III THE STEPS AND MEANS OF THE THERAPY
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6) Techniques of daily elimination
From the observation of the functioning of the brain in the normal state Dr.Vittoz developed his method. The brain works in alternation between emission and receptivity. Receptivity is the faculty which we have to receive the vibrations of the external world as well as those of our own body. This receptivity is objective and conscious.
Emission is the ability, which we have, to constantly emit thoughts, words, gestures, images e.t.c. .
In order to emit well, and have sane and controlled thoughts, it is necessary first, to be able to receive correctly.
1) The first step of the “re-education of the cerebral control” consists of restoring the correct functioning of receptivity. Receptivity is always deficient with a person with nervous disorders. That is why Dr.Vittoz says : “Receptivity is everything”
If we are receptive with all our being, we are receptive through our five senses, which relate us to the external world. We are also receptive by the objective sensations that reach us from our own body. Most of the time we are receptive, however, in an automatic way, and thus in an unconscious way.
It is therefore necessary, with the help of precise exercises, to relearn to see, hear, touch, feel, taste, and to receive consciously our bodily sensations objectively and immediately, without mental representations and without the interference of thoughts.
- ”Look around like a child waking up” says Dr.Vittoz.
- Seeing, is receiving without any effort and without pre-conceptions, the colours, forms and objects.
- Hearing, is to receive the sounds that come to us without forced attention and without the desire to pick up everything. It is to some extent to let oneself be penetrated by the sound.
- The same applies to touch, taste and smell.
- the patient learns for one or two seconds without effort to suspend the course of his thoughts, to plunge himself into the sensation.
- He also learns to receive the sensations that reach him from his body, for example by moving slightly his fingers, elbows, wrists.
Scientific knowledge of the brain and the nervous system has much evolved and Dr. Vittoz’s intuition has been scientifically verified : We know at present, that by putting oneself in a situation of pure sensation, the brain automatically puts itself at rest and recovers nervous energy (whereas thoughts consume energy).
As Dr. Vittoz said, “It is not the patient who puts himself for a short moment in an attitude of absence of thoughts, it is simply the fact of putting oneself in the sensation without mental representation that automatically stops the thoughts and consequently the emotion, which is pervasive.“ Training (with repetition of the exercises) is necessary to be able to get into a good receptive state, because we tend to function on a mental level.
Return to contents Steps and Means
Receptivity, as an active attitude will be applied to the most common acts of everyday life, that will become “CONSCIOUS ACTS” and as such also contribute to the basics ot the Vittoz re-education. The ‘acts’ themselves put us in a “state of awareness”.
“To be aware of an act is not thinking it but feeling it”, says Dr. Vittoz. For example first thing in the morning, while getting up, I feel the contact of the floor on the soles of my feet ; I feel the mobility of my articulations, knees, when I start walking. I pick up the noises that reach me from the street, the house ...I feel the contact of the water when I wash, of my clothes when I get dressed, the heat or the savour of my tea.
The conscious act is indeed first decided, secondly felt, and thirdly one checks it’s effect. The result is calm, the state of presence. If calm (the absence of immediate thought) is not reached, one can affirm that the act has not been really felt. It was thought. No wonder, as we have been educated towards this. By living in the sensation of “the conscious act”, the patient learns to live in the present moment without looking back in the past, as a scrupulous person would, and without anticipation of the future, as an anxious person would. To live in the present moment is an experience that gives a feeling of peace, safety and contentment. Patients can be cured simply by the practice of the conscious acts.
There can be relapses, but if one does the exercises again immediately, the situation is quickly restored. All the work that one does in Vittoz is acquired. Dr. Vittoz writes :”To acquire the feeling of your freedom, succeed in pulling yourself together, only for one second ; one second during which you will find unity and calm and you won’t be dominated any more by anything”.
By this always present notion of work of re-education, by regular and sincere training, the patient becomes responsible for his thoughts and for his acts, and consequently he is no longer inclined to blame others for his own failures and his disappointments.
The aim of the Vittoz therapy is to make the person increasingly objective about his life and the events which arise, and accept “the other” with his good qualities and failures as well as his right to error. That is why the Vittoz method, and especially the Vittoz spirit, can give effective help to today’s man who is suffering more and more in the face of a meaningless an empty existence, which is a cause of anxiety. The Vittoz spirit follows the antique wisdom of “here and now”.
Return to contents Steps and Means
In addition to the Vittoz study, as well as having the benefit of human sciences, a Vittoz therapist also has, as a condition of his study, applied the method to himself under supervision. This takes place during his three years training and beyond. Moreover he has at his disposal an effective means to guide the work of a patient to re-educate their own brain. It is the capacity to perceive the cerebral vibrations. It is a checking of the brain, as a doctor would check the heart or lungs. This possibility of perceiving vibrations, that Dr.Vittoz discovered has been given the name “Vittoz phenomena”.
These vibrations were recorded on a very simple device in Dr.Vittoz’ lifetime, then later on an electronic device. The Vittoz therapist has been trained to perceive these vibrations with his hand. This allows him to guide the therapy, to verify the progress of the functional re-education, particularly the receptivity.
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4) Concentration is the second step of the rehabilitation of cerebral control. With “the receptivity” and the conscious acts“, we learn to control our senses, with the exercises of “concentration”, we learn to control the mental activity. If we are unable ”to pay attention”, it is because we are perpetually in what we call “brain wandering”, jumping from one image, one idea, one interest to another. The only means we know, we were taught, is to make a considerable effort to fix our attention. However fixing our attention corresponds to tension. This tension is the opposite of attention, which is fluidity, relaxation, availability. Attention is the exact opposite to tension. It is relaxed concentration.
1. Concentration on the body. It is the ability to fix one’s thought on a point of the body without letting oneself be distracted. This makes the person aware of the life which is in him/her.
2. Concentration on breathing, which makes it possible to establish relaxation. Rhythmic breathing is
very valuable to concentrate the mind.
3. Concentration on graphics, on mental representations of precise and simple lines, such as the mathematical sign for infinity, triangles, squares, the treble key etc..., with the aim of controlling our cerebral activity. There is a symbolic analogy between the mental images and certain psychological states. This can be the subject of an in-depth work preparing for the psychic Vittoz therapy.
4. Concentration on an idea. These are states recreated mentally like states of calm, states of energy, states of presence, states of joy. For Dr. Vittoz “the idea must be conscious and subjected to will“.
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Dr. Vittoz says : ”The will is a free, intelligent energy, which is in us and that appears under some conditions. It does not imply tensing , a state of tension or voluntarism. The more one is tense, the less one is able to will”. One uses an enormous amount energy to achieve an act which requires little of it. Will is to know how to exert our capacity of decision. Once the idea of an act to be achieved is clear, possible and sincere, it triggers without any effort the corresponding act. We must have the exact feeling of our will in an action, as well as the feeling of calm, that the realisation of a decision always brings about. In the same context one uses exercises of de-concentration to exert the brain to consciously go from one idea to another and exercises of de-concentration to free the brain of what clutters it up.
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6) Technique of daily elimination
Once the receptivity and the concentration are well acquired, the practice of the daily elimination constitutes a new step of the therapy. The state of awareness and control that has been set up is fragile. In the face of daily aggressions, the emotions won’t be spared. It is true that with the receptivity and the conscious act, we have acquired the possibility of recovery at once, but nevertheless unpleasant impressions have been registered. That is why we have a particular technique to get rid of the negative sensations and thus to avoid them taking root. It is the “daily elimination“. This technique is only approached after a certain training with the method. Moreover it is preceded by exercises of elimination of real objects, then mentally of the corresponding feelings and effects.
Once a day, at a favourable time, in the evening for example, one re-examines mentally these incidents, these aggressions and emotions which hurt us, one looks for the word that qualifies the negative feeling and one writes it in one’s mind. One revives it mentally and after the decision is taken to release it, one deletes this word letter by letter, while feeling at the same time that the unpleasant feeling lessens. When the image of this word has disappeared, one lets a word of reconstruction come up and one can hear oneself saying it while writing it mentally. One lets it sink in. With the practice of “the daily elimination“, life becomes different. One acquires more serenity.
For certain people, the functional training of the Vittoz therapy is finished. It is however important to continue to practice it in everyday life. For others it may be necessary to go further, if the the daily elimination has shown a repetition of aggressive or emotional feelings coming from the same type of events. In this case, it is necessary to start with more specialised psychological work. The training of the Vittoz therapists in psychology, psychiatry and neurophysiology enables them to accompany their patients in this delicate work.
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7) The psycho-sensory relaxation
The psycho-sensory relaxation is one of the means used to install the different stages of the therapy.
As well as using various techniques of his choice to bring relaxation, the therapist adds inductions for the development of receptivity and emissivity, as defined above, as well as for making the patient conscious of the newly created state. this method of inductions of functional exercises in a state of relaxation is particulary effective.
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One would be wrong to think that there is a time for functional therapy, as it has been defined above, and a time for psychic treatment. Indeed right from the first exercises, a fruitful dialogue takes place between the therapist and the patient, resulting from the patient’s history being examined with the experience of the therapist.
DR. VITTOZ says : “ The psychic treatment will be directed to the idea, to the conception of thoughts, to the various modification that the pathological state prints in the mind and the way it distorts facts, ideas, feelings...and the patient can realise that the idea preceeds the symptom...he holds in his hands enough tools to heal himself...he thus just needs now to create new mental habits”
This therapy is about liberation and healing.