Contact (2): Touch, Movement

Whether you touch the person must, again, depend on the relationship you already have. But if the person has accepted your offer of help, gentle touch will probably also be acceptable. Again, take no for an answer. If the person stiffens or freezes when you touch, it is best to stop.

There are obvious gestures of support: letting tenderness show in your eyes, taking a person's hand, putting your arm around the person's shoulders, giving a comforting squeeze, holding the person, even rocking them gently. Some gestures may be more specifically directed to areas of muscular holding. Even laying the hand gently on such an area may lead to some letting go:

—If the person is lying down and crying, it helps to lay your hand gently on the back of the neck and keep it there for a while. This encourages surrender of the muscles that may hold the head stiffly.

—If the person seems embarrassed to cry in front of you, it helps to take their hands gently and place them so that they cover the face and eyes.

—Laying your hand on the person's head is often helpful.

Here are some more active measures:

—Massage with your fingertips the scalp, the temples, and the face, pulling the skin in a downward direction. (You have to have a fairly intimate relationship with a person before being able to touch them on the face.)

—Encourage the person to lie on the side in a fetal position holding a cushion or their knees, and massage the back of the neck, exerting a little extra pressure each time he or she breathes out, so as to help the head fall back slightly.

—If the person seems embarrassed or very stiff, ask them to lie on their front, then press firmly down on the muscles of the upper back beside the spine each time they breathe out. Don't apply pressure on the spine itself, nor as far down as the kidneys (the area of the waist). And don't push against any really stiff resistance. This is like artificial respiration: you push down to help the person expel air and sigh out fully. Try and find the breathing rhythm and push to accentuate it, firmly but not harshly. Encourage the person to sigh loudly. The sound 'Oooh' tends to open the throat. But the danger of this active helping of breathing is that the impulse to cry will become more severely caught in the throat, and a dry choking sound may emerge. Never push against this block, i.e. do not try to force deflation of the person's chest. (See the section on Problems for a discussion of what to do if the person has a tendency to choke on the rising emotion.)

—It may help to urge the person to pause for a few seconds at the end of the outbreath. Press gently on the lower ribs and say something like: 'Don't breathe in too quick. Let yourself feel it.'

—You may notice a grimace or smile on the person's face, holding back the crying tightly. This is not something to work on forcefully, but if you have your hand on the back of the person's neck, reach around the jaw with your thumb or fingers and press gently into the person's cheek. This may dissolve the grimace and let the sobs through. You can maintain this position of your hand to prevent the grimace from coming back: the aim is to encourage the mouth to be open with the lips forward.

—If the person is sobbing but there are no tears, ask them to close their eyes and squeeze the lids tightly shut each time they breathe out.

—It may help to massage the muscles between the neck and the point of the shoulders. But remember, these muscles can be painfully sensitive. You can also take the shoulders in your hands and shake them softly for a moment to help to induce the shaking movement that comes with crying.

—If you already have an intimate relationship with the person, you can massage the area above the navel, just below the ribs. Again, this can be a tender or painful area.

Finally, if the person is a lover or close friend or relative with whom there is no danger of close contact being an invasion or a seduction, hold them as closely to your own body as you can. Grief needs to cling. You can embrace the person quite tightly and pull their chest against your chest as you breathe out. Let your own feelings mingle with theirs, which is natural in this kind of holding. Hold their head against your shoulder with one hand on the back of their neck.

But be careful not to force this on the person. If you feel resistance, withdraw. There may be anger beneath the crying, or a simple need to be alone.

Switching

The main switch of emotions while crying is from grief to anger. Signs that this is happening are: clenching of the fists, tearing at clothes or other available material, or a physical lashing out. The sound may become harsh and bitter, through clenched teeth. (Some societies encourage traditional rites of mourning in which rage at a person's departure into death is apparent in gestures such as the mourners tearing at their own hair and clothes — a process of 'retroflection,' turning back anger onto the self.)

This anger may evoke less tender feelings in you than soft crying, but it is best to encourage it, though without pushing it too far. The best encouragement is acceptance, which you can express verbally. If the person is lying down and you are already applying some pressure to the back or shoulders, you can increase the pressure firmly.

If full scale rage develops, again don't push it, but accept it, taking measures to direct it safely, as outlined in Chapter 5, on Anger. If the person is lying down, don't encourage them to stand up. They (and you) are safer where they are.

A switch from grief to fear is common if a person is crying because of loss. In particular, a person who has been left by a lover, or whose lover has died, may fluctuate between feelings of grief and panic. Proceed as outlined in Chapter 6, on Fear. Since crying is already under way, encourage return to the grief, at least until some of the energy is discharged and there is space to talk rationally about the fears.

Resolution

Many people after crying 'come back' too quickly, overtaken by a sudden sense of shame, of having made a fool of themselves. They wipe their eyes, sit up briskly, attempt to push the sorrow aside, then almost inevitably collapse into new sobs a few minutes later. If this happens, don't attempt to stop it. But you can take some measures to help the person come back more slowly, once you see crying beginning to subside:

—It helps to cover the person with a blanket or coat, then sit nearby or hold their hand.

—The person may be pampered for a while. He or she is probably feeling like a fragile child, and may be treated like one.

—Don't talk about the content of the person's experience for a while. Restrict your comments to remarks that soothe and comfort.

—Reassure the person verbally if they are made anxious by any involuntary movements and seem to be trying to stiffen against them; it is natural after any deep discharge of emotion to tremble and twitch spasmodically.

Only when the person is calm again is it wise to try to cheer them up. Test their readiness for this by smiling. If your smile is returned, the person is probably feeling quite good. In fact, after the discharge of crying, warm and positive feelings, even joy, may be experienced. These may cause guilt, since they do not fit the normally expected program. Actually, there is ambivalence in most feelings. An example of this is grief at losing a lover, but at the same time a more or less hidden sense of excitement at having new freedom to look for another partner. Without pushing to turn a feeling around and expose its 'flip side,' it is important to accept warmly whatever new emotion emerges during resolution, no matter how surprising it may be at first. It is often in this transition from one emotion to a new one, which is in fact emerging from where it has been hidden, that the person's organism can adapt spontaneously to new circumstances.

Reich is said to have remarked to a patient who was crying in a therapy session: 'These are your best moments.' It is true that deep, soft sobbing, with its surrender to feelings of tenderness and despair that have often lain buried since childhood, returns the organism for a while to something like the fresh and vital state it may have enjoyed before various social pressures and cruelties forced it to develop an 'armor.' If the person does not sweep the episode of grief under the rug and dismiss it as babyish (the way most of us have been conditioned to do), he or she may retain some of this new found softness, which will make any new experience potentially more vibrant.