Dr Wilhelm Reich the pioneering scientist who discovered so much in one lifetime.
Dr Wilhelm Reich the pioneering scientist who discovered so much in one lifetime.
- Practical Psychotherapy.
You can actually learn ways of dealing with character structure problems, including serious situations. The picture above of the greatest psychologist of them all Dr Wilhelm Reich leads me onto various considerations as to how to do it.
Of course one should not underestimate the problems created by the armoured (blocked) class based society we live in, so I am not pretending that everything is no problem at all. On the contrary human problems have to be treated with respect, and not underestimated as they often are.
Even with the bio-energetic therapy of character structure developed by Dr.Wilhelm Reich it usually takes two years or so to reach full health, although of course huge improvements are seen long before that. It also depends upon the person being able and willing to continue through the whole process, not so easy to do no matter how committed one is to the task on the surface!
Although I am going to go into my ideas on psychotherapy more deeply, at present in this article I will start off with looking at more physically oriented adjuncts to therapy, pre-eminently the Sujok system developed by the Korean scientist Dr Park Jae-Woo.- In the meantime my Gestalt articles and the one on Gestalt techniques on this site make a good start already to read to help with psychotherapy knowledge.
- Keep in mind though that any physical therapy will release emotion that then has to be understood therapeutically and reintegrated into the present day personality. Trying to do it all just with physical therapy does not fix the root problem of a blocked character structure but both Oriental Medicine and many Western modalities cannot it seems come to grips with that fundamental and unsettling fact.
- You get silly ideas in the West such as that everything is caused by wrong diet, thus sidestepping the whole tangled web of emotional blocks on which our armoured society is built.
- Or the equally silly idea that you can just massage away the problem or that all you have to do is relax! Of course such nostrums are just wishful thinking and not based in reality and science. Read anything by Dr Wilhelm Reich or “Man in the Trap” or the Gestalt Therapy Book and you will soon see what I mean.
- Sujok is very practical and very advanced and possible to learn without too much time, money and sweat (which is not really the case with the higher levels of Indian and Chinese medicine). As the famous saying goes "Chinese Medicine may be natural but it is certainly not simple". This Sujok system can be used I think to assist psychotherapy, although it cannot replace it.
Buy or read online the best summary of Dr Wilhelm Reich's work which is the book "Man in the Trap" by Dr Elsworth Baker. Books by Alexander Lowen are also useful.
Now until I write the other more psychotherapy oriented part of the article, her are some thoughts on using physical alternative health- methods to help treat mental illness (character structure therapy).
Many alternative health modalities can be adapted to some extent to these methods for mental illness but I am going to talk mainly about Sujok as it is comparatively easy to learn and very effective.
Regarding more physical methods which might be adapted to try and work in a more character structure oriented manner, Sujok comes to mind to treat emotional blocks, for example the ocular, oral, anal, genital areas to see if treating them can tie in and help with the character structure treatment.
Example character structure ... Manic Depression (Bipolar disorder)
Let us take a possible example, for instance manic-depression or bipolar disorder is where the person swings between the genital and the oral block and their whole character structure is built on that fundamental fact.
They are not oral characters with all the helplessness of the oral character. On the contrary they are phallics (meaning they have reached the genital stage but with some blocking of full health, most people in our society are phallic characters) but with a severe oral block too, so they have the tantrums and limited understanding of a baby with the manic rage and physical capacities of an adult, a dangerous combination.
Their personality is poorly integrated and even if they do gain some insight into their functioning it usually disappears as quickly as it arrived, much to the amazement of therapists and friends.
So in manic-depression you know that we can concentrate on the better integration in some form of the genital and oral blocks (these two blocks are the reason it is called Bipolar Disorder).
In depression in such a character, which means the energy is mainly at the oral block, we could use the Sujok above diaphragm energy points to raise the energy at the oral block, which would probably elicit either rage or sadness, or one after the other as that is what has caused the depression in the first place of course.- In other words the results of any therapy need to be dealt with, once you build up energy or challenge resistances you get emotional release so you need to know how to work through and reintegrate all that, and this requires a knowledge of the work of Dr.Wilhelm Reich and also hopefully of the theory and techniques of Gestalt Therapy.
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Energy in a more general way can be raised with the energy points, keep in mind if above or below the diaphragm, and moxa or magnets for example or colour treatment can raise or if necessary reduce energy, or harmonise it (neutro in Sujok).
Keep in mind what you read about Dr Wilhelm Reich's work,the energy will elicit emotion, often strong emotion and you need to be prepared and hopefully ready to deal with that therapeutically. Read "Man in the Trap" and you will understand the whole process much better.
Also in Sujok the nails of the big toe and the thumb are designed for curative action on the body in general, and of course they are strongly associated with the brain from several overlapping Sujok Correspondence systems. They carry fundamental information about man’s previous evolution. They can treat diseases of a widespread nature in the body which affect many organs. They also can cope with preventing and treating new diseases.
The thumbs on the hands are best for Hetero (acute) disorders, and the big toes best for Homo (chronic) disorders.
Of course deciding whether a disease picture at present is Homo (chronic) or Hetero (acute) is not always so easy and a bit of trial and error is often needed. Sometimes if not sure concentrate on Neutro treatment which basically means harmonisation.
Using massage of various sorts on the correspondence systems of the nails is also effective, with many techniques available.
Using a Sujok diagnostic stick or similar implement you can use clockwise movements for acute (Hetero) diseases and anti-clockwise for chronic (Homo) diseases.
Of course you can elicit these same results by psychotherapy such as Gestalt Therapy, but Sujok or other physical approaches might assist with the process, making it quicker or more effective (and sometimes more easy to control the effects if necessary).
The body therapy component of Reichian (bio-energetic) therapy does this of course in a different and stronger way. As you can see my approach is eclectic rather than just being a one-trick pony.
We are talking about areas not specific points when taking about the emotional blocks, such as the ocular segment area or the
oral segment area. more information on this is available in the “Man in the Trap” book by Elsworth Baker or in Wilhelm Reich’s books.
In the mania stage of Manic depression energy is concentrated at the genital but because of the oral pull back from the genital and the consequent poor integration of the personality generally the contact with reality is not very good and delusions and false assumptions manifest themselves.
Perhaps if we tonify or sedate either the oral or genital area we could normalize (as much anyway as any pre-genital character can genuinely be normalized) the situation.
Apart from tonify or sedate there is also the option of neutro or harmonisation. In nails that is the channel in the middle third of the nail for harmonisation by using magnets, massage, colour or other Sujok methods.
Of course it will help or be essential actually if you pick up a copy of Sujok Nail Therapy, Seed Therapy, Triorigin Therapy and/or other Sujok books if you want to use these methods. My other articles on Weebly would be a good start, but you need some books too of course.
Second Character Structure example... Schizophrenia.
To take another example Schizophrenia is based on the eye (ocular segment) block in the first period after and even before birth. So one aspect is to keep that block in mind and devise ways of helping to deal with that. The correspondence systems, nails and nails sense organs approach can be part of the treatment. No doubt you will be able to think of other methods once you get to grips with a few Sujok books.- The basic problem Reich found in Schizophrenia is a disruption of unitary biophysical functioning, a distortion in the perception of this disruption, and the individual’s reaction to both.
- The later general deterioration in Schizophrenics is due to the chronic shrinking of the organism.
- With such characteristics various possibilities in Sujok may come to mind to try and change various aspects of this overall picture. In Sujok chronic shrinking is a Homo cateogory disease so one tries to use various techniques to combat the shrinking of the organism.
- Cancer also reaches the stage of chronic biophysical shrinking after a long period of development and so is also characterised as a Homo (chronic) disease in Sujok. .
- Many ways of treating exist including the Triorogin treatment of the Homo points on the Homo digits for example. The more advanced Triorigin treatments may well achieve a lot quite quickly in Schizophrenia.
- Also for schizophrenia and other chronic shrinking disease states we could use other techniques to treat Homo diseases such as using Moxa to warm up the meridians, ways of massage for chronic diseases and the like.
- All this may relieve things but not fundamentally cure the schizophrenic character structure itself formed early in life, but an improvement in symptoms is still well worth having isn't it?
- The book Sujok Nail Therapy is a convenient way to treat such problems even with a fairly limited understanding of Sujok. It is almost a little medical system on its own.
- The book Sujok Seed Therapy is also likely to be worth trying as it has many possibilities such as direction therapy with seeds and the like.
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Also by getting the book “Man in the Trap” by Dr Elsworth Baker (or at least reading it online) you will have a comprehensive rundown of the major character structures as well as a good summary of all of Dr Wilhelm Reich’s great discoveries.
By following the explanation of the various character structures you get a much better idea of how to treat mental illness, and with practise and study your results could become effective even in serious cases.
We can use of course the three main Sujok correspondence systems (main,insect and mini) to act on those areas of the body affected, including the key erogenous zones.- We can use these three Sujok Correspondence systems, not forgetting that other projections also exist such as major organ projections for example heart and lungs on hands and feet which allow more minutely targeted treatment.
- So diagnostics come very much into it as to whether hands, feet, ear or other microsystems would be most effective in each case and whether hetero, homo, neuto or neutro considerations seem best to try and promote in each case at a particular stage of the disease.
Another approach would be to try and balance or harmonize the involved blocks, using possibly the nails of fingers and toes depending on which organs they represent or keeping in mind also whether hetero or homo factors seem to predominate at present.
Another consideration would be to apply not only such consideration of the actual blocks, but to apply strategies like the five step therapy, including pain points on indicated areas on the spine and brain correspondence systems with the other treatment.
Often treating these related areas of the pathways from and to the brain through the spine makes all the difference. These systems are all explained in Sujok books.
Contact me for Sujok books if you like as libraries and other outlets usually do not have them and I sell some of them.
Other reflecting microsystems such as the scalp, ear and abdomen can also be used, depending on the diagnostics and the overall treatment plan.
Keep in mind any contraindications though, such as the mental areas on the scalp being contraindicated (not used) in serious mental illness (at least in the acute or hetero phases anyway). Or that magnets have to be used cautiously in feeble or very ill patients.
When thinking of mental illness, do not forget the Brain Mudra (Gyan Mudra) which should help at least somewhat (the internet can soon show you how to do this simple hand mudra position) and the Bach Rescue Remedy which can very quickly lower panic and fear. Lowering panic and fear can also be accomplished with Mudras or Gestalt techniques and of course with many other methods.
Infact Mudras can help with both physical and mental illness and should not be underestimated. See my page on Mudras on this site.
In the case of delusions, hearing voices and similar symptoms the treatment of the sense organs on certain nails could also be included. Harmonisation (Neutro in Sujok)- could also help.
For example the eye block (and of course its related psychological symptoms) might be normalised at least somewhat by such Sujok nail treatment,and the eye block is important in delusions, autism, schizophrenia and other syndromes. - The nail treatment can alternate or be simultaneous with eye treatment on the main, insect and mini correspondence systems.
Regarding nail therapy in Sujok the Yang sense organs (eyes, ears, nose) are represented on the middle fingernail of the left hand and the Yin sense organs (taste, tactile and muscle sensitivity) on the middle toenail of the left foot. See the maps in the Nail Therapy book for more detail.
You can use massage with moxa to warm up, magnets to tonify, sedate or harmonise, colour therapy and seed therapy are also ways of stimulating these nails and their correspondences to the body.
You can also try to assess any mental illness from the point of view of Sujok hetero, homo and neutro considerations. Combine this with the previously mentioned work on the erogenous zones (ocular, oral, anal and genital zones) and you start to have a possible therapy for mental illness, at least a very helpful adjunct to psychotherapy.
Another way of treatment in Sujok can be to use the Trorigin points or four points treatment (or five points if Spirit in the middle of the Triorigin square or lozenge shape is included).
In this Triorigin method four points Hetero, Homo, Neuto and Neutro are grouped around a central Spirit point and these points can be used after diagnosis of the nature of the disease, in combination if necessary with other types of treatment using for instance the Main, Insect and Mini systems of Correspondence to the body as well as the Triorigin points.- Although an in depth knowledge of Triorigin theory is better it is also possible just to use it in a simple way as per the little Triorigin Four Points Book and this method is well worth incorporating into a treatment plan for any disease, including mental illnes
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- Sujok Twist Therapy and Sujok Direction Therapy is also based upon the Triorigin theory and can help with physical and mental illness.
This Triorigin idea seems to somewhat mirror the Chinese Ba-Gua sort of spatial theory and is yet another fertile idea from Dr Park Jae-Woo who founded Sujok Therapy.
The little book Triorigin Four Points Treatment by Dr Park will be needed to get up to speed with this useful way of treating diseases, or best attend one of my Alternative Health Courses or Workshops in Sydney.
So I am suggesting trying to address mental illness (character structure problems) partly by the various Sujok methods, although other modalities also might help, taking into account similar emotional block diagnostics. Infact one health modality gives you information that can often be adapted to other modalities with a bit of thought.
Of course character analysis and methods including emotional release are essential to change the character structure fully and permanently, not just this more symptomatic physical type of treatment I have been describing such as Sujok.
Actually it is not only Sujok that can use these approaches, we could see about the Bowen techniques or Yoga or Mudras and lots of other types of therapy to try and get similar results.
Certainly this sort of physical treatment is not the whole therapy, it will never fully resolve the character structure and move the person to the full health of being a genital character which has resolved the pregenital blocks.
Many physical therapies claim to be able to fix it all but it is a false claim based on inadequate knowledge and often also on wishful thinking. You will need to read the works of Dr.Wilhem Reich to fully appreciate all this, the book “Man in the Trap” by Dr Elsworth Baker is the best summary of Reich’s work.
The Gestalt Therapy book by Fritz Perls, Ralph Hefferline and Paul Goodman is also extremely useful and packed with practical awareness techniques. Gestalt can be very effective in the right hands but perhaps not as effective as Reich’s bio-energetic therapy.