c. Creating A Self 2
One difficulty with this new self was that it was unstable. Zelda would maintain her sense of who she was for a while but then feelings and thoughts from the past and the various selves would return as her mind integrated this physically based self at deeper and deeper levels.
What really gave Zelda stability and a sense of herself she could rely on was incorporating the Kinaesthetic Vestibular and Proprioceptive systems into the self.
The term kinaesthetic refers to movement (kin-) and feeling (-aesthetic) and though we had worked on the feeling side she still needed the qualities which the other systems gave her.
The proprioceptive system is the system of proprioceptors – special nerve cells – spread throughout her body, mainly in muscles and bones which give us our internal sense of where we are in space. So we know our fingers are at the far end of our wrist because we can feel them there.
Many people who have undergone trauma lose the finer pe rception of just where their body parts are.
And the vestibular system is that which deals with balance movement and direction. Often when clients say they don’t know where they’re going or where they are the re-connecting them with the vestibular can enhance the corresponding mental sense of direction.
The pushups develop the sense of front and back which is useful to help us locate ourselves in space.
Swimming was another exercise which worked well too.
The total immersion would interrupt Zelda’s state of mind and bring her into the physical world since the alternative was drowning. This is bringing the strong need for safety into play but in a more functional manner.
Tae Kwon Do also worked well since Zelda could work hard and increase her sense of her own power. The greater sense of her own power led to an increased sense of safety and the increased sense of her body from extra effort at the same time helped condition (make automatic) her to feel safe when she was aware of feeling her body – not her emotions.
Another factor relates to the basic beliefs of traumatised people.
They believe life is hard. Because it is.
Then they can have trouble living an easy life because they just don’t know how to. And if they don’t know how to they feel unsure and at the emotional level they revert to feeling anxious which then triggers a search through the mind’s stored and imagined information for reasons to be anxious. If there is no external reason for anxiety then old fears etc will be re-awoken since they are what fits the pattern of danger.
It’s a case of “better the old memories of danger you know that the possibility of unknown pleasures”.
The hard work of pushups, swimming, kick-boxing etc met Zelda’s need for a difficult life without degrading her mind. It also taught her that she was getting a sense of control and safety when dealing with difficulty.
Teaching clients to be aware of the non-emotional aspects of their bodies can re-connect their mind with it withou t necessarily going through great emotional investigation and pain. If they need to feel old pain then they will. The therapist doesn’t need to encourage them.
So she would spend some time each day doing pushups. Since when we are overwhelmed by old feelings and thoughts our current mental set is less intense than the memories, if we increase the intensity of experience of the desired mind-state then we increase the likelihood of it resisting being overwhelmed by intense memories.
The virtue of pushups is that the intensity of the experience of existing a a physical self can be regulated quite simply and effectively.
I told Zelda that what was important was not the number of pushups but that she do them until it was effortful.
Since to keep going when things are difficult we pay more attention to the effort Zelda would pay more attention to her physical self.
In terms of information theory, the signal strength of her body was increased relative to the signal strength of the old emotions and beliefs etc.
