06 Nov LIFE FIELDS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY
Fields of Life
Biosynthesis recognizes the uniqueness of each person and the multitude of influences on their formation. The human being is seen as multidimensional and the different levels of experience and expression are understood as mutually influencing fields of human existence, or life fields.
Life fields are a key concept in Biosynthesis that helps us to explain and express the strategies we use in therapy sessions. In this light, the personality of the individual develops through the interaction and integration of seven fundamental life fields. Each one is related to a different aspect of life and has different manifestations. Each field can manifest itself in the structure of the individual’s personality in two basic ways: as a closed or as an open system. Closed systems are responsible for characterological problems, physical blockages and mental blinders. Open systems reflect psychic contact, energetic vitality and connection with the qualities of the core, solidarity, compassion and a sense of the wholeness of the universe.
The life fields, as shown in the diagram below, correspond to 7 core areas and corresponding therapeutic interventions:
1st Field: Grounding
“There is meaning without effort. I have an identity without belonging.”
Energy center: Root
Correspondence to the body: feet, posture
Polarity: control – collapse, hypertonic muscle tone – hypotonic muscle tone
Work with the body: coccyx, standing posture, spine, feet, feet soles,
psychological issues: basic safety, survival, stability
Sense of basic security, survival, stability, contact and trust. The main mental function is commitment and grounding in physical existence and the right to exist. The focus is on contact with the body with increased awareness in the feet and legs.
The goal is balanced grounding, which consists of having a sense of resilience, that is, adjusting our muscle tone to the conditions and demands at hand without becoming stiff or collapsing.
Field 2: Energy
“…and when you find yourself in a circle of light without limits, with a body without limits and when only the pulse of life exists…that is when you realize how we are all one and even death no longer frightens you…that is when real life for you begins…”
Energy Center: Area of the abdomen
Correspondence in the body: vagus nerve
Polarity: in – out, contraction – extension, schizoid structure – hysterical structure
Bodywork: rebirthing – reviving the birth
Polarity in childbirth represents the transition from inside to outside, from full contraction to full extension.
Psychological issues: contain; diffuse
The point of the therapeutic process is a centred rhythm of breathing, where breathing is neither over-controlled nor chaotic, and a centred attitude between enactment and emotional apathy. The goal is to find a balance between containing and feeling good and releasing without getting lost, with connection, with direction.
Field 3: Boundaries
“It was very difficult, I was neither motivated to get out nor enough pleasure to want to stay in. I thank them very much, but unfortunately that’s as much as they could do.”
Energy Centre: Solar plexus
Body Diaphragm: Polarity fear, thymus
Bodywork: Diaphragm, limbs (arms, legs)
Psychological issues: boundaries, ego empowerment
The goal is emotional balance. The specific life field and its proper functioning contributes to building boundaries and strengthening the ego. Excessive boundaries are associated with anger, aggression, tendency to dominance and others. Insufficient boundaries lead to low self-esteem, passivity, decreased willpower, submissiveness, anxiety and others. Healthy boundaries contribute to vitality, spontaneity, a sense of purpose and confidence in self.
Field 4: Emotional Relationships
“Having a care for your own heart and at the same time for the heart of the other person.”
Energy Center: Heart
Correspondence to the Body: Natural organ of the heart, center of the chest
Polarity: Closed – open heart
Work with the body: Hands, sexuality
Psychological issues: connection between sexuality and spirituality, compassion, love
Overly open heart leads to addictive relationships, feeling possessive and tendency to victimization. A closed heart leads to loneliness, sadness and feelings of apathy. In balance we find self-acceptance, compassion and the ability to love and be loved. Therefore, the goal in therapy is to loosen the armour around the heart and connect with trust.
The heart needs safety to remain open and this is provided by protecting it by managing anger, establishing boundaries and framing fear
Field 5: Contact
“Shrinking voice without speech-indifference. Cutting off hands from shoulders fallen from the weight of endless grief. Like a cactus in the desert from nowhere. With no continuity to live, no continuity to have come to life. Invention your story in such speed how to unite it? How to live your life in the flow of discontinuity?”
Energy Center: Neck
Correspondence to the body: Neck, neck, ears, mouth
Polarity: Connected – disconnected speech, truth-lie
Body work: Lip, mouth, jaw tensions, maturation of sound. Sound has a direct connection to muscle tone. Muscle condition and vocal cords affect voice tone. Tensions in the mouth parts of the lips and jaw created by breastfeeding, as well as biting, need to be worked on to improve the sound and voice. Speech is the result of the movements of breathing and sucking. Through proper exercises we allow the sound to mature, thus organizing the body and thus producing the sound of our own voice and truth.
Psychological issues: Introspection, projection, inner truth.
In the neck field we find the polarity hypertonic – hypotonic muscle tone. At the end of the polarity of the At the end of the polarity of the hypotonic muscle tone the individual has interjected the words, experiences and criticism of others. He is unable both to hear his own inner voice and feel his own inner processes and to express himself through speech. At the hypertonic end the person makes excessive use of speech, projects his or her experiences onto others and displays an inability to listen. The goal is to have a tone i.e. connected speech with the heart and head, so that expression through speech is the release of inner truth. It is our right to say or not to say something.
Field 6: Perception
“I feel I have roots to take strength nourishment from the earth and yet there is nourishment in the sky in the light above . And from you I look into the eyes I can give life, take life, balance. Trust in the earth in ourselves in each other….Together”
Energy center.
Body: Eyes, forehead
Polarity: open – closed Grounded – ungrounded Limited imagination – creative imagination
Body work: eye contact, dreams, transforming limiting images into creative ones.
Psychological issues: intuition, visualization, mirroring
David Boadella believes that the child in the first few months works through the third eye and comes biologically equipped to seek eye contact. The inner world is connected to the outer world in the eyes.
The inner world is connected to the outer world in the eyes. There are people who look more with the physical eyes and there are those who see more intuitively. The point is to have a balance, that is, trust in our inner self: intuition, instinct, dreams and the messages we receive from the environment.
7th Field: Essence, Core
“I smile at the thought that I am slowly beginning to synthesize within myself the different parts of my being and becoming able to create bridges between them.”
Energy center: crown center
Correspondence to the body: head, spine, spinal cord.
Polarities: open-closed, body-spirit
Body work: Connection of head to base center, spine
Psychological issues: The value system and the meaning of life
When the head center is too open, the person is possessed by ideas of messianism, depersonalization and unruly spirituality. When it is closed, he tends towards scepticism, materialism and fear of death. Biosynthesis works towards providing a bridge between the grounded energy of the physical body and the dreams, visions, aura and liberation of the spirit. We are working towards contact with the essence-core and the realization of these qualities in one’s daily life (grounded spirituality).
See in more detail the interview with David Boadella: 7th International Congress of Biosynthesis
Source text retrieved from http://biosynthesis.gr/ekb_el-3/life-fields/