THE MASK THAT WONT COME OFF

The need to mask is often so deep that the process becomes self-perpetuating, and the mask cannot be taken offor let down. There are certain situations, such as sexual intercourse, where the masking should be stopped in order to enjoy lovemaking to its fullest, and yet many of us are only able to unmask in complete darkness. We are so afraid of what we may tell our partners by body language, or of what we may reveal with our faces, that we attempt to cut off the visual end of sex completely and we raise moral bulwarks to help us do this. ' It's not decent to look.'' The sexual organs are ugly.' 'A nice girl doesn't do that by daylight.' And so on. For many other people darkness is not enough to allow unmasking. Even in the dark they cannot drop the shields they have put up to protect themselves during sexual intercourse. This, Dr Goffman speculates, may be partly responsible for the large amounts of frigidity found in middle-class women. But in terms of sexual practice, Kinsey has shown that there are just as many shields, if not more, among the working classes. If anything, the middle class tends to be more experimental and less apt to shield its emotions. The key to most masking in our society is often contained in books of etiquette. These will dictate what is proper and what isn't in terms of body language. One book suggests that it is wrong to rub our faces, touch our teeth or clean our fingernails in public. What to do with your body and your face when you meet friends or strangers is carefully spelled out by Emily Post. Her book of etiquette even describes how to ignore women. She discusses the 'cut direct' and how to deliver it, 'Only with the gravest cause if you are a lady, and never to a lady if you are a man.' Part of our knowledge of masking is thus learned or absorbed from our culture, and part is taught specifically. But the technique of masking, though it is universal among mankind, varies from culture to culture. Certain Aborigines, to be polite, must talk to each other without looking at each other's eyes, while in America it is polite to hold a partner's eyes while talking to him.

THE CRIPPLING MASKS

Children, before they are taught the inhibitions of our society, explore their world by touch. They touch their parents and cuddle into their arms, touch themselves, find joy in their genitals, security in the texture of their blankets, excitement in feeling cold things, hot things, smooth things and scratchy things. But as the child grows up, his sense of awareness through touch is curtailed. The tactile world is narrowed. He learns to erect body shields, becomes aware of his territorial needs in terms of his culture, and discovers that masking may keep him from being hurt even though it also keeps him from experiencing direct emotions. He comes to believe that what he loses in expression, he gains in protection. Unfortunately, as the child grows into adulthood, the masks all too often harden and tighten and change from protective devices to crippling devices. The adult may find that while the mask helps him to keep his privacy and prevents any unwanted relationship, it also becomes a limiting thing and prevents the relationships he wants as well as those he doesn't want.

 Then the adult becomes mentally immobilized. But because mental qualities are easily translated into physical qualities, he becomes physically immobilized as well. The new therapy based on the experiments at the Esalen Institute at Big Sur in California, on research done among isolated groups of men living in Antarctica, and on group seminars all over the world called encounter groups, seeks to break through these physical immobilizations and work backwards to the mental immobilization. Dr William C. Schutz has written a great deal about the new technique of encounter groups, a technique for preserving man's identity in the pressure of today's society. To show how much of feeling and behaving are expressed in body language, Dr Schutz cites a number of interesting expressions that describe behaviour and emotional states in body terms. Among these are: shoulder a burden; face up; chin up; grit your teeth; a stiff upper lip; bare your teeth; catch your eye; shrug it off; and so on. The interesting thing about these is that they are all also body-language phrases. Each of them expresses an emotion, but also expresses a physical body act that signals the same emotion. When we consider these phrases we can understand Dr Schutz's suggestion that 'psychological attitudes affect body posture and functioning'. He cites Dr Ida Rolf's speculation that emotions harden the body in set patterns.

The man who is constantly unhappy develops a frown as a set part of his physical being. The aggressive man who thrusts his head forwards all the time develops a posture with head thrust forwards and he cannot change it. His emotions, according to Dr Rolf, cause his posture or expression to freeze into a given position. In turn, this position pulls the emotions into line. If you have a face frozen in a habitual smile, Dr Rolf believes it will affect your personality and cause you to smile mentally. The same is true for a frown and for deeper, less obvious body postures. Dr Alexander Lowen, in his book Physical Dynamics of Character Structure, adds to this fascinating concept by stating that all neurotic problems are shown by the structure and function of the body. ' No words are so clear as the language of body expression once one has learned to read it,' he says. He goes on to relate body function to emotion. A person with a sway back, he believes, can't have the strong ego of a man with a straight back. The straight back, on the other hand, is less flexible.

TAKE OFF THE MASK

Again, there are certain situations in which the mask drops. In a car, when our body zones are extended, we often feel free to drop the masks, and if someone cuts in front of us or tailgates us, we may loose tides of profanity that are shocking in their out-of-proportion emotions. Why do we feel so strongly in such minor situations? What great difference does it make if a car cuts us up or comes too close? But here is a situation where we are generally invisible and the need to mask is gone. Our reactions can be all the greater because of this. The dropping of the mask tells us a great deal about the need to wear a mask. In mental institutions the mask is often dropped. The mental patient, like the aging person, may neglect the most commonly accepted masks. Dr Goffman tells of a woman in a ward for regressed females whose underwear was on wrong. She started, in full view of everybody, to adjust it by lifting her skirt, but when this didn't work she simply dropped her dress to the floor and fixed it, then pulled her dress up again quite calmly.

This attitude of ignoring the common devices of masking, such as clothes, of neglecting appearance and personal care, is often one of the most glaring signs of approaching psychotic behaviour. Conversely, getting better in mental institutions is often equated with taking an interest in one's appearance. Just as approaching psychotic behaviour causes the patient to lose touch with reality and become confused in his verbal communication, causes him to say things that are divorced from reality, it also causes confusion in his  body language. Here, too, he loses touch with the real world. He broadcasts statements that normal people keep hidden. He lets the inhibitions imposed by society slip, and he acts as if he were no longer conscious of an audience watching And yet this very loosening of body language may hold the key to a greater understanding of the mentally disturbed patient. While a person can stop talking, the same person cannot stop communicating through his body language. He must say the right thing or the wrong thing, but he cannot say nothing. He can cut down on how much he communicates by body language if he acts in the proper fashion, or acts normally, the way people are supposed to act. In other words, if he behaves sanely, then he will send out the least amount of body-language information. But if he acts sanely, then of course he is sane. What other criteria do we have for sanity? So by definition, the insane man must act out his insanity and by so doing send a message to the world. This message, in the case of the mentally disturbed, is usually a cry for help. This puts an entirely new face on the strange actions of mentally disturbed people, and it opens up new avenues for therapy. Masking cannot cover involuntary reactions. A tense situation may cause us to perspire, and there is no possible way to mask this. In another uncomfortable situation our hands may shake or our legs tremble. We can cover these lapses by putting our hands in our pockets, by sitting down to take the weight off our trembling legs, or by moving so quickly that the tremor isn't visible or noticed. Fear can be concealed by throwing yourself vigorously into the action you fear.

WILL POWER

WILL POWER 

THE MOVEMENT AND THE MESSAGE

Dr Birdwhistell, in his work in kinesics, has tried to pinpoint just what gesture indicates what message. One of the things he has uncovered is that every American speaker moves his head a number of times during a conversation. If you film a typical conversation between two Americans and then slow down the film to study the elements of posture in slow motion you will notice a head movement when an answer is expected. The head movement at the end of each statement is a signal to the other speaker to start his answer. This is one of the ways in which we guide our spoken conversations. It enables a back-and-forth exchange without the necessity of saying, 'Are you finished? Now I'll talk.' Of course, the signals for other regions of the world will be different. In theory it would follow that watching two people talk would give a good clue to their nationality. In our language, a change in pitch at the end of a sentence can mean a number of things. If there is a rise in pitch, the speaker is asking a question. Ask, ' What time is it?' and notice how your voice goes up on 'it'. 'How are you?' Up on 'you'. 'Do you like your new job?' Up on ' job'. This is a linguistic marker. Dr Bird whistell has discovered a number of kinesic markers that supplement the linguistic markers. Watch a man's head when he asks a question. 'What time is it?' His head comes up on 'it'. 'Where are you going?' His head comes up on the 'ing' in going. Like the voice, the head moves up at the end of a question. This upward movement at the end of a question is not limited to the voice and head. The hand, too, tends to move up with the rise in pitch. The seemingly meaningless hand gestures in which we all indulge as we talk are tied in to pitch and meaning. The eyelid, too, will open wide with the last note of a question. Just as the voice lifts up at the end of a question, it also drops in pitch at the end of a statement. 'I like this book.' With 'book' the voice goes down. 'I'd like some milk with my pie.' Down on 'pie'. The head also accompanies the voice down at the end of a statement, and according to Dr Birdwhistell, so do the hand and the eyelid. When a speaker intends to continue a statement, his voice will hold the same pitch, his head will remain straight, his eyes and hands unchanged. These are just a few of the changes in position of the eyes, head and hands as Americans speak. Rarely, if ever, do we hold our heads in one position longer than a sentence or two. Writers are aware of this and also aware that head movement is tied not only to what we are saying but to emotional content as well. To characterize a 'cool' person, one who shows and feels no emotion, a writer will have him appear stolid, physically unmoving. James Bond, in the movies made from Ian Fleming's 007 stories, was played by Sean Connery in a motionless style. His face rarely moved, even in the face of extinction. It was an excellent characterization, since he played a man who felt no emotion. In Jewish folklore a golem is a being who shows no expression and, of course, feels no emotion. The high fashion model holds herself in a rigid, unnatural pose to communicate no emotional overtones. When the normal man or woman talks, however, he looks to the right, to the left, now up, now down.

 He blinks his eyes, lifts his eyebrows, bites his lips, touches his nose - and each movement is linked to what he is saying." Because of the tremendous variation in individual movements it is often difficult to link a specific movement to a specific message, but it is still true enough to say that, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, the movement is the message. Dr Scheflen, in studying psychiatric therapy sessions, has found that when a therapist explains something to a patient he may use one head position, but when he interprets some remark or behaviour he uses another position. When he interrupts the patient he uses still a third and he has a fourth head position for listening. The patient, too, when listening to the therapist, takes certain definite positions. In one situation studied by Dr Scheflen, the patient put his head to the right when he acted in a childish fashion, and he kept his head erect when he spoke aggressively and maturely. The difficulty in studying and interpreting these movements is that they are personal kinesic motions, related to events in the background of this or that particular patient. Not all patients put their heads to one side when they act childishly, and not all therapists make the same head motion when they listen. Yet it is pretty certain that the same man will repeat the same motion over and over. Dr Scheflen was surprised that these head movements which were repeated again and again during a thirty- minute interview were so stereotyped and rigid, yet he emphasizes that in this, as well as in many other sessions he has studied, the patient and doctor rarely used a great range of movement. It should not then be too difficult to find specific positions for a person and then relate them to statements or types of statements, questions, answers, explanations,, etc.

THE MASOCHIST AND THE SADIST

In many cases masking can be used as an instrument of psychological torture. Take the case of Annie, married to Ralph, an older man, older and better educated and very conscious of the fact that Annie, intellectually and socially, was not his equal. Yet in a strange and somewhat perverted way Ralph loved Annie and realized she was the best wife for him. This did not prevent him from playing his own type of game with Annie, a game that involved masking to an intricate and exact degree. When Ralph came home from work each day there was a well-standardized ritual. Annie must have his supper ready and waiting at exactly six-thirty, neither later nor earlier. He would arrive home at six, wash and read the afternoon paper until six-thirty. Then Annie would call him to the table and take her seat, watching his face furtively. Ralph knew she was watching him. She realized that he knew. But neither admitted to this. Ralph would in no way indicate that the meal was either good or bad and as they ate Annie would construct a soap opera in her head. She would feel a sick despair in the pit of her stomach. Does Ralph like the food or doesn't he? If he doesn't, she knows what to expect: a cold upbraiding and a silent, miserable evening. Annie would eat uneasily, watching Ralph's impassive face. Did she prepare the dish correctly? Did she season it properly? She followed the recipe, but she added some spices of her own. Was that a mistake? Yes, it must have been! She would feel her heart sink, her whole body tighten with misery. No, Ralph doesn't like it. Isn't his lip twisting in the beginning of a sneer? Ralph, living the same soap opera, would look and for a long moment keep his face inscrutable while Annie would die a thousand deaths, and then he would smile his approval. And suddenly, miraculously, Annie's entire being would sing with happiness. Life is wonderful, and Ralph is her love and she is terribly, terribly happy. She would go back to her meal, enjoying the food now, ravenously hungry and delightfully pleased. By careful manipulation of his mask, by timing his body language, Ralph has contrived a delicate torture and reward. He uses the same technique at night when he and Annie are in bed. He gives her no hint or indication of what he feels, of whether he will make love to her or not, and Annie goes through the same elaborate game of 'Will he touch me? Does he still love me? How will I stand it if he rejects me!'

When finally Ralph does reach over and touch her Annie explodes in passionate ecstasy. Now the question of whether Annie is a victim or an accomplice is not for us to decide. The use of a mask to achieve the torture is the point to consider. The sado-masochist relationship of Annie and Ralph benefits both of them in a strange way, but for most mask-wearers the benefits of wearing the mask are more realistic.

THE SILENT COCKTAIL PARTY

It was true, but the ability to cut across the lines of taste and privacy is a rare thing. Not all of us have it, and not all of those who have it can avoid giving offence. I wonder, too, if my friend would have been as successful with someone who was his superior. Commissionaires are seen by many of us as non-persons and may react with gratitude to any notice. But even if we cannot reach out verbally, we can devise methods of reaching each other in non-verbal ways, ways that may or may not include physical contact. One very successful way was a cocktail party given recently by a psychologist friend. He invited his guests with little invitations that informed them this was to be a nonverbal gathering. 'Touch, smell, stare and taste,' his invitation read, 'but don't speak. We're spending an evening in non-verbal communication.'

My wife and I groaned at the precious quality of the invitation, but we couldn't gracefully get out of it. We went and to our surprise found it fascinating. The room had been rearranged so that there were no available seats. We all stood and milled around, danced, gestured, mimed and went through elaborate charades, all without talking. We knew only one other couple, and all our introductions were self-made and handicapped, or helped, by the imposed silence. We had to really work at getting to know each other, and amazingly enough we ended the evening with a clear and deep knowledge of our new friends. What happened, of course, was that the verbal element of masking was taken away. All the rest of our masks were only half supported. They slipped easily and we found that we had to do without them to make our best contacts, and the contacts were physical for the most part. In the silence, all accents and speech inflections and their link to status were eliminated. I shook hands with one man and noticed the callouses on his palm. This led to an acted-out version of his job with a construction crew and, without the barrier of words, to a closer understanding than is usually possible between two men in different class situations. This is very much a parlour game, but a parlour game with a difference. There are no losers, and the total result is a more meaningful understanding of the people with whom you play. There are other games designed to enhance communication, to make body language understandable and to break down the barriers we erect to protect ourselves.