Flight-Toward

I have trouble with this ER and its associated structure because, in my experience, it never exists in a pure form. However, colleagues have pointed out that logically, in terms of the emotional physics of my scheme of ERs, there has to be a place for it. Like many therapists, they find a specifically "oral" character structure which clings to other people; i.e. runs toward protection, attaches itself and cannot separate and be autonomous. In my own experience, all such people who have come to me for therapy have shown these qualities only as part of a temporary depression. As soon as the depression is worked through, another structure and another ER immediately emerge. However, many people retreat to clinging under stress. Perhaps I can compromise by agreeing that this chronic ER is almost always part of another character structure and ER (either fright-paralysis or flight-toward/away).

In the flight-toward ER, the clinging to comfort and protection takes place at all costs, even if the "protector" is hostile. The main armor is in the jaw, which is tight, often with a "hanging on" bite; and in a depressed, deflated breathing with collapsed chest and tight abdomen.

In fact, severe jaw armoring can be found in almost any character structure. All characters have one of two basic oral stances: they are "orally repressed," melancholic, depressive; or they are "orally unsatisfied," urgent, manic. These distinctions have been made clear by Elsworth Baker. They are useful, but in my view can provide a flavor to any character structure. Again, I do not believe orality as such is primary but, if a flight-toward character structure and ER does exist, the main armor will be in the oral segment.

The origins of oral blocks are the repression in early life of oral impulses. This may be to a lack of nursing or so perfunctory a nursing at breast or bottle as to give no emotional satisfaction. Or weaning may have been too early, leaving a chronic hunger for contact; or late but abrupt, leading to obsessive traits. The variety of possibilities is enormous and early oral experience is impossible to separate from other early experiences of contact through eyes and skin. This compounds the difficulty of isolating a truly oral character, although many people of different character types may fall back, under stress, into oral retreat, i.e. flight-toward.

The main strategy with flight-toward is first to acknowledge the explorer's need to cling to you and to help them experience it; but they must be gradually encouraged (or weaned, as it were) to do much of the work on their own—to breathe and kick and mobilize their own energy without needing you to help except as an encouraging presence.

Fright-Rigidity

This is a stiffening of the entire body musculature which becomes rigid as a board from head to toe and prevents any expression of emotion: a total "affect block." It also isolates the person. An accompanying attitude to chronic fright-rigidity is "I can do it on my own." This is compensation for the intense loneliness of the inability to surrender to feeling. Underneath is a well of longing. A person with fright-rigid traits will be most likely to stiffen up and become immobile in therapy when feelings of longing or wanting to reach out threaten to emerge.

Uniformity of muscle armoring is the key. Whether armoring is moderate or heavy, there is no fragmentation or disparity between mobile and immobile areas. You may sometimes notice an expression of longing or sadness in the eyes, but more often they tend to be expressionless. All segments are armored.

The origins of fright-rigidity are in rejection by the parents, or one very important parent, at the same time as obedience is strictly or brutally enforced. The one-to-four year old child had to be good and obedient or was severely punished. This explains the fear and it becomes locked in rigid musculature in order to contain anger. Because it occurs at a stage where the child is learning self control in such activities as toilet training (the stage in which a child normally delights in claiming "I can do it by myself") but here is forced or bullied into it, the result is isolation along with the control.

The main strategy with fright-rigidity is hard work on the armor to mobilize the strong layer of rage which overlies the deep longing and need to be loved. It is important for the explorer to know that you accept and love them even when they are angry and release some of the brutality which has been imposed on them. Much of the fear is of rejection and punishment.

Fight-Fright (Struggle)

This is a state of ambivalence: the explorer is stuck yet seems to be bursting to do something. The "something" is an expansion into the outside world, either in aggressive longing or in anger and is held in very painfully. Usually this explorer is sensitive and rather open to feeling but, as feeling and sensation increase with excitation of the breathing, acute distress begins. Chest and abdomen are pulsating fully and often excitedly, but the person is becoming stuck at both ends. The head and face seem to puff up or become clamped (either the jaw or the throat will tighten) and the pelvis and legs become rigid, the legs often squeezed together. The breathing pumps excitedly but the effect is like blowing up a balloon which cannot burst and intense anxiety begins.

Muscle armor is consistent with this picture: the chest and abdominal segments are open and unarmored. The chest may indeed be high and puffed up, but this is because expressive movement upward and downward is blocked. Once the channels are open, the chest moves down readily. The throat tightens in anxiety and bottles up longing and rage; thighs and buttocks tend to squeeze together to prevent a full release of genital pleasure, which would be threatening. Sometimes a degree of sensation is felt, as if squeezed out at one or the other end. The voice sounds tight. Main armor is in throat and pelvic segments.

The origins of this struggle are usually in a situation where the mother (or other main parental figure) has simultaneously encouraged and suppressed emotional or sexual expression. This might have been done by paying a great deal of intimate attention to genital and anal hygiene, but slapping down any consequent excitation or pleasure in the child. Often the child has been loved enough to become highly energetic with a mobile breathing pulsation, but has been squashed when stepping over some line set by the parent. As in the fright-rigid person, there is a mixture of longing and rage against the suppression of the longing, but in fight-fright the person has been permitted to remain more aggressive and less terrified. Nevertheless the fear of stepping over the parent's invisible "line," of going too far in either rage or love remains.

The main strategy is to try and reduce the anxiety by discouraging a strong pumping of the breathing until an avenue of expression is open. The throat block must be relieved and gagging is often effective; then some opening down into the pelvis must occur. The way to open both ends to movement is often by bringing out as much aggression and rage as possible through yelling and kicking. Again the breathing must be kept relatively contained during the opening. It is as if the guide must reverse the original ambivalence by opening up the forbidden expression at both ends while calming down the permitted high energy in the middle. This is difficult but no other way will work because of the energy level, which may cause one of the main problems in working with this ER. The explorer may feel so distressed with the inability to burst that they may provoke the guide into releasing it for them. The hidden appeal becomes almost "burst me!" "Let me out of here!" Such is the agony of the situation, and the person may have been so abused, that even suffering becomes a weapon. You may find yourself releasing the anger by being maneuvered into provoking it, or by becoming angry yourself out of the frustration of the struggle. Patience is needed and, as with flight-toward, it is important to have the person do their own work as far as possible. The rewards are considerable: these are high energy, sensitive people caught in what feels like a desperate situation.