Rae Johnson
Research has established the crucial role of the body in navigating experiences of social injustice and in mediating the complex trauma of oppression. Multicultural counseling and anthropological research show us that embodied microaggressions (everyday slights, insults, and injuries enacted nonverbally) can cause significant psychological distress to members of marginalized communities (Sue, 2010). Recent developments in traumatology (van der Kolk, 2014) have helped us understand that the body responds swiftly and strongly to relational threat, and that individuals who experience oppression1 (the systematic mistreatment of people within a subordinated social identity group) may manifest the somatic symptoms of post-traumatic stress, exhibiting signs of somatic dissociation, body shame, and restricted movement expression (Johnson, 2009; Scott and Stradling, 1994). In short, the body is a primary locus for the reproduction of oppression, and it bears much of the burden.
Because we work directly at the site where much of the damage occurs, somatic psychotherapists are uniquely positioned to address the embodied consequences and correlates of oppression. Through movement, touch, and body awareness, we facilitate a creative exploration of how life experiences are held in the body and transformed through engaged and embodied relationship. This unique emphasis on intercorporeal2 connection positions us to work with the client’s experience of oppression in ways that other psychotherapy modalities cannot. Not incidentally, as somatic practitioners, our professional history is rooted in the work of Wilhelm Reich, Marian Chace (Chaiklin, 1975), and other pioneers – people whose ideas and practices were often considered radically counter-cultural in their time.3
In theory, then, somatic psychotherapists should be at the cutting edge in understanding and working with issues of social justice in psychotherapy. However, although many somatic psychotherapy practitioners have incorporated a trauma lens into their work, social justice remains a relatively unexplored territory within current somatic psychotherapy research, theory and practice. Consequently, many somatic psychotherapy training programs do not explicitly address issues of diversity in their curriculum nor provide their trainees with the knowledge and skill to address complex social issues as they arise in the consulting office. As a result, somatic therapists may very well find themselves at a loss when confronted by diversity issues in clinical work, especially when those differences come with an emotional charge or political overtones.
Drawing on current research into the embodied experience of oppression (Johnson, 2009, 2015), this chapter articulates three steps that somatic psychotherapists can take to bring themselves into an experience of fuller contact with the somatic impact of oppression. Furthermore, it may assist in becoming more aware of the complex reactions that oppression elicits in themselves and their clients and feel more confident in navigating the territory of embodied social justice, both in the therapy session and in conversations with professional colleagues.
These steps are: 1) exploration of the therapist’s embodied experiences and perspectives around oppression (including how the soma has been shaped by social norms and privileges), 2) critically examining learning (or that which has yet to be learned) about the embodiment of oppression through professional training, and 3) consider how personal and current perspectives on oppression might be communicated to clients through embodied interactions with them when in the role of therapist.
A hallmark of excellence in somatic psychotherapy practice is the insistence that practitioners wishing to facilitate a process of exploration for a client must prepare by thoughtfully and honestly examining our own experiences with respect to the issues being addressed. In working professionally with clients who have experienced oppression, it essential to have a solid understanding of how oppression has shown up in the therapist’s life, family history, and cultural background (in my own explorations this has been fundamental). This is not to suggest the therapist needs to have had identical experiences as their clients in order to be informed and helpful (for example, in my case that I have personally experienced transphobic discrimination), but should enter the facilitation with some awareness of their potential triggers, blind spots, expectations, assumptions, and projections.
Some questions that might be helpful in unpacking therapist’s embodied experience and understanding of oppression include the following:
For many somatic psychotherapists, the professional training offered both implicit and explicit messages about oppression and social justice. For example, my own somatic psychotherapy training provided a clear conceptual framework that asked me to set aside any personal bias with respect to issues that clients brought to therapy. However, I was not shown how to identify such bias when it came to social difference and was taught by instructors whose own unexamined beliefs about power and privilege could only be described as naive. So, while the explicit message given to me as a somatic psychotherapy trainee was ‘bracket your bias’ and ‘be authentic’, the implicit message was that unconscious bias around issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, or religion did not need to be examined. In nearly all of the training I received it was assumed that simply being present in my own body and attentive to the body of my client would somehow transcend the differences in our social identities.
Anti-oppressive educator Kumashiro (2015) refers to this phenomenon as the invisible curriculum, which means people do not always learn what they are told they are learning, and sometimes learn things that no one (including teachers) realizes are being taught. This invisible curriculum almost always conveyed implicitly and/or by omission. For example, when a somatic psychotherapy trainee asks a question, the instructor’s nonverbal response (perhaps an indirect gaze and hesitant gestures) teaches the whole class something about the topic that has little to do with the words the trainer actually speaks. The same holds true for those topics that are not addressed at all – no readings, no assignments, no class discussion, and no practice sessions is implicitly understood as ‘not very important’ or ‘not really okay’.
To be clear, the point here is not that somatic psychotherapists are not well-intentioned when examples of social injustice come up in session, or that the basic concepts and methods of somatic psychotherapy are not congruent with a compassionate and effective approach to exploring oppression. However, they are sufficient, given the complexities of modern life and rapidly changing social landscape. Here are some questions that might be useful to ask about somatic psychotherapy training, as a way to begin ‘unpacking’ it before considering what further training or education to undertake:
If answering these questions has helped trainees and trainers to appreciate the gaps in professional knowledge and skill, please consider how to enhance practitioners’ ability to work with clients by undertaking additional training. Although some may believe they do not work with issues of social justice in their practice, it will most likely be the case they already do. If answering these questions has helped trainees, practitioners and trainers to appreciate the degree to which professional training in BP or somatic psychotherapy has been a preparation to work with the embodied impact of oppression please consider sharing your knowledge and skill with colleagues.
This next step represents my commitment to sharing my learning about the embodied experience of oppression since completing my initial somatic psychotherapy training. Much of my learning has come from trainings in multicultural awareness and sensitivity, and from the research colleagues and I have undertaken into the somatic impact of oppression (Johnson, 2009, 2015). Just as much has come from working directly with clients i.e. listening to their experiences of marginalization and discrimination and helping them experientially unpack the impact of their experiences on how their body feels and moves through the world. While it is important not to rely on clients to educate us about things like racism, sexism, and homophobia, being an informed and sensitive witness can often teach us more than books or presentations.
My research suggests that understanding the embodied dimensions of oppression involves the exploration of two interlocking ideas; the first is that we learn about social norms and power differences through everyday interactions with others, and the second is that these power differentials are learned, enacted and reinforced through the body (Dovidio & Ellyson, 1985). Researchers in nonverbal communication estimate that upwards of 75 per cent of all interpersonal communication is conveyed nonverbally, through posture, gesture, touch, eye contact, and use of space (Argyle, 2013). Many decades of research have also established that the embodied dimension of interpersonal communication is consistently experienced as more ‘truthful’ than the actual words spoken, and that when our body language contradicts our spoken words, it is the nonverbal message we believe.
Given the power of nonverbal communication to influence perception and transform meaning, it is perhaps not surprising the degree to which interpersonal power dynamics are communicated through this medium. In fact, nonverbal communication researcher Nancy Henley (1977; Henley and Harmon, 1985; Henley and Freeman 1995) has argued that the nonverbal component of everyday social interaction (rather than laws or institutional structure) is the locus for the most common means of social control.
According to Henley and her colleagues, members of socially subordinated groups are constantly reminded of their inferior social status through the nonverbal messages they receive from others. They are also required to affirm that status in their response to those messages, as well as in the messages they themselves transmit. Henley argues that the repetitive and insidious nature of these subtle exercises in dominance and submission slip below the level of awareness (if in fact they were ever conscious), effectively internalizing social conventions to the point where they may no longer even feel oppressive.
These embodied ‘microaggressions’ show up in our everyday interactions as nonverbal interpersonal slights, insults, invalidations, and injuries between members of different social groups. They possess a power to wound because the perpetrator most often unconsciously transmits them, and because they often remain vague and difficult to articulate. This nebulous quality makes it difficult for the victim to call them out to the perpetrator in an attempt to rectify the situation. In a way, they are like paper cuts, seemingly innocuous but painful, with a sting that often lasts well beyond the immediate moment of injury.
Multicultural counselling theory and practice has long recognized the impact of microaggressions in the everyday experience of counselling clients and in the client/counsellor dyad. These relational wounds suffered by members of socially subordinated groups have been shown to have significant and enduring impact on their mental health and wellbeing (Sue, 2010). Being able to identify and respond to the microaggressions that clients report during the counselling session is an essential clinical skill, as is the equally important ability to recognize and repair the impact of microaggressions that occur within the relational context of therapy itself.
While microaggressions take many forms, the following areas are frequent sites for the asymmetrical interactions that are a feature of the nonverbal communication between members of dominant and subordinated social groups. As such, they are a useful place to begin exploring how embodied microaggressions might be a feature of your client’s everyday experience, as well as how they might occur in your interactions with them.
A key feature of nonverbal communication patterns between individuals with differing social status or authority is an unequal access to certain behaviours related to informality and intimacy. In these cases, the individual with more power is usually acknowledged (by both parties) to have the right to exercise certain familiarities that the subordinate is not permitted to initiate or reciprocate. The prerogative to initiate or increase intimacy and informality affords the person with more status more control of the relationship.
For example, a male therapist may begin a session by leaning back in his chair in a relatively relaxed posture, while a female client might maintain a more formal, composed posture even after receiving the nonverbal signal that a more casual posture is acceptable. That same therapist may touch his female client casually on the shoulder in the course of ushering her into the consulting room, but the client probably does not feel the same license to touch the therapist back. Applying these examples to one’s own professional development, some questions for reflection might include the following: Does my relaxed posture really serve to invite my client to relax with me, or does it simply underscore the privilege of my role to initiate informality? Does my office/studio policy of ‘no shoes’ really serve to make all of my clients feel comfortable? Even though I always ask permission before initiating touch with clients, how would I feel if a client asked to touch me?
Certain nonverbal behaviours can signal subordination and submission, depending on the sociocultural group and the relational context. For example, nodding the head may not necessarily indicate agreement, lowering the eyes may not be sign of thoughtful reflection, bowing the head or collapsing the spine may not be associated with sadness or depression, tilting the head might not signal curiosity, and smiling may not be an expression of pleasure. All of these frequent nonverbal gestures, postures, and expressions can also be indicators of submission on the part of the client. It is important for somatic psychotherapists to question whether what we assume to be a client’s nonverbal indicators of assent or contemplation might really be indicators of compliance or resignation. It can also be useful to explore the flip side of this dynamic as well, especially for therapists who may unconsciously enact submissive behavioural patterns. For example, I found that my own impulse to nod and smile at clients was especially challenging. I had come to associate these movement behaviours with being empathetic and understanding, when in fact I smiled at clients at least in part because I was concerned about the relational consequences if I didn’t, especially with male and masculine-identified clients.
Social norms and preferences around interpersonal space are highly variable across cultures, but also provide another example of asymmetrical nonverbal interaction. Early studies in nonverbal communication (Sommer, 1969) showed that dominant animals and high-status human beings are usually afforded greater personal space, and those with lower status tend to yield space to those with higher status. This nonverbal indicator of dominance can complexify a common occurrence in therapy – that moment when the therapist, experiencing empathy and an impulse to make contact, leans in towards the client. Perhaps they even move their chair a little closer, in an effort to signal their presence and concern. However, a client with a history of oppression may not necessarily feel more connected and supported by this gesture.
Studies of abused children and military veterans show an increased need for personal space in response to relational trauma (Bogovic, Mihanovic, Jokic-Begic, and Svagelj, 2014; Vranic, 2003), suggesting that marginalized and socially subordinated clients may also feel an increased need for space. For example, instead of feeling comforted by an increase in physical closeness, they might feel invaded and invalidated, and they may not necessarily communicate their negative reaction directly. Accustomed to having their personal space violated by members of dominant social groups, they may become inured to its impact, or may have learned to respond to the invasion with submissive and compliant nonverbal behaviours in order to appease the invader. In these moments, it can be very helpful for somatic psychotherapists to be especially awake to the dynamics of the interaction, and to be curious (both verbally and nonverbally) about what the client is experiencing. More broadly, I have found nonverbal boundary experiments to be very useful in helping clients recover the lost bodily sensations of invasion and marginalization, and to learn how to more clearly experience, communicate, and enforce their personal space boundaries.
In addition to becoming more attuned to the body-to-body transmission of microaggressions, it is also important to consider the embodied impact of these everyday experiences. Many somatic psychotherapists are already aware that the body bears a significant burden in coping with trauma, but fewer recognize that oppression is a form of chronic trauma whose effects align with many of the criteria of post-traumatic stress disorder (Scott and Stradling, 1994). Clinicians working with members of oppressed groups should watch for the physiological indicators of trauma even in the absence of a single incident acute trauma or known child abuse or neglect. Once identified, somatic psychotherapists can use the embodied relational field to help clients feel safe and grounded as a first step toward addressing the bodily hypervigilance, dissociation, and constriction that can result from macro- and micro-aggressions.
Research into body image (Grogan, 2007) supports the common sense insight that when a person is targeted for discrimination and marginalization based (in part) on their physical characteristics, body shame is an understandable consequence. Conversely, being valued for one’s physical characteristics (for example, as often occurs with women) can result in self-objectification even when body ideals have been met. As somatic psychotherapists, it is important to recognize the significance of body image issues for those who have experienced oppression, and to take them seriously. At the same time, don’t assume that clients whose bodies appear normative to you will feel ‘normal’ to them, or that those whose bodies are marked by physical characteristics that fall outside current social norms will not have a healthy relationship to their own bodies and resilience toward social attitudes around body image. My own research (2009) and clinical work suggests that one way to help address body shame in clients who have experienced oppression based on physical traits is to help them find ways to return to a felt sense of the body as a source of pleasure, strength, and skill.
To sum up this third step, the demonstrated significance of oppression on the lived experience of the body suggests that somatic psychotherapists wishing to become more informed and skilful in working with clients from marginalized groups undertake the following:
In this chapter, a sequence of steps designed to cultivate an appreciation of how oppression shapes the embodied lives of therapist and clients alike has been outlined. Integrating key findings from psychology, traumatology, and anthropology, these steps articulated how somatic psychotherapists might become more perceptive and skilful in addressing oppression with their clients. It is my hope that issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are foregrounded in the professional development of somatic psychotherapists, and that we become more active contributors to the evolving discourse on social justice and embodiment in psychotherapy.
1 For the purposes of this paper, oppression is defined as the unjust use of socially-assigned power. Systemically, oppression is often enacted through laws and norms that subjugate members of a subordinated social group to benefit members of the dominant group. According to anti-oppressive educator Kumashiro (2000, p. 25), ‘oppression refers to a social dynamic in which certain ways of being in this world – including certain ways of identifying or being identified – are normalized or privileged while other ways are disadvantaged or marginalized’. This understanding of oppression includes both established (and socially constructed) categories of difference (such as ‘race’, sex, gender, ability, sexual orientation, class, ethnicity, religious belief, and age) and a range of behaviours occurring on a continuum from a lack of awareness of social privilege and a disinterest in its impact on others through to overt acts of hostility and violence. Johnson (2000, p. 20) notes that ‘Oppression is a social phenomenon that happens between different groups in a society; it is a system of social inequality through which one group is positioned to dominate and benefit from the exploitation and subordination of another’. He argues that it is through our implicit values and unconscious behaviour that we most effectively collude with a system of oppression, and thereby contribute to its maintenance in a society. According to Johnson, participation in oppressive systems is not optional, but how we participate is. Accepting privilege is a path of least resistance in an oppressive system where oppression requires no malicious intent, simply a refusal to resist.
2 The term ‘intercorporeality’, first elaborated by phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty (1962), suggests that our subjective and embodied sense of identity depends on being with other lived bodies. Each individual exists in a multi-personal field and this field conversely inhabits the individual (Tanaka, 2013). The concept of intercorporeality implies that we remain exposed to the other and can take the other’s different perspectives on ourselves (Weiss, 2013). It emphasizes the role of social interactions in the construction and behaviours of the body and simultaneously asserts that our identity in relation to others is something tangible and bodily (Csordas, 2008).
3 See, for example, Reich’s The mass psychology of fascism (1970) and The function of the orgasm: Discovery of the orgone (1973), both published by Macmillan, as well as Marian Chace’s 1964 article ‘The power of movement with others’ in Dance Magazine (38, 42–45).
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