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Title: Soma: an anarchist play therapy Author: G. Ogo, Drica Dejerk Date: Fall-Winter 2008 Language: en Topics: therapy, soma, Brazil, Wilhelm Reich, Roberto Freire, AJODA, AJODA #66, play
You can learn more about a man in an hour of play, than in a year of
conversation. - Plato
Plato was not alone in thinking that, of all human activities, play can
best display that which is most truthful in people. Play seems to
represent human essence, evoking the child or the animal in a person,
since play precedes culture and civilization, language and rationality.
Some have argued that humans distinguish themselves precisely by the
manner and frequency by which they play. In Homo Ludens, Dutch historian
Johan Huizinga argues that our impressive ingenuity and creativity is
due to play, which he defines as anything done for purposes other than
sheer necessity. Play is never imposed by physical necessity or moral
duty. It is never a task. It is done at leisure, during ‘free time’.
Only when play is a recognized cultural function – a rite, a ceremony –
is it bound up with notions of obligation and duty. Here, then, we have
the main characteristic of play: that it is free, is in fact freedom.
(8) [1]
This idea was also apparent to Roberto Freire, an anarchist doctor and
psychoanalyst from Brazil, who, after a lifetime spent in struggle
against oppressive powers, took the play postulate to heart, and created
a therapeutic practice built upon it. Calling the practice Soma, Freire
fashioned his therapy to differ greatly from other forms of
psychotherapy. Instead of relying solely on months, or even years, of
conversation to understand and treat his patients, Freire realized that
understanding could be achieved more effectively through group
participation in physically and emotionally challenging activities, what
he called “exercises.” Soma, therefore, was created as a combination of
play, response, reflection, experimentation, and challenge – everything
taking place within a cohesive group setting in order to facilitate
honest, independent character growth. All of this, coupled with the
regular practice of capoeira angola, is integrated into Roberto Freire’s
practice.
To understand Soma, it is essential to understand Roberto Freire’s
story. Born in 1927 in São Paulo, he lived through and fought against
two dictatorships, and felt the pervasive effects of oppression on his
own body and throughout his life. Having come of age in a radical time
and place, Freire became sympathetic to anarchism from an early age.
Freire was many things in his life: doctor, psychoanalyst, anarchist
militant, theater producer, novelist, magazine editor, reporter, and
much more.
In April 1964, the Brazilian military carried out a coup d’etat - the
first of a series of right-wing coups throughout Latin America. In a
matter of weeks, as a result of his activism, Freire was arrested. His
house was raided in the middle of the night and he was dragged from his
bed in his pajamas in front of his wife and children. He was tortured
for days on end: beaten, deprived of sleep, forced to read aloud
subversive articles he had published. Eventually they released him, but
he would be arrested again several times.
Freire attributed going blind later in his life to the torture he
endured. One method in particular, dubbed “the telephone,” caused
enormous internal pressure on the eye balls: it consisted of repeatedly
slamming the victim’s ears at the same time. Surgeries would return his
sight in one eye. By the time I met him, he always wore an eyepatch that
gave him the fitting look of a pirate.
Freire recalls the years after the coup as extraordinarily difficult.
Worse than the physical pain from the torture was the emotional and
psychological damage inflicted by the political climate upon his
community. He was forced to live underground, always on the run. He
suffered through a divorce, struggled with alcoholism and feelings of
immense frustration with his art and his cause.
Around 1970, he went to France for a period of decompression, and on
that trip he was introduced for the first time to the works of Wilhelm
Reich. The Living Theater, an American expatriate acting troupe was
performing in Paris. Julian Beck, its co-director, introduced Freire to
Wilhelm Reich, the dissident student of Freud who emphasized the
connection between body and psyche, and who explained how the causes of
emotional and psychological disturbances are to be found in
authoritarian social structures.
Freire came back from the trip in France with all the major works of
Reich in his possession. He returned to his private practice and for the
next several years he studied Reich and other radical approaches to
psychotherapy and psychiatric theories. He got together with friends
from the theater – people experienced with acting training and
techniques – and began to research his own radical method of therapy.
This would soon coalesce into Soma.
Another of Freire’s main inspirations and influence was Thomas Hanna’s
Bodies in Revolt. Hanna defends the theory that we are at the beginning
of a human r/evolution. By revisiting the works of what he calls Somatic
Philosophers (Kant, Kierkegaard, Marx, Cassirer, Camus, Merleau-Ponty,
and Nietzsche) and of Somatic Scientists (Darwin, Lorenz, Freud, Reich,
and Piaget), he sustained the idea that humans have, “through an
enormous expenditure of aggressive energy” created a new environment
“which no longer ignores man’s existence and needs but which positively
supports them. In return, the enormous quantities of energy released by
this environment are creating a new kind of human, a cultural
mutant”(8).[2] If in the old environment humans spent most of our energy
under the urge of primary drives (physiological needs), the new
environment is producing the emergence of secondary drives – precisely
the ones related to play.
Proto-mutants, says Hanna, will challenge the traditional culture until
they “see the destruction of much of two or three millennia of Western
culture.” The Industrial Revolution is a watershed in this process, but
Freire, in line with Herbert Marcuse, stresses the phylogenetic
information gathered by generations of struggle against the repression
of instincts as a major force shaping the mutation.
Hanna lays down the meaning of Soma: it is the totality of what
constitutes the human being. It’s the indivisible and non-hierarchical
unity of the person’s body and mind, genes and environment, emotions,
memories, expectations, desires, culture, social behaviors,
relationships, and actions that makes up a person at every moment. It’s
a holistic concept that rejects traditional dualities and dichotomies.
Somatherapy, therefore, is in contrast with psychotherapies that deal
only the psyche.
While other forms of psychoanalysis and therapy have incorporated forms
of play into their practice, they have most often employed these games
as an auxiliary tool to gain responses from children, or those patients
with childlike patterns of communication and understanding. For
processes geared towards grown-ups, though, none have made the act of
playing such an integral part of their methodology. Roberto Freire
understood that just as children may make themselves more readily
available to observation and analysis when they were engrossed in play,
so might adults, interacting in a playful but purposeful manner, be more
available to understand themselves and their interpersonal interactions.
It makes sense that such a creation would have been developed in Brazil,
a country that is not known for its rigorous intellectualism, but rather
for its games and celebrations. Beyond the obvious sources of revelry,
such as soccer and carnival, are the myriad of brincadeiras (games and
plays) originating from within Brazil’s popular culture. One such game
in particular, capoeira angola, was so powerful and rich that Roberto
Freire adopted it as an essential element of his anarchist therapy.
Capoeira angola is a game of resistance and liberation. Having its roots
in African rituals, in Brazil it was shaped through centuries by the
resistance against slavery and oppression – it wasn’t until the 1930s
that capoeira ceased to be persecuted as a felony under Brazilian law.
When compared to other styles of capoeira, the angola style is commonly
seen as the one which has best preserved the traditional elements of a
unique Afro-Brazilian art form, because of its stronger emphasis on the
rituals, the music, on longer games and closer, more intricate
interactions between the players.[3] Freire decided capoeira angola was
best suited for Soma because it is a more playful style, in which the
practitioners maintain a more relaxed posture, doing movements closer to
the ground, engaging the entire body more equally, and therefore
offering a complete bioenergetic exercise that “massages” the players’
muscular armor.[4] In contrast, in other styles the movements are more
rigid and predominantly in the standing position.
Capoeira angola is a rich, ritualized game in which life lessons are
represented and resolved; combat between the two players aims to reenact
the struggle for freedom of movement against the restrictive exertion of
power from another person. The players display and improve their street
smarts and cunning, as well as the ability to deal with conflicts while
maintaining a light, playful spirit and positive energy. As an activity
on its own, it encompasses all that Freire sought to incorporate into
the practice of Soma therapy. It is a social experience, practiced in a
group and played in a circle of people who, by singing and playing
percussion instruments, create the energy and maintain the rhythm for
the two players in the center. It is a game that incorporates aspects of
theater, in which body language and expression are immanent. It enables
body awareness, teaches how to keep all senses alert, exercises
aggression and the ability to confront it – techniques needed in the
struggle to defend oneself against repression and to affirm a free
personality.
By playing capoeira angola, slaves in Brazil would not only prepare
themselves to fight their oppressors by strengthening their bodies, but
also, by reaffirming their vivacity, would reconnect with the life force
that slavery and domination intended to crush. While playing it, their
bodies and spirits were actually free, and that, in turn, provided the
spiritual fortitude needed to continue resisting and fighting. Mestre
Pastinha, one of the most respected teachers of this art, has said
authoritatively of capoeira angola, “It’s an intrigue of slaves yearning
for freedom. Its principle has no method and its end is inconceivable
even for the wisest capoeirista.”[5]
In addition to the practice of capoeira angola, the methodology of Soma
includes sessions conducted by a somatherapist (Freire himself or one of
his students) and sessions without the presence of a somatherapist.
The sessions without the therapist, one of the unique aspects of Soma,
are meant to guarantee the group’s and each person’s independence and
responsibility for the therapeutic process. These sessions are mainly
verbal and provide the opportunity for everyone to learn more about each
other’s life and history, to discuss the collective dynamic of the group
and to further develop the therapy by sharing feedback about each
person’s challenges, needs, desires, and aspirations.
In contrast, the sessions conducted by the somatherapist are less
verbal. They consist in the experience of exercises that Freire created
and, together with capoeira angola, they represent the play aspect of
the therapy. These sessions follow a specific structure and
organization: Freire created more than 40 exercises that are organized
in meaningful order and sequence. In the first stages of the therapy,
the exercises have a more introductory nature; as the therapy unfolds,
they will have stronger bioenergetic effects and will explore more
deeply the participants’ behavior and character armor.
These sessions combine the exercises, which function more like playful
games, with remarks by the therapist regarding the scientific,
philosophical, and political basis of Soma as well as more practical
observations about the collective dynamic and each person’s therapeutic
process.
During the very first session (which has the purpose of gathering people
to form a group), the therapist clarifies that Soma is a unique form of
body psychotherapy that combines anarchist political content with
breakthrough psychiatric theories and therapeutic methods, such as
Bioenergetics, Gestalt Therapy and Anti-Psychiatry. S/he explains that
Roberto Freire created Soma, and based it on the studies of Reich. Then,
s/he gives a short explanation about Reich and how he shifted away from
strictly verbal psychoanalysis by observing the physical manifestations
of emotions on his patients. When Reich noticed defensive postures and
tense bodies, he would suggest that his patient touch her body, or move
in a certain way, and he would apply techniques to stimulate the
relaxation of those tense muscles. By doing that, his patients would
often feel some quite disturbing sensations, such as tremors, sharp
pains, sweating, dizziness, nausea, vertigo, etc. Reich eventually came
to understand that these sensations were produced by the release of
bioelectrical streams - blocked until then by that rigidity of the
muscles.
In the opening remarks, the therapist also gives practical instructions
as a preparation for the exercise. For example, in the first session the
therapist must ask the participants to wear minimal clothing – but
before asking that, he would usually explain certain concepts that
justify such a request: “Reich proved that, as with every form of
energy, bioenergy can also be measured and exchanged between two bodies.
In fact, as the body’s external membrane, the skin is the main channel
through which the bioenergetic exchange occurs. Bioelectrical variations
associated with different emotional states and sensations have even been
measured in the skin – this is called the psychogalvanic reflex. For
that reason, for most Soma exercises it is better to wear light clothing
and to expose the most skin area possible to facilitate bioenergetic
exchange. Usually people use shorts, swimsuits, or underwear.”[6]
These are instructions not rules, though, and each person can follow
them to the limit that feels comfortable. However, part of the purpose
of the exercises is to explore the barriers and inhibitions one has, and
to put oneself in unusual situations for the sake of seeing her internal
and external reactions, and then to perceive what feelings emerge. The
goal is to learn about oneself, and the exercises were conceived to have
simultaneous diagnostic and therapeutic effects. Participants are,
therefore, encouraged to give themselves to the experience and to go
beyond their hesitations.
Every exercise is meant to create a certain mood and to demonstrate
specific elements of the therapy. In an introductory session the
exercise starts with people walking around the room in a circle. Then
the therapist asks for everyone to slow the pace and, as you pass by
other people, actively observe and look each person’s body, up and down,
from head to toe, front and back. If necessary, you should stop the
person in order to take a better look at her. In this situation, some
people invariably start to giggle, smile nervously, or laugh. At this
moment, the therapist interrupts to bring attention to these reactions.
In a playful tone, s/he might remark: “Did you notice that as soon as I
asked you to stare at each other, some people began walking towards the
outside of the group; some people shyly held their arms together behind
their backs. How about all the giggling, the smiling, and the laughs?
Most likely, these are signs of discomfort or nervousness. I want you to
pay attention to this kind of reaction coming from yourself and the
others. Do not censor yourself and avoid judging if a reaction is good
or bad – just acknowledge it.”
The observation of this kind of reaction constitutes the most important
diagnostic method of Soma. At the end of the exercise each person has
the opportunity to share with others her observations about herself and
others.
Soma therapy sessions consist of three distinct parts: an activity or
exercise, the Reading of that activity, and the Wrap-up. During the
activity participants don’t do much talking; the therapist gives
instructions, lets people execute them for a short time, and then gives
new instructions to move on to the next phase.
So after s/he asks people to pay attention to their reactions, s/he
instructs people to continue walking in a fast pace around the room. The
exercise then escalates into people intentionally bumping shoulders with
one another and then with each person trying to slap other people’s
butts while simultaneously trying to avoid having her own butt slapped.
People usually get very excited and euphoric during this part – a
striking characteristic of Soma is that it’s a fun and pleasant method
of therapy.
The sessions include exercises for learning to trust our bodies, for
understanding the connection between the body and emotions, for
exploring our fears, our confidence, and learning how all this plays out
in a social context. One exercise, for example, explores the idea of
taking increasing risks and creating intimacy and trust within the group
in order to achieve freedom and pleasure through cooperation and mutual
support. It starts with a low-risk testing of boundaries and limits,
gradually increasing both risk and trust. At the end, people form two
lines, with everyone facing the same direction, touching shoulders with
the other line. Everyone stretches their arms up, and one person is
lifted at the front of the line and laid down on her back over people’s
flat hands. The group is asked to remain silent, no noises at all, and
transfer the person, in a slow but continuous movement, towards the end
of the line. One by one, each person in the group experiences this
conveyor belt, completely relaxed, eyes shut, arms open and collapsed to
the side. Participants are not supposed to touch the head or neck of the
person being passed, and the person is instructed to relax their neck,
letting their head hang back, with mouth open, and jaw relaxed. At the
end, the person is carefully laid on her back on the ground.
During the Reading, people often describe their fear of falling from
people’s hands or how pleasant it was to have so many hands touch their
backs. The Reading of the exercise follows the techniques developed by
Gestalt Therapy: everyone is supposed to describe feelings, sensations,
or emotions they had or the reactions they noticed in others. People are
asked to avoid getting into interpretation, rationalizations, or to
start making connections to unrelated experiences. They should focus on
how it happened and not why. For example, people tell about being unable
to relax the neck; feeling embarrassed by taking a shirt off; by staring
or being stared at; feeling excited; enjoying the entire experience; or
disliking being slapped on the butt, etc.
The Wrap-up is where the therapist shares her/his knowledge and insight,
tying together the different elements and aspects worked during the
activity and the material brought up during the Reading. S/he also makes
observations and analysis of a political nature, usually arguing how our
capitalist and authoritarian society creates the emotional and
psychological issues that come up during the therapy.
In the Wrap-up of the introductory exercise described above, the
therapist might stress how the touching and the playfulness have an
ice-breaking function, and how that foments the creation of an intimate
bond between the members of the group. S/he might explain that children
know how to interact in this manner instinctively, but as we grow up we
tend to lose that ability by becoming inhibited, serious, or simply
formal—you could meet and chat with people for years without ever
feeling as connected to them as you did after such interactions. Freire
was inspired by a technique called Play Therapy, in which the therapist
observes children playing as a way of learning about their behavior.
Soma is different, because the entire group observes and gives feedback,
providing for a more diverse and rich exchange of information.
The therapist might also elaborate on the relationship between body
movements and emotional and psychological states: “A lack of movement
can lead to depression, with the opposite also being true. For example,
if we feel bad emotionally or psychologically we may have a hard time
physically supporting other people.” This fact is explained by Reich’s
discovery that the muscular armor and the character armor are
essentially the same, which also means that behavioral and emotional
patterns can be affected through action on the rigidity of the body.
According to the principle of irritability, all life forms (from
unicellular organisms to animals) react in similar ways to external
stimuli. In general, a pleasant or beneficial stimulus, such as a
favorable temperature or chemical agent, nourishment, light, etc, causes
the organism to expand, whereas a negative stimulus causes the organism
to contract. This mechanism is easily demonstrated in human beings: just
imagine someone being scared or startled by a nearby loud explosion –
you can imagine this person would immediately contract her entire body –
an involuntary spasm serving as a defense mechanism. If she were
healthy, she would relax again as soon as she realizes that there’s no
imminent danger. If she were not, or if there were perpetual bombardment
of her senses or threats to her emotional environment, she may continue
to retain her constricted, rigid posture.
To address this disturbance effectively, it is not enough to address the
muscular armor. It is also necessary to deal with the social and
political environment with which we are surrounded. While it’s important
to regain the ability to relax the muscular armor, one must also create
environments that are favorable for this emotional self-regulation.
Since capitalist society will continue attempting to subjugate us, it’s
also necessary to craft new forms of defense, new individual and
collective strategies that do not lead to further armoring.
All of this (and more) is discussed during the Wrap-up. At the end of a
year and a half – the average span of a Soma group – the lessons
provided by the exercises, the Readings, the Wrap-ups and the sessions
without the therapist give each person considerable knowledge about
themselves and others. More than just a particular form of therapy, Soma
is a rich learning experience, a skill-share, and an experiment in
anarchism applied to personal dynamics – for the benefit of radicals,
revolutionaries, and other free spirits.
Freire accuses psychotherapists of implicitly defending capitalist
ideology by conveying a reactionary message of conformism and
submission. By way of contrast, Soma is unapologetically ideological,
explicitly anarchist, challenging people involved in its therapy to
refuse that conformism and submission.
Freire’s great insight and contribution was to integrate radical
politics and breakthrough psychiatric theories into a cohesive,
coherent, and effective praxis. To develop a way for real people to
experience, with their entire beings, what many philosophies have
attempted to convey with words. He provided a framework, a language to
address emotional and personal issues in consensus-based,
non-hierarchical groups to help people supersede the unconscious
barriers that determine their behavior, and change it according to the
ideas and ideologies they believe or profess. …and he did it through
playing games!
Endnotes
[1] Huizinga, Johan H. Homo Ludens: a Study of the Play-Element in
Culture. Boston: The Beacon Press. 1950.
[2] Hanna, Thoma. Bodies in Revolt: A Primer in Somatic Thinking. New
York. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1970.
[3] Frigério, Alejandro. Capoeira: de arte negra a esporte branco.
Revista brasileira de ciências sociais. Rio de Janeiro,v.4, n.10. 1989
[4] As postulated by Reich, the muscular armor is the chronic rigidity
in the body that prevents the full circulation of the bioenergy or
orgone. Reich argued that the muscular armor and the character armor are
the same, meaning that behavioral and emotional patterns can be affected
through action on body rigidity and vice versa.
[5] Mestre Pastinha is said to have displayed the original phrase in
Portuguese at his capoeira angola school’s front door: “Mandinga de
escravo em ânsia de liberdade. Seu princípio não tem método e seu fim é
inconceível ao mais sábio capoeirista.”
[6] Freire, Roberto. Soma. Uma terapia anarquista. Vol. 2. A arma é o
corpo (prática da Soma e Capoeira). Rio de Janeiro. Editora Guanabara
Koogan. 1991.