While working on your relationship as a couple you will most certainly observe that in each of your bodies and behavior the pattern of defense, or armor, against fully open emotional expression is different. Further, you may observe that certain of your friends appear to fall into other basic patterns. Also, some concept of how the various traits are integrated into a whole (whether to permit emotion or to defend against it) is extremely useful in working on your relationship. What follows is a scheme for understanding character structure in terms of what I have called, in chapter 3, chronic emergency responses; ERs, for short. Some of these basic ERs are equivalent to the four basic kinds of blocking discussed in chapter 6, as follows: fright-paralysis and suspended pulsation; fright-rigidity and later muscle armor which blocks movement; flight-away and early muscle armor which blocks feeling. The other two ERs are flight-toward and fight.

Ambivalent conditions can be summarized as two further possibilities: flight-toward/away and active blocking; fight-fright, or struggle.

A further possibility is the flexible response in which the reaction to an emergency is appropriate.

These terms should become clearer as they are discussed but basically they are minimal statements: that a given person, faced with an emotional emergency, will (if unable to respond appropriately) react with a characteristic emergency response. This is part of a basic repertoire of such responses but normally a person will tend to react according to the one of these responses which has become chronic, anchored in the character structure.

In my view, a person's chronic ER indicates a possible diagnosis in therapeutic terms. Therefore, a valid observable system of psychodiagnosis can be based on the ERs. There are clear parallels between the above terms and some key psychoanalytic terms.

The terms in the right-hand column are used here in a sense which goes further than the psychoanalytical terminology in which they originate. "Character structure" is one of Reich's concepts (although it derives from the drive/structure basis of Freud's theories) and these terms are used here in a Reichian sense. Consequently, words like "schizophrenic," "hysterical," or "masochistic" are descriptions of patterns of armor rather than descriptions of illnesses. For example, some Reichian psychiatrists would claim (though wrongly, I think) that about a third of the population functions schizophrenically but is not necessarily suffering from schizophrenia as an illness.

If you think your ER tends to be fright-paralysis, this does not mean you are schizoid or schizophrenic.

What it does mean, if your analysis is correct, is that any emotional illness you might undergo would tend to be schizophrenic in character rather than, say, hysterical. Even so, this is only a possibility. What you or your partner identify as your ER now might not be your ER in a situation of extreme emergency; it might simply over-lie another ER. In therapy we often see a patient "become" two or three different character types as they work through their problems. Your own chronic ER may shift during the course of couples work, or simply through the experiences of life. Nevertheless, it is worth knowing what it tends to be now so that in anxiety-producing situations you can sense whether you are reacting flexibly or according to blind habit.

I have presented the parallels between ERs and character structures because it seems to me best not to sweep them under the rug and you might find the parallels useful or thought-provoking if you decide to read therapeutic literature. But psychoanalytic terms are emotionally loaded, ERs and armor patterns are easily misread, and diagnostic schemes (which are really only working hypotheses) are provisional in nature. Concentrate on the terms in the left-hand column, for the purposes of couples work the right-hand column should be treated with extreme caution.

On the other hand, the terminology of ERs is useful in couples work because it may help understanding of basic blocks in your emotional responses to each other. The blocks may be apparent in your family life, in shared work, in crisis, or in your sexual life. Knowing what your partner's and your own tendencies are when feeling anxious can be useful because then the behavior can be met with comprehension instead of panic or automatic recourse to one's own ER.

What follows is a brief description of each chronic ER and its anchoring in character armor. The terms are set in a different order to the previous ones, this time corresponding to what is thought to be the chronological developments of the structure.

Fright-Paralysis

This consists of a "freezing" reaction in which the musculature remains relaxed and flaccid, without tonus; it does not become rigid. Most conspicuously, contact through the eyes is cut (a contact block); flight is inner, to a "spaced out" condition. Breathing (pulsation) is suspended and even though chest and abdomen may be soft and apparently unarmored, they show very little movement.

The main anchor point for fright-paralysis is the eyes which are immobile and glazed. Even without the ER, immobility of the eyeballs (oculomotor rigidity) and tightness of the scalp and forehead (which is blank and expressionless) is evident. A frowning expression or a fight response are particularly hard to mobilize. The main armoring, no matter where the minor armoring may be, is in the ocular segment.

The origin of this ER is often traumatic experience prenatally, at birth, or very early in life.

The main strategy for working with fright-paralysis is to mobilize the breathing and the eyes and to make contact. It may be necessary to activate the expression of fear and panic but it should not be done in any way that goes further than those suggested in the explorations.

Flight-Away

Here the person "goes away" through movement, usually agitated. It is unlikely that anyone genuinely dominated by this ER would even bother with couples work. They would tend to run from it either before or very soon after starting. If they stick with it, a variety of avoidance activities will show as excitation mounts during the explorations. These might include arching the back, fidgeting or wriggling wildly, talking nonstop, or wanting to jump off the mat. The picture is one of extreme agitation and active panic. Breathing is lively, sometimes high in the chest but often quite full and including the abdomen.

There is very little muscle armor. Abdomen and pelvis are fairly loose and can be moved or breathed into at will. You may notice a somewhat fragmented quality, as if the explorer is so busy with movement as not to be quite "together." Often the only apparent armor is at both ends of the digestive tube: a tightness or fixed expression of the mouth and a spasm of the anal area (with perhaps such symptoms as hemorrhoids or pruritis, although of course these occur in other character structures also).

The origin of this structure seems to be either a sudden abandonment in early infancy or a chaotic mixture of care and abuse in childhood.

The main strategy with flight-away is first to have the explorer accentuate the flight in all its forms, so as to become conscious of how far it goes; then to have them stop the running and allow themselves to show fear and anger in eyes and body. They may need to explode with these "hard" emotions, but remember that, paradoxically, they need a great deal of care and support and a very safe context before they can move from their agitated physical flight into the expression of any emotion.