Relational Somatic Psychotherapy:
Collected Essays of Robert Hilton, Ph.D.,
Michael Sieck, Ph.D., Editor
INTRODUCTION
During the past decade or so, new advances in the study of the functioning brain have led to exciting insights into brain-behavior relationships. At the same time, significant research from the field of infant attachment has shed important light on how early relationships between infants and caregivers impact the development of personality, children's behavior, adult relationships and even what kind of parents variously attached infants will later become.
Not surprisingly, whole schools of psychotherapy have sprung up around this research offering new techniques to develop better self-regulation, treat trauma, improve marital dynamics and the like. Looking farther back in time, other, equally powerful ideas and techniques have been developed to address and alleviate all kinds of psychological suffering.
Freud's psychoanalytic approaches, various Jungian modalities, hypnosis, Gestalt therapy, many different behavioral/cognitive therapies, the somatically oriented therapies such as traditional Bioenergetics, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing, to name just a few, each have their proponents and all have posted positive significant results. With few exceptions, all of them rely upon a trained practitioner who administers a particular procedure, teaches the client in its use and/or oversees and modulates the results produced. Other, mostly intrapersonal techniques such as Gendlin’s focusing procedures, mindfulness approaches, other meditation and relaxation strategies, again just to name a few, also have their advocates and get positive results. Many of us have personally experienced and/or been trained to administer more than one of these.
With almost no exception, these and the many other techniques and schools that I haven't mentioned rely either upon a trained specialist (the authority) giving or administering something to the client (the patient or student) and/or the patient/client learns and pursues some technique on his/her own and thus becomes a solo practitioner. In either case, the possible relevance and power of any relationship between teacher and student, healer and patient, etc. is either absent or, more likely, ignored.
Nevertheless, we are relational beings. Winnicott aptly said that there is no self without relationship1 and this is impressively supported by research on the developing brain and the numerous studies coming out of the attachment field.2,3,4 That said, I do not mean to imply that the relationship between the therapist and client always needs exploration. Indeed, when the focus is primarily on a technique or on the solution of a circumscribed problem by a technique, emphasis on mastery and use of the technique by the client is paramount.
However, it goes almost without saying that since we are relational beings and since our very selves are created within functional contexts, our problems and difficulties also have relational roots. We may go to a therapist seeking relief from anxiety or depression or because we are having marital problems but beneath this we also present, and typically demonstrate, our fixed relational difficulties. We operate through previously learned relational patterns and expectations that by their very nature cause, sustain or amplify the identified "problem(s)" we bring. Further, at least unconsciously, we look for a relationship with our therapist that will address and heal these relational wounds.
Now, neither the therapist nor the client may realize this and, in most short-term or focused therapies (and in many other therapeutic systems), the relationship may never become conscious or be directly addressed. However, if the therapy deepens, if the relationship between therapist and client continues over some time, and/or if the client is deeply serious about inner exploration and healing, relational issues will eventually become quite relevant. Robert Lewis, in a marvelous unpublished paper entitled “Bioenergetics in Search of a Secure Self” put it this way: "There is always a relational significance to any therapy process; it may be explicitly and fully acknowledged or not. In the latter case, regardless of the explicitly stated vehicle of healing, the relational process will operate, out of awareness, on an implicit, nonverbal level."5
It is this relational process with all its potential for good and catastrophe that Robert Hilton consistently addresses. If I may borrow the title from Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” most of us – whether therapists, clients or individuals in relationships – have a lot of trouble facing and dealing with the complex issues an honest relational perspective requires. Yet, as Hilton so eloquently demonstrates, if we are to truly plumb the depths of who we are and arrive at the root of our essential selves, we must deeply realize that we are inextricably connected to others AND that our connection(s) are clouded and twisted by misconceptions, learned response patterns, trauma themes, etc. Quite literally, we don’t know who we really are. We take ourselves to be our developed, adaptive selves and we pursue “relationships” that perpetuate this system of beliefs and actions almost indefinitely.
These learned adaptations arise naturally enough during development and have predictable biological bases (such as a need to be safe, etc.). Further, they are inescapable and part and parcel of becoming “civilized,” part of our family, our culture and so on. The mischief arises because early on they become fixed ideas or reified as “truth.” Reification removes things from their context. They become “real” in and of themselves, no longer connected to or influenced by ongoing life. “Up” becomes a fact – independent of “down;” yesterday’s reality becomes today’s. The ways our caretakers did or didn’t relate to us become facts and templates for our adult relationships.
The essays and presentations in this volume trace Hilton’s struggle and demand for authentic relationships within both therapeutic contexts and through honest, open exploration of his and other’s past and present lives. His passion and courage to achieve this shows through over and over again. He seeks truth for himself and, as teacher and therapist, seeks it for us as well. The root he seeks and intuitively follows is the same one that urges and sustains him on his journey. It is the same root that inspires us on our own journeys and it is a major reason his words ring so true.
Looking back over his years of work, Bob described his original problem(s) like this. From here, he undertook the journey of a lifetime and, in various ways, this is laid out for us in the pages that follow.
“There was an original attempt to affirm a Me. See me, know me, touch me, feel me, and acknowledge me. And I did all I could to attract the attention that I needed. My caretakers fed me and fulfilled certain duties but there was something else going on inside of me that needed nurturing. My eyes were hungry for reflection; my arms were starving for contact, my belly was empty with fear and the need to be filled with assurance that all was well in this world. I was desperate to go on being without the terror and fear of annihilation in a strange world. My caretakers were oblivious to this need. Caught up in their own fears, I was another problem to solve, not an evolving person to be appreciated and wondered about.
“Their lack of response created a desperate struggle in me that tore me apart. I literally could not keep body and psyche together. They belong together. One without the other is terrifying. I was on the verge of losing my sense of self, my integrity as a whole person. This fear was not driving me out of my mind but into my mind to find some kind of solution to this impossible dilemma. In so doing, I felt as if I had only one choice; to somehow save my sanity and my sense of being, I had to diminish that part of me that made up the energetic essence of my being; namely, my body. I had to use my body’s energy to crush my aliveness.
“This had to be done very carefully for too much crushing would extinguish the flame of my existence and only utter darkness would remain. Too much aliveness and I faced an outer chaos that was unlivable. I had to somehow go back to where I had been. Since this was impossible and I both wanted to preserve myself and die at the same time, I created a “womb tomb.” I had to blind my eyes to the light of day where there was only the emptiness of no contact. I had to diminish my breathing so that the fuel of my body’s energy would not over ignite and cast me like a rocket back into the darkness of outer life. I had to control my appetite for food. I had to eat enough to live and yet not eat so much as to desire more. In that way I attempted to limit the frustration and pain of my deprivation.
“All of this had to be done not just to survive physically, for could I have died with my psyche/soma/self intact, I would have done so. Instead, it was done to preserve my integrity as a whole person while yet alive. When I would start to physically die, my life force would strive to live for it would not give up to death without a fight. I knew that and I loved that part of me and yet it was a force that openly drove me into more desperation. For to live was then to face a psychic loss, to be (This theme is elaborated more starting on p 93, second paragraph to end of that article).
I was struck by a recent poem in the New Yorker magazine that said something similar:
Quail
What the heart, unsteady and ill,
is supposed to do.
And does: fly in missing-man formation, resettle too nearby,
then scatter to confuse,
fleeing like one who secretly wants catching. Hides to die. But doesn't come to nothing: ends a block of bony, vesselled ice
heaving, frostbit, in the chest.7
The question hanging in both the above is something like: “What can be done about this painful, untenable situation?”
Bob gives us a start at an answer in the article, “Ending with an Open Heart”8 and develops this theme repeatedly in other essays. A beautiful book entitled “Undefended Love” by Psaris and Lyons states the solution beautifully and succinctly:
“Intimacy - direct, unmediated, heart-to-heart connection with ourselves and with others - can only occur when the heart is undefended. To cut through our personal differences, to reach the unveiled part of ourselves that is deep enough to express the most profound and untamed aspects of our being means learning how to love and be loved without defenses and without obstructions. It means cultivating the capacity to be emotionally present even when we feel exposed or vulnerable; learning to relinquish the many strategies we have employed to feel safe and in control; and finding the courage to love without guarantees or requirements. Through developing the capacity for intimacy in this way, we discover love as an abiding presence in the emotional center of our being, our heart, and we can never again feel emotionally disconnected, incomplete, or unloved.”9
“The journey to the heart of intimacy is not always easy. It requires a heart full of courage and, sometimes, it demands all we've got to give. The end of the journey, however, promises an enhanced capacity to experience an ongoing state of joy and peace undisturbed by the intermittent bouts of emotional pain, loss, and other challenging feelings that emerge in the course of one's life. Whether the ability to be undefended is realized spontaneously through good fortune, or over time through vigilant self-examination, the journey is worth every step (and leap) along the way. Undefended love is a developed capacity available to everyone.
“We need only two things on this journey: a map of the terrain and a sincere commitment to use relationship as the vehicle to open our hearts and express our full potential.”10
Although Bob would probably agree with Psaris and Lyons in principle, he, like so many of us, has not had an easy time with this “assignment.” His difficulties and the terrain he has needed to cover have been severe. It is the ownership of this along with the steps he’s taken that make this book a “must read” for most. It is heartening to see that another has been down these difficult paths and survived. Because of this, those of us with lesser courage are more likely to succeed.
His answer has been a lifetime quest to uncover his heart and free it from the ice and terror of early wounds. It’s evident in his self description that relational problems caused his initial distress and it’s equally evident from all his writings below that he sought a relational context to heal them. Let’s return to this important point once more.
Too many theoreticians, therapists and the systems they create or follow never address or actively realize the biases implicit in the way they think and work. Typically unexamined is the way they relate to their peers, clients and loved ones and how their systems or techniques are as likely to confuse as heal.
Bob’s experience with this – particularly in Lowenian Bioenergetics11 – provides a classic example and a cautionary tale for all of us. His own deep sense of truth and what he needed ultimately clashed with what his therapists and partners offered. His ruthless exploration and exposure of this in himself and his therapists, his passionate search and demand for the “real thing,” and the subsequent clarity of his insights and teachings about it form the corpus of his work. If for no other reason than to see how the dynamics of relationships influence and control us, this book is well worth your time and effort.
Bob does not hold himself out as an authority on all this and makes it clear that his, and other’s words are always a work in progress; a particular perspective. He ultimately returns authority to each of us and thus takes another step toward his and other’s real freedom. Here’s a quote from page 1 of the current volume.
“Winnicott once wrote that it is impossible for an analyst to be original, for what he writes today, he learned from a patient yesterday.” Guntrip also said, “To care for people is more important than to care for ideas, which can be good servants but bad masters.” And, as Bob Lewis reminds us in his wonderful paper, Bioenergetics in Search for a Secure Self, “Therapists pick the modality that suits their own proclivities ...specifically, their own capacity for intimacy/autonomy, their own attachment style.” You will see during these two presentations how true these observations are for my work.”12
Some final thoughts: this book is a collection of essays and presentations delivered and/or published over a 35 year time span. Bob gave talks to audiences all over the world and, as you will soon enough discover, often used favorite stories, poems and his oft-repeated “diagram” to illustrate the points he made. Thus, there is inevitable overlap in the material below but I included everything because, in each article, new material, a different perspective or a sense of his evolution over time is demonstrated.
Finally, this is not a cookbook. It does not show us how to be relational somatic psychotherapists nor does it really describe the many ways somatic therapists work. However, in more potent ways, it really does show us – therapists and clients alike – how to be in therapy and in relationship, what we can expect and what to look out for. In this sense, it is very much a “how to” book and this is another reason it’s a “must read” for serious students of life.
I’d like to close with a poem by David Whyte. I know that Bob is very fond of David’s work and has studied with him on several occasions. Here’s one that I feel captures much of the root Bob describes and where this deep work takes us all.
The Opening of Eyes After R. S. Thomas
That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.13
Michael Sieck, February 2007
Bibliography:
1. Abram, J., The Language of Winnicott, Jason Aronson, New Jersey, 1996, 247
2. Siegel, D., The Developing Mind, Guilford Press, New York, 1999
Stern, D. The Interpersonal World of the Infant, Basic Books, New York, 2000
3. Schore, A., Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, Erlbaum, New Jersey, 1994
Damasio, A., The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Harcourt, Florida, 1999
4. Fonagy, P. Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis, Other Press, New York 2001
5. Lewis, R., Bioenergetics in Search of a Secure Self, unpublished paper, 2006
6. Hilton, R. Personal Communication, February 2007; The Recovery of Self and the Client/Therapist Relationship in Bioenergetic Analysis, pp 85-94 for more details
7. Goodyear, D., Quail, in New Yorker magazine, December 18, 2006
8. Hilton, R., Ending With an Open Heart, This volume, pp 176-187
9. Psaris, J and M.S. Lyons, Undefended Love, New Harbinger Publication, 2000, facing page
10. op. cit., p. 5-6
11. Lewis, R. op. cit. p.2 (Lowenian Bioenergetics is a term he coined to distinguish newer, different forms of Bioenergetics from the “Body Heals Itself” model espoused by Lowen.)
12. Hilton, R. My Body of Work I, This volume, 2007, p1
13. Whyte, D., The Opening of Eyes, in Songs of Coming Home, Many Rivers Press, 1989, p. 22
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