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What It Means to Work With Your Nervous System: Interview with Karden Rabin

Jan 22

3 min read

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Photo of Karden Rabin with one hand on his chest and another on his lower stomach
Karden Rabin

Karden Rabin is the co-founder of Somia and co-author of The Secret Language of the Body with Jennifer Mann. He is a nervous system medicine practitioner working in the fields of trauma and psychophysiological disorders.


Struggling with debilitating back pain for over a decade, Karden eliminated it by studying the psycho-emotional and neurological underpinning of chronic pain and stress-based disorders. I know from my own experience of chronic lower back pain in my 20s that healing pain disorders is as much a matter of healing emotional and psychological pain as anything else.


The key question of the nervous system is: 'Am I safe?' Our nervous system is constantly scanning our internal and external environment, checking whether we are safe and – if it perceives, rightly or wrongly – that we are not, it quickly lets us know.


You can watch my interview with Karden here, and below I explore the gestalt concept of retroflection and its potential relation to chronic pain:




Emotional suppression and chronic pain


Some interesting studies, that ring true based on my own experience and my work with clients, suggest that emotional suppression can be linked to chronic pain conditions, with links specifically between suppressed anger and rage, and lower back pain.


In terms of gestalt theory, this prompts me to think about the process of retroflection. Retroflection is an interruption to contact – it's one of various ways that we might limit the intensity or success of our connection with others and with the environment. Others include desensitisation, deflection, egotism... more on those another time.


In retroflection, we turn thoughts, emotions and behaviours against ourselves instead of directing them outwards. This might look like intense self-judgement, when really there is someone close to you in your life who you are resisting making judgements of. It can be easier to criticise ourselves than others.


It might look like high levels of self-control and self-monitoring in your friendships or at work, watching what you say and biting your tongue. You might find it hard to trust that you can speak freely and not risk rejection.


It might look like being furious at yourself, beating yourself up internally. Often this feels safer than taking the risk of expressing anger outwardly against someone else.


It might look like physical self-harm, disordered eating, and, at the extreme end, we can even consider suicide an act of retroflection.


In terms of the body, habitual patterns of retroflection can reveal themselves in muscular tension, rigidity of movement, lack of physical flexibility and spontaneity – the resulting physical manifestations of holding yourself back emotionally.


If we think of any kind of self-expression as an energy moving outwards from the self, in retroflection you swiftly grab that energy and hold it back, direct it back towards yourself, contain it, and in so doing, constrain yourself. Holding this energy back, being braced against the world, can have physical consequences that might show up like chronic pain conditions.


Habitual retroflectors often feel lonely, find it difficult to rely on others, and have high standards for themselves and others. Their often high levels of discipline and self-control may have actually taken them very far in life – they may have excelled at work, and even in their relationships they may be known as reliable and robust people.


Letting go of all of this, loosening your grip on yourself even a little, can be really terrifying. It's common that this process can feel threatening. You might feel that you'll be overwhelmed, flooded, if you let out some of the emotions you've been holding back. You might expect to be shamed or rejected if you court the parts of yourself that you've decided, often long ago, are not likeable, not loveable, and not wanted. You might not be used to trusting that another person will be there with you in difficult times. 'Am I safe?' – whether you consciously realise it or not, you're asking yourself this question all the time. If you have a pattern of retroflecting, your answer may be something along the lines of 'only if I can look after myself/manage this situation myself'.


Often the work of undoing retroflection can be slow and gradual, as you come to trust your relationship with your therapist, and you come to trust yourself. As a therapist (and previous therapy-client myself), I really respect what it can take to build trust and take relational risks. Maybe that's part of the reason I seem to attract many chronic retroflectors in my practice, and why it's work that I enjoy.


Jan 22

3 min read

0

6

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