The Eyes Have It! ... Or Do They?
By Michael Brennan, MFT, CBT

continued
Except in the more extreme ocular segment blocks, whenever the characteristic/ characterological energetic state of the client is changed, the head and, especially, the eyes have the impulse to reveal either how the change has affected the organism or the ocular segments reaction to the change. Frequently, the next, immediate impulse/reaction is to resist the first impulse. Hiding one’s eyes, subtley or obviously, is a common example. The stronger or more sudden the provoked change, the greater the first impulse-to-reveal a reaction will be, and therefore, the greater the secondary reaction/impulse-to-resist will also be. In working with sexuality and sexual issues, the intensity of these impulses will usually be even greater due to the organismically-encompassing quality of sexuality. There is more at stake when one is living/dealing with the vulnerable experiencing of one’s sexuality. Depending on the client’s ocular armoring, s/he may, or may not, be in contact with, and, therefore, conscious of, the first or second impulses mentioned above. It, therefore, falls upon the therapist’s ability and desire to look for and see the client’s behavior in the eyes and surrounding ocular segment.

Attention to this activity is dependent, of course, on the ocular segment of the therapist! To the extent the therapist’s ocular segment is armored, s/he will overlook the activities that are taking place in the ocular segment of his/her client. And to the extent that the client is used to not being seen, this will not pose a conscious problem for the client. However, it is posing a significant problem for the therapy. For without the direct and conscious experiencing of being seen, the organism will not feel or experience, consciously and unconsciously, the necessary affirming required to dare to repossess his/her life in this more encompassing state while in relationship; let alone feel safe to reclaim, segment by segment, cell by cell, his/her sexuality, while in relationship with another human.

The intensity or suddenness of the change to the client’s energetic state can come from direct work with the ocular segment or from work done with another, or other, segments. In either case, the ocular segment is affected and the client requires the therapist’s consistent-enough attention and life-supporting focusing-on-the-eyes if the client is going to become willing to take the risk of allowing the first impulse-to-reveal mentioned above to come through. As I mentioned earlier, the client’s ocular armor may prevent the client from contact with the first impulse-to-reveal and, therefore, usually also the second impulse-to-resist. Nevertheless, in all but the most severely armored cases, the first impulse is visible to the eyes of the attentive, perceptive therapist. Hence it is up to the therapist to bring the client into contact with their own unconscious impulses by mentioning what the therapist is seeing, thus encouraging the awareness, possession and expression of the client’s impulses.

Part 2

Initially, the expressive work may seem contrived or “phoney” to the client, due to the fact that it is ego and body dystonic expression. Yet, it is important to encourage the expression anyway. Repeated experiences of this organismic situation of unfelt-feeling being seen by the therapist and expression being encouraged in order to make contact with the feeling will result in the client becoming more accessible to these first impulses. This type of consistent attention and work will also allow the client to become gradually aware of that second resistive reaction. The therapist may also find that consistent attention to this level of client life results in increased agitation in the client, and feelings of fear, anger-in-service-of-fear and other reactions because the client is usually not used to being paid attention to this closely.

To the extent that the other segments have been supported, provoked and encouraged to have, hold, contain and express the energy and sexuality of one’s life while the ocular segment was not being supported, there will be disparity and conflict between the motility of the ocular segment and the motility of another or other segment(s). And this disparity affects one’s sense of one’s sexuality as well as one’s reaction to oneself-as-sexual. This results in the client experiencing a conscious or unconscious character-ological trauma or fear due to the charge of life that the other segments can and do experience and the lesser charge of life energy the ocular segment can and does tolerate. In terms of sexuality and one’s sexual charge, this trauma or fear usually results in the client needing to hide or separate or remove this part of the organismic self from relationship with the external world by closing the eyes or from the rest of his/her internal world by dissociating or what we sometimes refer to as “splitting off.” It can also involve contracting the source of the “feared” energy, namely, the pelvis or contracting against the source-segment in another another area of the organism. In these instances, s/he continues to organismically inhibit the experience of life within whether it is of a sexual quality or otherwise, and feel ashamed and threatened by his/her own sensational, feeling and sexual aliveness both in relationship to oneself and in relationship to another and the world... more

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