Posture and Emotion - Correlation between postural attitudes and emotional stability Study of 50 individual cases

Edited by Antonello Monno, Nicola Fiorentino and Nicola Ferrante

Study of 50 individual cases

50 people were tested, equally divided into 25 women and 25 men, aged between 17 and 71; the study wants to correlate the non-instrumental postural assessment with the assessment of emotional stability by psychological test (Big Five Questionairre modified), to see if there are any constants between them.

POSTURAL EVALUATION

The postural evaluation included the following tests, below the protocol used:

VERTICAL BARRE ', SIDE LEAD WIRE

VERTICAL BARRE ', LEAD WIRE REAR VIEW

• STYLOID PROCESS HEIGHT
• ROTATION OF ILIACS
• SIAS
• SIPS
• PELVIC BELT
• HEAD ROTATION
• EXTENSORS OF THE WRIST
• FRONT BENDING

TEST IF DISARMONY

• EVALUATION OF BARRE 'VERTICAL
• POSTURAL CONE
• FUKUDA TEST
• TEST DE CYON
• BASSANI TEST

Tools used:

• Plumb
• Data collection sheet
• Pen
• Centimeter

After taking over all the data, the Big Five Questionnaire was administered to evaluate the emotional stability and the two subscales: Impulse Control and Emotion Control; the psycho-diagnostic test was self-administered, it included 24 questions, with both negative and positive items, to be assigned a value from 1 to 5; below the protocol used:

BIG FIVE QUESTIONNAIRE

(modified for emotional stability / neuroticism)

SURVEY

Instructions

The statements of the questionnaire were designed to allow each person to position themselves with respect to certain personality traits. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers. It is therefore impossible to obtain a "good" or "bad" score. It is only possible to get a score that describes his personality more or less accurately.

We assure you that we treat your replies as strictly confidential.

To this end we will be grateful if you follow the instructions below for each statement of the questionnaire:

a) Read the statement and write in the appropriate answer sheet the number corresponding to the answer chosen by you according to the following scale:

5. ABSOLUTELY TRUE FOR ME

4. PRETTY TRUE FOR ME

3. NEITHER TRUE OR FALSE FOR ME

2. PRETTY FALSE FOR ME

1. ABSOLUTELY FALSE FOR ME

b) Be sure to report, for each statement, the numerical value (between 1 and 5) corresponding to the degree to which you believe that the statement is appropriate or otherwise comes close to describing your personality.

Affirmations

1. I tend to get overly involved when someone tells me his troubles.
2. I don't often feel tense.
3. I'm rather susceptible.
4. It is not easy for something or someone to make me lose patience.
5. I don't think I'm an anxious person.
6. I feel vulnerable to criticism from others.
7. In general I don't get irritated even in situations where I have valid reasons to do so.
8. When I'm irritated, I make my moodiness shine through.
9. I don't often feel lonely and sad.
10. I don't usually react impulsively.
11. My mood is subject to frequent swings.
12. Sometimes I get angry for small things.
13. I often get agitated.
14. I don't usually lose my temper
15. I have no difficulty controlling my feelings.
16. In different circumstances I happened to behave impulsively.
17. I don't usually react exaggeratedly to strong emotions.
18. I don't usually react to provocations.
19. I often feel nervous.
20. It annoys me a lot to be disturbed while I'm doing something that interests me.
21. When I am criticized, I cannot stop myself from asking for justifications.
22. Even in extremely difficult situations I don't lose control.
23. Sometimes even small difficulties have the power to make me worry.
24. I don't usually change mood suddenly.

The spreadsheet used by the subject:

Tools used:

• Data collection sheet Big Five Questionnaire
• Pen
• Big Five Modified

DETECTION AND DATA ANALYSIS

Then the data necessary for the realization of the study were identified, which were the following:

The summary table provides: sex, age, backward Barré vertical, Lateral, pelvic rotation, three total Big Five Questionnaire scores, after counting the 24 items, according to the official calculation: CE Total (Emotion control), CI Total ( Impulse control), Total SE (Emotional Stability).

The average values ​​at the bottom of the graph represent the statistical average of the sample, ie average age 30.2 years; Total CE 37.94; IC total 36, 48; SE total 74.42.

The score calculations of the values ​​of the items of the questionnaire were done by a Clinical Psychologist, with whom we collaborated for the choice of questions and the correction of the test.

Subsequently the subjects were divided into categories, with respect to the vertical of Barrè in rear view, crossing the data with the Emotional Stability:

The graph shows that subjects with mixed dysfunctions (value 86) are substantially more emotionally stable than the average of the sample (value 74), interesting values ​​also for the disharmonic. It should be noted that the neutral subjects in the Barrè vertical are less stable (value 68). According to Lowen's theory of Bioenergetics these values ​​could be given by the fact that the more a person accumulates muscle tension, see blockages in the throat, in the diaphragm etc. .. and the greater his emotional stability, given precisely by the difficulty of externalizing emotions, creating those that Lowen called "character armor".

The fundamental thesis on which Reichian therapy is based is that of the functional identity between muscular armor and behavioral armor, or rather between the physical attitude of a person and the structure of his ego.

Respect to the control of emotions:

The graph shows a greater emotional control of subjects with mixed or disharmonic pathologies, which unlike the other graph, are almost equivalent, here too we confirm Lowen's theory of muscular tension.

A basic concept in Reich correlates the inhibition of emotional reactivity to the contraction of breathing. As early as 1955, Reich observed that resistance to the analytic process manifests itself physically in the form of an unconscious breathing block. When the patient was encouraged to breathe deeply, his resistances dissolved and became a flow of repressed materials with the related sequence of effects and sensations. This observation led Reich to the conclusion that the capacity for emotional response depends on respiratory function. By limiting one's oxygen intake, a person dampens the metabolic processes of his body and in practice depresses his energy level. Stemming the metabolic combustion cools the body's passions. Children seem to know that holding the breath eliminates painful sensations and suppresses the impulses of fear.

Apart from the effects on the metabolism, limiting breathing also reduces the body's natural mobility. Respiratory movement fluctuates like a wave through the body, moving upward with inspiration and downward with exhalation. These movements, which constitute the matrix of emotional expression, are blocked by chronic muscular tensions, mainly at the level of the throat, chest, abdomen and diaphragm. Tension in the throat is the result of vocal expression inhibition. They constitute an unconscious repression of the impulses to cry, scream and "raise the voice". Chronic tension of the chest wall is closely associated with muscular spasticity of the shoulder girdle (which retains the ability to reach out with the arms). Thoracic rigidity suppresses the feeling of a strong desire for love that could find expression in reaching or crying. These feelings are suppressed because repeated disappointments during childhood have made them too painful.

Compared to impulse control:

The graph, unlike the control of emotions, shows how the disharmonics have values ​​similar to the ascendants and descendants, while the mixed subjects here also prove to be those with greater control, confirming the theory of Reich and Lowen.

Muscular tension or spasticity in any part of the body affects breathing because breathing is a total activity of the body. Both a rigid jaw and a tension in the buttocks reduce the movements related to breathing and limit the extent of inspiration.

In a broad sense we can say that, if these tensions are predominant in the superficial muscles of the body, the result is a global rigidity both on a physical and psychological level. When the main muscular tensions involve the small and deep muscles that surround the joints, flaccidity and fragmentation result. This produces a lack of integrity both physically and psychologically. Bioenergetic therapy aims to dissolve the chronic muscular tensions of the body and thus restore the body's natural mobility and expressiveness.

We noted the percentage of rotations on the basin:

The graph shows the percentages of rotations on the pelvis, 64% of rotations Dx is probably given by the greater casuistry of the right-handed population, therefore with the right side of the body in hypertonic.

And in the final analysis we have crossed the deviations on the basin, with the three values ​​of the Big Five Q.

In the graph we note a difference between the right rotations and the symmetries of the pelvis with respect to the left rotations, which in all three values ​​appear to be lower, according to Reichian theories the left side of the body represents creativity and emotions, while rationality at right, in fact who has rotations to the left is less emotionally stable, less control impulses and emotions.

CONCLUSIONS

The realized study wanted to demonstrate the correlation between the mind (psyche) and the body (soma), as one can influence the other, as the muscular tensions are expressions of repressed emotional tensions, that if not treated can bring in tension an entire fascial chain. It has been shown that the greater muscular tensions stabilize the emotions of the subjects.

The limits of the study are given by the average of very young age of the sample (30.2 years), by the fact that having tested 50 sports subjects, who regularly practice physical activity, we have not found serious postural dysfunctions, the disharmonic collected were all borderline, given that thanks to physical activity they compensated for their deficit; we have also found an hypertonic on an entire hemilated. Even the limited sample of subjects was a limit of the study: even if interesting values ​​were found, a larger statistical sample, perhaps with a higher average age, and with subjects also sedentary, would have shown different parameters, which opens the way to a more in-depth study.

An individual's posture is the result of multiple aspects that can be grouped into three major factors: structural, biochemical, psychic. The structural factor is determined by the way in which the body reacts to mechanical stimuli received from the external environment in performing all sorts of movements and in maintaining any position, such as sitting, standing, running, impaling. The biochemical factor is determined by the way the body adapts to the metabolic changes induced by the surrounding environment in activities such as eating, drinking, breathing, smoking, taking drugs, supplements, and so on. The psychological factor is determined by the way in which the body adapts to the emotional changes experienced in everyday life, feelings, time management, ways in which personal behavior and those of others are interpreted, management of the space that separates oneself from others and things . Based on the way in which these three factors are integrated, the posture of man is in constant and progressive modification. Therefore in this work posture is understood as a somatic and behavioral expression of the interactions of mental processes. Just as it would not make sense to divide the body from the mind, in the same way the mind-body-behavior relationship represents an inseparable triad, since each psychic process always determines physical reactions (such as muscular contractions in different parts of the body, changes in the respiratory rhythm, of cardiac rhythm, temperature, pressure, hormonal secretion, etc.) and behavioral (gestural expressions, mimic expressions, linguistic and paralinguistic expressions, modification of the orientation that one's own body has with respect to the surrounding environment, changes in the distances that the own body has respect to objects and people around itself etc.) Within this discipline we study both the relationships between psyche and body, and the relationships between behavioral modalities, psychic attitude and consequent adaptation of the organism, as in the posturology behavior is conceived as an extension of the whole c psychophysical complex.

"The body and the mind are only different dimensions of the same organism, parts of a unitary expression of the self."

Helen Flanders Dunbar

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