Wilhelm Reich believed, among other things, that emotional trauma could result in a sort of permanent cramp. Correctly stimulating the affected muscle would bring out the emotions and memories of the trauma. He called this storing of trauma in muscles “armoring”.
In this thread on Reich, Get Lives maintains that armoring is real and backed by sound science.
[QUOTE=Get Lives]
There’s no question that there’s such a thing as emotional armoring, and that it presents itself as tension and sore trigger points. That’s pretty well-known in the massage community. When you work on a tight trigger point with a needle or finger/knuckle/etc., there can be all kinds of emotional releases. Laughter, rage, tears, etc… I’ve experienced it myself multiple times, and heard many stories from massage and posture work practitioners.
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I maintain that armoring is quackery, woo, and such. What say you?
Who am I to doubt the years of medical training and medical certification a massage therapist goes through?
edited to add: So what if there are no double-blind studies in professional medical journals. The fact that is well-known in the massage community should more than make up for that little gaff.
Are you saying that you believe in Somatic Experiencing or just pointing out that some people do?
I couldn’t get past the first slide as I am on dial up and after twenty minutes or so, the second slide still wouldn’t load. I did look at Mike Changaris profile. He gives his current job titles. But if he states his qualifications and degrees, I didn’t see them.
Not really enough details or definitions for me to judge this one.
I am convinced of the existence of the psoas major muscle.
Of course it’s nonsense. This doesn’t begin to pass the sniff test, nor anything we know about biology.
Memories are stored in neural pathways, in the brain. They are not stored in muscles, nor is there even the remotest hint of a mechanism by which they could be stored there (or mechanically released).
Sure, manipulation of muscles can produce emotions (good and bad), but there’s no such thing as “emotion storage” in muscle mass, either.
I’m saying somatic experiencing is along the lines of the kind of therapy mentioned by the OP. I have tried it and not noticed much/any benefit. Looking online for studies on the subject I was not able to find many. I had far more benefit for PTSD/trauma from EMDR and EMDR offshoots anyway.
I’m glad you are convinced the psoas muscle exists.
Anticipating the argument that Reich’s “emotional armoring” theory remains unproven because of 1) he was persecuted and thus his ideas didn’t get a fair hearing, 2) this conception cannot be evaluated via standard scientific analytical techniques, and 3) many people reported experiences in line with Reich’s idea and thus it is proven, I say:
bullshit*
bullshit**
bullshit***
The cornucopia of Reich’s delusions includes one of my favorites - the idea that he discovered a “cancer bacillus” which has the power to change forms, and is visible only under extremely high magnification not possible with ordinary light microscopes (or even extraordinary ones). Others who’ve claimed to discover similar mysterious microscopic life forms which the medical world has ignored or outright suppressed**** and who similarly have legions (well, kinda small legions) of followers include Royal Rife, Gaston Naessens, Eleanor Alexander-Jackson and George Merkl.
*quacks always seem to be “persecuted”, but their legal troubles do not validate their quackiness.
**a typical dodge, but untrue.
***unsupported anecdotes are bullshit.
****in some cases, the A.M.A./government/Big Pharma/extraterrestrials actually murdered these scientific pioneers.
I’d be willing to look at a very weak variety of this idea.
Say a guy gets terrible psychosomatic spasms in his ankle every time he remembers his combat experience. A therapist who is massaging his ankle during such an event might help break the mental association. The psychological linkage could be weakened or softened.
“See? Your ankle doesn’t hurt as bad now. Maybe the memories are starting to be slightly less painful.”
There are ways the basic idea could function without being bull-woo.
I tried to get him to define certain terms in the other thread. He insisted that I start this thread to define terms.
For example, get lives used the term “trigger point”. Way back when, when I worked for a small company that sold medical sensors and software, we used that term. By “trigger point” we meant a spot on the body that when injured could cause pain somewhere else. EG If I stick a needle in this precise spot on the back of your neck, you’ll actually feel the pain in the side of your jaw. There was nothing woo about the “trigger points” we sold charts of.
Get lives uses the term “trigger point”. I can’t say for certain, but he seems to mean spots on the muscles that when stimulated bring back a certain strong memory and the associated emotion.
AIUI (and I’m willing to be corrected) Reichian armoring is constant, and the sufferer is generally unaware that they do it or that there is a connection to trauma. The ankle spasms would be present all the time. The patient wouldn’t know what caused them and likely wouldn’t even know he had them. Then, a Reichian therapist pushes on the ankle just so in the right spot. Memories of combat experience come flooding back. The therapist and patient deal with the trauma. The spasms stop. That is my understanding of Reich’s idea of armoring.
I also remember that when working on a patient’s armor, you always start at the top of the head. The ‘blocked energy’ flows up. If you start at the feet, the released energy flow will go up, hit more blockage and make things worse.
There’s some overlap but I think Reich’s theory of “armoring” is heavier on the crank pseudo-science. But I don’t have any knowledge to elaborate further than that. Maybe I’m wrong.
I have no clue what Trauma Resiliency Model is or entails.
I have no idea what resiliency indicators were used. Were they recorded by observers or self reported?
What specific symptoms of PTSD were looked for? How was the severity of the symptoms judged?
Exactly what “group psychoeducation” was given and how?
Among my other problems is that rather than comparing an experimental group against a control group given a placebo, the control group was given nothing. IMO, they should have given the first group SE. The control group would receive a treatment that was like SE but that according to the tenets of SE wouldn’t do any good.
A very quick perusal of the web suggests trigger points and armoring are indeed completely separate theories (may overlap) and get lives was using one to explain the other.