When we say the word “cat,” we immediately imagine an image of a cat. This happens because, before an embryo develops bodily sensations during its development, it first forms some kind of image or representation of what it looks like or what surrounds it.
Let’s call this image an ideal image, because it is a presumed reality. And it is different for each person, because my image of a cat is unlikely to be the same as yours.
After this image appears, during prenatal development the child begins to form bodily sensations (around the third month), and it realizes that it has a body — this is the first form of intelligence, bodily intelligence. Through sensations and sensory input, it begins to perceive information about the surrounding world and about itself.
Now, if you close your eyes, I place a plush toy on your lap, and you can pet it. Your brain relies on sensations, not on reasoning, which would logically tell you that there cannot be a real cat in the room. The brain believes that you are actually petting it.
Now imagine that I tell you: “This is the very cat you lost ten years ago.” Now it is on your lap, and you can pet it again.
At this moment, an emotion begins to arise. This happens because around the sixth month of pregnancy, the limbic system begins to develop, and emotions are activated. Emovere means “to move outward.” This energy is released as a reaction to bodily perception and turns into an emotion that needs to be expressed in order to release that energy.
Words or the mental understanding of what a cat is appear later — about a year after birth, the child (through the neocortex) begins to connect the image with the concept “cat.”
So, we have three components that must be interconnected for the psyche to be healthy: body, emotions, and mind.
For this chain to function, many processes take place within it, and any of these processes can be disrupted and lead to a breakdown in the system.
Depending on where exactly the disruption occurs, different symptoms appear.
Example: an impulse arises from the body that triggers a certain emotion — for instance, our cat has died, and we feel like crying. The emotion is sadness.
But we are among other people, and the mind tells us that it is inappropriate to cry in front of others. So we initiate inhibitory processes that prevent the emotion from being expressed.
But to avoid continuing a pointless expenditure of energy, the body must also dampen its receptors or sensors. As a result, along with emotions, we also dull our sensations.
In the end, the mind, having taken control, occupies the spaces that should belong to the body and emotions — it connects directly with the ideal image and tries to maintain it.
But this is an impossible task, because no one is ideal.
The real image, or the real self, however, lives in the body, and it begins to fade and lose its individuality.
Thus, the goal of therapy in this case is first to separate the real image from the ideal one, then to strengthen the real image — the real self — so that the body can act on its behalf again, and gradually restore bodily sensitivity.
After that, emotions will begin to be felt again; then we learn to interpret them, connect them with bodily sensations, contain and express them — and in this way we become healthy and expressive.
The mind will help integrate new patterns of behavior and reactions into our life, but it will listen to the body instead of ignoring it, and we will restore the chain again.
This is the mechanism of how therapy works.
MIND---------------------------------------------®
EMOTION----------------------------------------®
BODY---------------------------------------------®
IDEAL IMAGE-----------------------------------®
Author: Gina Veresie