to help establish the diagnosis and verify the effectiveness of the treatment. If patients told me about the “daggers in their backs’, “the devil on their shoulders’, “worms in their heads’, I thought about senesthopathy, and schizophrenia.

Today, while working through «a given’ energy structure rather than an innate genetic one, I often met the descriptions of «strange’ feelings experienced by my patients. For me, the style of such descriptions is important. It can be epileptoid-photographic, cycloid-colorful, or schizoid-abstruse, or organically flattened. Knowledge of the patient’s character remains essential, but no less important is the fact that there is practically nobody who is unable to describe what is felt. The body experience, (or «experiences of the body’) is a phenomenon which is quite natural to people of any constitutional and genetic type and culture.

Bodily experience, conscious or unconscious, is constantly presented in the normal human sensory system. The only real «strangeness’ of descriptions of body sensations in the somatopsychotherapeutic process, is that they are made in the form of describing objects, which was not done before. It will be discussed below.

Sometimes patients can be surprised by the nature of their perception when referring to their feelings. They even ask in embarrassment: «Do you have a lot of crazy people like me?» The perception of what is felt in images is not a sign of mental illness. On the contrary, the ability to perceive indicates mental health. If we talk about diseases, it turns out that «snakes in the head’ are more a sign of pre-stroke than schizophrenia.

During the observation of the object descriptions of experiences it was found that the results of self-examination of the body sensations can serve, firstly, to activate the processes of natural self-regulation in the body (through the inclusion of the feedback mechanism) and, secondly, to organize accelerated changes in the mental status of the patient through focusing on this process.

 A quote from the book.: Transformation personality: neuro-linguistic programming. Odessa: Hadzhibey, 1995, p. 260.

 Dobrotolubie, vol. 2, — Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 1992, p. 250

 Ibid., p. 200—201. 5 Ibid., p. 196.

 Ibid., pp. 196—197.

 Dobrotolubie, vol. 2, — Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 1992, p.196.

 Manual for BEST operators, St. Petersburg, 1991 / / E. I. Zuyev. The healing tree. M.: Soviet sport, 1995. (There is a description of the practice of «Philippine operations» and «transpersonal psychotherapy» performed by the author of BEST.)

 Bunin I. Village // Moscow: Pravda, 1988, p. 139.