THE SPLIT LAYERS OF PERSONALITY THAT DEVELOP PHYSICALLY,
DURING ABUSE

THE FOUR-LAYER SEPARATION
CREATED IN THE BODY DURING ABUSE
Mechanisms of Body Storage and their Effect

From the Book, Correcting the Psychological Affects
of Abuse, in the Body Structure
Scanning:  Read bold
 

by Lou Gross, School Certified Master Postural Integrator
Expert in Body-Mind Release Therapies; Netherton, Reichian, Bioenergetic, Structural & Energetic.      
25 years successful experience with this particular system
For more information & free consultations,
call 321-726-9083,
louisryoshin@yahoo.com


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          The more episodes and the greater the severity of the episodes, the more processing it takes to remove the pattern from the body and the more resistive the person might become with their transference.  But the basic procedures to do the Bodywork and the verbal/energy processing are still the same.  There's just more volume and, in general, the negative energies and physical restrictions are much tighter.

          This physical layering perpetuates the same kinds of experiences in the person's life, long after the original circumstances are gone.  And the per­sonality is "un-integrated," just like the physical structure.  In psycho­therapy the term disconnected is used, and it conveys a lot of the meaning of what's going on physically.

          The different parts of the personality exist in different physical locations, that don't work with each other.  They're all going their own ways. In fact, as I'll soon explain, for most people in this condition, the different parts don't even know each other exists.  And when they do know, some will deny the others' validity.  The problems that this condition creates show up as the dysfunction of the person's behavior.

          The innermost energies of the person retreat in fear, compacting what we call the core.  These are the muscles and organs deep inside the person's body.  The contraction compresses the deep muscular tissue and stores the withdrawing energy pattern.  In this energy is encapsulated a lot of fear, even terror.  It's not fear that an adult would experience, but the fear of an infant or small child when it was being terrified by real or implied threats of death or strong physical abuse.

          Surrounding this contracting inner layer is a protective wall, developed with the hardness and tension needed to protect the part of the person deeper inside.  It was a necessary barrier at the time.  Unfortunately, it became solidified, so nothing can go through it from either side, the good as well as the bad.  Therefore, the wall results in a total or significant block to energies and feelings, even years later

          From the vantage point of the person's conscious mind, which is on the outside of the wall, it cannot "feel" what's stored underneath.  Even though it can feel similar kinds of emotional experiences when they occur in later life, it can't be in touch with the stored emotions when the body is still blocked.  In addition, other people's well intentioned feelings in current life cannot be felt in the person's core.  So there's a certain lack of appre­ciation for other people's heart felt intentions and feelings

          The wall blocks the deeper part of the person from receiving "nourishment."  It keeps the person from being satisfied, even when, and especially when, the person complains that other people are not nourishing him.  It blocks candid, open communication in everyday intimate relationships.  The person on the outside, which includes his conscious mind, just isn't aware of what's deep inside this hardened tissue.

On top of the wall is an angry defense that blames, puts down, pushes away, distrusts, controls and manipulates, and often creates chaos in the person's life.  I call it the push-away behavior because it pushes people away and rejects the good as well as the bad.

The withdrawal, the wall, the anger and blame, the control and manipulation, the distrust and the chaos are all various kinds of self-sabotage.  They aren't always very active, but they are repetitively active.  And they keep the person from seeing and taking advan­tage of a lot of the benefits the people in their adult life are now giving them.  Plus, they treat other people as if they are the enemy.

So there are three defenses.  The outer defense has all these "skills."  The wall below it just shuts things off.  And the withdrawal deep inside just pulls away and hides.  And all three "activate" at the same time.

While standard psychology interprets all of these characteristics as things the person is doing, I want to emphasize that they are all parts of the past abusive episodes stored as "packets" in the person's body.  The behavior that happened during the abusive episodes is the same behavior that the person now exhibits when he (or she) gets triggered into thinking he's being abused.  This includes any denial that anything is wrong.

Besides these behaviors being solid blockages in the body's tissue, they are also programs in the person's unconscious mind.  And when the body is "solidified" like this, these defenses, these dysfunctional behaviors, are primary parts of the person's character.  They are the person, but they are also a program set up in past experiences, that resides in the person's body and energy fields.  In fact, as I'll explain in a lot of detail, the "func­tional" part of the person's normally conscious mind is often not aware he or she is even doing these things

These programs, when they get activated, "interrupt" the person's "nice behavior" and substitute their own beliefs and behaviors into the person's thoughts, speech and actions.  Because the person's current circumstance is the same kind of experience as the stored ones, the program's behavior seems logical for the present time.  But the problems of the situation are really getting blown way out of proportion.  And there is often a big misinterpretation of what's really going on

Sometimes, the person is so sure that his (or her) view is accurate, he'll fight and yell to protect and stand behind his opinions.  He may indeed be somewhat correct about what people are doing, but a large part of what's going on is the emotional expression of a group of stored experiences that are simultaneously "going through" a lot more threatening circumstances than the person's real world is doing

So the trigger is some sort of fear that something bad will happen, yet it is often an exaggerated fear that may have a very low probability of really happening.  But when the fear does get triggered, the innermost layer con­tracts and the wall and outer layer protection devices automatically come into play.

These internal experiences of exaggerated fear are inside the person's body.   And because they're adding their energies to what would be a reasona­ble response to the situation, it does look to an outside observer that the person is strongly over-reacting to what's really going on around him.  The stored experiences and the similar current circumstance are the total experi­ence the person has. And for what's happening in the stored experiences, the person's reaction is indeed reasonable.  It's just that the person's con­sciousness is out of touch with reality, seeing what's really happening through very thick filters of chaos and upset.  The person's power of aware­ness, if any, is much weaker than the quantity of his or her embedded epi­sodes.  So the embedded episodes "fool him" into thinking they're real and he goes along with them.

On top of these three layers is a well-developed and very capable outer personality.  And in many people, it's also very compassionate and takes care of family members and friends, but for some people, it is to the detriment of the whole person's own needs.  It often seems this person is very nice and giving, and that is because this one section of the person is indeed very nice and giving, and usually quite bright and capable.  However, other parts of this person we'd rather not deal with in our everyday life. 

The next chapter describes many of these behaviors, and relates them to how they come about because we are separated into these different layers.  

HELP WITH THIS CONDITION,
WITH BODYWORK AND RELEASE PROCESSING
 

One of the major benefits of Structural Integration Bodywork is that it dissolves the hardness in all of these layers so that the energies flow through and between all of them.  Thus, it breaks down the barriers between the different parts of us.  And at the same time, it diminishes a lot of the negativity in those parts while it changes the bodymind into a form that manifests, automatically, in a much more positive and successful manner.

The verbal and energy release processing, as I've said, increases these changes.  Besides doing what I've mentioned in my earlier description, they are uniquely helpful in removing the withdrawal energy held deep in compression around the spine and in the organs, inner pelvis and legs.

So even if this is as far as you've read in this book, you can begin a method of wellness by starting with the basic series of Structural Integra­tion and/or some release processing, even by phone.  And if you are like other people I know, you'll find that your self awareness, perception of the world around you, and way of relating begin changing for the better.

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