Further thoughts on inhibition

[bodyplusmind::]

Our recent article on inhibition has gained quite a lot of interest! One of the more interesting sources is an Alexander teacher, Jeff Hall, who we referenced during the course of the article. In response to our article, Jeff has written this new blog post which addresses some concerns with the ideas we put forward. We've included some relevant quotations from it throughout this post but we'd encourage you to read the whole of this thoughtful post as it has been written.

Perhaps much of the difficulty, and probably much of the disagreement, lies around the limitations of language. Jeff illustrates accurately, though perhaps not intentionally, the difficulties with the use of words, especially words with deeply entrenched associations. For instance, Jeff summarizes his thoughts at the beginning of the post with this sentence.

“Inhibition allows us to suppress our subconscious habitual responses to stimuli”

Yet as he accurately points out only a few sentences further on, the inhibition that Alexander talked about:

“is not the inhibition of suppression".

Suppression, like inhibition, is one of those loaded words. When we think of the suppression, most of us will immediately find ourselves making negative associations of our own, regardless of the way in which the word was meant to be used. This was the reasoning behind our comparison of inhibition to self control. They are, as we say, slightly different things, yet they are similar enough that perhaps in considering them side by side we can avoid a habitual association which limits our understanding.

To further highlight this danger, Jeff later points out that “self control is associated with self-denial”. Of course, what Jeff is saying here is that he associates self control with self denial, yet it is dangerous to mistake the association that one has in their own mind for reality. For instance, a person might exercise self control in the matter of whether to lash out at a person who they felt offended by, could this really be placed in the same class as self denial?

The next point Jeff raises is our use of emotional examples to refer to the effect of inhibition.

“Controlling emotional responses such as "angry, upset, shy" as quoted in the BodyPlusMind article is in the realm of self-control, rather than purely inhibition”

It must first be noted that we make no reference whatsoever to “Controlling emotional responses” anywhere in the article. Emotional control certainly sounds like an unhealthy, repressive practice and not one that we would ever advocate as a good thing. What we do make reference to, is a situation where you find your self responding or feeling differently about a situation that might have pushed your buttons in the past. This shouldn’t be mistaken for any sort of emotional control, it is simply a different response to a potentially emotional situation.

Jeff recognizes that inhibition can affect emotional states, and indeed quotes an article by Frank Pierce Jones, which says the same thing:

“I found that the paradigm of inhibition that had been demonstrated for physical movement could be applied equally well when the activity would be classed as mental or emotional”

yet at the same time Jeff seems resistant to the idea:

“Emotions transcend the simple stimulus-response mechanisms that pure inhibition deals with”

It can certainly be difficult to place emotion in the same category as something as seemingly banal as movement. Yet if we take the idea of psycho-physical unity seriously, don't we have to consider that any response whether it is muscular or emotional tension still originates from us and as such is still subject to the same processes?

We don't want to appear to disagree entirely with Jeff's response, one problem Jeff points out perfectly accurately is the problems with our description of inhibition as “a state you find yourself in”. Jeff says that he would never describe inhibition in this way and is perfectly correct. As he points out in his original post, the moment at which inhibition is subconsciously applied is far too short to be considered a moment you can find yourself in. Rather it is a moment you find yourself experiencing the effects of.

What can we say? It seems that none of us is immune from falling foul of the limitations of words and the risk of becoming lazy in our use of them! As always we welcome and are grateful for feedback on any of the thoughts and opinions presented here.

Thankyou Jeff!

[Jeff Hall]

You have nailed it when you say that the use of words is at the heart of this debate. There is a danger of such a debate degenerating into semantic point-scoring so please don't take this reply as that.

Let me take this opportunity to say that this is why IMHO one can't appreciate the Alexander Technique until one has experienced an AT teacher's hands working in conjuction with words.

Let me deal with your points in order.

It's unfortunate that I chose the word "suppress" as it was also part of one of my quotes. However, the context is different and that's what you've missed. Mr. Alexander used the word in the context of psychotherapy whence the negative associations of which you speak came, whereas I used it in the context of stimulus-response mechanisms.

My definition of self control came from googling "define: self control" so it's not exactly my words. I don't associate it with self denial, even though it may have seemed that way. However, I see self control as a direct action to influence one's own behaviour. In AT we work by indirect means. Read Pierce Jones's quote again and you will see that he wasn't using inhibition to control his anger directly. He was using it to release the muscle tension associated with anger and, via the process of psycho-physical unity, managed to influence his anger response so he could continue his conversation without using expletives :-)

I accept that you didn't explicity refer to “Controlling emotional responses” in your article and I agree that this is an area to be avoided by anyone who wants to know what it feels like to be alive! By inhibiting your physical responses to emotional stimuli you will psycho-physically affect your emotions - indirectly.

“Emotions transcend the simple stimulus-response mechanisms that pure inhibition deals with”

The emphasis here is on the words "simple" and "pure". Inhibition is part of the inhibition/direction mechanism of AT ("movement" as you refer to it) which in turn applies to the stimulus-response mechanism. As I said, emotions come in to play via the mechanism of psycho-physical unity. The "responses from us" as you refer to them, cannot be passed-over lightly because these in turn bring the concept of end-gaining into play. See my post about this: http://useoftheself.blogspot.com/200...about-end.html

[bodyplusmind::]

You have nailed it when you say that the use of words is at the heart of this debate. There is a danger of such a debate degenerating into semantic point-scoring so please don't take this reply as that.

Absolutely right Jeff, words, and the associations with them are unavoidably personal for each of us. There is no merit in making a point simply on the basis of a disagreement of association. None of your comments have been taken as point scoring attempts, having our opinions questioned can only be a good thing!

This question of inhibiting emotional response by inhibiting physical reaction is an interesting one.

Read Pierce Jones's quote again and you will see that he wasn't using inhibition to control his anger directly. He was using it to release the muscle tension associated with anger and, via the process of psycho-physical unity, managed to influence his anger response so he could continue his conversation without using expletives :-)

This interpretation seems to imply a sequence of events that couldn't occur.

If we consider the sequence of events described above like this:

Stimulus -> Anger -> Muscular tension -> Inhibition -> Positive Influence on Anger Response -> Expletive free conversation

We see that inhibition has come much too late in the sequence.

We might well put "Muscular release" or even "Awareness and Control of Reaction" in place of "inhibition" to make sense of this sequence of events, but inhibition, as we've described it, cannot fit here.

Moreover, we'd question whether at the point where muscular tension was recognized and released, the concept of inhibition can be considered relevant. What is the stimulus in this case? Is it the muscular tension itself, the feeling of anger which the muscular tension is itself a response to, or something else? Your comments seem to suggest that inhibition can only be relevant in the physical arena of muscular tension and movement, but isn't it true that if the physical reaction pattern has occurred, inhibition to the original stimulus has already failed to occur?

To explore this further, let's consider emotional response more directly. Let's say that I am in a rage. Whilst I'm busy shouting and swearing, my body will also, largely unconsciously, be exhibiting signs of my feelings through tension. Clearly, my response to whatever put me into a rage in the first place has not been inhibited, but what happens when I calm down? Do I calm down because I decrease my muscular tension, or does my muscular tension decrease because I've calmed down? Of course psycho-physical unity says that they occur at the same time, in fact that they are the same thing. If my emotional response and my physical reaction pattern are co-equal, doesn't inhibition have to apply equally to emotion and muscular tension? Rather than emotion being something separate from the rest of the work, doesn't it become a simple response, comparable to a reaction pattern in the head, neck and back?

It is at this point that we move into a realm that some may feel too esoteric for the practical work of Alexander. Yet in the end, the Alexander technique considers the whole person, and in doing so, perhaps shoudn't shy away from the elements that are more slippery and messy to deal with than simple movement. Movement gives us a wonderful, clear and objective means of exploring the more hidden parts of ourselves, but does that mean we should consider these parts as actually separate or somehow untouchable? Please tell us your thoughts.

[beanie]

I don't think I've ever seen or heard such an interesting conversation on inhibition! WOW! Thankyou both! As you said in your article bodyplusmind, inhibition is fundamental to the Alexander technique, but there is still a lot of debate about what it is and how it works. Thankyou for making me question my own thoughts on it!

[Jeff Hall]

There's a danger of this discussion becoming so esoteric it will bore the pants off the readers :-)

Before I comment further let me state for the record that I'm not a psychologist (well, not a professional one, but get me on a bar stool.....) so I don't feel qualified to talk about emotions other than in respect of my understanding of them through my experience of AT.

The simple answer to your question is that the Alexander Technique is an indirect method and its effects are experienced indirectly.

Emotional reactions are rarely the result of a simple stimulus. Frank Pierce Jones chose a rare but simple example. He was reacting to something that AR Alexander (Fred's brother) had provocatively said to him. He became "suddenly aware that I was twitching with anger at something AR was saying... and that the muscles in my neck were being strongly activated". Having found himself in that state he used inhibition to break the psycho-physical feedback loop: anger - tension - more anger at the "tension" part of the loop. "Anger" in that case had become the stimulus that caused the tension.

Do I calm down because I decrease my muscular tension, or does my muscular tension decrease because I've calmed down?

Both. The cause and effect of psycho physical unity does not have to be immediate and it works both ways.

We are constantly subject to a vast array of simultaneous stimuli and we may not actually be consciously aware what these stimuli are. Our instinctive habitual responses could produce any number of patterns of undue tensions (misuses) in the body. Everyone's pattern is unique, hence the absolute necessity that AT be taught 1-to-1. My description of inhibition as "a state of mind, an attitude if you like" was a very important point because this is the factor that allows it to be used as a general respose to stimuli rather than a single response to a discrete stimulus.

Remember that Alexander's own definition specifically rules out inhibition as it applies to psychology: to emotions. Inhibition is only a small but important part of an immensely complex process that Alexander spent his life trying to understand and explain to others. The reason he was insistant on precision in relaying his teachings (and part of the reason why it takes three years of full-time education to be trained as a teacher) is that if you get it wrong in only a small way, there's a danger you will miss the point altogether. Even we teachers spend hours debating the finer points but none would ever claim that AT worked directly on anything let alone emotions.

[treespirit]

The intention for inhibition facilitates the awareness of mind, body, emotions and stimuli.

[bodyplusmind::]

There's a danger of this discussion becoming so esoteric it will bore the pants off the readers :-)

Haha, thanks Jeff, I'm sure people will feel free to skip the boring parts! There certainly is plenty worth reading here though so let's beg the indulgence of our readers!

Emotional reactions are rarely the result of a simple stimulus. Frank Pierce Jones chose a rare but simple example. He was reacting to something that AR Alexander (Fred's brother) had provocatively said to him. He became "suddenly aware that I was twitching with anger at something AR was saying... and that the muscles in my neck were being strongly activated". Having found himself in that state he used inhibition to break the psycho-physical feedback loop: anger - tension - more anger at the "tension" part of the loop. "Anger" in that case had become the stimulus that caused the tension.

Your concept of the "psycho physical feedback loop" here seems to suggest that once a person is angry, they will continue to become more and more angry until their muscular tension is inhibited. This seems unlikely. Without wishing to be pedantic, you also point to the "use" of inhibition to break this loop, suggesting that it is a tool that can be used consciously, an idea which we seem to agree is impossible.

The argument we're making here is that in consciously decreasing his muscle tension, Frank was in a state where he consciously realised that it was happening. This is because inhibition had already taken place. Then he was free to choose what he did about the tension, keep it, increase it, or release it. However, we'd suggest that this change in muscle tension wasn't what calmed him, but that it was made possible because he was calming down, after all it is possible to be calm with tense muscles.

You raise an interesting question in your point though. Can our own anger be a stimulus to us? This is a question for another thread.

In response to our question "Do I calm down because I decrease my muscular tension, or does my muscular tension decrease because I've calmed down?" you answered:

Both. The cause and effect of psycho physical unity does not have to be immediate and it works both ways.

We are almost in agreement here, in fact just one sentence further on from the one you quoted we state this:

Of course psycho-physical unity says that they occur at the same time, in fact that they are the same thing.

Where we differ it seems, is whether they have to happen at the same time. According to our understanding of the word unity, we'd have to say yes.

Remember that Alexander's own definition specifically rules out inhibition as it applies to psychology: to emotions.

That's not quite true. Alexander's differentiation had nothing to do with emotion per se, but with suppression

but this inhibition is not the inhibition that we usually hear of... It is not the inhibition of supression"

It seems clear that he was trying to clarify his use of the word from the suppression of emotions or other behaviour, but not necessarily from emotion itself.

Inhibition is only a small but important part of an immensely complex process that Alexander spent his life trying to understand and explain to others. The reason he was insistant on precision in relaying his teachings (and part of the reason why it takes three years of full-time education to be trained as a teacher) is that if you get it wrong in only a small way, there's a danger you will miss the point altogether. Even we teachers spend hours debating the finer points but none would ever claim that AT worked directly on anything let alone emotions.

Absolutely resoundingly true! Thankyou! That is the whole point. Alexander devoted his life to understanding these questions, yet Alexander didn't ever claim he had it all figured out. In fact he described his work as "a beginning". Surely it is our duty then as Alexander teachers to continue the exploration he began. Yet we, unlike him, are in the privileged position of having others to share and enrich our exploration. That is why we value conversations like this so much and why we are grateful to you for your invaluable input. Long may it continue!