Flight-Toward/Away

This is not a captive ambivalence, as in fight-fright, but a mobile one in which the explorer runs precisely toward that which causes most anxiety. It has a desperate quality, like a horse running back into a burning barn; or like a man or woman who is desperately afraid of sex and experiences very little genital pleasure yet runs promiscuously from partner to partner—toward, then away, then toward again. In therapy or couples work, the explorer will show a frantic eagerness to dive in to work in those areas where it causes most anxiety, particularly in the sexual area. The pelvis may become agitated and seem very mobile. The explorer may become seductive, want to make love instead of work as a flight from too much excitation. Or your instructions will be followed passively with no active exploration.

Usually there is very little armor except in the pelvic area. This may seem mobile because of the agitated movement but careful observation will reveal not an easy, open, calm reaching up of the pelvis as the legs open; instead, it will be wriggling, side-to-side movements, or a tendency to move the pelvis back or to arch the whole back. Another sign of flight-toward/away is immediate displacement of emotional expression upward. The picture is often I ike that of a snake held down by the tail while the rest of its body lashes around frantically. In a human, the upper body may approach and want to wrap itself around the other person in an embrace even if, at bottom, there is fear of that person. There is often some strong secondary armoring of the throat and jaw segments, but the main armor is in the pelvic segment.

The origins of this character structure and ER begin in the stage when the child is experiencing its genitality and forming some sense of its sexual identity. The child is naturally drawn toward the parent of the opposite sex, and may express some sexual attraction, normal at this age: it can be acknowledged and accepted by the parent without actual sexual contact.

In this character structure, however, the flames of the child's interest have been too much fanned by the opposite sex parent by too intense and encouraging a response. Usually the other parent disapproves. It is as if, for a while, a secret love affair goes on between the child and the opposite-sex parent. The genital component (direct pelvic sensations) must be suppressed as too dangerous. In some cases it is expressed and there is some kind of genital contact.

When Freud wrote about children's sexual feelings toward their parents, the "Oedipus complex," he assumed, after an initial period of believing in a seduction theory, that what his patients were telling him about such contacts was mere fantasy produced by desire. Even so, his critics saw him as filthy minded for suggesting such things. Unfortunately, the evidence of modern research on sexual abuse of children, as well as the accounts given in therapy by many patients, shows that incestuous genital contact (especially between daughters and fathers, though sometimes between siblings, mothers and sons, even fathers and sons) is extremely common. This is a fact which will not go away, and must revise the way therapists listen to their patients.

Any over-intense relationship between a child and the opposite-sex parent, which has unresolved sexual undertones, tends to lead to a flight-toward/away character structure and ER. The mixture of fascination and terror, love and hatred of genitality, is understandable when there has been an incestuous event. Even when the incest has only been emotional, a similar dynamic results. This is not to say it can be assumed that any person with mobile upper segments and a blocked pelvis has had such an experience, but it is usually accurate to say that the person's attraction toward the parent of the opposite sex has been emotion-ally intense while genitally repressed. When it has been acted upon by an abusing parent, the child's genitality is still repressed, no matter how much overt seductiveness results, since the child must hide the forbidden behavior and will seldom feel free to enjoy it.

The mixture of excitation and repression is similar to the situation in fight-flight. In fight-flight, with its captive ambivalence, the child's needs have been both provoked and squashed down by the same parent. In flight-toward/away, with its mobile ambivalence, the needs have usually been expressed fairly openly to one parent, but hidden from or repressed by the other. This gives the ambivalence more range of action, and its sexual content has accordingly become more explicit.

Again, because of the ambivalence, a double strategy is needed. The explorer has been permitted to express emotion freely in the upper segments while the pelvis has had to be armored. The consequence is a "running away upward" from the pelvis into "hysterical" emotional expression which is a substitute for genital sensation. One may see this in a person who clings on constantly to a lover while in fact experiencing very little genital excitation. In therapy, the same person runs from all work on the pelvis by making intense emotional contact with the guide or becoming seductive. This running upward must be discouraged. Seductive, soft, and friendly as it usually is, it often masks rage. The flight-toward/away covers a great fear of aggression, as in fight-fright. Bringing out anger in couples work, especially through pushing away creates a confidence which may make the explorer more ready to move downward. (One fear of feeling in the pelvis may come from a sense of vulnerability.) The next stage is to work on opening sensation in the pelvis.

Fight

Here the person reacts to any emergency with aggression. Fear is hidden by attack ("Shoot first, ask questions afterwards"). Rage is the most accessible emotion. The person enjoys it, feels powerful in it. Fear, on the other hand, is difficult to admit and to show by surrender to crying or to tender reaching out. This character may be a "tough guy," whether male or female. In therapy or couples work they easily become hostile to the whole process. The explorer may try to run the guide down or take over direction of the work in order to avoid any yielding or showing weakness); or they may perform the explorations expertly, without showing much feeling.

This is an energetic and fairly mobile structure but characteristically shows rigidity in the shoulders, back, and chest, which may extend upward into the back of the neck with a stiffly held head. (Sometimes a mixture of fight and fright rigidity appears in the same person, but the more aggression can be mobilized, the less uniform the armor and the more it will be concentrated in the upper body.) The pelvis is usually not heavily armored: it is mobile but its movements are controlled; the person does not lose their head easily. Movement, though not so uniformly stiff and mechanical as in the fright-rigid person, does have a hard, pushing quality (the opposite of the seductive pulling quality of the person in flight-toward/away). This person does not run away but fights. Main armor is in the chest segment.

This ER also originates during the genital stage of development. The person is in a state of defiance of the same-sex parent who is usually perceived as more critical and exacting than the other-sex parent. At the same time the child is trying to impress this parent in order to keep them away. The emphasis is on independence. Partly this may be over-assertion of the right to love the opposite-sex parent. The child is less passive than the previous type, but this too is an Oedipal situation. The little boy is being "tough," a little man, in order to impress and defy his father, and to replace him as a better man in the eyes of his mother; vice-versa with the little girl. Defiance, assertion, pride, hardness, all cover over their opposites: fear of being mocked or dominated by the same-sex parent and fear of being caught in a need of the opposite sex parent. The little boy does not want father to see how dependent he really is on his mother. The little girl does not want mother to see how soft she wants to be with father.

Consequently, when the person is grown up and ready for a sexual relationship, the defiance still remains.

The strategy here is to work always toward softening: expression of fear, grief, longing, "feeling small." But first the work must bring out the hard emotions, since the direction of the process is from hard toward soft. The explorer needs to experience and express defiant rage before letting go of it. Then it will be available as a resource if he or she needs it. The consequences of surrender to sensation and soft emotions such as tenderness may be greatly feared, especially the surrender of the self lovingly to the partner. In couples work, the emphasis must be on letting the chest down, dissolving the upper segment armor so that control over the pelvis is weakened and it can then move by itself.

It is obvious that each emergency response will come into play, not only under conditions of crisis or stress, but whenever the person is threatened by being "taken over" by involuntary movement and pulsation. Since orgasm is the most extreme example of being taken over, ERs will be discussed again in relation to sexuality (see chapter 7).

ERs are patterns of armor which you may recognize in your partner or yourself but they are not the whole story. This is not just a pious acknowledgment of each person's uniqueness. If you look carefully at your partner's body in movement and resistance to movement, you will see much more than a set pattern of armor. Each person will have a unique constellation of tensions, resistances, and open areas. Remember there would be no openness without closure, no movement without resistance. Armor, too, is part of life, although excess armor can stifle life. The armor is "frozen history" and all our histories, though they may be categorized according to some broad characteristics, are different.