MORE, NOT LESS, CONTACT NEEDED

[ Introduction ] [ Energy Movement ] [ How We Got There ] [ Fight or Flight ] [ More Contact ] [ Incipient Armoring ] [ Chronic Armoring ] [ Tools of Therapy ] [ Therapeutic Process ] [ Acting Out ] [ Concluding Remarks ]

When the child becomes angry, or once the neurotic process has already begun and the child no longer expresses himself directly but rather does so by some type of behavior that is trying to communicate indirectly what the child feels or wants, we tell the child to go to the corner or go to their room until they can come out and behave like a well-behaved child should.

So the child goes to his room, sucks it in and stuffs the feelings down, and when he has exerted control over himself then he is allowed to return to the company of his family.  The message given the child here and in all of these examples is hopefully clear by now: there are certain feelings you can have and there are other feelings which we just don't want to see, and if you are going to have them you better go be by yourself.  Just at that time when the child may be the most distraught and overwhelmed with what they are feeling and could benefit from being held and helped through it, they are banished from contact with the people they love the most. And so we accomplish the socialization of the child.

In learning not to express their emotions what the child learns is that he must control expressing  those forbidden feelings.  Control is established by a general contraction of the muscles involved in the expression of that feeling.