The
fractured self - the search for being
Ontolgy
- Part 2
Ontological tools
The modern use
of the word ontology is indicative of a derivative science
emerging in several differing forms from the original
question that has burned philosophers and the religious for
millennia - what is the nature of being? These new
disciplines effectively try to look at the root sources of
'things' - naming them and placing them in some order. We
have done the same, using kinesiology as a feedback
mechanism to elicit information stored in the body / being.
Our objective is to look at the root or origin that has
created the accident or state that the person now finds
themselves in. To do so, we use kinesiology - itself a
derivative science from manual medicine - and
hand modes (mudras).
Mudras are gestures - complex in form - that act as
communication tool, mediated through our somatosensory
and somatomotor cortex. In plain English, they appear to
mirror the 'shape' of thought / ideas or aspects of
consciousness. These are our ontological
tools.
Kinesiology
and hand modes
Hand modes could
be likened to a sign language which the body is able to
interpret and give response to. The response can be
illustrated through the kinetics (muscle integrity), arm or
leg length or local nervous system reflexes, discomfort, a
feeling or emotion. The bodies' varied mechanisms for alarm
will 'speak' to us. The modes themselves are a language;
complex, rich in metaphor, some very specific, others
general in scope, and when combined together they create a
storyboard, allowing the client to see the complexity,
depth and the origins of their problem.
Story
or history
Sometimes it may
take more than several sessions to unravel the altered
dynamics that create the impasse for the client, but as we
are able to name the problems, the human self armed with
knowledge, can begin to make choices based on this new
understanding. The story unfolds chronologically, seeking
its root and yet sometimes widening the pathway so that a
session not only 'names' an ending but also elaborates on
all the systems that have adapted over time. It displays
adaptation as history. Adaptation is a term used in
physiology to describe essentially the same process that we
see in nature. It is a positive quality for it ensures
survival, but over time may become so particular or
encapsulates the organism in such a niche that the specific
adaptation becomes its death knell. Think of a tree on the
Oregon coast being battered by the Pacific wind. Over time
the firs take on a particular look, their limbs and trunk
shaped by the continual winds that they encounter - they
lean away, with their facing edges bear yet armored. They
adapt to their environment. We do so too, only our
adaptation is often unseen, albeit a specialist may observe
a scoliosis, a short leg, a hidden and obscure allergic
reaction, an eczema or some other peculiarity they we have
simply lived with. Our birth traumas are subtly inprinted
upon our body and head - and it is only the
cranial
osteopath or
craniosacral therapist who might notice these structural
changes. You have adapted as a consequence to those
forces. Ontology allows us to go beneath the adaptation
to look at the 'wind' that has affected
us.
Chinese
metaphor for illness
The Chinese
physician tempered by a largely agrarian society, made
empirical observations of illness and disease through the
observation of natural elements and forces upon human
creatures. These signature elements altered our capacity to
be well. The environment, and other factors normally
external to us appeared often to be factors in our illness
- they named these pernicious factors. However they
observed that these same elements existed in the body, and
seeing this as a microcosm of everything else, looked upon
the body as often the source of why we became susceptible
to these external factors.
Allopathy
and alternative medicine
Modern medicine
has begun to agree with these old ideas. They noted that
life style issues often temper our natural adaptability.
These stress our systems beyond reason, and disempower us,
lowering our immunity and natural defences, and we become
more susceptible to bacteria, viruses and fungi. This lack
of internal support (from our organs) is often because we
also are supporting so many other things, but these are
largely unseen or unacknowledged. This breakdown of our own
support is amplified by us switching-on familial patterns
of dysfunction. Our families' ills now become ours. The
past catches up as we manifest inherited traits or
proclivities.Alternative
approaches focus on nourishing the body (naturopathy,
herbal medicine, nutritional supplementation, aromatherapy)
so that the other systems in the body are not so stressed,
and then have time to repair. Some try to pacify and
release the stress held in the soma (massage, body work),
others try to stimulate the flow of subtle energy
(acupuncture, Tai chi, acupressure, homeopathy). Others use
manipulation to reorganize the noisy circuitry of our
nervous system (osteopathy, chiropractic, physical therapy
and craniosacral therapy), some use talk and drama, gestalt
and recall (the psychotherapies) to bring mindfulness and
managerial resources back to an ailing system. Still others
use other more subtle forms of healing or practice to
change or alter unseen elements that may be affecting the
person (past life regression, reiki, shamanic healing
etc.)
When the
approach is pharmaceutical it is like the farmer who looks
upon a sick soil, and applies artificial herbicides and
fungicides upon it to help it to fight its battle, or when
we take copious nutritional supplements it is rather like
putting extra fertilizer on an exhausted soil. Dependant
upon the practitioner, their individual expertise is often
to simply support the exhausted tissues to rally and to
fight the infection, malaise, disease or psychic
disturbance. These approaches whether classical -
pharmacology, surgery, or psychotherapeutic intervention or
alternative - acupuncture, craniosacral, naturopathy,
massage, reiki or similar, all provide and support the
basic energies of the body to re adapt and reorganize. Each
tries to compliment the body's own internal medicine and
recuperative powers.
A
human approach
Psychotherapy or
a synthesis of mind-body work are examples of a more human
approach to dysfunction. The body stores enormous amounts
of memory within its soma or tissues. Good talk therapy can
elicit, over time, memories and stored emotions, unresolved
conflicts, shadows undefined and metaphorical skeletons in
the cupboard. Many people are literally saved by these
interventions just as many people are 'saved' by their
medicines or by the care of some ones full attention on
their body ills, as in massage or reiki. Every therapist is
doing the same job: they are applying a practice which has
touched them in some way, and thus have an innate belief
that their speciality, their touch, their care or expert
diagnosis and consequent medicine will help. Fortunately
healing occurs at many levels, and so in the development of
human healing, many modalities have sprung from the fertile
imaginations of health pioneers. They all serve a
niche.
Ontology
So too, ontology
- it serves a niche. It is not for everyone, although like
all therapy it can be tried by anyone. It serves a purpose
for those who seek to understand why they get sick or
dysfunction in some way. These people search for the root
of the problem, asking the question why, but not stopping
when their diagnosis is named conventionally. They search
for other reasons perhaps knowing that the root of the
present problem is part of their own development. For us to
begin to change; to elicit new resources, to shed off old
skins, we need to understand how we function. Ontology
provides that, and in the process both answers and also
sometimes poses more questions through supporting the body
in its unfolding. The hand modes themselves appear to
change the brain waves of the person, altering
consciousness, and thus altering the whole neuroendocrinal
axis.
Elements
I have used the
word elements several times in this discussion. Element and
'atom' were synonymous in early Greek thought. Humans
wanted to differentiate and explain differences between
things. The atom or element was seen as the smallest unit.
The Chinese narrowed everything down to five essential
elements - fire, earth, metal, water and wood. The Greeks
would name only four, missing out wood. We have of course
the periodic table that lists 94 naturally occurring
elements, and a number of man made ones! At one level it
doesn't matter how we name things as long as we understand
that implicit in this naming is an attempt to differentiate
what elements are present. We want to do the same for our
illness or dysfunction. We want to name it, and then
understand its origin, or root cause and why it affects
us.
Elements
that affect us
I remember many
years ago being in Peshawar, in the northern part of
Pakistan. I ate from a street stall in this bustling busy
pre fundamentalist city of the sixties. I had lived and
eaten from the streets for months and never had an upset
stomach. This time was different. I am sure it was because
I had seen the kitchen waalah (boy) clap his hands over the
pots of food and, startled, a huge swarm of flies flew off
the uniformly black coated open pots. It was only then we
discovered the glorious colors of the various foods he was
cooking! We ate in silence, me wandering for the first time
whether I ought to have politely declined and moved on to
another less fly visited stall. However we ate. That night
I had violent diarrhoea and visited the squalid hole many
times. By morning I was fine. Of course my body was doing
the right thing, eliminating all that was there to make
sure nothing could further poison me. But my friends who
had lived as long as me in the streets of Afghanistan and
now Pakistan had no problems. What was the difference? I
had had the runs once before in Beirut whilst an eight year
old. My physician father termed it a 'para' typhoid, and I
remember many days on the pot, and a very ghastly time it
was. I have had no bouts or food related illnesses since. I
have been privileged to have lived and travelled to many,
many different countries and have eaten every where; eaten
old food, discarded food, food that I shouldn't have
touched - never a reaction such as that night. Why? Was it
simply my European mind suddenly seeing 'germs'? Was it
indeed more than my robust constitution could handle? Was
it that I couldn't neutralize the invading pathogens so
that they were indeed hostile in my gut? The answer is yes,
but it was my mental state at that moment that allowed the
spectre of germs to invade my mind.You might
sensibly ask about malaria, dengue fever, e-coli - or about
flu and measles, coughs and colds, backaches, psoriasis or
eczema. Where do they all spring from? What about the
shoulder that freezes due to the wind, and the ache that we
wake up with in our lower back which wasn't there the night
before? How about the ague that appears out of the blue and
the headache that slowly comes into being? How do we
explain these? Is this all in the mind? The answer is yes
and no. The mind is an organ whose parts supply and emerge
from all parts of the body. The brain is our interpreter of
experiences, as well as our reporter of unease as well as
instigator of repair. It is not only structure but it
'houses' our consciousness. It is our prevailing
consciousness that opens or closes the path of illness or
dysfunction. We may inherit a tendency, live in an
environment that fosters illness - poverty, a slum, little
good food, emotional loss or absence, we may use things
that try to nourish but actually poison us instead
(tobacco, drugs, poor quality foods), all these stress the
system and alter how we operate. This opens the way for us
to be affected, as our natural immunity, natural strength
and vigor becomes impaired.
Resolution
The raison
d'être of ontology is the opportunity to look at the
elements that are not seen, but which allow the mind to
seed illness, allow the body to complain its pain, create
bowel upsets to try rid itself of something that may appear
to be known (toxin) but deep down is indicating that there
is something far deeper that needs to be relinquished. This
body that present us with allergies because it is the only
way it can tell us that it is irritated with something. The
television screen of our body either becomes mute - in that
we cease to hear the real cry - or that we mute it by
medicine that only subdues the irritation but not the root
cause. We have been given this marvellous body,
extraordinary brain and resources that play out as our
individual talents - we have our own display; as our body,
mind and consciousness, feelings and actions illustrate
constantly that some other element influences us. As we
work you will be amazed at how your personal story
unravels; sometimes with initial mystery, wonder, sometimes
with delight as you see it exactly matches your intuition.
You will widen your understanding, be amazed at your body
and grateful for its innate wisdom and service to you. For
the story comes from you, it is a way that you can
communicate your own history, own adaptation and point
towards a resolution. We use the tools of this work as
resources; for delineating, differentiating and ultimately
interpreting with you what it is being
said.
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