Introduction

The chapter on the jaw needs an introduction because we are about to enter a whole new area and issue. I previously referred to the discussion in Chapter five on control and suggested that it might be worth while to reread that section (starting on page 114). Now I am going to discuss the other side of control, the side called defenses. Defenses in body-based psychotherapy take on a very different character from the form they take in verbal therapy. But their objective is the same: they protect the psychological system from change which is to say they protect it from being challenged.

The issue of defenses will be addressed again in Chapter 23, but there from a formal point of view because Chapter 23 addresses the cognitive work that must (or at least, should) accompany the body work.

But even before I leap into the discussion of the form the defenses take in body-based psychotherapy, I have to discuss why defenses are present. There are a number of ways to present this issue. I will approach it, given the nature of the topic (body psychotherapy), from the point of view of the nature of the subconscious. Once you understand what defenses are and why they are present (in everyone), then I can turn to the form the defenses take in Reichian therapy. Then, finally, I can explain why I am raising this issue at this time, in the chapter on the jaw.

I would like to start with a quote from Reich. There is not much in Reich's writing that has stood up over time, but occasionally he has a jewel. Here is one such:

"If defenses were not necessary they would not be present."

Yes, necessary; but why? Can't we live without defenses? Freud wrestled with that problem and came out with the book Civilization and its discontents. Reich wrestled with the problem and came out with a rehash of Engels' theory of matriarchy mixed with Rousseauian utopianism. Rollo May wrestled with the problem and came out with anxiety. Sartre wrestled and came out with fear of death. Kohut answered with narcissistic injury. Bowlby answered with abandonment fear. Jacobson answered with depression. Each theorist has wrestled with the issue, some directly, some obliquely; but all agree that defenses are necessary.

I am not much of a wrestler so I will settle on the simple answer that defenses are needed in service of homeostasis.

And what, pray tell, is homeostasis? Homeo- is the prefix for same. -stasis is the suffix for state. Put together they say that humans, by nature, try not to change; they try to maintain a constant or same state. Now before you jump all over me with examples of major dieting or major exercise workouts to tone the body or major plastic surgery to change ones appearance, let me explain how homeostasis works in the body but more important in the mind.

In the body, absent severe disease or deliberate tinkering (like getting drunk), the body maintains all its components at a constant state. Simple proof is presented by the fact of blood and urine tests. If there were not constants in the body then blood or urine tests would never be done. These tests all count on their being a normal range of values and that a deviation — too high or too low — indicates disease.

Now the subconscious also is homeostatic. It doesn't like change. When the subconsciousness well worked out stability, its homeostasis, is challenged it fights back both with defense mechanisms and with anxiety. The anxiety is a signal that the subconscious finds its stability threatened (Freud, for somewhat different reasons, properly termed this "signal anxiety.")

If you'll accept my premise that the subconscious is a homeostatic mechanism, then we have an explanation of something I said much earlier. I noted that the great majority of the changes produced by this therapy occur in the dream. The reason for this is that dreams are the method that the subconscious uses to rid itself of conflict. A dream is a self-written internal novel (more an allegory) in which the various conflicting ideas or experiences of the subconscious are attempted to be harmonized — it is attempting to remove the conflict which disturb its homeostasis. The therapy disturbs that homeostasis (the body is no less a part of the subconscious than is our past experience, thinking, and emotion) and the subconscious responds to the disturbance by way of the dreams.

You are probably familiar with defenses in everyday life and in conversation. So many of these defenses have entered our language as normal terms of use that most people have lost track of the origin of the words: projection, denial, identification, etc. In all there are over 40 well-recognized defenses. In what might almost be a part three to this book, I will discuss the cognitive part of self-therapy including a discussion of cognitive defenses (actually, coping mechanisms rather than defenses) in Chapter 23.

We don't defend only with thoughts and words, we also defend with the body. Reichian therapy breaks up that body stability, that body homeostasis, and the subconscious attempts to deal with the conflict, it attempts to reestablish homeostasis.

If there are over 40 defense mechanisms in use verbally, there are also a bunch in use in the body. Of all the body defenses, however, there are four biggies.

First, there are various tricks of breathing (like breathing in two phases, first an inhale followed by an exhale) or keeping the breathing slow and shallow to avoid the hyperventilation we looked at in Part One of this book.

But there are another three common ones that relate to the jaw so this is as good a time as any to lay them out first before we get to the jaw exercises.

I see these so commonly that it is almost possible to say that everyone uses these defenses.

The first involves keeping the mouth relatively closed. I will show you shortly in photographs how the mouth is supposed to be open, but likely you will learn to do this only if you make, at the start, a conscious habit to keep the mouth open.

The second involves opening and closing the mouth with each breath. The mouth is opened (slightly) on the inhale and closed (not fully) on the exhale.

The third involves moving the tongue with each breath. Usually the tongue is moved forward with the inhale and pulled back with the exhale (however, I have seen the opposite pattern).

There are other, less common, body defenses that you should watch for in your work. This list is not exhaustive. People are tricky animals. But here are the more common ones: closing your eyes (other than when the exercises calls for it), excessive yawning, stopping to talk (to your helper), thinking about other things in order to mentally leave the session, unnecessary hand or arm or leg movement.

On the whole, I don't like patient stories, but this does call for one. This person was referred to me by his first Reichian therapist who was retiring. He had been in therapy for seven years with that therapist. I could not see that he had benefited at all from that therapy, but then I didn't know where he had started. It was only that I would have expected more progress after seven years. Still, we got to work. I started with eye work. He needed that. But then one, two, three and into four years went by and he was not making the progress he should be making. Why? Then, just luckily, I spotted it. I happened to be standing over him at the head end of the bed and I saw that every time he exhaled he pulled his tongue back. I corrected that by the simple instruction to him to put his tongue against the back of his teeth and leave it there. Then progress started. Today he is a different person.

He had not made progress before because he was — unrecognized by him, by his former therapist, or by me up to that point — using a simple body defense against the therapy.

Medical Note

Repeating what I said in Chapter one (on page 30) the jaw joint that allows the mouth to open and move side to side for chewing is a very small and therefore fragile joint. You should either abort or not do at all any exercise that produces any pain or even discomfort in your jaw joint. The joint is located about 1/2 inch forward from your ear. If you place your hand on the side of your face and then open and close your mouth you will be able to feel where this joint is located. These exercises will produce pulling in the muscles of the jaw, but that is not the same as strain on the jaw joint.

I repeat, if you have even a suspicion that you are stressing the jaw joint in any of these exercises, then don't do that particular exercise or perhaps even any of the exercises in this chapter. Let me put it this way: if you injure that joint you can have pain with every single bite of food. No Reichian work is worth that consequence.

OK, enough of that, lets get to the jaw exercises.

There are seven exercises with the jaw. As always, these are done with the breathing. These exercises may be done before you have finished with the breathing work.