Alternative POIS Forum

Boundary Position
 Eye segment block: issues of
existence
 In the first days of our life outside the womb, we urgently seek contact with those who carefor us, usually our mothers. We need to receive unspoken messages which tell us 'Yes, you'rehere, you exist, I recognise and care for you'; to see and be seen, touch and be touched, hearand be heard. The focus for this affirmation that we exist seems to be the whole skin surfaceof our bodies, and more specifically, the upper head and particularly the eyes.We are not really describing anything mysterious here; you can see parents and babiesinstinctively drinking deep in each others' eyes right from the start, especially during feeding,and there have been several studies of how badly affected a baby is if the parent keeps turningtheir attention away. The same happens if she is not held and stroked enough - enough to feel
real
.We depend utterly on this fundamental validation, and if we don't get it at the start of lifethrough our eyes and skin, there will be a long-term incompleteness and fragility built into our

 
49bodymind development A part of our energy will stay back in those first days of life, stillseeking that primary contact which says 'you exist'. This insecurity can be seen in the eyes of the adult, and sensed in their interaction with the world. At least part of the character will bebuilt upon a basic uncertainty about their own wholeness and reality, and every crisis of lifewill be experienced as a threat to
being
.If the person stays in the same family situation this lack of warm human contact in earliestinfancy is likely to be continued in childhood, and may be reinforced by frightening orconfusing experiences that need to be shut out of awareness. This kind of history puts aparticular stress on
boundaries
. Do I have any? Where are they? These are very real questionsfor someone with a strong eye segment block. With a 'yearning block', someone will feel alack of wholeness. They may experience themselves as 'in bits', fragmented, 'all over theplace', liable under pressure to flee or fall apart- There will be a drive to find some form of themissing primary contact: 'I must see, 1 must understand', a compulsion to make sense of things, to find an answer. There will be a 'seeking', intense expression in the eyes, which canbe frightening to other people whose own deep feelings are sparked off by this demand forcontact.Does this sound familiar? It is partly this need to understand which draws someone to read -or to write - about the structures of the bodymind. You may also recognise in yourself the'denying eye block', which seeks to repress this frightening need for contact, understandingand validation. Its message is 'I can't or won't see or understand'. The fear of what's out there,or what's inside, is so great that the person closes down their perception in some way, cloudsor fogs or confuses, 'goes away in the eyes' as Reich puts it.A small example is the otherwise sensible person who 'just can't see' some area of reality.Because of our training, for women it is often mathematics or mechanics; for men, it isemotions. We can't understand it because it stirs up too much: we cannot bear to keep ourattention on it and re-experience the anger, say, of being put down in childhood, or theanguish in our own heart. For many people, psychic and spiritual realities fall into thiscategory: 'I won't look because there's nothing there.'On a wider scale, the denying eye block puts people severely out of touch with the world andwith other humans. They feel 'cut off', 'unreal', but may well be giving out conscious orunconscious messages of 'stay away'; a coldness and an invisible wall which is their responseto intolerable
 fear
.Fear is very much the key emotion with the boundary character position: fear of beingoverwhelmed. of exploding or imploding, of one's fragile foothold on existence crumbling. Asource of denying eye blocking is very often the need, as a child, to escape adult scrutiny, tonot be seen
into
. There is a lack of fundamental confidence which means a natural boundarybetween inside and outside fails to develop, so that a harsh and exaggerated cut-off is createdin its place.A good sign that we are occupying the boundary position is if we become confused aboutwhat is
outside
and what is
inside
. Perhaps we find ourselves seeing other people as feelingangry or afraid when that is what
we
are feeling, or perhaps we let other people's ideas take usover and dominate our own sense of things. Or maybe we mix up one kind of reality withanother, mistaking our own energy for some sort of psychic or science-fiction 'attack' fromoutside.
 
50All these experiences are seen in orthodox psychiatry as reflecting 'schizoid' characterStructures. This is
not
the same thing as 'schizophrenia' but, one might say, a very mildversion of the problems for which that label is used. These are the sorts of experiencesdescribed so well in R.D. Laing's earlier books, like
The Divided Self
. In a sense, though,Laing perpetuates the split he describes by writing only about the
mind
, and not the body.This is one boundary that tends to exist very strongly in such characters.Eye segment blocking makes it hard to live in the body - one form it can take, as we havealready noted, is the 'ivory tower' intellectual. It also makes it hard to achieve wholeness; thebodies of people with strong boundary characters often have an unfinished or unintegratedlook to them - different parts may give contradictory messages. Sometimes there is achildlike, undeveloped physique, perhaps the large head and spindly neck of the baby who inessence is still present still seeking wholeness and validation. Someone really stuck in theboundary position will give off a deep sense of 'wrongness' with their bodymind; other peoplewill instinctively tend to avoid them, which of course reinforces their isolation and fear.Another form which this 'flight from the body' often takes is an extreme sensitivity to, andinterest in, the 'psychic', 'spiritual' realm. However, because the boundary position is severelyundergrounded, the very real sensitivity is quite undiscriminating. Genuine contact gets mixedup with complete fantasy, often projecting the person's own feelings and sensations 'out there'on to other people or 'spirits'. The awareness of energy, however confused, is real and strong;in particular, the boundary character will often be strongly conscious of the energy fieldsurrounding the body - the 'aura'.It is important to see how the needs and concerns of the boundary position as with every othercharacter - are basically quite rational and universal. Every baby passes through a phase of contacting the world and other people through eyes, ears, nose and skin, and a phase of settingboundaries, making a sense of self which is secure against outside invasion or 'leaking'. Everyadult can develop out of this 'eye energy' a creative enjoyment of looking, thinking, discovery,eye contact, flirting, visions, inspiration and meditation.What we are calling an eye block, a boundary position, is a state where someone has not yetfully managed to create a basis for this adult creativity. They are still partially stuck in anearly childhood crisis, and are reducing adult experience to these terms. By their very over-sensitivity, though, they are many of our artists, our mediums, our prophets, our seers.Exercises to give a direct experience of the character positions necessarily involve workingwith another person, since the positions are fundamentally about relationship. If you have afriend with whom you feel happy to try it, then the following exercise should put you in touchwith your boundary material (for the idea of these exercises and some specific details, we aregrateful to Helen Davis)
Exercise 15
 Person A, stand with your back close up against a wall, pressing yourself against it and coming up on tiptoe, so your whole posture is 'up and away'. Open your eyes very wide,breathe high in your chest, without ever fully emptying your lungs. Person B, stand a few feet away, and holding eye contact slowly advance on A.Person A, experiment with saying thingslike 'No', 'keep away', and so on; let yourself go into the feelings that come up.