Alternative POIS Forum

veterans, someone constantly in the crisis position learns to live with terror. It is likely thatalmost everyone who works in a directly life-threatening occupation is either a thruster,testing and proving themselves, or a crisis character fuelled by their own panic.It is when we are occupying the crisis position that we tend to create
bodily
expressions of ourconflicts: the well-known 'hysterical symptoms' which mimic physical illness to act out anemotional state. Yet is there a real distinction? More and more we see all physical illnesses asthe expression of a conflict, a life crisis which is potentially healing. Perhaps crisis characters,with their penchant for melodrama and stageyness, are simply the ones who get caught at it -accidentally-on-purpose!There are many attractive and creative features in the crisis character. Perhaps the mostobvious is their sexiness, but more generally there is their fun and excitement, the livelyenergy and 'game-for-anything' attitude, together with the subtle and perceptive understandingof roles and rules (the better to break them). These qualities contribute a great deal of spice tolife.Perhaps the greatest contribution of the crisis attitude in us all is its
refusal of patriarchy
, andof the gender roles forced on us. Crisis characters may find some weird and exotic modes of rebellion, but rebel they do! At root, what they are demanding is very simple: the right tochoose. To choose what sort of sexual contact they have; to choose to be playful andchildlike, not always urgent and direct; above all, to choose not to be abused.
 Exercise 20
 This is the hardest position to act out, but try the following: A stands still, breathing into their  pelvis with the emphasis on breathing out, while B alternates between trying to attract them -'Come here', 'I want you', 'Aren't you sweet' etc. - and rejecting them once they respond: 'No,no', 'Not like that', 'Come on, that's enough'. A, try to let your whole body really respond toeach message; B, let yourself be fully seductive, and then switch into complete coldness. After a while, make contact with each other before you switch roles.
Open PositionNo permanent blocks: issue of
surrender
 If, as a child or as an adult, a person can work through their panic about opening up to contactas well as all the other issues of growing up that we have described, then they may be able toexperience semi-permanently what most of us only touch at our best moments: a trueacceptance of reality and pleasure, a surrender to their own nature and to that larger Nature of which we are part.This is what Reich described as 'genitality' or 'orgastic potency', and it is hard to separate fromthe capacity for surrender to full orgasm, which in turn enables us to let go of the frustrationsand pains of daily existence and refresh ourselves in the sea of infinite joy.'Genitality', though, involves a lot more than lovemaking. It is one of many names that peoplehave given to a human condition which is, so far, quite rare: a sober, easy, relaxed andflexible attitude to life, an approach that doesn't struggle with impossibilities, but joyfullyaccepts the real state of affairs - including that person's own quirks and limitations! We call it'enlightenment', 'self-realisation', 'sainthood' - whatever we call it, it's remarkably hard to talk about, especially for people who experience it only occasionally