The Dreambody: A New Integrative Approach to Illness
by Pierre Morin, MD, Ph.D.
http://www.newconnexion.net/article/07-03/morin.html
Physical, emotional, and spiritual health is a privilege that we often take
for granted. Most of us will recognize that privilege in hindsight once our
health or the health of a friend or family member gets challenged. At that
time, many of us will feel that their sense of stability and peace of mind
is threatened. With physical and mental illness comes a questioning of our
everyday identity and our goal and purpose in life. Some of us will be forced
to reorient themselves, face issues of loss and grief, and search for new
meanings. In this brief article I will try to develop the idea that illness
can be an opportunity for transformation and growth and introduce you to
an innovative mind-body practice called "Dreambody."
There is nothing "good" about illness
and no one living in even moderately good health wants to imagine ceasing
to be the person they enjoy
being. Nevertheless there are some growth opportunities and personal powers
that confrontation with illness can trigger. Illness can be excruciatingly
painful and difficult and we all hope to be spared some of its pain. But
at the same time individuals confronted with health challenges often achieve
deep and meaningful levels of psychological awareness. Of course, all of
us like our bodies and minds to allow us to live a normal life and to give
us some minimal degree of comfort, or absence of pain. Nobody looks forward
to being ill.
In Greek mythology, if you were on the road to Athens, the center of all
commerce, politics and art, you had to pass by Procrustes and his bed. Procrustes
would place you on the bed and cut off any part of you that did not fit.
If you were too short for his bed, he would stretch you until you fit. This
myth represents what happens to all of us as we go through life trying to
fit everyday expectations and goals. Parts of us get cut off so that we may
meet certain expectations. To fit in everyday reality some of us disassociate
ourselves from the parts that are less consensual, more oriented towards
creativity, dreams and spirituality. The diagnosis of an illness challenges
many consensus reality views and values. This process may transform our identity
and reconnect us with the forgotten parts.
With his "Dreambody" concept Mindell
(1984, 2000) developed a treatment modality that addresses the whole person
and helps us integrate
illness in a meaningful way. He differentiates between the everyday world
of practical activities in which consensual views of reality reign and a
more symbolic, numinous realm that is governed by more dreamlike events.
Symptoms are seen as an attempt to compensate the one-sidedness of consensual
reality and as a link to the world of sentient experiences. Mainstream views
structure our experience of normality, what we perceive as functional or
dysfunctional, normal or deviant, healthy or unhealthy. It influences the
way we feel about certain group of people (e.g. the elderly) and various
types of bodies (e.g. the thin and the obese body, the ill or diseased body).
These mainstream value orientations dominate our views about life and act
like Procrustes. They force us to marginalize disapproved parts of our personality.
Mindell (1984, 2000) proposes a new holistic approach to medicine and body
experiences. Together with his colleagues from the Process Work Institute
(in Portland) he developed many tools and skills for unraveling the subjective
meanings underneath our bodily complaints which I cannot describe here in
detail.
Illness from this perspective can be viewed as an attempt to fight against
Procrustes’ one-sided demands. Illness is an opportunity to reconnect
with the parts that we were forced to disassociate ourselves from.
It seems clear that Western health sciences offer
powerful tools for understanding and treating a lot of different conditions
and opens up new possibilities
for positive change. On the other hand, dominant scientific and medical language
reinforces dualistic worldviews and devalues patients’ sense of wholeness.
Biomedical materialism got rid of God and the soul and views matter as being
inert. It disproved the concept of vitalism, a vital power or life force.
This thinking has proved enormously successful for certain purposes in certain
areas. But in this disenchanted worldview there is no place for mystery and
magic. With the demise of the divine and the numinous realm, with the denial
of sentient experiences and our dreaming nature, all our inner experiences,
which follow alternative values to those of objective materialism, are marginalized.
With the denial of the idea of a force of life that animates our bodies and
selves, there is no room for the therapeutic powers within ourselves, which
help us regain strength and overcome fatigue and sickness.
In Process Work we offer methods that address emotional,
spiritual and physical connections. These methods try to unveil the narrative
and meaning
behind the often painful or unsettling experiences. They allow us to bring
new and unexpected dimensions into the patient’s life and relieve the
whole family. Meaningfulness can be a helpful adaptive mechanism in the face
of health challenges. The uncertainty of illness is replaced with a meaningful
explanation and a way out of hopelessness is achieved. We are no longer only
a prisoner of our illness and renewed hope may promote the energy for healing.
But, the process of finding meaning in an illness, the ability of finding
the good in what is a painful and terrible experience, is a privilege that
not everybody can achieve. Some illnesses, of course are simply too powerful
and pervasive in their impact to be dealt with meaningfulness and hope. These
illnesses are stories that need to be told and empathetically heard.
Mindell, A (1984). Dreambody. London: Routledge & Kegan.
Mindell, A. (2000). Quantum Mind: The Edge Between Physics and Psychology.
Portland, OR: Lao Tse Press.
Pierre Morin, MD, Ph.D. has worked as a medical doctor in Switzerland,
since 1984, primarily in the field of rehabilitation and mind-body medicine.
He is a counselor and trainer of Process Work. He uses the Dreambody concepts
in treating patients with chronic health conditions. Call 503 248-9386
