Jung proposes that human emotions are the wellspring of human energy, imagery, value, and new consciousness (Jung in Chodorow, 1991). Emotions, in a behavioral context, are also critical to human survival. Defensive action systems, which include the fight and flight responses, as well as the action systems of (non-threatening) daily life, which include attachment, exploration, energy regulation, caregiving, sociability, play, and sexuality (Ogden et al., 2006), each involves core affective experiences that range from terror and rage to interest and joy. Building on Jung’s theoretical framework, Stewart (in Chodorow, 1991) proposes that the higher functions of the ego and self-evolve and develop from these primal affects. It is clear, in this sense, that these primal affects correspond to both defensive action systems (i.e., Fear, Anger, Sadness, Contempt/Shame), as well as to the action systems of (non-threatening) daily life (i.e., Joy and Interest). However, it is less clear the degree to which, according to Stewart’s formulation, the “non-affective” affective states of human experience – including hypo aroused immobilization, as well as restful immobility – also impact the evolution and development of these higher functions. If, in fact, after Jung and Stewart, affects are central to the evolution and growth of the human personality, it is critical to also examine and explore the role of apathetic (non-emotional) affective states on the furtherance, or hindrance, of this same evolution and growth.
This paper explores the spectrum of movement/immobility, which spans the range between the immobilization defenses of feigned death and freeze, the mobilization defenses of fight and flight, the action systems of (non-threatening) daily life, and, finally, the “resting place” of Felt-Completion. This range will be theoretically described and explored employing multi-modal creative expressions, which were created, both in and out of the studio, over a span of several months this last year. I have included a special focus, as an illustrative example, on a single movement sequence titled Movement with Nadya. This movement, which was witnessed and guided by my classmate, happened, by a good chance, at the end of class, nearing the close of a course in movement-based expressive arts therapy at Langara College, British Columbia, Canada, in the Spring of 2020.
The Walking Dead
“I am walking on eggshells, spacey walking, disembodied. Frozen.” From Movement with Nadya
In type I freezing, clients report immobility coupled with a hyper-awareness of their environments, feeling tense and energized, and ready to run or move if needed (Ogden et al., 2006). In type II freezing, immobility is coupled with feeling “paralyzed”, and terrifyingly unable to move or breathe. This type of freezing is often secondary to a felt sense of entrapment, with no possibility of escaping perceived threat(s). Lastly, in feigned death, immobility is coupled with limp passivity and behavioral shutdown. The affective core of this state is characterized by the profound emotional numbness associated with extreme hypo arousal (i.e., extreme apathy, non-interest, and non-emotionality), or, possibly, by what Améry – a torture survivor – describes as a phenomenological state of felt-nothingness that exists “beyond the border of death” (1980, p. 35).
The conditions of type II freezing and feigned death have been observed in the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, as well as in the “inmates” – especially among those who perished – of the Nazi concentration camps and killing centers (Borowski, 1976). More commonly, however, this condition can be observed in the victims of inescapable domestic violence – including victims of child abuse and/or neglect – who, for a variety of reasons, cannot effectively fight against or escape their entrapment. In chronically abused children, this condition is also associated with profound impairments in self-awareness and self-perception (van der Kolk, 2015). In this regard, type II freezing and feigned death represent dissociative states in which there are profound alterations in information processing related to both environment and self. This immobilized “non-affective” state of Felt-Deadness is captured by initially idiosyncratic shadow movements with Nadya (Chodorow, 1991) and in a fragment of the poem When the Children Go Missing. It is also conveyed, I believe, by an untitled drawing, in black marker, which depicts the image of a slender dead tree beside a gravel path in an otherwise barren landscape. The egg-shaped chop in the bottom-right corner of the picture reads: As the pain grows, so does my presence with you. Here is a path that leads both towards and away from this dead tree; both towards and away from this dead, paralyzing place
The Walking Terrified and Enraged
“Strangle waltz with Captor, Pin Captor’s neck to the ground until Captor is motionless” From Movement with Nadya
When danger of threat is perceived to be escapable or surmountable, a person, who has not developed an automatic response to perceived danger in terms of their immobilization defenses, will typically engage in active defense strategies. Which is to say, a person will typically run away from the threatening situation/person (i.e. flight), or, if faced with inescapability, will attempt to neutralize the threat by destroying its capacity to harm (i.e., fight) (Ogden et al., 2006). The affective-movement core of these active defensive responses ranges from fear to terror, in flight, and from anger to homicidal rage, in the fight, and may include highly energized movements of orienting, running, and/or striking out with the extremities. This may also include, especially in the context of interpersonal trauma, the affective-movement core associated with the post-traumatic experience of sadness, expressed in extremis as inconsolable grief, to contempt and shame, which, in extremis, can be expressed as extreme hatred of another or intense self-loathing. The movement tendencies of these affects may include a forward collapse of the shoulders, hypokinesis, as well as movement tendencies that either socially disconnects, over-protect, or either hide or conceal the body from the self or others. Logically, the affective-movement core associated with these active defense strategies corresponds to Stewart’s primal affects of existential crisis (i.e., Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Contempt/Shame). They also correspond, I would argue, with Chodorow’s (1991) movements from the primordial unconscious, which are characterized by affects at a level of primal intensity. In fact, I would suggest that overwhelming experience, which can result in unresolved emotional complexes or traumatic reactions and may be described as a form of primordial existential crisis.
The homicidal rage that can be experienced towards a captor is not only expressed in the circling “strangle waltz” and by the ultimate disarming of a captor by means of self- protective homicide – which is expressed in the Movement with Nadya as a kind of ritualized act of killing from within a cultural unconscious (Chodorow, 1991) – but also in a fragment of the poem We Circle. At this position along the affect-movement spectrum, there is already an observed tendency in the text towards both overt physical as well as more clearly imagined movements (e.g., circling, entering through doors). The constriction of the red door must be entered through so that the expansiveness of the sky, sun, and sea are not lost. The red stain must be circled, confronted, and delimited, and the red door must be entered so as to preserve the vitality of the living world. By moving this primary emotional complex, emergent from the primordial unconscious (Chodorow, 1991), and centered around dissociated homicidal rage, one may explore the completion, through the active imagination, of a truncated defensive action (i.e., fight) (Ogden et al., 2006) and so catalyze a breakthrough into a new way of being (Halprin, 2003). This is also to say; this imaginative experience can enable a shift along the affect-movement spectrum towards those affect-movements of the active imagination more characteristic of non-threatening daily life.
The Walking Safe and Loved
“Lightness of movement, more clear eyes, looking and reaching up, Body filling up with colour and sensation” From Movement with Nadya
When perceptions of danger have passed, and when the emotional complexes of unresolved trauma have been explored and integrated, it is easier for a person to begin to re-engage and develop their action systems of (non-threatening) daily life. Ogden et al. (2006) proposes seven (7) fundamental and inter-related action systems of this kind:
- Attachment – Proximity seeking to save others; comforting physical touch; smiling, eye contact; crying and reaching; shaping/conforming oneself to an attachment figure’s body.
- Exploration – Behavioral and facial expressions of curiosity and openness; seeking, tracking, and orienting movements whose purpose is to discover, investigate, and interact with novel stimuli.
- Energy Regulation – Innate behavioral tendencies to search for resources of warmth, food, water, and protective sleeping places needed for long-term survival.
- Caregiving – Behavioral action tendencies are activated when attachment figures perceive that their close-ones/loved ones are stressed, threatened, or in danger. There is an enormous range of caregiving movements/behaviors whose affective core has been described as “subtle, warm, and soft” (Ogden et al., 2006, p. 116)
- Sociability – Facial expressivity, verbal and non-verbal vocalization, gestures, and body postures and movements that enrich interpersonal communication.
- Play – Relaxed open body posture. Rapid changes from one behavior to another. Random, non-stereotyped movements that shift quickly (including leaps, rolls, and rotational movements).
- Sexuality – Movements of courtship, seduction, pair-bonding, and mating action tendencies and fixed action patterns, which become apparent when the sexuality/reproduction system becomes aroused.
Expressive movement cannot be conceived independently of these fundamental action systems and either the behaviors/movements they embody and express or the core effects shaping their expression. Nor can expressive movement be conceived independent of the literal or imaginative possibilities, conflicts/frustrations, and felt completions of each system.
Generally, it is apparent that the basic affective core of these action systems corresponds to Stewart’s archetypal affects of the libido (i.e., Joy and Interest). In this regard, it may be said that the archetypal affects of Joy and Interest are only possible in the non-threatening context of environmental and interpersonal felt safety. Although for the purposes of this paper, we will not explore the action systems of non-threatening daily life in-depth, it is important to note that both experientially and expressively, these action systems and their core affects often overlap.
As the self-approaches, a complete state of felt-safety and felt-love, the impulse, which first necessitated the beginnings of the movement, may begin to slow and fade. For this reason, there is the imagery of a gentle and approaching restfulness captured in the line of a poem: an uplifting of hands/a floating cloud. When I “moved” this poem as part of my final class presentation, I remember moving slowly and calmly, almost as slowly and as seemingly absently, from both imagination and body, as a ghostly figure. In fact, the final line of this poem, Still Water, expresses a gateway point to the final stage along the movement-affect spectrum, whose movement is non-movement and whose core affect is one of Felt –Completion.
Imagining Stillness
“Witnessed as wonderful by creator, Not by doing but by being, Walking, grounded through feet, jewel and energy emanating from belly, Giving of myself, not intentionally giving. From Movement with Nadya
In culturally diverse traditions, stillness – or a state of non-movement – is associated with higher, if not transcendent, ego-states. In diverse meditation traditions, one sits. In religious iconography, the stillness of imagery radiates the sacred. A common closing pose in yogic practice, which in some ways may be generally conceived as a practice of mindful observation, movement, and rest, is the resting posture of savasana, which means “corpse pose.” In corpse pose, the practitioner’s intention is non-intentionality, the complete cessation of movement in body, heart, mind, and spirit. In addition to these diverse cultural practices, stillness in the natural world can often evoke feelings of serenity, tranquility, and completion (is this the felt absence of a moving predator?). Likewise, in the expressive arts, there comes the point where the movement of the active imagination, which can be either energized, sharp, or even outright anarchic or chaotic, begins to slow and settle and attains, though not always, a felt sense of completion. At these moments, the client-artist may also begin to slow and settle: the paintbrush, in contemplation, is placed to the side, the clay releases the hands, the final words reverberate with closure in the last line of a poem, and the expressive body, if only for a few moments, also ceases to move. Although essentially non-expressive, this post-expressive non-egoic state of Felt-Completion, I believe, is the desired end of all movement. I would further argue that the overlapping movements intrinsic to both the active imagination, as well as to the defensive and non-defensive action systems, seek out and search for a Felt-Completion to which the totality of their simple and complex movements strive.
This is apparent in the fact that most instances of expressive movement function as a recapitulation, in either shadow, cultural, or primordial forms, of these core movement-affect action systems. My additional hypothesis is that the prolonged frustration of being unable to move to places of stillness with respect to any of these core movement tendencies is likely to result in one or more of the primaries affects of existential crisis, described by Stewart (in Chodorow, 1991) (i.e., Fear, Anger, Sadness, Contempt/Shame), and potentially in the primordial affects of existential crisis associated with unresolved trauma. By imagining the real, vis-a-vis the active imagination, the expressive arts allow for the movement of these fundamental movement tendencies and make possible the attainment of their experientially imagined still nesses – and this, with literal and real-world consequences. For example, by imagining killing one’s captor, one may experience a striking-out, and this embodied/imagined striking-out adaptively impacts implicit memory structures and thus effects adaptive traumatic memory reconsolidation.
By attaining, through movement, the still nesses associated with the appropriate satisfaction of these core action tendencies, I believe that the human being may more proximally attain something akin to a state of Felt-Completion. A state in which one no longer has to do; in which one no longer needs to imagine; in which one no longer needs to move.
The affective core of this state is not adequately captured, I believe, by either Stewart’s affects of existential crisis, or by his proposed primary libidinal affects of Joy and
Interest, and is more akin to a kind of apathetic felt finality of human life. This arguably non-affective, the non-moving state represents, I believe, the potentially elusive and often frustrated end-goal, conscious or otherwise, of all affect-laden movement tendencies, and should also be included, along with immobility associated with type II freezing and feigned death, in Stewart’s typography of the archetypical affects of the Self (Stewart in Chodorow, 1991, p. 95).
Although the absolute cessation of the need for movement is unattainable, as even in the yogic corpse pose, the breath must continue, the relative degree to which the human body and human movement can attain the still nesses of Felt-Safety, Felt-Resistance, Felt-Embrace, Felt-Discovery, Felt-Comfort, Felt-Having Given, Felt-Connection, Felt-Relief, Felt-Merger, or Felt-Completion, may be a matter of both personal and collective interest, as well as both therapeutic conceptualization and intent.
