If counseling and therapy are to enable whole-person growth they must use methods that raise the level of physical vitality as well as those which enliven the psychological dimensions of people's lives. Most traditional psychotherapies have been just thatùtherapies for the psyche.
By virtually ignoring the human body, they have exacerbated the dualistic mind-body split, which diminishes the vitality of both. Sam Keen observes:
The psycho-therapeutic method that evolved from Freud's vision has been antisomatic and antierotic. It has been so concerned with producing a strong, realistic ego that it has more frequently enabled men [sic] to work than it has liberated them to love. The body has been considered the special province of the medical profession. This has been
perpetuated by the division of labor made by the healing professions.(1) In contrast to the professional compartmentalization in which
psychotherapists traditionally have participated, wholeness- oriented counselors and therapists must seek to facilitate healing and growth in all dimensions of people's lives, including the physical dimension.
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This chapter highlights body enlivening resources from three interrelated thrusts in the contemporary health-therapy field -- the holistic health movement, biofeedback, and the body therapies. Each thrust offers insights and methods that can help strengthen the
physiological foundation of whole-person growth.
Growth Resources from Holistic Health
The holistic health movement is having an increasing impact among health professionals, including counselors and psycho- therapists. The movement includes an increasing number of persons from the medical professions who are not satisfied with either the philosophy or the
results of main-line, highly specialized medical practice. The movement has also attracted many persons who are interested in nonorthodox healing methods. The whole-person philosophy of the movement makes closer peer collaboration among the various health-care professionals essential. Growth-oriented counselors and therapists should see
themselves and be seen by other health professionals as an essential part of any whole-person health team.
The guiding principles of holistic health reflect emphases that are weak or missing in both the philosophy and practice of orthodox medicine.
These principles coincide with some of the basic concerns of growth- oriented counseling and therapy:(2)
---Health is much more than the absence of sickness. It is the presence of high-level wellness. There are many degrees of wellness just as there are many degrees of sickness. Health professionals, including counselors and psychotherapists, should be committed to nurturing high-level
wellness rather than simply waiting until people develop illnesses that require treatment. The technology of modern medicine, oriented to treating gross pathology and trauma by surgery, powerful drugs, and space-age technology, has little to do with either the degree of wellness of individuals or the general level of wellness in society.
---High-level wellness involves balanced and integrated interaction among all the interdependent dimensions of people'slives. Holistic health is concerned with increasing people's wellness levels in the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, interpersonal, and environmental (3) areas; but its primary focus is the whole person, who is more than simply the sum of these various aspects.
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---The keys to achieving and maintaining wellness are wellness-
awareness and self-responsibility. Wellness-increasing behavior in one area of a person's life tends to encourage wellness behavior in other areas. Persons who respect, enjoy, and care for their bodies by general wellness practices are less inclined to engage in self-hurting behavior such as smoking, chronic overeating, or over drinking of alcohol.
---Two major determinants of levels of wellness (or sickness) are one's life-style and the level of chronic stress in one's life. Changing to a wellness life-style and reducing stress can simultaneously help to
increase the satisfactions in one's life and reduce the risk of illness. Here is how Donald B. Ardell describes the potential rewards of a wellness life-style: "There is excitement, adventure, enjoyment, fulfillment for us on earth. A wellness lifestyle will not guarantee . . . that you experience these states but it can certainly bend the odds your way. At a minimum, you can expect that a healthy body, emotional equilibrium, and an alive mind will give you one hell of a good start. . . . Be well, drink deep, go for it."(4)
Here are seven interrelated strategies that counselors and therapists can use to help clients raise their levels of wellness:(5)
(1) A wholeness-oriented counselor-therapist should encourage
increased self-responsibility by clients for their total health and for their life-styles. It's important for wellness-enablers to communicate, by their general attitudes if not in words:
"You are in charge of your own life. Others [including health care professionals and counselors] have influence, can make things easier or more difficult, but in the end you must make your own choices and accept responsibility for what . . . health or disease occur in your life."
(6) This emphasis on self-responsibility seeks to counteract a major cause of unwellness in Western societies -- the "medical model" in which people view themselves as passive "patients" and view physicians as having primary responsibility for their health and healing. Self-
responsibility is the key to increased wellness in all areas of our lives.
Even when factors beyond a person's control play a role in causing illnesses, the responsibility for responding in the most constructive way possible still is with the individual. The awakening of self-responsibility is absolutely essential in any counseling or therapy that is to be growth- enabling. Self- responsibility for one's wellness has many practical
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ramifications, including the six strategies described below.
(2) A wholeness-oriented counselor-therapist should encourage clients to increase their nutritional awareness and practice sound nutrition as the foundation of high-level wellness. A vicious cycle operates in many people's lives between their emotional problems and their eating,
drinking, and smoking patterns. Many people use overeating (including eating enormous quantities of junk foods), smoking, and excessive drinking of alcohol as forms of self-medication in a vain attempt to treat their stress, depression, and low self-esteem. Unfortunately the use of junk food, alcohol, and nicotine as temporary, self-prescribed pain- reducers tends to produce even more pain in the long run. Many psychological and emotional problems apparently are exacerbated by poor nutrition. Furthermore, the level of zest and positive satisfactions in living are lowered in many people by poor nutrition and/or the
overconsumption of food and alcohol. Most psychotherapists have focused their healing efforts on only the first side of the two-way
interaction between how we feel and what we eat and drink. In contrast, whole-person approaches must direct their healing efforts to both sides, since both are causes as well as effects of levels of unwellness. Many people could raise their general level of wellness at the same time they enhance their appearance and self-image, by doing two things --
drastically reducing or eliminating the intake of junk food, refined sugar, and other carbohydrates, saturated fats, alcohol, and nicotine; and
adding more healthful foods to their diets including vegetable proteins, whole-grain cereals and bread, raw vegetables and fruits, and high fiber foods.(7)
(3) A wholeness-oriented counselor-therapist should challenge clients to keep physically fit by exercising vigorously several times a week. The human body is designed, by evolutionary survival needs through the millennia, for vigorous physical activity. A Rutgers anthropologist declares: "When we run, we are . . . reviving the work of yesteryear, hunting-gathering work. The muscles, bones, cartilage, lungs, heart and mind of the primate best adapted to running want to be used. When we use them (within reason, and with appropriate concern for slowly
increasing strength, stamina, etc., and correcting for age) we feel better.
When we don't run or do some similar exercise, we feel worse." (8) Unfortunately, inactivity is a way of life and a serious health hazard for many people (45 percent of Americans say they never exercise). Chronic inactivity contributes to a wide variety of medical problems, including premature aging, obesity, heart disease, chronic fatigue, and
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hypertension. Apart from reducing the likelihood of illness, the benefits of keeping fit through exercise are impressive. Studies have shown that many people find jogging an effective way of lifting depression,
releasing stress, and increasing feelings of self-esteem. Fast walking is one of the most healthful exercises. Finding a form of vigorous exercise that one enjoys is the secret of getting a double (health and pleasure) benefit from the activity.
Like many males I was turned off in my youth by the glorification of super-competitive sports in which I did not excel and by unimaginative physical education classes. During most of my young-adult years I did not exercise vigorously (except for foolish binges of overexertion on rare occasions such as mountain climbing, backpacking vacations). But during the last fifteen years I have discovered that jogging several times a week helps to energize my mind, reduce my depression, and tone up my body. Within the last two years I have found that a twenty-minute session of hatha (physical) yoga exercises, in the morning or evening, is remarkably enlivening.(9) The stretching and breathing exercises have enabled me to gradually recover body flexibility and awareness that I had lost through years of sedentary living. I feel generally more alive and energized now in the later mid-years than I did in my twenties and thirties!
(4) A wholeness-oriented counselor-therapist should teach clients one or more of a variety of relaxation techniques for reducing stresses
regularly. Chronic stress contributes to many types of physical, emotional, interpersonal, and psychosomatic problems. When the normal fight-or-flight response to stress (with its elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and body tension) becomes a continuing pattern of living, the body pays a high price. Protracted unrelieved stress depletes the body's remarkable self-defense and self-repair resources. Learning to reduce unnecessary stress and cope better with unavoidable stress is an essential ingredient in a wellness life-style.
There are many self-quieting techniques that counselors and therapists can teach to clients as well as practice themselves. One of the most popular of these, meditation, has been shown to produce significant physiological benefits including lowered blood pressure and heart rate, and the increased flow of oxygen to the brain.(10) Other ways of
entering one's "serenity zone" include tensing and releasing all one's muscles; breathing deeply for a few minutes; listening to tranquil music;
soaking in a hot bubble bath; experiencing the rhythms and energies of
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nature; and reliving in one's imagination a peaceful experience. A misconception that often serves as an excuse for not using stress- reducing techniques is the belief that they require large blocks of time and a quiet place. I know a young minister who reports that he can enter a serene inner space while waiting for a traffic light to change. This obviously isn't the most ideal place to meditate, but his experience shows that a person who has learned methods of inner quieting can use them almost anywhere. I find that simply asking myself occasionally,
"In what part of my body am I stressing myself?" increases my awareness of the need to release tensions regularly.
(5) A wholeness-oriented counselor-therapist should encourage clients to live in an ecologically sound, environmentally aware way. High-level wellness life-styles should include a concern for other people and for the whole interdependent biosphere. To live in an environmentally aware manner means living in ways that respect and protect the biosphere so that it can become more wellness-sustaining for all living things. One can help, in small ways, by "living lightly on the earth" -- e.g., by eating lower on the food chain, recycling reusable materials, conserving fossil fuel energy (and other nonrenewable re- sources), composting organic materials to enrich the soil, using solar energy, and taking part in environmental educational and political action organizations.
As Donald Ardell points out: "Living ecologically is a 'no-lose'
proposition. Even if you personally do not change the world, you will find that doing well with less helps to make you feel better by giving the satisfaction that comes from doing your part."(11) It is also healthful to shape one's personal living space so that it nurtures wellness. For
example, an abundance of plants has added a nurturing dimension to our home.
(6) A wholeness-oriented counselor-therapist should encourage clients to evaluate as well as energize their life-style by developing a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. One's personal values, priorities, and sense of life's meaning inevitably guide and shape one's life-style. For this reason, the continuing growth of one's spiritual and value life undergirds other aspects of high-level wellness. Having an energizing awareness of the purpose and preciousness of one's life is an invaluable resource for increasing physical as well as emotional and interpersonal wellness. A faith or philosophy of life that makes one aware of really belonging in the wider scheme of things provides a nurturing context of transpersonal meaning. There is a lively interest within holistic health
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circles in using the ancient heritage of spiritual healing within the
context of medical and psychotherapeutic methods. This is based in part on the recognition that the self-healing, self-protective resources of one's body are somehow linked with one's faith and sense of meaning. As Hans Selye, pioneer researcher on stress, makes clear, it is our attitudes toward events in our lives that turn them into "distress" or "eustress"
(good stress), not the events per se.(12) A sense of transpersonal purpose can help people cope constructively with enormous stress. The
Wholistic Flealth Centers pioneered by Granger Westberg offer an innovative model of whole-person health care in which the spiritual dimension of healing is integrated with conventional medical resources.
These centers are located in churches and staffed by a physician, a nurse, and a pastoral counselor. (See the book by Robert Cunningham, in the "For Further Exploration" section, for a description of these centers.)
(7) A wholeness-oriented counselor-therapist should encourage clients to laugh more, have more fun, chuckle at themselves, and enjoy life's simple pleasures. Abundant laughter apparently has the power to activate the body's own healing powers. This was the discovery that Norman Cousins made when he used old slapstick movies to help cure himself of an "irreversible" deterioration of his connective tissue.(13) The physician author of Laugh after Laugh: The Healing Power of Humor, reports that he has encountered a surprising number of persons who seemed to have laughed themselves back to health or have used humor to cope constructively with sickness.(14) A seventeenth-century British physician. Dr. Thomas Sydenham, put it well: "The arrival of one clown has more beneficial influence upon a town than 20 asses laden with drugs."(15)
When doing holistic, growth therapy with male clients, it's well to remember that men have a particularly urgent need to develop wellness life-styles. In America the life expectancy of men is about eight years less than that of women.(16) Two hypotheses have been advanced to explain the widening gap in male-female longevity. The biological explanation attributes men's shorter life expectancy to genetic factors.
The psycho-social explanation attributes it to the lethal demands and pressures that men internalize as they learn the male role. After a critical evaluation of both hypotheses, James Harrison of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine concludes: "The best available evidence confirms the psychosocial perspective that sex-role socialization accounts for the larger part of men's shorter life expectancy."(17) In all patriarchal
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cultures, men are socialized to try to be more successful and powerful than others; to always be strong, competitive, and independent; to not show "weak," women-like feelings like dependency. But to the degree that men fulfill their socially programmed sex roles, they must deprive themselves of the satisfaction of many of their basic human needs. The significantly higher incidence among males of stress-related maladies (e.g., heart attacks, stomach ulcers, suicide, alcoholism) supports Harrison's conclusion.
Growth Resources from Biofeedback
Biofeedback is an exciting development in the contemporary biomedical field. In many parts of the world, psychologists and psychotherapists are using biofeedback to throw new light on an age-old mystery -- the
relationship between the mind and the body. The evidence from this new technology affirms the deep interdependency of the physical and mental facets of human beings and the fact that whole-person healing and growth involves the harmonious, integrated
enhancement of both these dimensions. Biofeedback research also
increases our awareness of the mind's remarkable power to participate in enhancing both mental and physical health. Barbara Brown, pioneer biofeed-back researcher, reports that the new technology "points straight to the greatest mystery of all: the ability of the mind to control its own and the body's sickness and health."(18)
Biofeedback utilizes various instruments that measure bodily changes such as muscular tension, blood pressure, brain wave frequencies, skin temperature, and heart rate. The instruments feed back this information, via meters, tones, or lights, to the persons whose functions are being monitored, thus making them conscious of changes in their internal states of which they are ordinarily unaware. With practice, people can learn to control the body system being monitored and to continue this control, on their own, without the instruments.
The research on and the clinical applications of biofeedback illuminate the complexities and potentialities of the human mind. Barbara Brown declares: "I am still filled with awe and wonder when I record human brain waves in my laboratory . . . the more we probe, the more
marvelous and labyrinthine the world of the mind-brain becomes."(19) Biofeedback research shows that the mind can bring under some degree of voluntary control any physiological functions of which it becomes
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aware. Volitional control can be established, through biofeedback learning, over processes long believed to be totally subject to the involuntary control of the autonomic nervous system.
All this is dramatic evidence that the human will is not only alive and well but that its participation in mind-body wholeness can be much more inclusive than formerly believed. All forms of hard determinism,
including those of Skinner and Freud, must now be corrected in light of this evidence. In the new phase of human evolution (described by
Teilhard de Chardin and others) humankind is called to take a
responsible part in choosing the directions of mental-spiritual evolution.
Barbara Brown points out, "Biofeedback may provide the instrument to excise the cataracts of scientific vision that so long have prevented
participation of the mind of man [sic] in the survival and evolution of his own consciousness and psyche."(20)
The ability to learn to control one's physiological functions is being used to treat many types of psychosomatic stress problems, including tension and migraine headaches, cardiovascular problems such as hypertension, and gastrointestinal difficulties of various kinds. Biofeedback is being used to retrain neuromuscular functioning after strokes. It is also proving useful in anxiety states and stress-related problems such as drug abuse, insomnia, and persistent pain. Brain-wave biofeedback training
involving learning to increase one's alpha waves (associated with a relaxed, tranquil feeling state) has been used with some success in treating neuroses, psychoses, and behavior problems.(21)
The applications of biofeedback to emotional, psychological, and interpersonal problems depends on what Alyce and Elmer Green, biofeedback researchers at the Menninger Foundation, call the
"psychophysiological principle:" "Every change in the physiological state is accompanied by an appropriate change in the mental-emotional state, and conversely, every change in the mental-emotional state, conscious or unconscious, is accompanied by an appropriate change in the physiological state."(22) Because of this correlation, learned control of bodily functions may help increase voluntary control over the
psychological-emotional correlates of these changes. To illustrate, research has discovered that changes in our skin temperature and the degree of skin conductivity of small electrical impulses (both indications of our degree of general relaxation) are correlated with emotional
changes. Such messages from our skin often reflect unconscious emotional responses more accurately than what we are aware of
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