SKAN Bodywork

In the early nineties I went to a lecture by Ram Dass, a well-known spiritual teacher from the States. After he had spoken for some time he invited the audience to sing along with him. But apart from the occasional timid and rather pathetic sounds of some brave individuals there was only silence and embarrassment in the hall. He then went on to speak about the time when as kids we were bubbling over with aliveness, joyfulness and spontaneity, never missing an opportunity to sing and play. He then asked: “What happened”?

This question hit me like a thunderbolt. At that moment I felt he had seen deep inside me. How could it be that hundreds of adults were paralyzed with fear of being laughed at? The work of Wilhelm Reich, the founder of body psychotherapy and a student of Sigmund Freud, gave me an answer to this question. Reich had discovered that healthy babies are flooded with life energy and life force. This “streaming” in the body allows every feeling, every sensation and impulse to be expressed by way of gesture, facial expression or sound. The baby has no concept of right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, when it feels uncomfortable or hungry it simply cries, and laughs when it is happy.

Over time though it learns that its unfiltered aliveness is not always welcomed, that the love of the parents is not unconditional. The baby’s natural expression of discomfort may be met with rejection whereas being quiet and undemanding may bring the rewards of affection and approval and with it a sense of safety. As it needs the love of the parents as much as it needs food, the baby begins to inhibit its natural impulses of expressing anger, sadness, pride, lust or any other emotion it feels is unwanted by the parents. In order to control these powerful energies within, it intuitively begins to breathe less fully and contracts certain muscles in the body.

Over years these contractions grow into what Wilhelm Reich called the “character armouring”. This armouring blocks the child’s connection to its lively core with all its feelings, sensations and impulses. The life force is getting stuck. All the many “indecent” needs and impulses are being banned from the consciousness of the child and make room for “the good kid”. But every emotion and every pain the child has ever experienced, although often repressed and denied for many years, even decades, are still present in the body as energy, profoundly inhibiting the free streaming of its life force. Nevertheless in many people remains the longing to return to their authentic core deep within and to live from a place of radical aliveness.

Skan bodywork utilizes this longing and offers an effective way to dissolve the muscular and emotional blockages and reclaim one’s vitality. It aims to help the client identify the inhibitions and “contractions” as something they themselves actively maintain. Only then can they realize that they have a choice to do things differently. Skan offers a setting in which long held emotions can find their proper expression so that an inner spaciousness grows that allows a new and more satisfying way of being with oneself and others. It uses breathing rituals, movement, voice work and “streaming theatre”. Skan bodywork can be done individually and in groups.