Record of a Friendship

body, which correspond to this specific emotional situation. For
instance: You may have released a bit of the mask-like stiffness of the
facial expression. An impulse to bite may be on the point of breaking
through. To this biophysical emotion the patient may react, by way of
protection, with a withdrawal in his shoulders, a kind of holding back.
N ow you cannot get out the biting impulse in the mouth unless you release
the auxiliary muscular annouring in the shoulders first, by bringing the
shoulders forward. It is always a matter of observing the patient in such
a relaxed manner that you learn to realize where a muscular defense
(which is of course identical with the character defense) appears anew
when the muscular defense on which you are working is just about to
yield. This substitution of armouring mechanisms may take place any­
where in the body. Another instance: If there is a withdrawal tendency
in the right arm due to a blocked impulse to hit; you let this arm move
and the hitting impulse wants to break through; the patient may, in
order to avoid hitting, arch his back very strongly. If you recognize the
connection, and you release the arching of the back, you have destroyed
the auxiliary muscular defense, and the hitting impulse cannot help but
come through.
I would be glad if you would care to let me know from time to time
how you are getting along with adolescents. The main thing in all vegeto­
therapy is to know unshakably that the main obstacle to progress is
always a tremendous fear of yielding to involuntary uncontrolled motion
and emotional currents. There is always destructive energy blocking
love emotions.
I am glad you finally will get your Orgone accumulator. Do you have
it built with double layers and close around the body? You will enjoy it
very much, I am sure. You should have also smaller accumulators for
your boys and girls.
Peter is prospering. He is absolutely healthy, happy, eager, curious
and interested in everything. I never would have guessed how little we
know about newborn babies, how completely developed they are bio­
physically, and, accordingly, how stupid and preposterous this whole
educational set-up of our society appears-now even more than it did
already ten years ago. I am learning very, very much and many important
things. I hope to be able to present them at a later date in a useful and
helpful manner.
Every day Ilse or I take Peter into the Orgone Accumulator for 5 to
10 minutes. It does him very good. I urged his mother to be in the
accumulator every day while she was pregnant. Somehow I cannot get