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Characterology Wilhelm Reich is considered the Western originator of the science of Body Mind Psychotherapy. Freud and early psychologists discovered that there is a childhood developmental process that is now known to be windows of plasticity in the brain where the developing child has their beliefs, feelings and attachments to parents, others, and objects influenced in a positive or negative way. Wilhelm Reich explored, analysed, and first proposed working archetypes of 5 key types of individual personality groups develop from this process, where developmental arrest occurs. Reich explored how the early patterns of relating and attaching to others, if problematic, interrupted, or subject to trauma, can get wired into the brain and the body, and then repeated as recreations in adulthood. The literal posture, body shape, muscular and fatty deposits as held in the body, as well as sense awareness organ functioning (e.g. eyesight), are affected in this process, and there develops an outcome of a correlating body structure/shape to a personality with its emotional and mental defences or adaptations towards life. This is what Reich called Characterology. The section on Reichian Segmental Armouring explains more about armouring and the interrelationship between the 7 segments that exist in the human body. The 5 Reichian Character Types There are 5 primary Character Types, each with sub-types, as no person is one character type. We are a blend of all of them at some level, but typically one or two of them pre-dominate and reveal our primary bodily, emotional and mental personality defence or posture towards life. More information on each of the Character Types can be found in each of these sections.

The Unwanted Child (Schizoid)

The Needy Child (Oral)

The Endurer (Masochist)

The Controller / Leader (Psychopath)

The Perfectionist / Obsessional (Rigid

Reich's Segmental Armouring Theory Wilhelm Reich was a major contributor to the bodymind sciences of the early 20 th century, and is credited as being the key driver of this form of scientific enquiry in the West up until the 1940s. Reich proposed a model of the human condition that postulated a theory of energy being a primary component of all matter and space, a concept he called the orgone energy. This energy was important for living organisms as in effect it was a life force. Reich who was trained as a scientist, devised ways in which quantified this orgone as being electro-magnetic in nature, and that it could be measured, sensed and worked with in therapy. Reich had developed some key concepts about the human condition that fell under his theories of Orgonomy. Reich delineated armoring concepts during the Character Analysis and Orgasm Theory period of 1928-34. Reich defined Orgonomy as being the science of cosmic orgone energy (Reich:1934). Reich (1934) further defined orgone energy at that time as being primordial cosmic energy; universally present & demonstrable visually, thermically, electroscopically, and by means of Geiger-Mueller counters, in the living organism. From this place, Reich was interested in how this orgone energy interacted with the human condition, and expressed itself in the body and the mind. Reich established orgone therapy from this place as being the Mobilisation of the orgone energy in the organism, ie, the liberation of the biophysical emotions from muscular & character armorings with the goal of establishing, if possible, orgastic potency(Reich:1934). Reich stated that we develop muscular armouring to block this orgone energy. He stated Armoring is the condition that results when energy is bound by muscular contraction and does not flow through the body(Reich:1936) . He saw that there existed character armouring which he defined as the sum total of typical character attitudes, which an individual develops as a blocking against their emotional excitations, resulting in rigidity in the body, and lack of emotional contact . He defined muscular armouring as the sum total of muscular(chronic muscular spasms) which an individual develops as a block against the breakthrough of emotions and organ sensations, particularly anxiety, rage and sexual excitation (Reich:1936). The overall effect of muscular armouring with character armouring created the individual. Alexander Lowen, who was an associate of Reich, best summed up this overall effect as The character of the individual as it is manifested in his typical pattern of behaviour is also portrayed on the somatic level by the form and movement of the body. The body expression is the somatic view of the typical emotional expression which is seen on the psychic level as character. Defences show up in both dimensions, in the body as muscular armoring. (Lowen:1976). This theory was contained within Reichs overall theory of energy economy. This theory stated that Economically speaking the character in ordinary life and the character resistance in the analysis serve the same function, that of avoiding unpleasure, of establishing and maintaining a psychic equilibrium neurotic as it may be and finally, that of absorbing repressed energies. One of its cardinal functions is that of binding free-floating anxiety, or, in other words, that of absorbing dammed up energy in the body.(Reich:1934).

Reich then established a theory of segmental armouring to explain how the body establishes its psychic equilibrium. In this Segmental Armouring theory, seven segments of the body exist where armouring or muscular tensions develop or takes place, and where the segmental contractions are at right angles to the flow of life force or orgone energy in the body. In fact Reich's concept of 7 segments also has a correlating overlay of the 7 chakra system of eastern Philosophy, and in many ways has a premise that is basically the same as proposed by eastern philosophy but in a western manner that attempts to be more quantitative and deductive. This theory as re-interpreted and updated under Bioenergetics and Core Energetics sees the 5 primary Character Structures as the fixation of the energetic movement in the body of a person. The organized vertical energy flow is antagonistic. The fixation of movement keeps the body in the sympathetic nervous system. When flow stops or is constricted, form develops with muscle or fat or stress develops and affects bone, muscle and fascia development. According to Core Energetics therapist Lisa Loustaunau (2004), when in childhood, a muscle contraction responds to a fearful situation, this is healthy, however, if the muscle stays contracted and gets stuck there, this becomes unhealthy (the body loses some of its natural, or core, wisdom). These are the 7 segments that were delineated by Reich: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Ocular or Eye Oral Cervical Thoracic Diaphragm Abdominal Pelvic

The characteristics of the 5 basic archetypal character structures are predictable outcomes based on Reich's armouring theories, and tell us much about a persons personal history which is written into the body. Reich also delineated the concept of a physical block held in the body, which may show physical manifesting signs. Blocks often show one of the 7 segments as overcharged, an adjoining segment undercharged, and tension is in both the boundary of the 2 segments, and also the overcharged segment. The undercharged segment often shows atrophy of muscles and skin turgor. Reich also believed that the left side of the body revealed feminine self identity issues, and the right side of the body revealed masculine self identity issues. This interaction of the 7 segments forms the etiology of the 5 Primary Character Structures. The 5 Character structures are not formed in isolation to one segment ,but relate to Energy economy and the regulation is between segments and also believed to be via chakras as proposed by Eastern philosophy. Dr. Anodea Judith has written a very good book, called "Eastern Body, Western Mind", which attempts to map chakra system concepts, to Reich's Segmental Armouring and Character Structures. Further information can be found on this interaction on her Sacred Centers website.

References 1. Character Analysis, Reich Wilhelm, 1975, 5th enlarged edition, New York, Farrar Publishing. 2. Bioenergetics, Lowen Alexander, 1976, Penguin books, New York. 3. 4. Language of the Body, Lowen Alexander, 1971, MacMillan, New York. Wilhelm Reich : The Evolution of his Work, Boadella David, 1973, Vision Press, Chicago.

The Unwanted Child (Schizoid) Wilhelm Reich introduced the notion and science of Characterology and its 5 basic character types. Each character type has a set of bodily postures, muscular skeletal structuring, touch, feeling, and contact presentations to the world, and also a cognitive and emotional set of equivalent issues, plus a mask or presenting appearance to the world. The Schizoid term is the old Reichan and psychiatric derived term that Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowan, and John Pierrakos tended to use in Reichan therapy, Bioenergetics, and Core Energetics respectively. This character structure is also referred to as the Unwanted Child or the Dreamer when working with clients in a more archetypal way that is less pathologising. The need to be wanted and accepted is a primary safety need of every person. We cannot progress far in our survival needs unless we satisfy these basic needs of having connection with someone who safely helps us feel wanted and included. We are born and designed to be part of a family and a community, and find our place within these and with a sense of safety about life. The Unwanted Child essentially perceived or experienced their earliest life, from conception till birth and beyond, as a hostile reception where they were rejected not just in their own nature and humanity, but for existing at all. The child felt threatened and unsafe, and may have wanted to die rather than continue in life. The childhood dynamics that setup a person to have an Unwanted Child Personality outcome are typically those where the environment, which typically is represented by the mother, or what is happening to the mother, turns hostile against the vulnerable and totally dependent foetus or child. The process begins at conception when a child is first physically entered into a relationship to its environment. The child develops and grows in the womb. Its world is contained in the mothers belly inside the placenta which is like a large cellular membrane. In fact it serves the same purpose as a cellular membrane in that it translates the stimulus of the outer environment of the mother into transcription signals that then affect the physical development of the foetus. This is an important concept which overturns the old mechanistic science that states we are hardwired from our DNA and develop to a fixed template of some sort. This is now understood to be partially wrong. We develop to our DNA inheritance but signals from our environment

affect the cellular replication process using parts of the DNA, and we develop in adaptation and response from our environment. Remember that the environment of the foetus is the mother, firstly the placenta and womb, then the wider body of the mother. It follows that whatever is going on for the mother affects the perception of the foetus, and also the signals reaching the foetus from outside the womb, about the state of the environment out there. The baby is affected by both the mother's physical state, emotional state, and her perception of her place in the world. This is because whatever happens to mother then in some translated way, happens to the child. The most obvious effect is from the physical state of the mother and her physical inputs while pregnant and soon after birth. We know how alcohol ingested by mothers during pregnancy can corrupt and cause mutation in the developing child, an outcome known as Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. Likewise babies born to drug addicts and smokers often have the baby born with a pre-existing addiction of the same type. This is primarily due to the physical substances that are ingested by the mother reaching the child and being ingested by the child. The toxic substances wreak havoc to the fragile developmental processes that are building the child in the womb, and also toxify the child. This can only be received by the child as a hostile act or from a hostile environment. Likewise the mother also produces a range of hormones, neurotransmitters, chemicals and substances that regulate her own bodily system. When the mother goes into the Sympathetic or Fight or Flight state of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), they release key chemicals from their HPA Axis which reach the foetus through the blood stream. In adults these chemicals produce hyper-vigilance, anxiety, aggression or perform such functions as draining the blood supply from the limbs into the trunk of the body, in case there is a fight. If there is a fight then the mother will not lose so much blood if a limb is bitten, broken, torn or torn off in the fight. However research shows that for the developing foetus their reception of these same chemicals from the ANS starts to shape its own developing body. In a foetus regularly experiencing this effect from the mother, it starts to starve the developing limbs of the foetus of nutrients and blood which are needed for normal limb development. The net effect is the foetus develops with thinner and more undeveloped limbs, which may be elongated. If the mother is not caring for herself properly in pregnancy with proper diet and supplements, especially where there is already a malnourishment problem, or toxicity from drugs, alcohol, or junk food and drink, then the impact will be probably felt directly on the foetus in some negative way. This same ANS process also interrupts the developing baby's limbs and body in the same way once the baby is born and outside the womb. Here the babies own ANS will create the same effect as the child is regularly put into a fight or flight state from the many ways mentioned in this article. It would appear that the foetus developed an evolutionary code for translating the mothers ANS produced chemicals into bodily outcomes. The mother in a parasympathetic or relaxed ANS state produces a happy and well developed child who often births easily. The mother in a Sympathetic or fight or flight state of ANS produces a child who has somatic or bodily issues, is often underweight, and who often has a difficult birth. We believe that the developing foetus which evolves under the Sympathetic ANS state gets wounded beyond its physical self to have a sense of being unwanted, rejected, unloved, hated, or is unsafe in the world. No -one knows when a foetus develops consciousness. From case studies with the Unwanted Child

personalities they appear to have a deep sense of alienation, fear, horror, and hostility from their time in the womb where such conditions existed. Their history will normally show the mother was also often not able to be there for the child. This disconnection or self-obsession can occur where the mother may have been depressed, a drug addict or alcoholic, unable to cope with the pregnancy, was an unwanted or difficult pregnancy, was forced to work long periods of time rather than rest and nurture the child and themself. The mother may have been a single parent, quickly had another child close before this one, already had numerous other older children to look after, or were in poverty or survival consciousness due to lack of resources or from living in a war zone or disaster. The mother may be in a unsafe or abusive relationship, or the mothers partner may be emotionally shutdown or resent the unborn childs presence, be unable to communicate emotionally in general with the mother, not support them, or attack or rage at the mother and therefore the child. By default, what affects the mother and makes them upset or unsafe, will then make the child feel unsafe or unwanted. The birth of the child may also be traumatic and create the sense of hostility and the world being unsafe in the child. The mother may not bond with the child at birth, or get post-natal depression, or have problems getting the breast feeding process going, so affecting the mother-child bond. Birth can be traumatic for either mother or child, and a long labour, breech or other complications such as tearing of the uterus may lead to hospitalisation of either the mother or child, and so force their separation. In many ways our Western hospital births of the last 50 years have been depersonalised, cold traumatic events for many mothers and their children. The fad of mothers having a caeserean birth creates numerous issues for the child. The natural birthing process has been shown to coat the child with Oxytocin which then helps forge the mother-child bond at birth. The interruption of this process has been linked to mothers post natal depression. The childs birth causes it to have its head slightly compressed which activates its brain to set off certain survival functions such as breathing, and also compresses the lungs to drive out amoebic fluid, and create the initial vacuum that triggers the lungs to start breathing. All this is interrupted by caeserean births which are now accepted and promoted by doctors. Whatever may have gone in the world of the mother and her environments, either internally or externally, may then continue once the baby comes home from hospital. If the mother was depressed or unhappy when pregnant, chances are that little has changed. As with all the conditions and circumstances I have mentioned, few get resolved or changed by the act of birth. In fact some dynamics worsen as the child is now present, demanding, crying and wanting attention and love and nurturance. All of these can add to the negative dynamics and experiences of the child. Children are born with strong instinctual and encoded intelligence for both socialisation and for reading peoples faces, voice intonations, gestures and other cues. The child quickly learns whether in fact it is wanted, loved, safe and can be relaxed or stressed. The problem for the child is that it only has a few primitive nervous system and psychological options or strategies with which to deal with perceived threats or hostility from its caregivers and/or environments.

Basically the baby has only the ability to dissociate or split off from a terrifying or threatening dynamic in order to survive negative stimulation or threats. This is an attempt to turn away or avoid the situation and escape it by mentally going away. At this early stage in life there appears to be a generalisation made by the foetus and baby that all life in general is unsafe as a consequence of a single major, or repeated traumatic episode(s) that encountered. This will then be the negative disposition and anticipation that the baby will carry into childhood and then into adulthood, and it will be particularly triggered in social settings. The net effect of whatever dynamics are playing out is the child grows into an adult who still feels unsafe in the world in general, and this unsafe or hostile feeling is more conscious and manifest around people and crowds. Terror is the primary feeling that always appears close to the surface in these individuals, leaving them anxious and hyper-aroused or shutdown and hypoaroused. The adult will typically be hyper-vigilant and live almost continually from the Sympathetic state of the ANS. They particularly fear any resemblances to that which constituted the original traumatic form and experience. They tend to compensate as adults via social isolation, withdrawal, and retreat into imaginary mental day dreams or worlds, or virtual worlds on the internet, that will help avoid or escape any stress, particularly of a social nature. The Unwanted Child tends to recreate their perceived hostility in choices they make about themselves, and in the relationships and environments they choose. The Unwanted Child as an adult will have tended to have internalised the hostility reactions of caregivers, and will now do the same hostility to themselves from their unconscious. They may enter abusive relationships with harsh and critical partners who are emotionally shutdown or have unresolved anger issues. They may have unresolved trauma issues that see them triggered and descend back into a trauma re-enactment if their childhood was severe. Refer to my article on Trauma on this website. The typical compensation for the Unwanted Child is the escape either into spirituality, virtual reality, or a narrow vertical form of skill specialisation which they master in a rigid perfectionistic way, and within which they can operate safely. Escapism is a form of dissociation, and when done in isolation, it assists in making the person feel safe. Social activities are terrifying for many such individuals. As the world is harsh and hostile to the Unwanted Child, they tend to idealise and seek out spiritual refuge in dissociative spiritual practices like meditation, contemplation, solitude, and retreat activities away from life. They report feeling an affinity with spirit and wanting to leave this life and return to spirit which they see is their true heritage. They may have suicidal ideation and wishes to stay out of their body which they see as alien to them, a source of pain and suffering, and which is not safe to them as they often feel threatened by their own feelings, desires, impulses and urges. They may feel part of them is possessed or evil. They may compartmentalise their thoughts away from their feelings, and not be able to link their feelings to their thoughts. They may also forget things and panic when trying to recall information, escalating their anxiety, and it may trigger a panic attack. As they suffered the ultimate betrayal of trust, that being from their caregivers, truth and trust are major issues for the Unwanted Child. They only trust the truth and are vigilant for when the truth is betrayed as this proves that trust cannot exist in this place or person. They are often intuitive, some would say psychic, and at least they operate from their own internal summation of others from this intuitive place. The problem is they often project their

internalised terror and disowned hostile feelings onto others, and then read this information back from the other as if it exists on the side of the other person. In this distortion they then perceive good and safe people and environments as being unsafe, hostile, and terrifying. In this way their discrimination can be faulty. They likewise can be fooled by unsafe people and environments and as these are somehow familiar, they can adapt and make sense of such settings. The Unwanted Child can end up in Narcissistic psychological and spiritual based cults and churches and feel strangely at home. The resulting outcome of the bodymind of a predominant Unwanted Child personality can be summarised as a person in shock, whose is now frozen and compromised. They may appear cold, energetically dead, and out of touch with themselves and others. The body tends to show the contraction of the muscles and movements that led to the original impulses that resulted in hostility, frustration, pain and negativity coming its way. These chronic contracted muscles then affect posture and possibly affect bodily system regulation and proper function. The person loses spontaneous movement, some feeling, and behaviour as a result. This trade-off occurs to minimise feeling pain. The person shuts down across itself, deadens, and survives. Expression and release of the blocked impulses is equated to the illusion that this will annihilate them and others around them. They shut down and become deadened in the body, still, and peaceful in movement and mind, and adopt spiritual giving as a defence against vigour and energetic release, so reinforcing their blocks. The body therefore appears deadened, stiff, and moves mechanically and with prior awareness of the person who ensures it is safe to do so. The child had to undergo a self-negation process where they disowned their impulses, faced intense attack and hostility, which produced sheer terror and pain, often from the caregivers. To stay present and to resist or protest were both too painful to bear, and could invite further punishment or abandonment. The key way we shut these down in the body is by restricting our breathing. The Unwanted Child character has shallow breathing. This will be found in the tightness and constriction of the chest muscles, the tight intercostals muscles between the ribs which constrict breathing, and a raised set of shoulders, thereby creating a constricted and extended chest. The Unwanted Child person often shows an accompanying restriction in the throat which can produce a high pitched voice, and raised sinewy neck muscles. The throat is constricted, the person chokes when excited or anxious, and feelings are cut-off between the body and the head. The person often has an under developed chest, with a possible spine twisting either as some form of Scoliosis, Lordosis or Kyphosis, as an expression of turning or twisting away from the terror. In some Unwanted Child persons they manifest a malnourished body that resembles someone who needs to eat more, or who looks like they were in a concentration camp. They have a sinewy body, veins, muscles and bones are prominent. They are not in contact with their impulses which are repressed and so often are not aware of own hunger, thirst, heat or coldness of the body. They often dress inappropriately and do not align to their environment.

There may be a more prominent Adams Apple in the throat, a narrow and sinewy throat, a deeper hollow in the bottom of the throat, and the head may be stiffly held, with a slight tilt to the side, or thrust backwards slightly in terror. The eyes are striking in this personality as they normally deeply express the frozen shock of the terror that they faced in the womb and from whatever and whoever traumatised them. The eyes lack warmth, or are unresponsive, and stay frozen or fixed, and go classically vacant when the person dissociates or splits off. This is the visible part of a deep block that runs around the whole ocular segment of the head(refer my article on Reichs 7 bodily segments). This is often termed the Terror Response look, and coupled with the raised shoulders, projects the classic frozen stance of a startled person. This block is considered to function to prevent the person becoming conscious to feelings and also so as not to actually see the outside terrifying object of hostility. As a consequence they may wear glasses or have sight issues. They often have deep blocks in the jaw as seen in the Mastoid, Masceter, and facial muscles that are painful when pressed. Likewise this personality often develops bruxism or the grinding of teeth due to the rage and terror held in the jaw from the baby needing to suppress the need to cry out in horror or to get its oral nurturance needs met. The blocks also prevent grief and sobbing from occurring. The limbs of the Unwanted Child personality are weak, thin and under-developed due to the previously noted effect of the Autonomic Nervous System(ANS) chemicals and hormones affecting the developing child. The net effect is the child develops with limbs that may be locked and braced, and be thinner and more undeveloped limbs, especially where there is often already a malnourishment problem from under-feeding, or poor parenting skills in understanding proper diet or nutrition for infants. The thinning effect is seen in the limbs, which also may show a pale colour and be cold to the touch in their extremities such as feet or hands, as blood flow may still be a problem in adulthood. Also this personality will have developed deep blocks to reaching out with their arms for what they want, which is a gesture of arms outstretched. There will be chronic tensions across the shoulders and back, the pectorals, and between the shoulder blades, particularly the rhomboid and Terres muscles. Their joints also suffer from the freeze effect in the body, and may hold tension, be enlarged, and be subject of Rheumatoid Arthritis later in life. The trunk of the body may appear out of proportion to the limbs and head, and a general asymmetry may show up in the overall body. The body may not present as a unitary whole, or left and right sides may be different sizes, and it is speculated that the foetal stage of developmental growth may have suffered interruption due to the internal hostile environment inside the womb. The abdominus and lower abdominal muscles will be tight to prevent full breathing and sobbing. Their pelvis is often locked and frozen with lower back tightness present, and may have hip problems due to higher back Scoliosis, Kyphosis or Lordosis. The Unwanted Child personality often has hammer toes and a raised arch in the feet, reflecting the terror reflex where their toes are clawing into the earth like a cat. The feet may be larger than the ankles and out of proportion, be cold to the touch, have gnarled toes and poor circulation. They appear ungrounded and may walk awkwardly. They are ungrounded and this shows in the feet and legs.

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Their legs, while thin, also show a bracing or stiffening of the knees, which in turn affects chronic tension they already hold in their backs, and to compensate they tilt their pelvis forward in a locked or frozen position. They may suffer supination or pronation of the feet which makes them unsteady on their feet, which reflects their fragility in the world. They often struggle with balance, posture or leg/feet issues which reflect their struggle in life. We describe the Unwanted Child as being blocked in an energetic sense. This reflects in their neglected or malnourished bodies. However energy exists and is dammed up, and they feel the tension of this blocked energy wanting to flow as an alien force or possession by some entity that makes them go into terror, fear their own rage, and feel evil.
References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith, 2004, Celestial Arts, USA. Character Analysis, Wilhelm Reich, 1975, 5th enlarged edition, New York, Farrar Publishing. Bioenergetics, Alexander Lowen, 1976, Penguin books, New York. Language of the Body, Alexander Lowen, 1971, MacMillan, New York. Character Styles, Stephen Johnson, 1994, W.WW Norton & Co New York. Characterological Transformation The Hard Work Miracle, Stephen Johnson, 1985, W.W. Norton & Co New York. Free Yourself 1 Releasing Your Unconscious Defence Patterns, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Free Yourself 2 The Power of the Soul, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton, 2005, Mountain of Love/Elite Books, USA. Core Energetics, John Pierrakos, 1990, LifeRhythm Publication.

The Needy Child (Oral) Wilhelm Reich introduced the notion and science of Characterology and its 5 basic character types. Each character type has a set of bodily postures, muscular skeletal structuring, touch, feeling, and contact presentations to the world, and also a cognitive and emotional set of equivalent issues, plus a mask or presenting appearance to the world. The Oral term is the old Reichan and psychiatric derived term that Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowan, and John Pierrakos tended to use in Reichan therapy, Bioenergetics, and Core Energetics respectively. This character structure is also referred to as the Needy when working with clients in a more archetypal way that is less pathologising. All humans have needs and wants all through their lives. A key developmental stage in childhood is the evolution from dependence to independence. This occurs in stages and at different levels in all of us. In infancy, from birth till the age of about 3 years, the child is on a journey of slowly going from a place of complete dependence, to a place of more or less basic autonomy and separation at the physical and some emotional level from the parents.

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The Needy character encountered some developmental arrest or interruption to their satisfaction of early needs, dependency and dependency gratification. The needs may have been physical in terms of enough breast feeding and therefore nutrition, enough physical needs such as touch, clothing, stimulation in their environment, or emotional such as mothers touch, presence, love, loving eyes, and verbal coo-ing to the child. We understand today more than ever the importance of the presence of the birth mother to the infant, but as a society we practice abandonment and neglect of the childs needs at the same time. As such it is stated that this Oral or Needy wounding shows up in us all in Western society at some level. In some it is primary and defines their body and their personality whilst in others it is secondary and may only show a secondary effect in the body and personality. The childhood dynamics that setup a person to have a Needy personality outcome are typically those that result from a lack of mother-attunement with the child. The father plays a secondary but still important role of both support and nurturance to both child and mother at this stage, but the mother is the key defining relationship that shapes the child at this stage of development. Typically there was deprivation or unreliability of the parents towards the childs nurturance needs. The Needy personality gives the impression of being undercharged, deflated, not filled up or deprived of energy and their body shows a corresponding undercharge, thinness, weakness or dependency. They are still looking for someone or something to fill them up. Their history will normally show the mother was not able to be there for the child. The mother may have been depressed, a drug addict or alcoholic, unable to breast feed, was forced to work and be away long periods of time up until age 3 of the child, been a single parent, quickly had another child close to this one, already had numerous other older children to look after, were in poverty or survival consciousness due to living in a war zone or disaster. The mother may be emotionally shutdown or resent the childs neediness, be unable to communicate emotionally in general, or rage at the child or make the child feel unsafe or unwanted. The net effect of whatever dynamics are playing out is the child then grows into an adult who still feels dependent and needy. Two main outcomes result. In one outcome, the Needy personality may disapprove of the neediness, and be stubborn in admitting they are needy of others in some way. In this variation they experience their needs as alien and wrong, and become needless and wantless. This reflects the pain of having had needs and wants once which were painfully not met, and so now it is better not to admit them, than to have them and be hurt again. This classic version of the Needy personality then focuses intently on the needs of others, and becomes a caretaker or co -dependent personality. They do this from a depleted energetic self, and so tend to take on more than they can sustain, and then usually collapse, and fail to deliver. It is only in the collapse do they make contact with their unmet needs and wants, and may then reach out for support and nurturance themself. The problem arises in that the people they typically have gathered around themself are either needy themself and so unavailable, or takers who use caretaker personalities to their own end. A narcissist is a classic personality who seeks out co-dependent types like this for self gain. In any event the Needy personality has effectively recreated their childhood dynamic by having unavailable mothers around them who cannot give back, and who abandon them when the

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Needy person expresses their own needs and wants. The receiving person on the end of the giving process often feels manipulated by the Needy giver and this is often true as the giver is often unconsciously giving in order to get. The Needy person will at this point become resentful at being used or not having their giv ing reciprocated, but soon forgives and fears being abandoned by pressing their needs and wants onto others, and proves to themself its not safe to have needs and wants, and so shuts down again. Whenever the Needy person gets self gratification they feel immense guilt and feel they do not deserve it, and tend to try and sabotage others genuine attempts to give to their needs. A second form of the Needy personality are not adjusted or compensated to disown their impulses of neediness, and will show and demand their needs quite readily and often. They will be demanding of others, and have endless needs and an inner void than cannot be filled up by whatever they get or consume. They can become obsessive and addictive in this consumption which never equates to enough because they are trying to fix an inner emotional problem with materialistic out there objects or substances. This Needy personality can be addictive to food, drink, smoking, drugs, collecting in some shape or form, or relationships, which may be both medicating or self-soothing their pain and feelings by these externalised strategies and addictions in order to fill an inner emptiness. They are a bottomless pit and often drive away partners who feel suffocated by their neediness and endless demands that never cease. In both types of the Needy personality, they were not mirrored or raised by the parents in nurturance, and so they typically suffer self neglect as adults. They can suffer from both depression and recurring minor physical illnesses, as their immune system and bodies are often both suppressed and malnourished. They often have poor diets. They may also develop psychosomatic illness as a compensated response to getting their needs met from others. The Needy child in childhood may have noticed that their needs were met when they were ill as children but not when healthy. The parents gave them love and attention in these times. Children respond to negative attention as much as positive attention and in attention starved families a child will adopt a negative strategy as a way of getting love and approval. Many Needy personalities learn that sickness brings attention and as adults will unconsciously manifest illness and depression in order to get attention and nurturance. Their malnonrished bodies find that easy to manifest. They also manifest sickness and depression from burnout in caretaking others. Depression in the Needy personality also relates to their suppression of their anger, hostility and rage at the people they caretake but who return no similar favours. The Needy person has a social mask of being an Unconditional Giver or Martyr but this often hides deep anger and resentment. They are acting out(giving) what they really want to receive(to be given to in the same way). Secretly the Needy personality resents the role they have placed themselves in, and the people they now serve. Underneath the anger lies deep grief which is so painful and intense it has been repressed into the unconscious. Deep grieving and anger work is part of their healing. There is a grandiose quality to the Needy personality. They make plans and start grand projects which are way beyond their capacity to execute and finish. In these times they take on too much responsibility, over commit, and start on ventures which soon start to drain them, leading

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ultimately to a collapse. This often leads into depression and an exposing of their real vulnerable, child like natures. Underneath all this is a deep unconscious belief that it is still someone elses job to take care of them. This is the arrested developmental need or unmet need from childhood still running the adult. They resent and resist being responsible for themself and their own needs. Their oscillation between this optimistic and grandiose vision of themself, and the subsequent collapse into fatigue, depression, illness and abandonment of the vision, show the essential undercharged, and ungrounded energetic nature of this personality. The resulting outcome of the bodymind of a predominant Needy personality can be summarised by looking at both the eyes and the bodies of this personality. we noted that the child had to undergo a self-negation process where they disowned their anger, grief and hostility at the caregivers when their needs were not met. To have kept these active was both too painful to bear, and could invite further punishment or abandonment. The key way we shut these down in the body is by restricting our breathing. The Needy character has shallow breathing. This will be found in the tightness and constriction of the chest muscles, the tight intercostals muscles between the ribs which constrict breathing, and a hunching forward of the shoulders, thereby creating a constricted and shrunken chest. The Needy person often shows an undercharged, under developed chest, with rounded shoulders, and with the female having small, or flaccid or droopy breasts. In some Needy persons they manifest a malnourished body that resembles someone who needs to eat more, or who looks like they were in a concentration camp. They have a sinewy body, veins, muscles and bones are prominent. In others there may be a thick but flabby fat layer all around the trunk and limbs which covers up and nurtures or mothers the body. This is not the thick musculature of the Endurer personality but baby fat that wobbles and is flaccid. There may be a more prominent Adams Apple in the throat, a narrow and sinewy throat, a deeper hollow in the bottom of the throat, and the head may be thrust forward as if looking to feed from the breast, which is a natural posture of a baby looking to feed from the mother. The eyes are striking in this personality as they normally deeply express the longing of needing someone to care for them. This is often termed the Puppy dog look of the big pleading eyes, which society finds attractive and shows up in many of our female models who are often the Needy personality in their size 8 malnourished classic shape and form, with the big puppy dog eyes. The lips are often big and full, or are pencil thin. The theory is that the big full lips shows the baby got breast feeding or oral nurturance but wants more, and hence over develops this orifice for that reason. Others have the pencil thin lips or turned down lips, which is equated to the baby who had anger at the mother over a frustration at the oral nurturance process, perhaps lack of milk, or the baby was a nipple biter, bringing disapproval or removal from the breast. The pencil thin type often have deep blocks in the jaw as seen in the Mastoid, Masceter, and facial muscles that are painful when pressed. The jaw may show either an over-bite or an under-bite. Studies have shown that the oral sucking and feeding process in babies has an important developmental outcome in aligning and developing the upper and lower jaw in the baby, and the oral issues in teeth, jaw and throat of the Needy personality can be traced to disturbances in the oral tract feeding process. These

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disturbances represent blocks and under-developed aspects of the body of this personality. Likewise this personality often develops bruxism or the grinding of teeth due to the rage and terror held in the jaw from the baby not being able to get its oral nurturance needs met. The blocks also prevent grief and sobbing from occurring. The limbs of the Needy personality are weak, thin and under-developed. This apparently relates primarily to the Sympathetic state of the Autonomic Nervous System(ANS) in the developing child. For the developing infant, its experience of its environment affects and shapes its developing body. When a child starts to cry it goes through identifiable stages from the alerting cry, to an angrier cry, which are evoked from a Sympathetic state of the ANS. The infant, if still not met with relief, then progresses its cries to dismay, grief and a shutting down, that often results in the ANS invoking a parasympathetic state that causes the child to sleep. This is a defensive function to fend off the painful feelings and trauma of abandonment. The invoking of the ANS causes various hormones and natural substances to be released into the bloodstream as part of our fight or flight function. In an infant the Sympathetic state produces such substances that have an effect of protecting us by constricting blood flow to our limbs, and bringing it back into our limbs where the major organs lie. In an adult this effect passes, but in a child regularly expressing this effect, it starts to starve developing limbs of nutrients and blood which are needed for normal limb development. The net effect is the child develops with thinner and more undeveloped limbs, which may be elongated, especially where there is often already a malnourishment problem from under-feeding, or poor parenting skills in understanding proper diet or nutrition for infants. The thinning effect is seen in the limbs, which also may show a pale colour and be cold to the touch in their extremities such as feet or hands, as blood flow may still be a problem in adulthood. Also this personality will have developed deep blocks to reaching out with their arms for what they want, which is a gesture of arms outstretched. There will be chronic tensions across the shoulders and back, the pectorals, and between the shoulder blades, particularly the rhomboid and Terres muscles. The abdominus and lower abdominal muscles will be tight to prevent full breathing and sobbing. Their pelvis like the rest of their body is often under-developed and does not hold a strong charge, which in turn prevents full orgasmic feelings from developing. They prefer child-like holding and nurturance instead of adult sexual intimacy and do not find sex satisfying. The Needy personality often walked early as an infant, in an attempt to develop independence in the face of abandonment of their needs. Their legs, while thin, also show a bracing or stiffening of the knees, which in turn affects chronic tension they already hold in their backs, and to compensate they tilt their pelvis forward. They may have flat feet which signals a giving up stance to the world, or suffer supination or pronation of the feet which makes them unsteady on their feet, which reflects their fragility in the world and dependence on others who are a crutch to lean on. They often struggle with balance, posture or leg/feet issues which reflect their struggle in life. We describe the Needy personality as being undercharged in an energetic sense. This reflects in their neglected or malnourished bodies. Many people report that around them that they feel energetically drained by them after contact with them. We believe energetically that indeed the Needy character has some way of feeding off anothers energy field as part of their neediness

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and unmet feeding or nurturance needs. It has no psychological precedent but the reported experiences by others of this effect cannot be dismissed as a random or non-existent phenomenon.
References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith, 2004, Celestial Arts, USA. Character Analysis, Wilhelm Reich, 1975, 5th enlarged edition, New York, Farrar Publishing. Bioenergetics, Alexander Lowen, 1976, Penguin books, New York. Language of the Body, Alexander Lowen, 1971, MacMillan, New York. Character Styles, Stephen Johnson, 1994, W.WW Norton & Co New York. Characterological Transformation The Hard Work Miracle, Stephen Johnson, 1985, W.W. Norton & Co New York. Free Yourself 1 Releasing Your Unconscious Defence Patterns, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Free Yourself 2 The Power of the Soul, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton, 2005, Mountain of Love/Elite Books, USA. Core Energetics, John Pierrakos, 1990, LifeRhythm Publication.

The Endurer (Masochist) Wilhelm Reich introduced the notion and science of Characterology and its 5 basic character types. Each character type has a set of bodily postures, muscular skeletal structuring, touch, feeling, and contact presentations to the world, and also a cognitive and emotional set of equivalent issues, plus a mask or presenting appearance to the world. The Masochist term is the old Reichan and psychiatric derived term that Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowan, and John Pierrakos tended to use in Reichan therapy, Bioenergetics, and Core Energetics respectively. This character structure is also referred to as the Endurer when working with clients in a more archetypal way that is less pathologising. The childhood dynamics that setup a person to have an Endurer outcome are typically based around the need for a child to separate from the parents, to individuate, and form their own unique identity. One common unresolved issue in parents in children is their need to be in total control of the child, or to regulate and control the child to some idealised set of values or outcomes. We are born and designed to be in free expression of our unique characters and live within that freedom by learning appropriate boundaries, responsibilities and obligations to others. There is a constant ongoing dynamic within us all to be free and to find acceptance within the community or group or family we are part of. The Endurer personality essentially underwent ongoing intrusion, control, and humiliating subjugation at the hands of one or both parents till they gave up their free will and freedom. The highly aggressive responses that occurred along the way in this losing fight for their separate existence were eventually eliminated and disowned, till they became docile and compliant.

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Resistance was futile and squashed till it stopped. The rage at this suppression went underground and into the Childs body. The child starts to no longer trust their own impulses about when they are hungry, when to go to the toilet, how much to eat etc, for all this is now under the control and direction of the intrusive parent(s). In this sense the child learns to no longer trust, and to reject their own nature and humanity, and seeks instead to be guided and directed by the parent instead. They lose self determination and self direction. They are good, compliant, docile, pleasing, and falsely happy all the time, but are seething inside. The parent may threaten the child to force compliance to the adults expectations. This can involve such dynamics as the threat of punishment, the threat the parent would leave the home and abandon the child, or that the child would be thrown out of home and abandoned by the parent. In many cases it is smothering rather than mothering that occurs, and occur s at the socialisation skill level of the child, but it can also occur around bodily intake impulses(eating & drinking), and bodily elimination impulses(Excretion and urination). Basically if you corrupt the intake and/or elimination processes in the child they can start to lose their will and control over such processes, and capitulate to the parent. There is often then an interruption to the flow of these processes, meaning too much intake of food or drink under coercion of the parent, or pressure to eliminate according to dictated timetables. Sometimes the child starts to hold in and the body will start to take on a pressure cooker look which matches the inner psychic world of the Endurer who fears intrusion, control, smothering, and loss of freedom by other people. The Endurer presents in life as a self-depreciating, self-defeating, and often self torturing or self humiliating individual who seems to have a need to suffer, and in their suffering, torture others. This personality type will have a need to whine, to complain, and a sense of suffering or absence of real joy. They may also at the same time present with a fixed smile which is what they were forced to put on for their parents as a child, and is now unconsciously in them the expected thing to do. Wilhelm Reich noted this personality had a condition known as the Masochistic morass. In this dynamic, anyone who tries to help this individual will be defeated and frustrated by the Endurers helpless immobility, which in fact is a passive-aggressive stance towards others and towards life itself. In this stance, their disowned rage and anger leaks out in passive aggressive way, from non-compliance via inaction, being late, forgetting, simply not answering a question, or a hundred other ways of resisting passively. These people trust no-one as those who should have loved them, instead intruded and abused them. The absence of trust in others and in the world promotes helplessness. In therapy the person may make a breakthrough and improve, but will then relapse. This unconsciously relates to the fact they distrust the help, the helper, and leads to a spiteful retaliation against the helper, as the helper is more powerful and therefore the parent, and so now the parent must be defeated. Trust invites humiliation in their world. The Endurer resists change and has negative pleasure in their own stuckness. Other people get fooled at first by the pleasing presenting face of the Endurer, and then quite triggered by the underlying spite and resentment bound in this person, and by their passive-

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aggressive and defeating gestures, actions and inactions. This in turn often triggers others to retaliate and be hostile towards the Endurer who then gains apparent justification that you cannot trust anyone who claims they want to help you or befriend you. At this point the Endurer feels permission to vent their held-in rage and anger, which brings them great relief and satisfaction from all the pent-up energy their carry around inside themself. They then complain of being victimised. They are negatively self-reinforcing in this dynamic. The Endurer has a mind and cognitive style that is slower, duller, and less imaginative or visionary than most. They may suffer chronic low grade depression due to the repression of their own rage and anger. They are often identified and work as the helper to a strong authority figure, who may also abuse or demand and control them, setting up a recreation of childhood dynamics. Others are alone and aloof due to their trust issues, and a desire to be free and hence alone. They normally lack spontaneity and can endure pain and suffering very well. They also have enormous strength and energy, yet the stuckness of their energy sees them complain of a lack of energy and being tired. The resulting outcome of the bodymind of an Endurer personality can be summarised as the formation of thick musculature that is designed to create a chronic holding back of the unacceptable or distrusted impulses that are their birthright, but were squashed during childhood by the invasive and controlling parent. The Endurer will often be seen to have thick trunk and thick arms and legs, with tight, heavy muscular development. The muscles are tight and not floppy, and serve to hold in the tension and restrain the impulses no longer allowed. In many people they are shorter, and this appears related to the notion of being squashed in childhood. In the buttocks there is often a cut -off bottom or no bottom, as the gluteus muscles are tight and shortened to reflect the humiliation and shamed nature of their sexuality, and the principle of being cowed. If one looks at a scolded dog, when they put their tail between their legs, one also sees this cut-off affect. The Endurer often suffered a scolding. There are blocks in the belly to hold back the soft feelings from rising into consciousness, and into the head. Instead the trapped energy is heavy and stuck inside, and creates a heaviness and slowness in the person to reflect this energetic posture. The shoulders are heavily armoured and pulled back to prevent the Endurer being able to vent their aggressive impulses which were squashed in childhood, when they were defeated in having their No. The neck is thick and short, and this shows the held in spite and resentment, as they are both suppressed from above, and pulled in to prevent being controlled. There are thick Trapezius and tight muscles in the Rhomboids, Terres muscles and neck attachments and rotators such as Scalenes which suppress feelings. The Sterno-Cloido-Mastoid on the side of the neck will be thick and flared to lock or bind in rage which this personality tries to suppress within themself. All these constrictions block feelings from the body reaching the head, and leave the person living in their heads. There is a block in the rear ocular segment just behind the neck, where the base of the skull meets the spine and neck. This block is the last major line of defence from feelings making it

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from the body into the head. Likewise at the front of the face the Maceter and facial muscles are often tight and the mouth pulled into a permanent but false smile to show compliance. The eyes either are small and beady, showing the spite and resentment that lurks below the surface of the personality and the muscles, waiting to erupt, or they can be vacant and pleasing and show a complete surrender and submission, and now no longer show emotional affect beyond a type of pleasing innocence. In general there is a lack of feeling in the body due to the heavy musculature preventing the flow of energy in the body, and they may have both hot(emotionally charged), and cold areas(site of blocks), in different parts of the body. They can take pain and appear dull to pain in the body. Their body does not move easily but more as a total unit, a rigid dense mass which has lost a lot of its flexibility. They may also have flat feet as a sign of having given up the struggle with the world.
References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith, 2004, Celestial Arts, USA. Character Analysis, Wilhelm Reich, 1975, 5th enlarged edition, New York, Farrar Publishing. Bioenergetics, Alexander Lowen, 1976, Penguin books, New York. Language of the Body, Alexander Lowen, 1971, MacMillan, New York. Character Styles, Stephen Johnson, 1994, W.WW Norton & Co New York. Characterological Transformation The Hard Work Miracle, Stephen Johnson, 1985, W.W. Norton & Co New York. Free Yourself 1 Releasing Your Unconscious Defence Patterns, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Free Yourself 2 The Power of the Soul, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton, 2005, Mountain of Love/Elite Books, USA. Core Energetics, John Pierrakos, 1990, LifeRhythm Publication.

The Controller / Leader (Psychopath) Wilhelm Reich introduced the notion and science of Characterology and its 5 basic character types. Each character type has a set of bodily postures, muscular skeletal structuring, touch, feeling, and contact presentations to the world, and also a cognitive and emotional set of equivalent issues, plus a mask or presenting appearance to the world. The Psychopathic term is the old Reichan and psychiatric derived term that Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowan, and John Pierrakos tended to use in Reichan therapy, Bioenergetics, and Core Energetics respectively. This character structure is also referred to as the Controller/Leader when working with clients in a more archetypal way that is less pathologising. The childhood dynamics that setup a person to have a Controller/leader outcome are typically those that follow, but other dynamics can also lead to this same outcome. The basic need of every

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person is to be healthily esteemed. Self esteem issues are at the core of this personality type. Like the Perfectionistic character, this person creates a false self to cope with a rejection of their own nature and humanity. The difference is the rejection came explicitly from the parent who constantly puts down and narcissistically injures the child. The adult does not operate to the truth that we are born and designed to be human and live within that humanity which is the paradox of perfection within imperfection. The parent judged and belittled the childs authentic self expression as either not enough or too much for the parent, or the parent demanded the child provide more gratification, excitement or meaning for the parent than was possible, or a combination of all of these. There is a degree of chaos and instability operating here in the parents. The parent essentially rejects their childs own nature and humanity, and seeks instead to force the child into an idealised version of themself, one in which grandiosity and a form of perfection is the only choice in all aspects and dimensions of life. The child normally fails to live up to the grandiose false idealised image that the parent compels them to be. Often one parent is a Narcissistic personality themself in this dynamic. They effectively create the idealisation of the child via their own projection of a false idealised and narcissistic self. They ask the child to join them on their pedestal where they can worship each other and be worshipped by the other. This creates a puffed up self, including the body structure that we will touch on again. Often the other parent is frozen out of this relationship, and so a triangle develops. The frozen out parent starts to resent both the parent and the child, and the attention that is happening between them. This parent may then humiliate and shame the special child, and pull them off the narcissistic pedestal, and further and more directly narcissistically injuring the child. Because the child needs and wants love it will give up its authentic self, and start to live from the false self created for it by the parent who is effectively using the child for its own narcissistic or unmet needs. The child learnt to restrict those parts of themself that were not reinforced, and to inflate those parts that were highly valued and demanded of them. They may have been able to get love by being beautiful, the winning athlete, the intellectual, or a combination of performing roles. The false self is evident later in life both by others and internally by the now grown child, but as it is the only remaining source of self-esteem, it is guarded, reinforced, and lived from. As the real authentic self was squashed or disowned, the person has low self esteem, doubts themself, and is now sensitive to criticism, disapproval or failure. The false self is often typically constellated around the 20 defining characteristics of a Narcissistic personality, that I have summarised in my article on this website, Narcissists : People Without Feelings. Not all attributes will be present and not all Controller/Leaders are Narcissists, but some alignment exists, and all Narcissists have a base structure that includes the Controller/Leader characterology to some degree. The common ground is often that the self-esteem is fragile and is typically propped up by perfectionism and an extreme reliance on achievement. Internally there is always self-doubt, self-loathing present, and a degree of inner chaos that may or may not breakthrough into externalised behaviours and the acting out of self-soothing addictions. This personality finds from this internal chaos and lack of self acceptance a need to be constantly moving, unable to relax or be still, unless self-medicating with an addiction, or on the go. There

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may be procrastination of starting and finishing projects, where just before the deadline they go into a chaotic frenzy to avoid failure and the missed deadline. It is also true that another type of household exists that gives rise to this Controller/Leader personality. In middle class and wealthy homes the parent who creates the idealised child is often a Narcissistic personality. In some of these same homes, and in many lower socio-economic homes, this parent is more psychopathic in nature. What is the difference? Well there are similarities but one obvious difference is that the psychopathic personality is often more emotionally chaotic, and also emotionally reactive, and will lash out physically without proper boundaries and restraints. They often have underlying addictions to drugs, alcohol or some other substance, and financial issues and pressures may exist. In these dynamics the child may be both raised up and then smashed down by the same parent in terms of their personality and self-expression, creating direct narcissistic injury, but also safety issues for the child. The narcissistic injury is more severe and the torment more ongoing in these type of homes, and deepens the primary self-esteem wound. A common dynamic that exists is an alcoholic, workaholic or drug abusing parent. For instance in the morning they are typically sober, rested and reasonable. The child approaches them and is welcomed, esteemed and possibly elevated and made special. The same child comes home that evening and the same parent when they arrive home is drunk, stressed or drugged. The parent lashes out at the child from this state and belittles, hurts, humiliates or crushes the child. Physical and sexual abuse may be present in this dynamic. It is the same dynamic as the Narcissistic parents home except the injuries in the psychopathic home are often more gross, direct, traumatising, and possibly physically injurious to the child. In this home the child becomes hyper-vigilant and wary, and learns to watch and sense the verbal and non verbal cues of the either psychopathic, psychotic or somehow unstable and unsafe parent. The child adopts this stance to feel safe, and to prevent abuse. They learn techniques to calm the parent, to attend to the parent, to deceive the parent, to comply with the parent, and ultimately where possible, to control the parent. From this place over a number of years they learn about the power of being able to manipulate both parents and this sets them up to become manipulative, controlling, and liberal with lying and the truth. They identify with the association between power and feeling safe, and so are always primarily working to empower themselves at the expense of others to feel safe. The child also becomes a performer, a fluid personality that moves with environments and events, and works with them to create their own safety and advantage. The childs home environment was fluid and shifted within a chaotic framework that called upon the child to perceive and adjust quickly or be annihilated. The child constantly shifts inside themself between a sense of power and grandiosity, to the other pole of inferiority and worthlessness. They give up their values and authenticity to survive and become selfish and entitled within themself. They trust no one and kill their own painful feelings to cope with the pole of inferiority and worthlessness. They are left with a hyper-vigilant, street-wise, aggressive and seductive personality that is unfeeling but feigns any feeling. They can perform for anyone, and can read another persons

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verbal and non-verbal cues with amazing accuracy. They are often either seductive at first, then become controlling, especially when in leadership roles or in relationships, and over time may start to have trust issues with the people they are engaged with, and a form of paranoia creeps in, and they may become accusing, aggressive, and increasingly controlling. Their currency is power and status, and they will compete with others for it, but often lack a moral fibre and so will resort to deception, lying, and manipulation to get what they want. They often saw violence and had it acted out upon them, and now as adults will resort to physical, emotional and mental violence against others when imposing control over them. In both types of Controller/Leader personalities, the resulting outcome of the bodymind of this personality can be summarised as the development of blocks in the body and musculature that restrain or render unconscious those impulses and reactions that are unacceptable or result in punishment or abuse. At the same time the bodily expressions of character also can reflect the ideal or false self presented to the world in compensation for the original narcissistic injury. Basically what we see in the body is one of these two principles, or a combination of both. We firstly often see an upward displacement energetically and in the bodily composition of bulk and muscles. By this we see weak or thin legs, which come up into smaller and tighter thighs, with a small set of buttocks. The body then starts to flare out from the mid back into a wide set of shoulders where there is more bulk and compensating musculature. The head is often large, and may be jutting slightly or prominently forward on the neck, which is an ominous posture to the world. In this person they often have a puffed up look, as energetically they breathed in and held their breath. In terror in childhood situations, they often held their breath in terror at being made wrong, criticised or punished. They have the classic V shaped build that is put up in society as a heroic archetype, and the most appealing shape, especially for a man. The eyes are often magnetic and dazzling, as the eyes represent an orifice for energetic discharge, and this personality has an overcharge of energy in the upper body. They seduce, compel, threaten and engage through their eyes which always attract attention. The overall V shape also energetically represents the personality built on narcissistic development, where the base or foundation(legs) are ungrounded and weak or unstable, This insecure base then supports a character or body of exaggerated power, wilfulness, and driven achievement. In the second type of embodied narcissistic personality, which some writers refer to as the closet narcissist, one finds a more Rigid-Perfectionist style of body which shows few bodily disturbances. The uniform and ideal shape reflects the false idealised self that is presented to the world that hides the inner chaos. Their body presents an ideal look but hides blocks and chaos internal to the self. The female versio n of the Controller/Leader personality may also show an inverted V shape, or a body where the enlargement is downwards oriented in the thighs, hips, buttocks and upper leg muscles. A large set of breasts may also be present. The reasons for this formation and representation relate to the expression of female creativity and sexuality of the feminine as power

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centres within their female body, versus the masculine power centres of aggression of power and status via the intellect which constellate in the head and upper body of a man. A woman who disowns their feminine and adopts a masculine false self that is driven into achieving often demonstrates the classic V shape of a man, as they identify with their masculine principles, and disown their feminine except as weak, and only useful as a power or seduction object in objectified or sexualised dynamics. In all these cases there are muscular blocks in the body which prohibit full feeling awareness from operating. This suppresses their real self and their suffering or chaotic inner life. The body is our real self and in a sense these people try to live from their heads, and not in their body. They objectify and use their body to achieve their ends, just as they use others and any other resource to their own end without compassion or empathy. Uniformly there is rigidity and constriction in those areas of the body that block natural flow of feelings and emotions, and hence energy since the word emotion means (Energy in MOTION). This personality type was often also either objectified, used or punished/shamed for their sexuality. Their pelvis shows a posture that is rigidly held, the tension blocking awareness and release of the sexual charge. There is often present a constricting band around the waistline that further inhibits the awareness of sexual impulse, and dams energy in the upper half of the body, whilst also constricting and so undercharges them in the lower half of the body. This constriction which is often visible on the body, also inhibits the awareness of the ungroundedness in the person and leaves them in their heads. There are normally constricted and atrophic muscles in the diaphragm area of the chest, and the intercostals muscles between the ribs hold tension to keep the breathing shallow. This makes the person ticklish but this can quickly turn to rage if tickling persists and threatens the bodily blocks. Shallow breathing is a key bodily method used to suppress feelings and is a major block in this personality. The shoulders are often broad but also raised, with tight muscles in the Rhomboids, Trapezius complex, Terres muscles and neck attachments and rotators such as Scalenes. The SternoCloido-Mastoid on the side of the neck may be thick and flared to lock or bind in rage which this personality tries to suppress within themself. All these constrictions block feelings from the body reaching the head, and leave the person living in their heads. There is a block in the rear ocular segment just behind the neck, where the base of the skull meets the spine and neck. This block is the last major line of defence from feelings making it from the body into the head. Likewise at the front of the face the Masceter and facial muscles are often tight to prevent facial emotional expression from giving them away, leaving them with an angular or chiselled look to the face. The jaw line may be thick and broad showing deep blocks in the muscles which bind in the suppressed rage which wants to erupt through the mouth and eyes. The eye block also allows them to dissociate from others, and block empathy and compassion arising, and instead assist in the objectification of the other person, or denial of the other persons humanity. However they can flood this block with energy and use their eyes with feigned

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emotion to seduce, threaten and compel others, as this was a survival technique needed from time to time that has precedence over the eye blocks primary objective. The closet narcissist may not show so much embodied defence as they will have compensated in their personality via a smooth but slippery way of navigating through life and with people, using others for their gain. Their body is a form of camouflage portrays innocence but this deception hides a chameleon of a personality who is predatory and cunning in their approach to life. In their healed form this personality is a natural leader who is normally charismatic, fearless, can think on the run, is able to sum up people and situations with accuracy within seconds, and who can protect others, and be their advocate. They are visionary, very intelligent, can start and finish projects, and inspire others to do the same. They are very gifted individuals in this healed form. References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith, 2004, Celestial Arts, USA. Character Analysis, Wilhelm Reich, 1975, 5th enlarged edition, New York, Farrar Publishing. Bioenergetics, Alexander Lowen, 1976, Penguin books, New York. Language of the Body, Alexander Lowen, 1971, MacMillan, New York. Character Styles, Stephen Johnson, 1994, W.WW Norton & Co New York. Characterological Transformation The Hard Work Miracle, Stephen Johnson, 1985, W.W. Norton & Co New York. Free Yourself 1 Releasing Your Unconscious Defence Patterns, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Free Yourself 2 The Power of the Soul, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton, 2005, Mountain of Love/Elite Books, USA. Core Energetics, John Pierrakos, 1990, LifeRhythm Publication.

The Perfectionist / Obsessional (Rigid) Wilhelm Reich introduced the notion and science of Characterology and its 5 basic character types. Each character type has a set of bodily postures, muscular skeletal structuring, touch, feeling, and contact presentations to the world, and also a cognitive and emotional set of equivalent issues, plus a mask or presenting appearance to the world. There are a number of terms that were used to describe the various types of this personality types in the old Reichan and psychiatric derived language that Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowan, and John Pierrakos tended to use in Reichan therapy, Bioenergetics, and Core Energetics respectively. This character structure is also referred to as the Perfectionist and the Obsessional when working with clients in a more archetypal way that is less pathologising. The need to be perfect is a false illusion. We are born and designed to be human and live within that humanity which is the paradox of perfection within our imperfection. The rigid person essentially rejects their own nature, sexuality and humanity, and seeks instead to be an idealised version of themself, one in which perfection is the only choice in all aspects and dimensions of life.

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The childhood dynamics that setup a person to have a Perfectionistic outcome are typically those where in the emerging oedipal stage from age 3 to 4 up to about age 7, or in early teenage years, the child was continually rejected by the parent of the opposite sex, and possibly also of the same sex. At this age the child will have natural instinctual impulses to gravitate to the parent of the opposite sex, and will undergo an innocent and infantile falling in love process with that parent. This process sees the child become vulnerable and fully open-hearted to this parent, and being at an oedipal stage, it may also involve having infantile sexual impulses towards that parent. The responsibility of this parent is to be aware of this emerging dynamic and work skilfully with it, such that the child is not rejected, used, punished or shamed for having natural impulses of the heart and their sexuality. The wounding parent is often a Perfectionistic person themself, who by definition, has a closed heart, lives in their head, and is threatened by others feelings. In any event the adult parent will dismiss or criticise or punish or reject the child who approaches them out of love. This crushes the child who will learn from such repeated attempts to form a defence that prevents them from being rejected and from feeling the painful feelings at all. A parent may also feel uncomfortable with a childs infantile sexual behaviour and shame them for this, or react angrily, so leaving the child to believe there is something wrong with this part of themself. One parent may use the child s love interest in them as a tool to trigger reactions and anger in the other parent. Here one parent plays a cruel game where they encourage and exploit the sexuality and love of the child in order to create competition with the other parent. When it becomes too much, or threatens the relationship with the spouse, the manipulator withdraws from the used child, or humiliates or punishes them for these previously encouraged behaviours. The child learns that it is unsafe to love sexually with an open heart and to experience natural human rivalry. The child will start to control themself so their impulses and urges do not lead them into painful outcomes, and by splitting themself in this way, they disown these impulses and feelings into their unconscious, and start to compensate by wanting to please the parent and win love in other ways. In one type of outcome, because they feel flawed and wrong for having their natural impulses they decide to become fully in self-control and to become perfect and to achieve at whatever will win them praise and love and positive attention. In this first dynamic, the wounding parent will often be critical and perfectionistic themself, and so demand perfect behaviour, perfect academia and sporting achievement from the child if the child is to please the parent, which every child does, and will adopt now as the substitute for the disowned natural sexual love feelings which have been rendered unsafe. This stance by the parent is abusive and wrong, and effectively uses their own children to promote the false ideal of perfection in the family. Many such parents may also be narcissistic and want trophy children they can trot out to others and show off, and whom they can boast about their sporting and academic achievements. The real authentic child is lost in all this, and becomes a false idealised self in order to survive and be accepted. Another outcome is a person who uses over dramatisation and expression of their feelings in order to prevent them feeling their true feelings. This stance was commonly labelled The

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Hysterical Woman as the literature tended to associate this behaviour with women. It also carries the label of the Histrionic personality. This outcome is often related to a history of inappropriate encouragement and exploitation of the childs sexuality and the resulting competition it fostered with the other parent. Yet another outcome was the person distracts themself from their feelings by preoccupying themself in their heads with obsessional thoughts and/or compulsive rituals and behaviours. This outcome is often related to a history of inappropriate encouragement and exploitation of the childs sexuality and the resulting competition it fostered with the other parent, but in addition there was actual punishment as well of the child for having these thoughts and feelings, despite being encouraged to do so. It is often considered as well that this outcome can also be the result of the previous early life wounding occurring that we know as the Unwanted Child. See the related article on the Unwanted Child on this website. The resulting outcome of the bodymind of a predominant perfectionstic person who adopts either the classic perfectionist role, or the Histrionic role, can be summarised as a person who presents harmony, order and perfection to the world. Both sexes show an athleticism and harmony in their bodies, with symmetry to their bodies. They can be particularly beautiful and graceful, with the men having either a graceful boyish manful look like actor Jude Law, or a more rugged countenance like actor Daniel Craig. This is because the muscular armouring in the Perfectionistic person may be visually subtle and athletic due to its mesh-like configuration in the chest and back, while the face is youthful, or the muscular armouring may be more angular and plate-like, creating a more squared off physique, and pronounced facial muscles, possibly with a squared off jaw. The female typically follows the physical outcome of a harmonious, athletic, attractive body and face where there is good symmetry in the body. A person such as the model Megan Gale typifies this outcome. Both sexes will have a good uniform breathing pattern that involves the chest, diaphragm and belly, but the breathing will be shallow in order to suppress feelings in the body. Both sexes may have problems with their throats either physically or at least as a communication channel, as the unconscious fear of being criticised, scorned, wronged, or rejected for speaking their opinion or truth, leaves many Perfectionistic persons with a block in their throats to represent this fear of speaking up. Their bodies reveal their attempt of achieving perfection more than it does revealing major blocks or flaws or somatic wounding beyond the key points noted here. These 2 types of Perfectionistic persons have pride as a key fault, and will have a deep conviction of being superior to others which they may not publicly admit. They may still have a strong connection to the parent of the opposite sex, and may be Daddys little Princess or Mummys little Man or Her Prince. This relationship speaks of this infantile triangulated and sexualised relationship that may still be in place decades later even when the child has grown into an adult. It is not uncommon for this childhood or early teenage origin dynamic to still operate when the child is an adult, and will effectively still create a triangle as the spouse of the parent in this dynamic is often sidelined, resentful of both of them, and unable to compete with the child for the spouses attention or affection. This also explains why these perfectionists as adults often

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created triangulated relationships, as this dynamic may be normalised to them now, after all these years of living it in a family system. They may still triangulate their own adult love relationship by still having the original parent on a pedestal where their current relationship partner is in competition with that parent, cannot please that parent, and where they feel the hostility of that parent towards them. This can be the archetypal mother-in-law who criticises the new girlfriend as not being good enough for my boy!!. The adoption of the need to be perfect stance towards life by this personality type, sets up that Perfectionistic character to be effectively like a mouse on a treadmill, driven to be constantly achieving and striving for perfection and yet seemingly getting nowhere as they constantly encounter their true but rejected less than perfect natures. Life to them is essentially a checklist of ongoing external challenges and accomplishments to be conquered, and the Perfectionistic personality is very competitive within themself, and secretly with others. They must secretly try to win. Its a life or death struggle for many, a win-lose equation for most of them. Even when they win, their underlying anxiety gives them little time to stop and smell the roses, and take in their achievements. They are already focussing on the next challenge(s) and items to be ticked off in life. Nothing must challenge their thus far achieved status and level of perfection. To be perfect means to always be in control of the situation at hand. Perfectionistic characters are in total self-control, which contrasts with the Leader/Controller who focuses control on those around them. Perfectionistic persons therefore do not cope well with unforseen events or circumstances that spoil their plans that see them lose control that expose them to criticism, or expose them to inadequacy or not being perfect. The Perfectionistic person is constantly checking in with themself to ensure they are maintaining their mask of perfection and control to the world. This personality develops a form of analysis paralysis where they go to endless lengths in thinking in what if outcomes abo ut any planned action or project. They seek to work out the best way forward and anticipate the consequences and outcomes so they can steer a path away from anything that will see them again humiliated, punished, exposed, and made to seem less than perfect. This mental gymnastics sees them prone to fall into procrastination, intense recurrent thoughts in their heads, negative and fear based thinking, and so results in them having procrastination in life as an issue. The obsessional form of this personality learns to retreat into this world as an escape from guilt and other feelings. The Perfectionstic character presents beautifully in body and in mind, and through the self control and adherence to the highest stands of bodily image via grooming, dress, deportment, and physical health and fitness, they cut a stunning near perfect figure to the world. Likewise they attempt perfection via the intellect and are normally very intelligent and disciplined in study and work, and are reliable, hard working, but often require black and white, formal work and intellectual frameworks in order to make them feel safe. They are over-represented in black and white industries and careers such as engineering, law, accounting and administration of rules and policy. The Perfect ionistic personality fears the grey of subjective and interpretive careers and subjective debates as they fear being wrong, or being criticised or exposed as less than competent

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or perfect in this place. The Perfectionistic personality will often procrastinate over a new task or discipline they have not mastered for the same reason, and will often suffer a lot of anxiety in this procrastination period, before the looming deadline kicks in a rush of activity right near the end of the deadline, as a larger fear of true failure causes mobilisation to occur. The Perfectionistic personality tends to value thinking above feeling, being right above being in truth, and living to an image versus living from their hearts. They work out what society values as important in all areas of life, and then chases after that ideal. In a sense, due to their real inner low self esteem, they compensate via what is termed outer or other-esteem by achieving everything possible, and having the most degrees and achievements, the best house, the right suburb to live in, the most connected friends, the right accessories that fashion trends dictate, the mandatory holiday, and being seen to socialise in the trendiest settings and with the right people. Partners must share this outlook on life and it is not uncommon to find two Perfectionistic personalities living together in their attempt at living the dream together. So what is wrong with all this you say? Nothing except that it hides a high level of social and general anxiety, it often results in Depression, Generalised Anxiety Disorders(GAD), Addictions, or burnout long term in an attempt to keep this lifestyle going. Like the little black duck on the pond they look so cute and peaceful from afar, but underneath the water the little ducks legs are kicking furiously to keep the appearance going and the duck afloat. Many ducks drown over time as the illusion of perfection cannot be maintained and the motto what is not in truth collapses shows up. The Perfectionistic personality suffers from an intense inner critic or internalised critical voice of the parent(s) or authority figure that made them feel unlovable in their humanity in the first place. This inner voice typically is constantly scanning others and noting if the Perfectionistic person is better or less perfect than that other person, often across a number of reference points. The Perfectionistic person often then feels sick inside when later alone that they have then within their own private thoughts just done a character assassination on that other person from such a critical mind. This then makes the Perfectionistic person loathe themself, feel bad and they then criticise themself again, and try harder in the future, thus perpetuating the cycle of criticism and low self esteem they try to escape through perfectionism. In reality the Perfectionistic character is more focussed on failure than success, more sensitive to criticism than others, displaces and mistrusts positive feedback with their own internal critique of how things could have been better. Outsiders imagine the Perfectionistic character has it all in life, and are often envious of their achievements, but to the Perfectionistic person themself, they are normally unable to feel or truly be happy within themself or with their own achievements. The Perfectionistic person only can then put happiness out into the future and often has a form of thinking based on outcomes like once I achieve x then I will be happy. This cognitive distortion means they stop being a human being and instead become a human doing, where they cannot sit still and just do nothing, but must always be doing something, and start to get anxious when they feel frustrated that they are wasting precious time, or they should be doing something more substantial. The Perfectionistic person will often overwork and may sacrifice socialising for work, and they often struggle with anxiety based sleep disorders and workaholism.

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The Perfectionistic person is often ruled by black and white thinking where they often live to rules and other black and white constructs, or try to impose such frameworks on others. They often speak in terms of shoulds and shouldnts and their rigidity mi xed with perfectionism gives them little heart and little compassion in how they live. The Perfectionistic person often mistrusts their feelings and so retreats into living in their heads , becomes critical and negative and judgemental of others as their inner critic starts to surface and be manifest in their personality. At work the Perfectionistic person will achieve and get promoted through a combination of intelligence, application, overwork, and competitiveness. However once in power they often demand perfection from others who do not understand this insane drive to achieve at the expense of happiness and life balance. The Perfectionistic boss will launch angry judgemental tirades at staff who they judge as lazy, stupid, weak or incompetent. This type of boss may micro-manage and be unable to trust others via delegation, and will typically introduce many rules, black and white reporting systems, statistics and only view success through financial or other empirical Key Performance Indicators. Staff turnover and absenteeism due to stress is high in workplaces where a Perfectionistic boss rules and sets the tone for the workplace culture. It is common that these personalities show a generational link, with either one or both parents, either the same sex or other sex parent, having the same Perfectionistic personality that they then as parents then create in one or more of their children. The parent wounds the child through their perfectionistic demands, betrayal of the childs sexual love, harsh black and w hite thinking, and criticisms and judgements they visit on their children they are supposed to love. At home the spouse or partner may suffer as the Perfectionistic person is normally emotionally unavailable, is mentally often not present, and living in their head or are still in their office in their heads. The partner and the children will feel unseen, unappreciated or unloved, and will typically withdraw and start to either avoid the Perfectionistic person, or please them via perfect achievements at sport or academia in order to be seen or to get love. The first born child often becomes the perfect child and goes down the path of being the good one or the achiever perfectionist themself, whilst the second born is often unseen, and may rebel and act out the negative disowned qualities that horrify and shame the Perfectionistic parent, and shame the family who are expected to present Brady Bunch perfection to the world. In the long term either the Perfectionistic person or their neglected partner may start to have an affair outside their relationship. As a child their united sexuality and love, as symbolised by their pelvis and heart, was made wrong, and became the basis for humiliation, shame, punishment and exploitation. As part of shutting down their feelings and creating defences against being hurt again, they split their love and sexuality between two people in all future situations. By this they will tend as adults to have a confidante which whom they can have heart to hearts but no sex, and then have a separate partner to whom they submit sexually but will withhold their heart. When this person enters a relationship this split stance towards sex and love can be confusing for partners. They may start a relationship with a strong libido, but as they fall in love they face the internal tension of being betrayed again, and so unconsciously split their love and sex, or pelvis and heart. For many this will mean giving the partner sex, but withdrawing and relating from their heads, with little emotional connection. For some they will cultivate a friend outside the relationship at this stage, thus creating a triangle which resembles their childhood triangulated dynamics, and where they displace their heart needs.

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Sometimes the relationship will progress where the Perfectionist gives their heart and head to their partner, but shuts down their pelvis or sexuality and libido leaves the relationship. They become more like brother and sister emotionally and with no sex, but maintain the facade to friends and the world of the perfect couple. In this dynamic the Perfectionist or their partner may eventually act out a sexual affair in order to satisfy their unmet sexual needs. The Perfectionist personality often has triangulated relationships, and affairs whilst inside relationships can be a major issue in their life. In our work we describe this as a pelvic/heart split. In a relationship the person tends to shut their heart down and be actively sexual for a period but not really open their heart, since they actually fear emotional intimacy. The Perfectionistic person experienced the painful rejection and criticism in childhood as heart breaking and so as a defence is now closed off to being hurt in that vulnerable way again. They instead only offer part of themself to a partner, typically their thinking intellect and sexuality and keep their heart closed, with other persons existing outside the relationship to whom they have their heartfelt relations with. The two ways of being, in the heart and the pelvis, are normally never expressed through a single person or partner. If a Perfectionistic personality was to be fully vulnerable to another person again then they could be hurt and betrayed again which is too big a risk to take, and too much of a fear to live with. What often happens in a relationship with either one or both persons having a Perfectionistic personality present, is they connect sexually and mentally or intellectually well in the first stage. Once the heart shows up in the relationship for one or both of them then they live a dilemma of how not to get hurt. What occurs is either they keep their hearts closed and live in the status quo of having a sexual and intellectual bond, sacrificing the heart and its feelings, or the sexuality shuts down as the heart in one or both of them opens. In either dynamic they cannot get fully hurt as they are not fully open or fully vulnerable to the other person, and so can better cope with betrayal or criticism or judgements from the loved one. Unfortunately this can also lead to the person who shuts down their sexuality then being tempted in fantasy or in reality to having an affair where its purely sexual and where they never intend to leave their partner. This person gets all their needs met through two different persons in a triangulated dynamic. The Perfectionistic personality struggles with constructive criticism or negative criticism, or indeed even feedback said from an empathic place can be perceived and received in an overall sensitive and personal way. They can get overly wounded and withdraw, and in extreme examples where they get publicly exposed or they perceive shame there are well known examples of such successful persons suiciding. In a well known example, the recent Global Financial Crisis saw Adolf Merckle, the worlds 44th richest man, drop down the rich list to number 94. For 99% of the population this position would still see themself as a vastly wealthy person with opportunities, achievements and resources beyond what all of us will not see in this life. In his world the perceived loss of face and loss of control was unbearable and he threw himself under a train in his own perceived sense of failure and shame. Some authors also note that some people become perfectionistic in order to thrive or survive in their careers. In Australia, Charmaine Dragun was an attractive Australian television presenter who had both the pressure of being a well known public figure on Television, and was in her

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own words strongly perfectionistic. In the competitive world of television and media, media celebrities often are looking over their shoulders at upcoming talent who no doubt covet their job. In media, image is everything and in recent accounts of female media personalities who once worked in Australian TV, the pressure to be perfect and sexual and beautiful on camera was a benchmark by which they were judged. Charmaine had reportedly been struggling with Anxiety and Depression for which she was receiving help, and these disorders are a common issue for the Perfectionistic personality. She was reported to have had a solid relationship, but reportedly felt empty, which is a common feeling that Perfectionistic personalities feel with the perfection trap they create for themselves in life. Charmaine was reported to be emotionally troubled, and possibly suffered Bipolar Type 2 disorder. She reportedly was beset by negative thinking and feelings of hopelessness. Charmaine had some suicidal feelings during all this and eventually committed suicide when she became overwhelmed with her life circumstances. The Perfectionistic personality often resists entering therapy due to the notion that they must be perfect, and doing therapy or getting counselling is an admission of failure. Often it is only after their own self-controlling efforts to run their life to the illusion of perfection have failed, that they enter therapy in crisis. Also the Perfectionistic personality may end up in counselling due to being unable to remain faithful in romantic relationships, where the idea of an affair may be acted out in reality. The Perfectionistic personality may collapse into an Anxiety or Depressive disorder, or suffer Chronic Fatigue or burnout or an illness related to a suppressed immune system, as they are unable to keep up with their own relentless demands to achieve more and more. This is becoming more common in our society with terms such as Executive Stress or Executive Burnout often describing this dynamic. I mentioned earlier a third type of Perfectionistic personality that uses obsessional thinking, or compulsive ritualised actions as a defence and distraction from being in their forbidden thoughts and feelings. This type of Perfectionistic personality often had the Unwanted Child wounding in the womb, or in early life. Refer to my related article on the Unwanted Child for details about this personality type. Here it is believed that the Obsessional type redirects their own will towards controlling what is uncontrolled, that being ones spontaneous thoughts, impulses, desires and feelings. Coming from an Unwanted Child and/or Perfectionistic child background where the world and parents were hostile, and/or from the situation where they were punished or used or humiliated in their own sexual love feelings, the Obsessional develops an inner sentinel which issues internal dialogue warnings, admonitions, commands, directives and warnings. This sentinel can be believed by the Obsessional to be an external alien force, voice or evil possessing them, and not understood or accepted to be part of their inner life. The Obsessional believes they are compelled to obey the directives of this sentinel. The sentinel is a more severe form of the classic perfectionists inner critic. The parents of this Obsessional type are found often to be stern, exacting, rigid, rule based, cold personalities who were threatened and disgusted by the spontaneity of the child, and who punished and threatened the child until the child gave up their true self and became a perfect child. The child must enact self-control to suppress their instinctual behaviours and become the

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false perfect self demanded of them by the parent(s). Commonly one or both parents are either threatened or competitive with the childs often intelligent and creative original nature . Where the person has an Unwanted Child background there is often a more survival oriented need for this rigid Perfectionistic outcome. The Obsessional based perfectionism prevents the collapse and fragmentation of the person occurring. The person imposes a self-will in order to maintain order in the face of internal chaos and this must be maintained as their internal life is often threatening to fragment. The order and structure is maintained through this internal sentinel that keeps watch and uses ritual and rules to make the person functional. Regardless of their background the Obsessional type typically is a person under constant internal pressure to do, behave, feel and think the right thing. They attempt to control their own feelings and motivations so they are the right kind of person and do not offend. This keeps them busy behaviourally and cognitively, and fends off any impulse to sidetrack off into spontaneous and therefore unsafe territory. Their intense and narrowly focused attention, particularly to detail, coupled with their noted doubt, indecision, and procrastination, keep them safe from making mistakes. The Obsessional can be quite stilted, pedantic and rigidly correct in social settings, being an observer more than involved, with others seen as the personification of the social rules, expected niceties, and imperatives they must live up to, and so are submissive to those above them, and punishing to those below them who must comply and follow the rules, have proper attitudes and values. This subjugation of those below them is the basis for them recreating their childhood wounds, and so sets up possible trans-generational wounding in this type in families. Over time the suppression, self-regulation, and self-vigilance, they impose on themself, coupled with their feelings of their internal self collapsing into chaos if they do not keep their obsessions and rituals going, can create depression. In their world, as they feel threatened or stressed or overwhelmed, it only leaves them with a strategy of more of the same. Here they will obsess more, be more compulsive, increase rituals and behaviours, and often at this point there intrudes into consciousness some repressed thoughts of a sexually sadistic or somehow otherwise hostile nature. At this point they may act out their darker thoughts, or regain control and punish the bad part of themself for having such thoughts, or for acting them out. They may also collapse or act out if exposed by someone else in a way that humiliates or shames them as wrong or uncovers an aspect of them they have tried to suppress and hide. This Obsessional personality does not typically exhibit the harmonious body of the classic Perfectionist personality. If they have the earlier Unwanted Child wounding their bodies will show that characterology or bodily characteristics. The Obsessional personality shows itself more in their mental life and behaviours than it does in the body. The ocular segment block, which is found in other personality types, and which principally shows in the eyes, the facial and jaw muscles, and the rear neck line where the skull meets the neck, will normally be present. This acts to repress feelings coming from the body into the head, and creates a split between the head and the body, which results in the person living in their heads. The Perfectionistic personality is also partly present in the related development of the Narcissistic personality, and the two tend to share some similar outlooks on life, self, and what

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drives them in life. Most Narcissistic personalities also tend to have a developmental background that involves the dynamics shared by the Leader/Controller personality type which is outlined elsewhere in this section of the website. Refer also to my articles on Narcissism in the Articles section of this website.
References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith, 2004, Celestial Arts, USA. Character Analysis, Wilhelm Reich, 1975, 5th enlarged edition, New York, Farrar Publishing. Bioenergetics, Alexander Lowen, 1976, Penguin books, New York. Language of the Body, Alexander Lowen, 1971, MacMillan, New York. Character Styles, Stephen Johnson, 1994, W.WW Norton & Co New York. Characterological Transformation The Hard Work Miracle, Stephen Johnson, 1985, W.W. Norton & Co New York. Free Yourself 1 Releasing Your Unconscious Defence Patterns, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Free Yourself 2 The Power of the Soul, Annie Marquier, 2005, Findhorn Press, Scotland. Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton, 2005, Mountain of Love/Elite Books, USA. Core Energetics, John Pierrakos, 1990, LifeRhythm Publication. Draguns Suicide Preventable, Gabrielle Knowles , The West Australian newspaper, Saturday October 16, 2010.