Finnish
Institute of Character Analytic Vegetotherapy
Contact person: Markku Välimäki
Kalevankatu 33 B 8
00100 Helsinki
Finland
Tel: +358-45-676-8838
School history
The general aim of the Finnish Institute of Character Analytic Vegetotherapy is to endorse health and to alleviate psychic and physical pain. The Institute strives for further acknowledgement of Character Analytic Vegetotherapy and to cultivate the societal conditions for applying it.
The main areas of work are education, publishing and research. The Institute arranges education and training programmes at different levels and for different groups of people including health professionals, people involved in theatre and motion pictures, athletes and laymen. The educational activities are both national and international. The Institute participates in scientific discourse in the field of psychotherapy, which includes participation in congresses, publication of our own work and cooperation with other training institutes.
Basic theory and concepts
Character Analytic Vegetotherapy was first developed by Wilhelm Reich in the 1920s and 30s in Vienna and Berlin, as a modification of psychoanalysis. He placed more emphasis on working with negative transference at the start of therapy and focussed on the bodily expression of emotion and character and its discrepancy with the spoken word.
Character Analytic Vegetotherapy is a form of psychotherapy. It focuses on bodily phenomena such as muscular activity, breathing, bodily posture, muscular tensions, the function of the autonomic nervous system, energetic charge, facial expressions and non-verbal interaction. It also considers interactive processes such as how the musculo-skeletal system interfaces and influences the emotional life of a person and vice versa, or how the client and the therapist respond to each other both at physical and psychic levels.
The method is suitable for working with psychiatric, borderline, traumatised and addicted clients as well as those with psychosomatic symptoms or those with psychoneurotic and characterological problems. People who are not mentally ill or in great distress, but wish to enhance life skills, relationships, communication skills, or psychosomatic functioning can also benefit from this method. Part of the process is also educational, for instance when a client wishes to understand the inter-relationship between their bodily feelings, emotions, symptoms etc.
Character Analytic Vegetotherapy works with emotional, cognitive, symbolic and somatic issues. It sees change as a natural factor. With respect to health and illness, it starts from the fact that it is natural for the human animal to be exposed to change. Furthermore, it holds that we are both physical and psychic beings endowed with emotions, and it is exactly this complexity of material and immaterial elements that makes us human. All that concerns us is simultaneously physical and psychic.
The concept of psycho-somaticity also applies to the emotions. The word emotion comes from the Latin word ex-movere, meaning to move outwards; it contains the notion of movement and the notion of externalisation. Consequently, an emotion can be seen as a way by which human beings strive to express themselves out of their biological centre. This process of externalisation, of coming out, requires movement of the bio system, so that the emotion becomes visible. An emotion provokes a series of physical changes in our organism, and when these physical reactions reach our mind, the emotion becomes conscious, that is, we make cognitive contact with the primarily biological element.
We share the view of Ola Raknes about psychological health, although we do not see it as a complete picture. It includes:
- the capacity for complete concentration
- the capacity for and feeling of contact, both with oneself and with other people, with nature and art and, for instance, with the tools one uses in one's work
- freedom from anxiety when there is no danger and the ability to react rationally even in dangerous situations - and courage to enter voluntarily into dangerous situations when one sees a rational important purpose in doing so
- a deep and enduring feeling of well-being and strength, a feeling of which one can become aware each time one directs attention to it, even when struggling with difficulties or when feeling bodily pain; some of these feelings can be traced to the feelings of pleasure in the genitals during expiration.
We are also aware of the social and cultural constraints that shape our lives by limiting an individual's capability for pleasure, expansion, creativity, growth, etc. Therefore, preventive work is important. As followers of Reich we support orgonomic prophylaxis with the objective of preventing the formation of the character-muscular armour during childhood by paying attention to the conditions that affect the development of a human being right from gestation.
Since Reich we have continued to use language as the way to access character analysis and direct work on the body as the way to mobilise and unblock the muscular armour; when structurally integrated, both of these tools allow analysis of the character-muscular armour. In the therapeutic context, language has the function of integrating experiences brought out in bodywork as well as the emotions associated with these experiences. Language is not used as an analytic instrument, but as a way to perform character analysis.
Character Analytic Vegetotherapy aims to transform experience and behaviour by using awareness of the body, sensations, emotions and the interactions of cognitive processes and behaviour. It pays special attention to the connection between the autonomous nervous system, emotions, and character. Because breathing can get one in touch with the unconscious, it focuses on exploring different ways of breathing and the effect of different breathing patterns.
In Character Analytic Vegetotherapy touch is used for different purposes. Touching or massaging a muscle can be used to make a client aware of muscular tension and to regulate it. It can be used to gather information about muscles and connective tissue or emotional support and it may also facilitate and support the establishment of new breathing patterns and bodily movements.
Character Analytic Vegetotherapy is an offspring of Freud's psychoanalysis and has a lot in common with all the dynamic and analytic traditions including working with resistance, which is an important issue in this field.
Training description
The Psychotherapy training takes four years.
Trainer
Markku Välimäki
State of recognition
The Finnish Institute of Character Analytic Vegetotherapy was accredited as a Body-Psychotherapy Training Institute by EABP FORUM in March 2001. The Character Analytic Vegetotherapy method has been scientifically validated by the EAP, European Association for Psychotherapy.
The Institute is a professional non-profit legal organisation operating under the legal, financial and health laws of Finland and the EU. Members must adhere to the ethical rules of the Institute and also those of the Finnish National Authority for Medico-legal Affairs and EABP.
EABP members
Markku Välimäki, Gordon Harris
Literature - publication - research
Publishing activities include translations of Wilhelm Reich’s works, dissertations and students’ papers, a newsletter and a journal. Research activities are centred round psychotherapy and the performing arts.
