Electropsychometry -- Contact Therapy
Ted Crammer
Electropsychometry Page 52
By Volney Mathison 1953
[ul]Contact Therapy[ul]
There is a type of patient who presents a serious problem to the
therapist. This is the patient who becomes discouraged or resentful
about the non-appearance of immediate and almost magical results which
the patient had secretly expected in his case. This problem is ably
and bluntly discussed by Dr. Frederick Perils, M.D. in his book
"Gestalt Therapy." Dr. Perls pulls no punches when he writes,---
"The strategy of motivating the patient to continue therapy is not
taxed at the very beginning. There is at that time the so-called
'honeymoon period' when what is uppermost is ... the opinion that
one's therapist is wonderful ... that one will be the brightest,
fastest-moving patient he has ever had, and that one will now blossom
forth into that radiant and inimitable personality that one has always
felt himself to be.
"It is when the 'honeymoon' is over that the motivating problem
becomes critical ... the glamor is gone and the road still stretches
far ahead. This is likely to be the time of 'negative transference.'
The therapist, who at first seemed to be all-knowing and all-powerful,
has revealed his feet of clay. All he knows is more of the same, and
the same is getting tiresome. When this occurs, the case is likely to
clog up with unexpressed resentment and be terminated by the patient."
Or be transferred to some other therapist.
Dr. Perls also points out another important matter: the patient is
often subjected to pressure and ridicule by the people he lives with,
tending to cause him to terminate treatment.
"He may live with persons who construe his actions as a 'weakness,' to
be treated for something 'mental.' (Or, and more commonly, the
relatives may become aware that as the patient progresses, "They find
it less and less easy to domineer, exploit[,] overprotect, or
otherwise control the patient. In this case the patient will have to
struggle against veiled and open pressure to make him cease and desist
from this 'foolishness.' Many patients succumb to emotional blackmail
levied upon them by their 'normal' associates."
So, because of disappointment reactions, or as a result of
interferrence from relatives, many patients self-terminate therapy.
Electropsychometry Page 53
Wheter [sic] or not a patient continues treatment despite progress
depends, I think, primarily on the degree of transference or affinity
evoked in the patient by the therapist. Some therapists flatly state
they are opposed to transference. This pronouncement is apt to come
from those who are least able to evoke it. The patient in whom the
therapist evokes no affinity is not likely long to continue
consultations with that therapist.
A powerful means for evoking transference or affinity has loomed up
sharply in electropsychometric research. Credit for this is due in
part to my reading some reports on the work of an unusual lay analyst
named Paul Roland. Roland has for some time been quietly and
unobtrusively performing near-miracles in veterans' hospitals.
Roland's specialty is institutionalized catatonics --- patients who
have gone so far down the tone-scale of life that they no longer
speak.
This therapist's technique is quite simple. He connects the patient to
a psychogalvanic instrument, and then massages in a gentle and
caressing manner areas of the patient's body --- head, arms,
shoulders, neck, and so on, meanwhile noting the instrumental
reactions, [ul]and concentrating on the surge areas[ul]. Roland at the
same time keeps urging the patient to speak; he inquires calmly about
the area under his hand and asks, --- "How do you feel here? Have you
ever been anxious about this area?" and etc.
Some of Roland's patients have responded. One who had not spoken for
years, on being asked, --- "How do you feel here for about the
hundredth time, suddenly sighed, relaxed, and murmured, --- "Better !"
Doctors who have observed Roland's work say that it acts, at least in
its effects, as if there occurred a tactile tran-
Electropsychometry Page 54
smission of affection or [ul]love[ul] from the therapist to the
patient's most tense and distressed areas.
The basis of this approach probably was first presented in formal
psychotherapy by Dr. Wilhelm Reich, a remarkable medical psychiatrist,
who has f or years been emphasizing the increasingly accepted theory
that psychic stresses are usually reflected in physical tensions in
various areas of the body, eventually causing pain and illnesses. In
particular, Reich believes that physical cancer is the [ul]end
result[ul] of a condition of long-standing psychic stress, and that
the appearance of malignant tissue signalizes the approaching end of
the case, not its beginning.
If Reich's findings have any validity, they also repeatedly indicate
that physical contact, particularly heterosexual contact of any and
all degrees, is apt to aid in the diminution of psychic tensions, and,
consequently, in physical betterment.
Experimental research indicates that neither the therapist or the
patient is likely, however, to have any accurate knowledge as to where
where [sic] the most severe physical areas of tension are situated ---
unless the investigation is aided by the use of an electropsychometer.
There is a further reason why this type of therapy requires an
electronic monitoring. Without an electropsychometer, the approach is
disturbing to some patients, as equating to some sort of questionable
and undue familiarity. Upon being connected to the instrument, the
attitude of the patient on this matter is usually greatly altered.
Explorations of various areas may be anxiously requested of the
therapist.
-- [ul]TECHNIQUE[ul] --
The patient should be comfortably disposed on a couch. The procedure
begins with the therapist informing the patient that the therapist
proposes to
Electropsychometry Page 55
initiate physical explorations in a search for local areas of
reflected psychic tensions. Permission to do this is requested.
Upon receiving the consent of the patient, and not otherwise, the
therapist should first touch the wrists and hands of the patient,
meanwhile watching the surge meter. If a surge occurs, the patient
should be queried as to whether such contact is unpleasant; and if so,
this therapy should be modified, at least temporarily, by merely
employing the following procedure of having the patient mentally scan
his own physical structure, area by area.
Instruct the patient to close his eyes and to proceed mentally to
contact his body in specific local areas, preferably beginning with
the toes. For example, one may say to the patient, --- "Can you become
aware of your toes? Left foot? Lower left leg. Right foot? Lower right
leg; left knee; right knee; upper right leg; upper left leg; genital
area; stomach chest; heart, lungs; right hand, wrist, shoulder; left
band, wrist, shoulder; back of neck, scalp, ears, eyes, nose, mouth.
Don't proceed too rapidly. Give the patient ample time to make contact
with each area. Watch the surge-meter needle. On getting a distinct,
even though slight surge on an area, apprise the patient of the surge
and investigate the area more fully.
The area may then be massaged. The massaging should be fairly gentle,
yet as deep as possible, in general of the Swedish type, with
pressures and motions usually transversely or at right angles to the
tense muscular structures.
The patient should be assured that the procedure is standardized; that
is, that the contacting of any part of the physical structure,
particularly the head, does not imply that the therapist has any idea
that anything is seriously wrong in this area.
Electropsychometry Page 56
My own experiences indicate that the best results are obtained when
the patient is apprised of needle surges. This does not necessarily
mean that the therapist has to do any evaluating. I would suggest
reporting the surges and letting the patient do most of the
evaluating.
Sharp and [ul]recurrent[ul] surges in a localized area that show no
reduction after two or more consultations and treatments are often
definite indications of advanced organic disease. Recurrent surges in
the cardiac region, in particular, would therefore seem to indicate
that an electrocardiogram should be run. If this is done --- or has
been done --- with negative results, one may safely assume that
further therapy is in order. While making tactile contact with a
specific surge area, the therapist may pursue a line of interrogation,
simultaneously with the massaging, seeking to bring to view what
actually did happen, may have happened, or could have happened, in
this area. Maintain as much verbal communication with the patient as
possible during the massaging. Sometimes direct suggestion may be
employed to the effect that the patient may now be able to contact and
bring to view deeply hidden painful past events. Enormous discharges
of grief and tension have been obtained in this manner.
-- [ul]SUMMARY[ul]--
Electropsychometrically monitored contact therapy has found to be a
valuable means for evoking a high degree of transference. Whatever its
efficacy otherwise, it is at the extremely good for this purpose. If,
in some particular instance the therapist does not feel able to
administer in a none-tense, assured, and professional fashion, he may
limit it to head, neck, shoulder and back areas. Or he may confine
Electropsychometry Page 57
himself to instructing the patient to proceed with the mental
body-scanning technique described above.
Monitored contact therapy sometimes produces an astonishing rise in
the patient's tone-meter reading, but the long range effects do not
seem to be lasting. Therefore it may be used mainly as a preliminary
approach toward other techniques. But occasionally, this approach, by
itself, has good and lasting effects.
Upon what may this therapy be said to be based. There is
a possible explanation; perhaps the therapist is directing certain of
his own and his patient's energy-forces intensely toward tensional
and distressed psychically rejected physical areas. Also there
may be a deeper answer, which is presented herewith in the form of a
condensed quotation from the work of Dr. L. J. Meduna, M.D, who
writes, ---
"We have arrived at the highest force of life, the force without which
life can exist only on primitive levels. This highest force is ---
love.
"The love spoken of is not the [ul] eros of the Greeks or the
[ul]amor[ul] of the Latins. It is the [ul]caritas[ul] (roughly
meaning, 'caring for' i. e, 'I care for you. . . I care for this
tense, suffering and rejected living area.') "This divine love, this
supremely admirable love, does exist. It smiles on a baby's face and
glows in the mother's smile. This love is our hope when we are
helpless, the deepest foundation and the highest attainment of our
human society...
"Any individual --- newborn infant, adolescent, adult --- if deprived
of this love (1. e, if deprived of this SPECIAL FORM OF COMMUNICATION.
VGM) ... has received the first impetus toward
Electropsychometry Page 58
becoming psychoneurotic. This is the transcendental significance of
psychoneurosis as a phenomenon apart from the individual's misery; the
greatest force of human existence, love, has been misused; thus life
at its deepest biological root has been endangered."
Love, perhaps, is a special manifestation of communicating energy
forces. Without a variety of modes of communication it appears that
neither people nor universes can exist.
The intellectual type of therapist is urged not to be too squeamish in
considering contact therapy. The patient is not made up of a lot of
mere words and conversation; he is, or at least he possesses, a bony
muscular blood-and-guts structure wherein he lives and suffers.
I have encountered one violent criticism of contact therapy. "This
transference, this deliberate creating of high affinity, especially by
actual physical contact, produces a dangerous condition of bondage for
the patient," declares this objector. "It is nothing by an efficient
means for establishing a high degree of control over the patient, and
I am opposed to it."
This critic, on examination with the electropsychometer, revealed at
once that he had been the subject of "smother-love" as a child. Hence,
in his protest, he tended to project his own case. The question may, I
think, be restated thusly: Which is better, the real bondage of the
patient to the injurious and persons in his past, or a temporary
transference to a therapist whose sole function is to help the patient
to on his own feet. As soon as the patient becomes able to do this,
the therapist, of course, should by gradual stages, reduce the degree
of transference in the case.
Ted Crammer
>
> Electropsychometry Page 52
>
>By Volney Mathison 1953
>
>This therapist's technique is quite simple. He connects the patient to
>a psychogalvanic instrument, and then massages in a gentle and
>caressing manner areas of the patient's body --- head, arms,
>shoulders, neck, and so on, meanwhile noting the instrumental
>reactions, [ul]and concentrating on the surge areas[ul]. Roland at the
>same time keeps urging the patient to speak; he inquires calmly about
>the area under his hand and asks, --- "How do you feel here? Have you
>ever been anxious about this area?" and etc.
>
>Some of Roland's patients have responded. One who had not spoken for
>years, on being asked, --- "How do you feel here for about the
>hundredth time, suddenly sighed, relaxed, and murmured, --- "Better !"
>
This is a lost process.
It would make a good exercise for new auditors getting used to their
meters and handling session 2wc. I am only slightly familiar with PEAT
but the process above looks similar to me.
If anyone is interested I'll post the rest of the book. If not I'll
skip it as I have better things to do.
--
Ted
L Ranger
Ted sed
> If anyone is interested I'll post the rest of the book. If not I'll skip it as I have better things to do.
Here is one interested vote. I read it in the early 70's but it wasn't my book.
--
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Curiosus
>By Volney Mathison 1953
I suppose he is THE Mathison who invented the e-meter.
>>This therapist's technique is quite simple. He connects the patient to
>>a psychogalvanic instrument, and then massages in a gentle and
>>caressing manner areas of the patient's body --- head, arms,
>>shoulders, neck, and so on, meanwhile noting the instrumental
>>reactions, [ul]and concentrating on the surge areas[ul]. Roland at the
>>same time keeps urging the patient to speak; he inquires calmly about
>>the area under his hand and asks, --- "How do you feel here? Have you
>>ever been anxious about this area?" and etc.
>>Some of Roland's patients have responded. One who had not spoken for
>>years, on being asked, --- "How do you feel here for about the
>>hundredth time, suddenly sighed, relaxed, and murmured, --- "Better !"
Very interesting. Is it not a forerunner of NOTs?
> If anyone is interested I'll post the rest of the book. If not
> I'll skip it as I have better things to do.
I am interested. Mathison was one of the scientology developers, it would be
interesting to know more about his ideas.
Curiosus
curiosus_at_altavista.com (replace _at_ by @)
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I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.
Einstein
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