9.4) Iter 4 stadi inglese
Iter di Psicoterapia Autogena in quattro stadi; versione in lingua inglese
Giovanni Gastaldo - Ottobre Miranda
A.I.R.D.A.
AUTOGENIC PSYCHOTHERAPY PASSAGE ORGANISED IN FOUR STEPS.
Abstract
Authors consider their Autogenic Psychotherapy PASSAGE as one among the many that can be potentially set up using that complex, flexible, complete psychotherapy and psychopromotional system that is the Autogenic Training. The fact of dividing the passage into so called steps was exclusively a requirement for statistical validation. They verify, step by step, the effectiveness of their work. This psychotherapeutic construction is based on the Inferior Autogenic Training (First Step). The teaching presents unusual aspects and its aim is to strengthen the ability and possibility of people to practise a meeting with their innermost selves, and to discover and accept what spontaneously arises in themselves. (Autogonon).
The Second Step is carried out through individual sessions whose heart is defined Autogenic Analytical Imaginative Therapy . The Third Step is composed by the Superior Autogenic Training with analytical orientation by Schultz /Wallnöfer. The Fourth Step is called Autogenic Therapy with Analytical Collaboration by the Therapist. Authors have elaborated their own metapsychological model in order to explain some A.T. recovery mechanisms; in particular they single out, as fundamental mechanism, the splitting up of syncretistic bundles of emotional experiences. This might be the first step toward a later reorganisation of experience bundles; the person, referring to them, can emotionally better see his way through life.
Key words autogenic training
autogenic passage
practice
analysis
catharsis
reorganisation
INTRODUCTION
I. H. Schultz (1951[1] - 1968[2]) and his students W. Luthe (1965[3]), Wallnöfer H.(1992[4]) G. Kraft. 1977[5]) K Thomas (1986[6]) elaborated a complex, complete, flexible, consistent psychotherapeutic and psychopromotional system. Such a system comes from the idea of ONENESS AND continuum BETWEEN PSYCHE and soma, and, passing through a TRAINING to accept in a deep way and to allow what spontaneously comes out -AUTOGONON- to surface, reaches the point of handling such precious moments with therapeutic and psychopromotional purposes: it makes use of both analytic and cathartic mechanisms.
a) Psyche/soma oneness and continuum . Schultz's original idea is that of throwing a bridge, and finding the links and equivalents, between psyche and soma. This is one of the pillars supporting his structure.
The sum of stimulations and experiences, stored during the most important moments of our nervous system's development, affects the formation and modulation of our synapses, and the completion of our dendritical tree and axis-cylinder muelinic process.
The structure deriving from such operation lies behind the mental mechanisms of experiences processing. E. R. Kandel said (1998[7]): "....The second step, the one relevant to functional effectiveness and fine modulation of just developed synapses, takes place during early critical development periods and requires a suitable form of environmental stimulation. The third step, represented by the regulation of short and long term synaptic effectiveness, takes place during the following steps of life and is determined by everyday experience......Environmental factors and learning allow the expression of such latent abilities, by modifying the effectiveness of previously existing paths, and thus determining the coming out of new behaviour forms."
b) Training. I. H. Schultz introduces, for the first time in the history of psychotherapy, the concept of TRAINING as one of its main pillars.
When thousands of experiences, having a particular character, have already carved biological "signs" in our brain, we cannot expect that such "signs" are miraculously changed through a single, or a few experiences having an opposite character. We can with good reason assume that it will be necessary to repeat ad hoc stimulations many times, and this is what praxis established: Prior M.(1990)[8], Gastaldo, Ottobre & Prior (1995)[9].
c) Autogonon. Freud's revolutionary concept (1980[10]) was to allow unconscious connotations to emerge in a completely conscious state through free associations. During the surfacing of such associations, the subject is in a state of "passive wakefulness" and his basic attitude is "I am letting it happen": he does not follow the guidelines of rationality; he lets an association allowed by unconscious associations to take place.
Schultz devises a pattern and a training in order to develop such natural possibility and ability of men.
The conscious state that occurs for very short moments during free associations, can, after an appropriate training, be maintained for a long period, thus allowing very long "image sequences" and unconscious or sub-conscious associations to come up while we are in complete conscious state. This is what we can obtain with practice using the Autogenic Training; Gastaldo G. Ottobre M.(1988[11]1994[12]) "The images we are talking about are not "visual images", but any form of pseudo-hallucination: visual, auditive, olfactory, gustatory, ceneasthetic, any real or metaphoric word, any sensation, any gesture or movement are not casual, but tend to be "image" of something that belongs to us, but that we do not know".
The Autogenic Psychotherapy passage in four steps, that we devised and experimented on approximately three thousand subjects, can be considered as one of the conceivable psychotherapeutic passages that can be possibly modelled, being consistent with the foundation, the style and the techniques elaborated by Schultz and his students. The splitting-up in so called steps was only a requirement for statistical validation. Each patient concludes his passage at the step where he feels he has reached the expected results, and, if not, can decide to enter the following step.
Due to this organisation our Passage can be defined as "Psychotherapy as much as necessary". Those who take part only to the first step (9 sessions) carry out a short therapy and this is what happens in two thirds of cases; those who take part also to the second and third steps carry out a medium term therapy (50/70 sessions including both individual and group sessions). Approximately a five per cent of our patients carry out a long term psychotherapy lasting many years. The subjects who abandon the steps are: 5,75% in the first step and 3% in the second and third steps.
STEP 1
The STEP 1 consists of the Inferior, (or better called Somatic) Autogenic Training (I.A.T.). The groups are composed of eight to twelve people, and this step consists of nine sessions , each one lasting approximately three hours. Attendance is weekly . The teaching system is unusual, if compared with the traditional one, while the subject-matter is consistent with the standards of the method taught by Schultz.
Before starting the teaching of the six Inferior Autogenic Training standard exercises: heaviness, warmth, heart, breathing, solar plexus and forehead, we set apart three sessions for the introduction of the student to the listening of body sensations, in particular, and to the listening of oneself, in general.
In the first session, one of the meditation stimuli we give is represented by this drawing (n. 1).
Abstract
Authors consider their Autogenic Psychotherapy PASSAGE as one among the many that can be potentially set up using that complex, flexible, complete psychotherapy and psychopromotional system that is the Autogenic Training. The fact of dividing the passage into so called steps was exclusively a requirement for statistical validation. They verify, step by step, the effectiveness of their work. This psychotherapeutic construction is based on the Inferior Autogenic Training (First Step). The teaching presents unusual aspects and its aim is to strengthen the ability and possibility of people to practise a meeting with their innermost selves, and to discover and accept what spontaneously arises in themselves. (Autogonon).
The Second Step is carried out through individual sessions whose heart is defined Autogenic Analytical Imaginative Therapy . The Third Step is composed by the Superior Autogenic Training with analytical orientation by Schultz /Wallnöfer. The Fourth Step is called Autogenic Therapy with Analytical Collaboration by the Therapist. Authors have elaborated their own metapsychological model in order to explain some A.T. recovery mechanisms; in particular they single out, as fundamental mechanism, the splitting up of syncretistic bundles of emotional experiences. This might be the first step toward a later reorganisation of experience bundles; the person, referring to them, can emotionally better see his way through life.
Key words autogenic training
autogenic passage
practice
analysis
catharsis
reorganisation
INTRODUCTION
I. H. Schultz (1951[1] - 1968[2]) and his students W. Luthe (1965[3]), Wallnöfer H.(1992[4]) G. Kraft. 1977[5]) K Thomas (1986[6]) elaborated a complex, complete, flexible, consistent psychotherapeutic and psychopromotional system. Such a system comes from the idea of ONENESS AND continuum BETWEEN PSYCHE and soma, and, passing through a TRAINING to accept in a deep way and to allow what spontaneously comes out -AUTOGONON- to surface, reaches the point of handling such precious moments with therapeutic and psychopromotional purposes: it makes use of both analytic and cathartic mechanisms.
a) Psyche/soma oneness and continuum . Schultz's original idea is that of throwing a bridge, and finding the links and equivalents, between psyche and soma. This is one of the pillars supporting his structure.
The sum of stimulations and experiences, stored during the most important moments of our nervous system's development, affects the formation and modulation of our synapses, and the completion of our dendritical tree and axis-cylinder muelinic process.
The structure deriving from such operation lies behind the mental mechanisms of experiences processing. E. R. Kandel said (1998[7]): "....The second step, the one relevant to functional effectiveness and fine modulation of just developed synapses, takes place during early critical development periods and requires a suitable form of environmental stimulation. The third step, represented by the regulation of short and long term synaptic effectiveness, takes place during the following steps of life and is determined by everyday experience......Environmental factors and learning allow the expression of such latent abilities, by modifying the effectiveness of previously existing paths, and thus determining the coming out of new behaviour forms."
b) Training. I. H. Schultz introduces, for the first time in the history of psychotherapy, the concept of TRAINING as one of its main pillars.
When thousands of experiences, having a particular character, have already carved biological "signs" in our brain, we cannot expect that such "signs" are miraculously changed through a single, or a few experiences having an opposite character. We can with good reason assume that it will be necessary to repeat ad hoc stimulations many times, and this is what praxis established: Prior M.(1990)[8], Gastaldo, Ottobre & Prior (1995)[9].
c) Autogonon. Freud's revolutionary concept (1980[10]) was to allow unconscious connotations to emerge in a completely conscious state through free associations. During the surfacing of such associations, the subject is in a state of "passive wakefulness" and his basic attitude is "I am letting it happen": he does not follow the guidelines of rationality; he lets an association allowed by unconscious associations to take place.
Schultz devises a pattern and a training in order to develop such natural possibility and ability of men.
The conscious state that occurs for very short moments during free associations, can, after an appropriate training, be maintained for a long period, thus allowing very long "image sequences" and unconscious or sub-conscious associations to come up while we are in complete conscious state. This is what we can obtain with practice using the Autogenic Training; Gastaldo G. Ottobre M.(1988[11]1994[12]) "The images we are talking about are not "visual images", but any form of pseudo-hallucination: visual, auditive, olfactory, gustatory, ceneasthetic, any real or metaphoric word, any sensation, any gesture or movement are not casual, but tend to be "image" of something that belongs to us, but that we do not know".
The Autogenic Psychotherapy passage in four steps, that we devised and experimented on approximately three thousand subjects, can be considered as one of the conceivable psychotherapeutic passages that can be possibly modelled, being consistent with the foundation, the style and the techniques elaborated by Schultz and his students. The splitting-up in so called steps was only a requirement for statistical validation. Each patient concludes his passage at the step where he feels he has reached the expected results, and, if not, can decide to enter the following step.
Due to this organisation our Passage can be defined as "Psychotherapy as much as necessary". Those who take part only to the first step (9 sessions) carry out a short therapy and this is what happens in two thirds of cases; those who take part also to the second and third steps carry out a medium term therapy (50/70 sessions including both individual and group sessions). Approximately a five per cent of our patients carry out a long term psychotherapy lasting many years. The subjects who abandon the steps are: 5,75% in the first step and 3% in the second and third steps.
STEP 1
The STEP 1 consists of the Inferior, (or better called Somatic) Autogenic Training (I.A.T.). The groups are composed of eight to twelve people, and this step consists of nine sessions , each one lasting approximately three hours. Attendance is weekly . The teaching system is unusual, if compared with the traditional one, while the subject-matter is consistent with the standards of the method taught by Schultz.
Before starting the teaching of the six Inferior Autogenic Training standard exercises: heaviness, warmth, heart, breathing, solar plexus and forehead, we set apart three sessions for the introduction of the student to the listening of body sensations, in particular, and to the listening of oneself, in general.
In the first session, one of the meditation stimuli we give is represented by this drawing (n. 1).
Drawing n 1: AUTOGENIC means "generated by itself"
(Wording on the drawing: -Training means practice.
-Autogenic: what does autogenic mean? Why should we formulate such a difficult word?
-Anything arising in the subject is generated by an outside command or influence: This is not autogenic
-The subject looks carefully for anything that arises spontaneously in his psychophysical being: this is autogenic
AUTOGENIC = GENERATED BY ITSELF)
We comment on the drawing by saying: "excellent psychotherapeutic and psychopromotional techniques can go back to auto or heterosuggestion. Suggestion in itself is neither positive nor negative: it is a substratum in which, in any moment of our day, we are involved. During the A.T. we practise not to be in auto or heterosuggestion: and not in order to avoid a negative situation, but in order to experience a different situation, to gather what arises by itself, through internal autogeneration".
During the A.T. we experience what we come upon during a R.E.M. dream, but in a different conscious state. During this passage of our dream, our brain excludes perception of the outer world and inhibits its ability to take any action in it: and this in order to put on the stage its own world, created by its never-ending elaboration and integration of experience bundles collected at any age. We could, maybe, talk about an inner auto reset.
During the A.T. we experience a similar situation. While giving priority to the meeting ourselves, we are led to putting aside spontaneously any contribution coming from the outside world. The phenomenon of muscular disconnection, with the extremely limited spike trains that arrive from the brain to the neuromuscular plaques, reproduces, in a lesser degree, the phenomenon of disconnection brain-muscles taking place during the R.E.M. dream. In such a situation our brain is ready to give start to an autochthonous production. This possibility is the heart of the psychotherapeutic activity of the following steps.
During the first session patients express what they expect from the A.T. course: healing or improving their distress, depression, phobias, compulsivity, insomnia, psychosomatic troubles, and so on. Conversation shows that they start to understand that psychical and somatic aspects are linked; we inform them that we can "penetrate" the reality that we are through both fronts: psychical and physical. Schultz's choice was to pick up as entrance door the second one, that must be anyway experimented and discovered.
Experiences during our intrauterine life and our first years of life, by means of sensations, have modulated the neurone circuits connected with our relationship with the world; using the same road we shall find them, in order to re-module them. We then propose the following task:
sometimes during the day:
L I S T E N I N G O F F I S I C A L S E N S A T I O N
· when I walk toward a given destination
· when I walk without having a destination (for instance a stroll)
· when I accomplish a usual action connected with my job.
At the end of the second session we change tasks as follows:
sometimes during the day:
L I S T E N I N G O F F I S I C A L S E N S A T I O N S
· when, during a break from my work, I can devote myself
to the listening of myself
The second and third sessions are devoted to the analysis of what has been derived from listening.
Very interesting experiences come out: for instance the incapability, and sometimes the inner refusal, to listen in general, and, in particular, to listen to sensations of our own body and of ourselves.
Our tendency to consider our own body as a "robot body" and as a production instrument, and not as "our own body" comes to the surface; also deep-rooted attitudes, such as; effectiveness obsession, authoritarianism toward oneself and toward others, dogmatic mentality, competitiveness reaching a paroxysm, come out. We discover that distress is closely connected to such attitudes.
Not very often during the second session, but definitely during the third one, we are told about sensations such as; pleasant heaviness and warmth, relaxed and regular breathing and heartbeat, warm abdomen; these are typical autogenic sensations. We underline that such sensations are generated spontaneously and that they cannot be caused by a suggestion, since the A.T. typical sentences such as, for instance; "heavy or warm arm" have not been mentioned yet. Others tell us about sensations such as, for instance; lightness, agreeable swelling; also these bear the characteristics of autogenic sensations, that is; comprehensive, internal, pleasant or neutral. Almost always someone realises that autogenic sensations, which appeared spontaneously while they were listening to themselves, do not appear any more, during the following exercises; they discover that this was caused by the fact that they were expecting such sensations to appear again.
A contrast between two precise mental attitudes thus comes into view:
I AM LETTING IT HAPPEN AND LISTENING TO WHAT IS HAPPENING
I WISH, I WANT, I TRY TO, I STRAIN MYSELF TO FEEL SUCH SENSATION
The contrast between these attitudes becomes even more definite when someone states; "I was trying to relax, but I couldn't, even if I was trying really hard".
At the end of the third session we assign the specific A.T. task: "HEAVY ARM"
Someone reacts: "I already felt such heaviness! Why should I now command it to me?"; our answer is a rhetorical question: "Have we ever talked about commands? The essence is always the LISTENING; listen to what spontaneously arises in your arm and in your whole psychophysical being, just as you did during the past two weeks. You will learn with the practice not to give any importance to the sentence you are mentally repeating; not to consider it as an autosuggestion or a command, but just as a stimulus"
We present two explanatory drawings representing command and stimulus situations:
In the first one a young man calls his dogs using the appropriate whistle; such a whistle is then a command signal. In his mind he is trying to make something happen, and is expecting what he wishes to happen; there will also be an attitude of "value judgement" ready to come out as soon as something happens; it will be a positive judgement if dogs answer to his signal or negative if the opposite situation takes place.
(Wording on the drawing: -Training means practice.
-Autogenic: what does autogenic mean? Why should we formulate such a difficult word?
-Anything arising in the subject is generated by an outside command or influence: This is not autogenic
-The subject looks carefully for anything that arises spontaneously in his psychophysical being: this is autogenic
AUTOGENIC = GENERATED BY ITSELF)
We comment on the drawing by saying: "excellent psychotherapeutic and psychopromotional techniques can go back to auto or heterosuggestion. Suggestion in itself is neither positive nor negative: it is a substratum in which, in any moment of our day, we are involved. During the A.T. we practise not to be in auto or heterosuggestion: and not in order to avoid a negative situation, but in order to experience a different situation, to gather what arises by itself, through internal autogeneration".
During the A.T. we experience what we come upon during a R.E.M. dream, but in a different conscious state. During this passage of our dream, our brain excludes perception of the outer world and inhibits its ability to take any action in it: and this in order to put on the stage its own world, created by its never-ending elaboration and integration of experience bundles collected at any age. We could, maybe, talk about an inner auto reset.
During the A.T. we experience a similar situation. While giving priority to the meeting ourselves, we are led to putting aside spontaneously any contribution coming from the outside world. The phenomenon of muscular disconnection, with the extremely limited spike trains that arrive from the brain to the neuromuscular plaques, reproduces, in a lesser degree, the phenomenon of disconnection brain-muscles taking place during the R.E.M. dream. In such a situation our brain is ready to give start to an autochthonous production. This possibility is the heart of the psychotherapeutic activity of the following steps.
During the first session patients express what they expect from the A.T. course: healing or improving their distress, depression, phobias, compulsivity, insomnia, psychosomatic troubles, and so on. Conversation shows that they start to understand that psychical and somatic aspects are linked; we inform them that we can "penetrate" the reality that we are through both fronts: psychical and physical. Schultz's choice was to pick up as entrance door the second one, that must be anyway experimented and discovered.
Experiences during our intrauterine life and our first years of life, by means of sensations, have modulated the neurone circuits connected with our relationship with the world; using the same road we shall find them, in order to re-module them. We then propose the following task:
sometimes during the day:
L I S T E N I N G O F F I S I C A L S E N S A T I O N
· when I walk toward a given destination
· when I walk without having a destination (for instance a stroll)
· when I accomplish a usual action connected with my job.
At the end of the second session we change tasks as follows:
sometimes during the day:
L I S T E N I N G O F F I S I C A L S E N S A T I O N S
· when, during a break from my work, I can devote myself
to the listening of myself
The second and third sessions are devoted to the analysis of what has been derived from listening.
Very interesting experiences come out: for instance the incapability, and sometimes the inner refusal, to listen in general, and, in particular, to listen to sensations of our own body and of ourselves.
Our tendency to consider our own body as a "robot body" and as a production instrument, and not as "our own body" comes to the surface; also deep-rooted attitudes, such as; effectiveness obsession, authoritarianism toward oneself and toward others, dogmatic mentality, competitiveness reaching a paroxysm, come out. We discover that distress is closely connected to such attitudes.
Not very often during the second session, but definitely during the third one, we are told about sensations such as; pleasant heaviness and warmth, relaxed and regular breathing and heartbeat, warm abdomen; these are typical autogenic sensations. We underline that such sensations are generated spontaneously and that they cannot be caused by a suggestion, since the A.T. typical sentences such as, for instance; "heavy or warm arm" have not been mentioned yet. Others tell us about sensations such as, for instance; lightness, agreeable swelling; also these bear the characteristics of autogenic sensations, that is; comprehensive, internal, pleasant or neutral. Almost always someone realises that autogenic sensations, which appeared spontaneously while they were listening to themselves, do not appear any more, during the following exercises; they discover that this was caused by the fact that they were expecting such sensations to appear again.
A contrast between two precise mental attitudes thus comes into view:
I AM LETTING IT HAPPEN AND LISTENING TO WHAT IS HAPPENING
I WISH, I WANT, I TRY TO, I STRAIN MYSELF TO FEEL SUCH SENSATION
The contrast between these attitudes becomes even more definite when someone states; "I was trying to relax, but I couldn't, even if I was trying really hard".
At the end of the third session we assign the specific A.T. task: "HEAVY ARM"
Someone reacts: "I already felt such heaviness! Why should I now command it to me?"; our answer is a rhetorical question: "Have we ever talked about commands? The essence is always the LISTENING; listen to what spontaneously arises in your arm and in your whole psychophysical being, just as you did during the past two weeks. You will learn with the practice not to give any importance to the sentence you are mentally repeating; not to consider it as an autosuggestion or a command, but just as a stimulus"
We present two explanatory drawings representing command and stimulus situations:
In the first one a young man calls his dogs using the appropriate whistle; such a whistle is then a command signal. In his mind he is trying to make something happen, and is expecting what he wishes to happen; there will also be an attitude of "value judgement" ready to come out as soon as something happens; it will be a positive judgement if dogs answer to his signal or negative if the opposite situation takes place.
drawing n° 2 1st situation: signal = command
(Wording on the drawing: -first situation; signal = command: I want it to happen...I expect that...I judge....
-I work things in such a way that... I force it so that... My goal is... STRESS. ...
-What moods can such an attitude bring about?)
We can thus list three aspects that appear when the signal given is a command: stress, expectation, value judgement. Such trias is a precise and coherent way of psychically being, to which, for sure, corresponds a way of being of the autonomic nervous system (supremacy of the sympathetic nervous system), and of the body. Definite sensations in each one among us correspond to the above aspects.
(Wording on the drawing: -first situation; signal = command: I want it to happen...I expect that...I judge....
-I work things in such a way that... I force it so that... My goal is... STRESS. ...
-What moods can such an attitude bring about?)
We can thus list three aspects that appear when the signal given is a command: stress, expectation, value judgement. Such trias is a precise and coherent way of psychically being, to which, for sure, corresponds a way of being of the autonomic nervous system (supremacy of the sympathetic nervous system), and of the body. Definite sensations in each one among us correspond to the above aspects.
drawing n° 3 2nd situation: signal = stimulus
(Wording on the drawing: - experimental situation; I let it happen: I examine, I record, I accept, I learn)
This drawing represents a completely different and complementary situation; unfortunately we do not know this situation as well as the previously described one, as it does not happen very often during our everyday life. This is a sign of our culture.
Also here we have a signal that is a whistle; but this time such a signal is not a command but a stimulus. (Command is a signal that "pushes" to behave in a predetermined way: stimulus on the contrary leaves the subject free to give the answer he prefers).
The young man wishes to carry out an experiment, in order to learn how his dog reacts; he has got a film camera and he records the dog reaction to the whistle. The whistle is not a call, but a newly elaborated whistle, having a particular, casual modulation.
We can reasonably think that the psychological situation at the beginning will have the following characteristics; curiosity, interest, love for knowledge.
After the answer to the signal, the young man's mood will be curiosity and interest; any answer the young man gets, he will think: "How interesting! All this allows me to formulate working foundations I can use to devise following experiments in order to develop my knowledge".
This is the situation during Autogenic Training: we give a stimulus to our psychophysical being and, just as if we had a film camera and were aiming it at ourselves, we record what is happening. Film cameras have no will, no expectations, they do not judge, they simply record. Slowly but surely we train ourselves to:
" let it happen in myself in this moment, accept anything that might happen"
Patients practise in this way not to give any command to their psychophysical being, not to have expectations, not to judge the value of the answers they receive, to accept with curiosity any answer, including the lack of an answer, to accept anything that might happen when I let it happen.
They acquire, slowly but surely, the ability to remain in a situation where conscious and unconscious, that is what is ascribed to the right hemisphere and what is ascribed to the left hemisphere, live side by side in a continuous fluid and dynamic flow from one to the other.
STEP 3, 4 and 5 G. Gastaldo, M. Ottobre (1987 [1]1994[2])
During the second step sessions are individual, and attendance is weekly We start after one or two years of I.A.T. practice. During sessions the patient, after having carried out the I.A.T., attends to and describes what he "hallucinates", imagines or perceives as physical or psychical sensations. What spontaneously appears, during the autogenic condition, sometimes during sequences lasting even one hour or longer, is very complex: sensations, images, beliefs, ways of acting and reacting, emotions, movements, real or symbolised memories and so on. Everything is integrated in sequences through which the subject sends one or more messages to himself.
Sometimes they seem to be passages in which S. Freud describes dynamics, problems, unconscious ghosts; sometimes we have passages that might have been written by C. G. Jung, or by E. Erikson, by M. Klein, O. Rank, W. Reich, E. Berne, and so on. The patient will transcribe the recording of each session at home. We also ask him to think about what message he was sending to himself through that imaginative experience. He will discuss such a message with the therapist during the following session, before starting the new imaginative session.
During the third step meetings are group sessions, they last three hours, and take place once every fifteen days; each group is composed of 5 to 6 people. During every session we analyse what came out during the home sessions that are similar to those experienced during the second step; the fundamental difference is that the therapist is not present, and that, during the period between the I.A.T. and the session imaginative part, the patient mentally elaborates the "stimulus" received as task for those two weeks. The stimuli are those proposed in the Schultz's / Wallnöfer's S.A.T (1978[3]), to which we added some new stimuli (indicated in italic). We always start by saying "I let appear in front of my interior eye....": - a colour - that colour - a deep blue, and, on it (using a personal formula) a lemon - a cube - a circle - a triangle - the sea, I lie down on it and let myself slowly sink to the bottom - a mountain, I climb it - the sea and the mountain - I see(mention an abstract concept that comes to your mind at the moment) - a person - that person - a vase - a sword - a vase and a sword in the woods - myself - I ask to my unconscious the answer to this question...
At this point of the passage the patient has learnt to work on himself using the I.A.T. and to carry out a home session similar to those of the second step, that is a-thematic, and of those of the third step that is with a stimulus. Moreover, he has learnt to listen and to treasure many messages coming up from his deepest self. We can say he has reached a certain autonomy and he will be able to indicate to his therapist whether he still wants to be followed or not, and, if positive, in which way. This is the beginning of the fourth step, that, for this reason, is different from person to person.
In order to better understand and interpret what happens during sessions, both in the second and in the third and fourth steps, we have elaborated a metapsychological model (Gastaldo, Ottobre 1988 [4], 1994 [5] ).We can very shortly describe it in this way.
A) "Experience bundles", experiences of the last months of our intrauterine life and our first years of life, have shaped, in the psychic system, procedures of answer to events of life. Our brain, in order to create a tidy and quickly consultable "library" inside itself, with the object of taking well-timed, accurate, coherent decisions during life, has filed all experimented past experiences and joined them in bundles that are homogeneous from the emotional point of view.
B) Our brain, moreover, marked such bundles using symbols such as, for instance 1) In the psychic system of a patient, an octopus might indicate the experience bundle of an overprotective mother: just like an octopus with his tentacles, this mother prevents any vital manifestation, producing blocks with countless interdictions. 2) A towering rocky mountain might become the symbol of experiences where the father is not very warm, is rigorous and threatening but also steady and powerful. 3) A warm and soft she-bear, just like a big furry toy-animal, can indicate the experience bundle of a tender and loving mother 4) A chasm suddenly appearing under one's feet can symbolise sensations and emotions dating back to periods when one's mother was not present, and thus one felt the ground cut out from under one.
Symbols are the words we use to build our inner emotional dialogue, which is the foundation of our way of facing life.
C) Our psychic system, in order to create its own "library", in which to research the way to interpret the world and to behave consistently in it, might have committed mistakes. This can be caused by the fact that experiences might present themselves in an ambiguous way: the experience of a missing mother, caused by her being sick in the hospital, might be interpreted by the psychic system of an eight month old child, as a mother who abandons, betrays, rejects. From this comes a basic lack of self-confidence and a never-ending fear of being abandoned, rejected or betrayed. Likewise seeing one's parents making love might be read as an assault by one's father to one's mother; and from there derives a fear toward male figures.
Reference experience bundles, formed by non-homogeneous experiences and marked through not congruous symbols are thus formed. Fears, angers, envies, instability, incapability to react in a well-proportionate way to life situations derive from such bundles.
After having explained this , we can say that work in the second, third and fourth steps of our passage represents our intervention in our inner library. The librarian, that is the psychic system of the patient himself, starts screening volume after volume, separating the groups of books that are not thoroughly homogeneous (analysis = splitting up), and places every book on the suitable shelf (reorganisation). This "pulling out" of the book from the wrong shelf is called (catharsis). This surfacing of experiences is not a simple action of releasing a traumatic experience; on the contrary it is the result of a more complex process, that is the splitting up of a syncretistic experience bundle. Such splitting up is the fundamental action, while the coming to the surface of experiences is a consequence of it.
During the autogenic condition, symbol sequences interacting among themselves by continuously and dynamically meeting, crashing, comparing each other and also themselves with the present experience and consciousness, come to the surface.
The psychic system, during these moments, zooms (zoom) on the symbols that mark the different experience bundles. As other experience bundles and the whole existing awareness are present, almost automatically it realises that a part of such bundle is not congruous with the whole, and splits it up, (analysis). It is as if we were looking at a distant reality using a telescope; we immediately realise that such reality is composed by many small realities; we realise that an ancient castle, which, from far away, seemed to be just a heap of ruins, has on the contrary parts that are still undamaged and where people live.
ZOOM, ANALYSIS, CATHARSIS, REORGANISATION, are some among the most important key words of the Autogenic Therapy, as it is conceived and structured by us.
Bibliografia
1. [1]A.I.R.D.A. Associazione Interdisciplinare Ricerca e Didattica sull'Autogenicità. (Interdisciplinary Autogenicity Research and Didactics Association)
2. ANDEL E. R.:" Principi di neuroscienze" ; Casa Editrice Ambrosiana, seconda edizione, Milano 1988 -pag 881.
3. FREUD S.: "Freud Opere" in 12 volumi; Vol. 7 pag 389, Boringhieri Ed. - Torino 1980.
4. GASTALDO G. OTTOBRE M. & PRIOR M.: "La psicoterapia autogena in quattro stadi: Analisi statistica su duemila casi" Imagination, Nr. 2/1995. pag. 92, Facultas - Universitäts verlag, Wien 1995.
5. GASTALDO G. OTTOBRE M. : "Il Training Autogeno in quattro stadi; l'appuntamento con se stessi"; pag. 85, Armando Editore, Roma 1994
6. GASTALDO G. OTTOBRE M.: "Nel labirinto con il filo di Arianna; lo strutturarsi delle vie dell'energia durante l'età evolutiva". Piovan Editore , Abano Terme Padova 1987. Vedi nota n° 13 pagg. 63 e seguenti.
7. GASTALDO G. OTTOBRE M.: T.I.A.A.: "Terapia Immaginativa Analitica Autogena" Rassegna di Psicoterapie, Ipnosi, Vol !%, n. 1. Edizioni Minerva Medica, Torino 1988. See note n° 13 at page 63 and following, pages 98/102.
8. GASTALDO G.: "Lo stato autogeno e il tiro con l'arco nello Zen". Rassegna di psicoterapie, ipnosi;Vol. 15, n. 3, Edizioni Minerva Medica, Torino 1988
9. KRAPF G.: "Autogenes Training aus der praxsis" J.F. Lehmanns Verlag. München 1977
10. LUTHE W.: "Autogenic Therapy". Grume & Stratton, New York, London 1965
11. PRIOR M.: "A.T. Somatico: incidenza della variabile «regolarità dell'allenamento» nella diminuzione dell'ansia e della depressione", rivista di psicoterapie, ipnosi, vol. 1, n.1, edizioni EUR 1990.
12. SCHULTZ I.. H.: "Bionome Psychotherapie", Thiene, Stuttgart, 1951.
13. SCHULTZ I.H.: "Il Training Autogeno". Feltrinelli Editore , Milano -I - II Vol 1968.
14. THOMAS K.: "Autoipnosi e Training Autogeno" ; Ed. Mediterranee, Roma 1986
15. WALLNÖFER H.: "Anima senza ansia". Edizioni Universitarie Romane, Roma 1992
16. WALLNÖFER H.: "Tecniche analitiche nel ciclo superiore del Training Autogeno". Psicoterapie, pag 148, numero unico 1978, Ed. C.I.S.S.P.A.T., Padova
(Wording on the drawing: - experimental situation; I let it happen: I examine, I record, I accept, I learn)
This drawing represents a completely different and complementary situation; unfortunately we do not know this situation as well as the previously described one, as it does not happen very often during our everyday life. This is a sign of our culture.
Also here we have a signal that is a whistle; but this time such a signal is not a command but a stimulus. (Command is a signal that "pushes" to behave in a predetermined way: stimulus on the contrary leaves the subject free to give the answer he prefers).
The young man wishes to carry out an experiment, in order to learn how his dog reacts; he has got a film camera and he records the dog reaction to the whistle. The whistle is not a call, but a newly elaborated whistle, having a particular, casual modulation.
We can reasonably think that the psychological situation at the beginning will have the following characteristics; curiosity, interest, love for knowledge.
After the answer to the signal, the young man's mood will be curiosity and interest; any answer the young man gets, he will think: "How interesting! All this allows me to formulate working foundations I can use to devise following experiments in order to develop my knowledge".
This is the situation during Autogenic Training: we give a stimulus to our psychophysical being and, just as if we had a film camera and were aiming it at ourselves, we record what is happening. Film cameras have no will, no expectations, they do not judge, they simply record. Slowly but surely we train ourselves to:
" let it happen in myself in this moment, accept anything that might happen"
Patients practise in this way not to give any command to their psychophysical being, not to have expectations, not to judge the value of the answers they receive, to accept with curiosity any answer, including the lack of an answer, to accept anything that might happen when I let it happen.
They acquire, slowly but surely, the ability to remain in a situation where conscious and unconscious, that is what is ascribed to the right hemisphere and what is ascribed to the left hemisphere, live side by side in a continuous fluid and dynamic flow from one to the other.
STEP 3, 4 and 5 G. Gastaldo, M. Ottobre (1987 [1]1994[2])
During the second step sessions are individual, and attendance is weekly We start after one or two years of I.A.T. practice. During sessions the patient, after having carried out the I.A.T., attends to and describes what he "hallucinates", imagines or perceives as physical or psychical sensations. What spontaneously appears, during the autogenic condition, sometimes during sequences lasting even one hour or longer, is very complex: sensations, images, beliefs, ways of acting and reacting, emotions, movements, real or symbolised memories and so on. Everything is integrated in sequences through which the subject sends one or more messages to himself.
Sometimes they seem to be passages in which S. Freud describes dynamics, problems, unconscious ghosts; sometimes we have passages that might have been written by C. G. Jung, or by E. Erikson, by M. Klein, O. Rank, W. Reich, E. Berne, and so on. The patient will transcribe the recording of each session at home. We also ask him to think about what message he was sending to himself through that imaginative experience. He will discuss such a message with the therapist during the following session, before starting the new imaginative session.
During the third step meetings are group sessions, they last three hours, and take place once every fifteen days; each group is composed of 5 to 6 people. During every session we analyse what came out during the home sessions that are similar to those experienced during the second step; the fundamental difference is that the therapist is not present, and that, during the period between the I.A.T. and the session imaginative part, the patient mentally elaborates the "stimulus" received as task for those two weeks. The stimuli are those proposed in the Schultz's / Wallnöfer's S.A.T (1978[3]), to which we added some new stimuli (indicated in italic). We always start by saying "I let appear in front of my interior eye....": - a colour - that colour - a deep blue, and, on it (using a personal formula) a lemon - a cube - a circle - a triangle - the sea, I lie down on it and let myself slowly sink to the bottom - a mountain, I climb it - the sea and the mountain - I see(mention an abstract concept that comes to your mind at the moment) - a person - that person - a vase - a sword - a vase and a sword in the woods - myself - I ask to my unconscious the answer to this question...
At this point of the passage the patient has learnt to work on himself using the I.A.T. and to carry out a home session similar to those of the second step, that is a-thematic, and of those of the third step that is with a stimulus. Moreover, he has learnt to listen and to treasure many messages coming up from his deepest self. We can say he has reached a certain autonomy and he will be able to indicate to his therapist whether he still wants to be followed or not, and, if positive, in which way. This is the beginning of the fourth step, that, for this reason, is different from person to person.
In order to better understand and interpret what happens during sessions, both in the second and in the third and fourth steps, we have elaborated a metapsychological model (Gastaldo, Ottobre 1988 [4], 1994 [5] ).We can very shortly describe it in this way.
A) "Experience bundles", experiences of the last months of our intrauterine life and our first years of life, have shaped, in the psychic system, procedures of answer to events of life. Our brain, in order to create a tidy and quickly consultable "library" inside itself, with the object of taking well-timed, accurate, coherent decisions during life, has filed all experimented past experiences and joined them in bundles that are homogeneous from the emotional point of view.
B) Our brain, moreover, marked such bundles using symbols such as, for instance 1) In the psychic system of a patient, an octopus might indicate the experience bundle of an overprotective mother: just like an octopus with his tentacles, this mother prevents any vital manifestation, producing blocks with countless interdictions. 2) A towering rocky mountain might become the symbol of experiences where the father is not very warm, is rigorous and threatening but also steady and powerful. 3) A warm and soft she-bear, just like a big furry toy-animal, can indicate the experience bundle of a tender and loving mother 4) A chasm suddenly appearing under one's feet can symbolise sensations and emotions dating back to periods when one's mother was not present, and thus one felt the ground cut out from under one.
Symbols are the words we use to build our inner emotional dialogue, which is the foundation of our way of facing life.
C) Our psychic system, in order to create its own "library", in which to research the way to interpret the world and to behave consistently in it, might have committed mistakes. This can be caused by the fact that experiences might present themselves in an ambiguous way: the experience of a missing mother, caused by her being sick in the hospital, might be interpreted by the psychic system of an eight month old child, as a mother who abandons, betrays, rejects. From this comes a basic lack of self-confidence and a never-ending fear of being abandoned, rejected or betrayed. Likewise seeing one's parents making love might be read as an assault by one's father to one's mother; and from there derives a fear toward male figures.
Reference experience bundles, formed by non-homogeneous experiences and marked through not congruous symbols are thus formed. Fears, angers, envies, instability, incapability to react in a well-proportionate way to life situations derive from such bundles.
After having explained this , we can say that work in the second, third and fourth steps of our passage represents our intervention in our inner library. The librarian, that is the psychic system of the patient himself, starts screening volume after volume, separating the groups of books that are not thoroughly homogeneous (analysis = splitting up), and places every book on the suitable shelf (reorganisation). This "pulling out" of the book from the wrong shelf is called (catharsis). This surfacing of experiences is not a simple action of releasing a traumatic experience; on the contrary it is the result of a more complex process, that is the splitting up of a syncretistic experience bundle. Such splitting up is the fundamental action, while the coming to the surface of experiences is a consequence of it.
During the autogenic condition, symbol sequences interacting among themselves by continuously and dynamically meeting, crashing, comparing each other and also themselves with the present experience and consciousness, come to the surface.
The psychic system, during these moments, zooms (zoom) on the symbols that mark the different experience bundles. As other experience bundles and the whole existing awareness are present, almost automatically it realises that a part of such bundle is not congruous with the whole, and splits it up, (analysis). It is as if we were looking at a distant reality using a telescope; we immediately realise that such reality is composed by many small realities; we realise that an ancient castle, which, from far away, seemed to be just a heap of ruins, has on the contrary parts that are still undamaged and where people live.
ZOOM, ANALYSIS, CATHARSIS, REORGANISATION, are some among the most important key words of the Autogenic Therapy, as it is conceived and structured by us.
Bibliografia
1. [1]A.I.R.D.A. Associazione Interdisciplinare Ricerca e Didattica sull'Autogenicità. (Interdisciplinary Autogenicity Research and Didactics Association)
2. ANDEL E. R.:" Principi di neuroscienze" ; Casa Editrice Ambrosiana, seconda edizione, Milano 1988 -pag 881.
3. FREUD S.: "Freud Opere" in 12 volumi; Vol. 7 pag 389, Boringhieri Ed. - Torino 1980.
4. GASTALDO G. OTTOBRE M. & PRIOR M.: "La psicoterapia autogena in quattro stadi: Analisi statistica su duemila casi" Imagination, Nr. 2/1995. pag. 92, Facultas - Universitäts verlag, Wien 1995.
5. GASTALDO G. OTTOBRE M. : "Il Training Autogeno in quattro stadi; l'appuntamento con se stessi"; pag. 85, Armando Editore, Roma 1994
6. GASTALDO G. OTTOBRE M.: "Nel labirinto con il filo di Arianna; lo strutturarsi delle vie dell'energia durante l'età evolutiva". Piovan Editore , Abano Terme Padova 1987. Vedi nota n° 13 pagg. 63 e seguenti.
7. GASTALDO G. OTTOBRE M.: T.I.A.A.: "Terapia Immaginativa Analitica Autogena" Rassegna di Psicoterapie, Ipnosi, Vol !%, n. 1. Edizioni Minerva Medica, Torino 1988. See note n° 13 at page 63 and following, pages 98/102.
8. GASTALDO G.: "Lo stato autogeno e il tiro con l'arco nello Zen". Rassegna di psicoterapie, ipnosi;Vol. 15, n. 3, Edizioni Minerva Medica, Torino 1988
9. KRAPF G.: "Autogenes Training aus der praxsis" J.F. Lehmanns Verlag. München 1977
10. LUTHE W.: "Autogenic Therapy". Grume & Stratton, New York, London 1965
11. PRIOR M.: "A.T. Somatico: incidenza della variabile «regolarità dell'allenamento» nella diminuzione dell'ansia e della depressione", rivista di psicoterapie, ipnosi, vol. 1, n.1, edizioni EUR 1990.
12. SCHULTZ I.. H.: "Bionome Psychotherapie", Thiene, Stuttgart, 1951.
13. SCHULTZ I.H.: "Il Training Autogeno". Feltrinelli Editore , Milano -I - II Vol 1968.
14. THOMAS K.: "Autoipnosi e Training Autogeno" ; Ed. Mediterranee, Roma 1986
15. WALLNÖFER H.: "Anima senza ansia". Edizioni Universitarie Romane, Roma 1992
16. WALLNÖFER H.: "Tecniche analitiche nel ciclo superiore del Training Autogeno". Psicoterapie, pag 148, numero unico 1978, Ed. C.I.S.S.P.A.T., Padova
Contatti:
AIRDA, Studio Gastaldo Ottobree, Centro di Ricerca - Via Chiesa di Ponzano 8 - 31050 Ponzano V.to - TREVISO -,
Tel/fax. 0422 969034, tel. 0422 440862, Cell. 3478214314, E- Mail: [email protected]
www.airda.it - www.psicoterapia-autogena.it - www.gastaldo-ottobre.it - www.trainingautogeno-bionomico
Tel/fax. 0422 969034, tel. 0422 440862, Cell. 3478214314, E- Mail: [email protected]
www.airda.it - www.psicoterapia-autogena.it - www.gastaldo-ottobre.it - www.trainingautogeno-bionomico
