Karden’s Corner by Karden Rabin
The nature of human deduction is that it’s only as good as the information it deduces from. But those frameworks will always be limited by the extent of knowledge available at the time of their formation. This applies to all fields of study including mental health and its various modalities ranging from psychoanalysis to CBT. But, before we discuss mental health practice, let’s explore an example of information (or the lack of it) determining theory and application in the area of physical medicine. Specifically, its practice prior to the advent of germ theory.
For millennia, people would get sick. Theories on what caused disease were innumerable, ranging from miasma (bad air) to evil spirits. None of these theories were stupid, they were just the logical deductions of people trying to explain why people got sick without the knowledge of microorganisms. For example, it was observed that people exposed to rotting food, garbage or human flesh got sick and it was no big leap to presume that “there was something bad in the air.”
But, one day, a handful of pioneering (and heretical) scientists, armed with novel information-gathering tools like microscopes, began to postulate a new theory: that tiny animals called germs – that were invisible to the naked eye – transmitted from one person to another were the cause of disease. By extension, the solution, as unsexy as it sounds, was to interrupt this transmission with hygiene and sterilization. The application of germ theory and mass public hygiene was – and still is – the single greatest thing that scientific medicine has ever done to relieve human suffering.
Now, I am not saying the state of mental health practice today is as erroneous as the gap between evil spirits and germs 150 years ago, but when the standard practices for improving mental health are talk based and drug based, we are completely ignoring the vast sea of information, intelligence and consciousness accessed through embodiment. That is a significant knowledge gap.
Since this vast sea doesn’t speak words and is more than just its serotonin or dopamine ratios, we need to access it through felt experience, when we do that, we become like the scientists of old armed with their newfangled microscopes – new discoveries, lead to new frameworks which lead to novel treatments. In this case, the microscopes are our ability to feel in our body and the microorganisms are sensations, emotions, somatic memories, energy, postures, movements and so on.
The amazing thing about taking an embodied approach is that it doesn’t just expand understanding, it usually leads to con-current access to healing our core wounds and gives rise to more beneficial thoughts and behaviors. To illustrate this, I’ll give you a very practical example from my own life which many of you may well relate to.
My wife and I have been together for fifteen years and we often act out one of the most common relationship tropes. I will come home and my wife will be having a tough time. She might be in a bad mood, angry or sad. Then, I will go into fix it mode. And you know what happens from there, attempting to fix it starts well intentioned but warps into a fight and everything goes sideways.
When I talked with my wife, therapist, family and friends to try to improve this dynamic, our deductions were based on the information available to us which were mainly our thoughts and ideas. The conventional summary was something like:
- I have a fix it / savior personality
- My wife doesn’t need her problem fixed, she wants to be listened to.
- If I could just understand that, take some deep breaths and restrain my desire to fix things and just listen to her, everything would be fine.
Despite this eminently sensible deduction based on the available information, it did jack squat to help because no amount of logic, reason or deep breaths could change my behavior once the dynamic was initiated. That’s because my mind’s deductive powers (and the counsel of my therapist, friends and family) was completely blind to the information coming from my body.
Years ago, when I started observing my body through the skills of Somatic Experiencing and parts work in tandem, I discovered the following things through what I playfully call sensationalysis:
- When my wife was upset, my body responded with sensations of anxiety, discomfort and later anger.
- This emotional blend was connected to identical embodied memories from childhood of when my mother (primary attachment) would get upset.
- In reaction (i.e desperate need for a solution) to this physiologic experience of lacking safety and security, my mindbody consistently executed one of three behaviors: Self isolation through avoidance (freeze/flighty solution), trying to fix things by making mom//wife happy/better/calm (social engagement solution) or when that failed it just got angry and told them to go to hell (fight solution).
Through the lens of sensationalysis, I could sense that my body was re-experiencing attachment injuries and reenacting coping behaviors from three decades ago every single time my wife was upset. Our attachment and trauma patterns are not nuanced, they operate by the “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck” philosophy. And so my wife is an obvious enough approximation of my mom to activate those well worn neural pathways.
Like clockwork, my wife’s mood would initiate a cascade of deeply uncomfortable (yet unfelt) sensations which then activated a menu of behaviors which my rational mind would attempt to explain/justify. Meanwhile, the whole trope was actually an elaborate attempt by my mindbody to rid itself of the unsafe sensations and feel good again. At the most basic level, my own unfelt sensations were driving the entire dynamic. I wasn’t trying to fix her by making her feel better because I am a fixer/ savior personality, I was trying to make myself feel better by vainly trying to make her feel better! Sensationalysis not only allowed me to identify what was actually happening but by connecting me to the felt sensations and experience, it simultaneously gave me the ability to heal the attachment injuries and evolve my behavior.
Since deeply uncomfortable body sensations were at the root of the whole trope, what was required was learning to be aware of those sensations, to become comfortable with the uncomfortable, to bring discharge and soothing to those sensations (and their associated embodied memories and parts) and retrain my mindbody that its attachment injuries from the past were not actually happening in the present. By doing this work, two very important things transpired.
The first was that the intensity of negative body sensations that would activate when my wife was in a bad mood dropped precipitously. Secondly, I trained myself to notice my body in these circumstances and in real time I would (internally and silently) remind my mindbody what we (I often refer to myself as a collective of parts, hence we) had been practicing. That the sensations, though uncomfortable, were not dangerous. That our wife is not our mother. That we are 35 not 5. That my True Self is here to support us and keep us safe (co-regulate). It’s OK for her to be upset. We’re safe. We don’t have to run away, fix or lash out. We really can just listen and hold space for her. The impact has been remarkable. Rarely if ever does my wife’s mood instigate my old behaviors. I am not only able to make myself feel better, but I am truly able to listen, to hold space and by being regulated myself, make that regulation available to her.
My invitation to you is to experiment with the lens of sensationalysis. When you observe yourself going into old behaviors or thought patterns, try asking yourself “what sensations could be driving this?” Slow down, direct your attention at your body, recall the incident that activated your current behavior or thought pattern and notice if your body has any information for you (I assure you it does). What’s happening with your muscle tension? With your breathing pattern? Do you feel stuck or do you feel like you want to run? Are you scared or are you frustrated? Do you want to disappear or do you want to roar? Can you remember feeling this way any other time?
By choosing to notice the body and regard its sensational intelligence and consciousness with the same respect and authority that you give your thoughts, you will bring light to where there was darkness, discover unknown worlds within yourself and – just like the scientists of old – learn how to solve the previously unsolvable.
Karden Rabin is a mindbody practitioner specializing in psychophysiologic disorders and the co-founder of CFS School
Photo by Kazi Mizan on Unsplash
