The body knows when guilt distorts reality: Dance Therapy with women who have been abused, physically or sexually, as children

Keywords

guilt, active imagination, trauma, dissociation, post traumatic stress, somatic memory, trauma therapy, dance movement psychotherapy

My work as Dance Movement Psychoherapist, the last 14 years, with women who have been abused, sexual or physical, as children, has given me the impetus to write about the priceless contribution of the body in the therapeutic process with them. I will focus on the issue of guilt and the distortion that it brings to the perception of reality, for the adult, and specifically the woman, who has suffered abuse in her childhood.

     Dance Movement Psychotherapy appreciates psyche-mind-body as a whole and it is based on the principle that the way we move and express ourselves non-verbally reflects the way we think, feel and relate to others. Movement and dance – in terms of free spontaneous expression – are used, in my work with the women, as medium for accessing and integrating of the unconscious psychic material. Jung (1916) called this process ‘active imagination’ and believed that feelings that could not be expressed with words could be expressed symbolically through art, music and dance (Lewis, 1986).

     In my work with women who have been abused in their childhood, I encourage the spontaneous, authentic expression through the body movement from within. Bodily movement serves as the medium for exploring unconscious feelings that are at the threshold of consciousness during the session. I am also mindful of the non verbal communication of the woman I work with, throughout the session, as well as the unspoken, unconscious feelings that manifest through fleeting unconscious body movements. These kind of movements were called by Laban (1960), initially, and Bartenieff (2002) later, ‘shadow movements’. The reconnection to the body through breath, bodily sensations and spontaneous movement offers direct access to unconscious material (Chodorow 1991, Penfield 1992) and it is the most basic tool for the Dance Movement Psychotherapists.

     In trauma therapy it is easy to understand that verbal descriptions of facts and feelings are very difficult or impossible. Apart from fear and aversion that the person might feel about her trauma, guilt and shame, even when the person is an adult, render verbal expression extremely difficult. On the other hand, even when words are relatively easy and the adult can talk more openly about her abuse as a child, the verbal references on feelings remain just descriptions, without emotional tone. Words in these cases seem to merely transfer the information, while person is not in touch with /does not feel her emotions. Dance Therapy comes, in cases like that, to offer a great help, when words are impossible to be spoken (Bernstein, 1995) or, in the opposite case, when words distract one from experiencing the emotion and foster the phenomenon of “dissociation” (Van der Kolk B., Brown P., Van der Hart. O., 1989). Rothschild (2000, p. 66) mentions that “dissociative phenomena”, like that of feeling unable to experience emotions, are present in almost every form of post-traumatic stress.

     Rothschild (2000) writes: “the body remembers traumatic events through the encoding in the brain of sensations, movements, and emotions that are associated with trauma” (p. 173). She suggests that “one of the goals of trauma therapy is to help those individuals to understand their body sensations. They must first feel and identify them on the body level” (p. 45). So, the acquaintance with the body is the primary aim of therapy but also the starting point for a healthier relationship with it. This relationship is cultivated from the very first session, where primary importance is given to the body processes, the sensations as well as the self-observation. The aim of such process is not the infiltration into inhibited, dreadful inner places, but the gradual build up of a positive body experience and of the ability for “inner listening”. Musicant (2007) describes this as “attention to the ongoing stream of bodily felt information” (p. 117).

     The ability to experience and observe, almost simultaneously, offers the woman in therapy basic safety. My experience has indicated that progress of healing depends, very much, on the feeling of safety, exteriorly as well as interiorly. Exteriorly it has to do with the stability of the relationship with the therapist, the absolute devotion from the therapist’s side and the lack of disturbances from external factors, throughout the session time. Whitefield (1995) stresses that “the key to the orderly flow of this healing process is feeling safe, supported and validated by others, which includes these others not invading our experiences and our boundaries” (p. 240).

     Interiorly, the sense of safety is a condition that is built gradually and it has to do with the woman’s ability to contain the emerging feelings during therapy. Dosamantes–Alperson (1984) calls this “internal locus of control”, (p. 151), “the ability to perceive one’s self as the centre of one’s experience”. The issue of safety is reinforced through the gradual ‘education’ of the woman in therapy, to be able to experience her feeling and observe at the same time the images, thoughts, memories or sensations that might emerge during the process. The building of a ‘dual awareness’ is encouraged (Rothschild, 2000, p. 130) in ‘here and now’.

     Wyman–McGinty (2007) describes that when the person in therapy re-experiences inhibited feelings within the ‘original container’ (p. 236) – the body – “these somatic memories can be re-experienced, witnessed, articulated and made available for analysis.” (p. 237). She continues describing that by focusing on specific bodily feelings a memory or other symbolic representation is evoked, for example a visual image, which can be taken into the mind, thought about and eventually integrated. Janov (2000) identifies the notions of wholeness and consciousness/conscience with integration.

     My experience has shown that bodily awareness and focusing on bodily feelings is the starting point as well as the key for the transition from dissociation to connection and finally to integration of feelings. Janov (2000) claims that in order to integrate and resolve the feelings we need the connection of functions of both brain hemispheres. He writes “we need both the emotional aspect of the experience as well as its comprehension” (p. 287), and that “without real connection,…there is not significant change in the sympathetic-parasympathetic system, in the right and left brain” (p. 288). Rothschild (2000) also supports that when post traumatic stress splits the body from the mind, the clients need to be helped to think and feel concurrently. “To be able to sense their sensations, emotions, and behaviours while formulating coherent conclusions about the relationship between those and the images and thoughts that accompany them” (p. 161). Through the ‘dual awareness’ in here and now, as I fore-mentioned, this connection is made possible. The dissociated feelings, which are manifested bodily as post-traumatic stress symptom are connected and “placed in their proper point in the client’s past” (Rothschild 2000, p. 173).

     It is difficult to describe the process of connection and integration because it is mainly non verbal and subtle. “Relaxation and a sense of calmness of the client is a proof of evidence” (Janov 2000, p. 287) of this connection, as well as the rumbling of the guts, the sighing of relief and the serene, clear look. Rothschild (2000) adds that “grief is a sign that healing is taking place” (p. 63) and that a part of the trauma is resolved when the inner experience changes from present to past tense.

     At this point I would like to introduce the issue of guilt in trauma therapy, within the specific therapeutic process that I have been describing. Rothschild (2000, p.49) mentions that many victims of rape suffer from dreadful shame and guilt due to the natural reaction of “freeze”, and they have the conviction, on a deep level, that they have let down themselves – or others too – , as well as that they have done something wrong to have become victimized. “For the client to reclaim his or her power and sanity, the truth of guilt must be illuminated” (Rothschild 2000, p. 160).

     In cases of child abuse, sexual or physical, by family members, guilt is a more complicated emotion. It is rooted within the pathological family dysfunction and entangles the child in the double knot of co-dependence. Herman (1981) writes that the emotional damage in the people who have experienced incest is not only the result of the sexual crime but also of the current dynamics within the family that allows the incest to take place. Additionally, the child’s need for love and acceptance from the significant adult gets entangled with feelings of disgust that are created in the child from such infringement. For example, in Paula’s case: the lack of love and support from her mother, forced Paula to seek for a loving and supporting relationship in her father’s face, who was continuously molesting her, from 10 years old, while the mother was out of the home. For many years, and as an adult, Paula had the deeply rooted guilt and shame that in some way she had being participating in the molesting because, 1) she had not resisted and never told anyone about it, and 2) because she believed that the ‘special moments’ with her dad was something that she desired too.

     The distortion of reality is evident in Paula’s case: the child needs love and acceptance, she receives betrayal from the father who takes advantage of the child’s need, and finally feels guilty that her own need caused the specific behaviour from the father. As Bradshaw (1990) describes, within dysfunctional family the child experiences the neglect of her developmental needs of dependence. So, when Paula came in contact with the fear of abandonment and rejection from her mother, on a bodily level, she realized that her turn towards her father, for a loving and accepting relationship, was something natural. Her reconnection to the wisdom and the indisputable knowing of the “inner child” (Bradshaw, 1990) and the acceptance of her developmental childhood needs, gradually led to the illumination of such a distorted perception of reality.

     When therefore the child, in order to survive emotionally, builds progressively a false self, based on the shame for who really is, leads to confusion of what is good and what is bad for him/herself, which feeling is his/hers and which of the significant adult who, the child, so much needs to keep pleased, fearing rejection and/or abandonment. As in the case of Christina: when in the age the 6 was found in the police department with her father after her attempt of rape by an unknown man, she felt shame and guilt, and she believed then that her behaviour had put her father in troubles. She lived up to her adult life with this guilt. Through contact with her breathing and her body in the therapy sessions with me, she remembered, connected and realised something that had never been clarified for her up to then. She remembered the image of her father hiding his face with shame and being unable to explain to her what had happened. Christina felt, indisputably, in her body her strength and power, as a small girl, which saved her then from the attempt of rape, and realised that she herself had never felt shame about the incident. The shame that she felt still for the fact was a feeling that her father had felt and not herself.

     Guilt in the individuals that have been abused as children from members of their family distorts not only the perception of reality but also the real, objective function of anger. While that is to say, Rothschild supports that anger is a feeling of self-protection (2000, p. 61), the distortion of reality through the filter of guilt alters the positive function of anger into a bad action, or erroneous behaviour, that is considered by the abused woman not only reprehensible but also damaging for herself. As in the case of Lilla: in a dance therapy session, emerged, through the body, the scary picture of her mother attacking her neck, like a rabid wolf with sharp teeth. Lilla tried to avoid her holding her neck with her hands, asking her mother-wolf to leave her alone. When I encouraged her to turn to the wolf and ‘show her teeth’ literally, – an attitude that would activate her anger and the sympathetic nervous system – Lilla believed that in that way she would become herself a wolf, and that the violence that she was receiving would become hers, that she would become herself violent. She believed that she would embody the wolf that she so much feared and that she would lose this battle in the end. Through the continuing work with the body and only when Lilla felt her physical power/strength as a faculty that releases her, realised that power does not mean violence. This realisation released her from guilt and gradually permitted her to ‘show her teeth’ to anyone who continued violating her boundaries in her current relationships. One of the difficulties with the feeling of guilt is that it does not appear to express outwards or to be released like other feelings (Rothschild, 2000, p. 62). For example, sadness is released through crying, anger through shouting and gesturing. On the contrary guilt is indiscernible and difficult to access. Rothschild proposes that, provided that guilt cannot be eased through relaxation or catharsis, the key for its dissolution is non-judgemental, accepting contact with another human being. This should be the base of trauma therapy through the body, the acceptance without judgement. Apart from this, however, it is essential for the therapist to be open to perceive the non verbal communications, but also to evaluate the body processes and expressions as evidence of psychic material. This involves that the whole therapeutic process is based on the indisputable wisdom of the body that moves (Hartley, 1989 and Musicant, 2000).

     At this point, as closure, I would like to add my own conclusion. While the reality of abuse in the past of a woman can be scary and/or inhibited, when she approaches herself, with safety, through the body and entrusts her wisdom, she finds a priceless treasure: the unfolding of her deeper, creative and vital self (Goodwin, 2007), who knows her personal truth better than anyone else. This results in the empowerment of the Ego and the conscious Self (Stromsted & Haze of 2007) of the woman, the strengthening of trust in her “somatic memory” (Rothschild 2000, p. 44), the indisputable experiential knowing that she does not deserve what has happened to her and finally the dissolution of guilt and self-doubt as a result of this awareness.

     In cases of child abuse, sexual or physical, by family members, guilt is a more complicated emotion. It is rooted within the pathological family dysfunction and entangles the child in the double knot of co-dependence. Herman (1981) writes that the emotional damage in the people who have experienced incest is not only the result of the sexual crime but also of the current dynamics within the family that allows the incest to take place. Additionally, the child’s need for love and acceptance from the significant adult gets entangled with feelings of disgust that are created in the child from such infringement. For example, in Paula’s case: the lack of love and support from her mother, forced Paula to seek for a loving and supporting relationship in her father’s face, who was continuously molesting her, from 10 years old, while the mother was out of the home. For many years, and as an adult, Paula had the deeply rooted guilt and shame that in some way she had being participating in the molesting because, 1) she had not resisted and never told anyone about it, and 2) because she believed that the ‘special moments’ with her dad was something that she desired too.

     The distortion of reality is evident in Paula’s case: the child needs love and acceptance, she receives betrayal from the father who takes advantage of the child’s need, and finally feels guilty that her own need caused the specific behaviour from the father. As Bradshaw (1990) describes, within dysfunctional family the child experiences the neglect of her developmental needs of dependence. So, when Paula came in contact with the fear of abandonment and rejection from her mother, on a bodily level, she realized that her turn towards her father, for a loving and accepting relationship, was something natural. Her reconnection to the wisdom and the indisputable knowing of the “inner child” (Bradshaw, 1990) and the acceptance of her developmental childhood needs, gradually led to the illumination of such a distorted perception of reality.

     When therefore the child, in order to survive emotionally, builds progressively a false self, based on the shame for who really is, leads to confusion of what is good and what is bad for him/herself, which feeling is his/hers and which of the significant adult who, the child, so much needs to keep pleased, fearing rejection and/or abandonment. As in the case of Christina: when in the age the 6 was found in the police department with her father after her attempt of rape by an unknown man, she felt shame and guilt, and she believed then that her behaviour had put her father in troubles. She lived up to her adult life with this guilt. Through contact with her breathing and her body in the therapy sessions with me, she remembered, connected and realised something that had never been clarified for her up to then. She remembered the image of her father hiding his face with shame and being unable to explain to her what had happened. Christina felt, indisputably, in her body her strength and power, as a small girl, which saved her then from the attempt of rape, and realised that she herself had never felt shame about the incident. The shame that she felt still for the fact was a feeling that her father had felt and not herself.

     Guilt in the individuals that have been abused as children from members of their family distorts not only the perception of reality but also the real, objective function of anger. While that is to say, Rothschild supports that anger is a feeling of self-protection (2000, p. 61), the distortion of reality through the filter of guilt alters the positive function of anger into a bad action, or erroneous behaviour, that is considered by the abused woman not only reprehensible but also damaging for herself. As in the case of Lilla: in a dance therapy session, emerged, through the body, the scary picture of her mother attacking her neck, like a rabid wolf with sharp teeth. Lilla tried to avoid her by holding her neck with her hands, asking her mother-wolf to leave her alone. When I encouraged her to turn to the wolf and ‘show her teeth’ literally, – an attitude that would activate her anger and the sympathetic nervous system – Lilla believed that in that way she would become herself a wolf, and that the violence that she was receiving would become hers, that she would become herself violent. She believed that she would embody the wolf that she so much feared and that she would lose this battle in the end. Through the continuing work with the body and only when Lilla felt her physical power/strength as a faculty that releases her, realised that power does not mean violence. This realisation released her from guilt and gradually permitted her to ‘show her teeth’ to anyone who continued violating her boundaries in her current relationships. One of the difficulties with the feeling of guilt is that it does not appear to express outwards or to be released like other feelings (Rothschild, 2000, p. 62). For example, sadness is released through crying, anger through shouting and gesturing. On the contrary guilt is indiscernible and difficult to access. Rothschild proposes that, provided that guilt cannot be eased through relaxation or catharsis, the key for its dissolution is non-judgemental, accepting contact with another human being. This should be the base of trauma therapy through the body, the acceptance without judgement. Apart from this, however, it is essential for the therapist to be open to perceive the non verbal communications, but also to evaluate the body processes and expressions as evidence of psychic material. This involves that the whole therapeutic process is based on the indisputable wisdom of the body that moves (Hartley, 1989 and Musicant, 2000).

     At this point, as closure, I would like to add my own conclusion. While the reality of abuse in the past of a woman can be scary and/or inhibited, when she approaches herself, with safety, through the body and entrusts her wisdom, she finds a priceless treasure: the unfolding of her deeper, creative and vital self (Goodwin, 2007), who knows her personal truth better than anyone else. This results in the empowerment of the Ego and the conscious Self (Stromsted & Haze of 2007) of the woman, the strengthening of trust in her “somatic memory” (Rothschild 2000, p. 44), the indisputable experiential knowing that she does not deserve what was done to her and finally the dissolution of guilt and self-doubt as a result of this awareness.

References

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