WHAT DOES YOUR POSTURE SAY ?

In the twenty years since this incident took place, psychologists have become increasingly aware of how useful and important body language is in therapy. Interestingly enough, while many of them use body language in their practice, few are aware of doing so and many have no idea of all the work that has been done in the field of kinesics by men like Dr Scheflen and Dr Ray L. Birdwhistell. Dr Birdwhistell, professor of research in anthropology also at Temple University, who has initiated most of the basic work in developing a notational system for the new science of kinesics, warns that 'no body position or movement, in and of itself, has a precise meaning'. In other words, we cannot always say that crossed arms mean, 'I will not let you in,' or that rubbing the nose with a finger means disapproval or rejection, that patting the hair means approval and steepling the fingers superiority. These are naive interpretations of kinesics, and tend to make a parlour game out of a science. Sometimes they are true and sometimes they are not, but they are only true in the context of the entire behaviour pattern of a person.

Body language and spoken language, Dr Birdwhistell believes, are dependent on each other. Spoken language alone will not give us the full meaning of what a person is saying, nor for that matter will body language alone give us the full meaning. If we listen only to the words when someone is talking, we may get as much of a distortion as we would if we listened only to the body language.

Psychiatrists particularly, according to Dr Birdwhistell, must listen to both the body language and the spoken language. In an attempt to teach them how to do this, he published a paper called ' Communication Analysis in the Residency Setting', in which he explains some of the methods he has used to make residents, young learning doctors, aware of the communication potential of body language. It is an interesting aside that Dr Birdwhistell has helped develop the concept of a 'moral looking time'. He believes that one person can observe another's eyes, face, abdomen, legs and other parts of the body for only so long before tension is created in both observer and observed.

In his advice to residents he points out that almost every moving part of the body can contain some message for the doctor, but when all else fails he falls back on two classic examples of body language that can communicate. One, he explains, is the young adolescent girl who has to learn what to do with her newly developed breasts. How should she hold them? Thrust proudly forwards with her shoulders back? Or should she pull her shoulders forwards and hide her breasts by flattening them out? What should she do with her arms and shoulders, and what should she do about her mother who tells her half the time, 'Hold yourself straight. Be proud of your body,' and the rest of the time says, 'Don't go around sticking out like that! You mustn't wear such tight sweaters.' I have a young teenage friend who is particularly uninhibited and self-assured. Catching sight of herself in a mirror while trying on a bikini, she told her mother, 'Aren't they great? Never mind cremation if I die. I'm going to have them bronzed for posterity!'

Most girls in their teens haven't this kind of body pride, and the carrying of their newly developed breasts becomes a real problem. The resident doctor can be made aware that changes in a girl's posture may signal depression, excitement, courtship, anger, or even an appeal for help. Eventually, in his own practice, he will be able to recognize and interpret some of the different problems of his teenage patients by their stance. Another example Dr Birdwhistell uses for residents is what he calls the ' remarkable distensibility and contractibility of the male abdomen and belly'. In courtship we have seen that the male will tighten his abdominal muscles and pull in his belly. In depression he may over-relax these muscles and let his stomach hang out. The degree of tension of these muscles can tell a great deal about the emotional and mental condition of a man. We must realize that the entire body is to body language as the speech organs are to the spoken language. Dr Paul L. Wachtel of the Downstate Medical Center, State University of New York, has studied nonverbal communication in psychiatric patients and has published an article titled 'An Approach to the Study of Body Language in Psychotherapy'. Each movement or position of the body, according to Dr Wachtel, has adaptive, expressive and defensive functions, some conscious and some unconscious. 'We seek,' he said, 'a thorough clinical evaluation of the significance of the patient's use of his body.' To obtain his data Dr Wachtel filmed psychiatric interviews and then played and replayed the films, matching body language to verbal communication. One thing he learned from watching the films was when to look for significant gestures. Theoretically you could tell by listening to a patient, but actually the movements are too fast and are often missed in an interview. Film can be slowed down and replayed, serving as a time machine to recall any part of an interview at will. An example of how body language helps, Dr Wachtel said, came about in an interview with an extremely troubled person who did not know how she felt about a friend with whom she was involved. In the film he noticed that whenever she was angry she made certain gestures. When she repeated these same gestures at the mention of the friend's name he was able to show her graphically how she felt towards that friend. Understanding your emotions is, of course, the first step in handling them. Dr Wachtel regards body language as a conscious or unconscious attempt by the patient to communicate with the therapist. One patient he studied would lean back and clasp her hands as the therapist reached certain troublesome areas. 'Perhaps,' Dr Wachtel said, 'this is a relatively common expression of resistance.'