THE BICYCLING NETWORK
Written by one of the male participants of a seed group - June 18 1985
Some guidelines for peer consciousness work based on Tony Crisp's Coex. (see "The Instant Dream Book" and article on Coex in Harper’s Magazine.)
The objective of the work is to get more in touch with our own bodily processes, emotions and dreams. The belief is that this helps us to become more autonomous and self-regulating beings and clarifies our thinking.
The basic work unit is the pair The time required for each session is about three hours. There are two roles - GUIDE and TRAVELLER. Each person has about one hour in each role, and there is up to half-an-hour at the end of each session for relaxing and, if necessary, discussing working methods and any problems of working methods that have arisen.
The principles underlying the practice are derived from psychotherapy, the humanistic therapies and meditation. But the GUIDE is not seeking to play therapist or guru.
The image of the bicycle, which came to me in a dream the night before writing this, is useful in this connection, for playing both roles. We can all learn how to ride a bicycle, although just how we learn is still somewhat mysterious to psychologists. We cannot learn standing still. We have to ride. In the early stages it is helpful to have someone holding the saddle and walking or running alongside, steadying, keeping an eye on the road for pitfalls on the way. We can all help someone to learn to ride a bicycle so long as we respect that person's pace of learning and do not try to interfere too much.
There is no rigid pattern for the work. However, most people might find it useful in the TRAVELLER role to start from a bodily feeling or a dream. The bodily feeling can come from simply lying down and seeing what feelings are present in the body, or it can come from using one of the simple exercises suggested by Tony Crisp. Work on a dream can begin by simply relating the dream, and talking about any feelings or associations in relation to it, and then moving to telling the dream in the present tense, gestalt-style. If the guide is familiar with gestalt (the Ann Faraday books provide all the basic knowledge that is necessary), she can suggest being certain characters or objects in the dream and having a dialogue between different parts.
The TRAVELLER is in charge of the work. Any interventions by the GUIDE are in the form of suggestions, which may be accepted or not by the TRAVELLER.
The TRAVELLER, of course, is often in a highly suggestible state. The GUIDE needs to respect this. She is seeking to stay in touch throughout with her own bodily feelings and emotions as well as give full attention to the TRAVELLER. When in doubt do nothing except be accepting of the TRAVELLER'S internal processes.
The objective is to help the TRAVELLER to get in touch with emotions. It is not, as in some forms of co-counselling and some humanistic therapies, to push the client towards the expression of the emotions. Acceptance of sometimes being frustrated and stuck can be as valuable an experience as the release of some long pent-up emotion.
Peer consciousness work respects the insights of psychotherapy but it is a different model. One of the reasons psychotherapy works is that the relationship is something like a parent/child relationship, and that the patient uses that relationship to work through surviving remnants of her own actual relationship with her parents. Peer consciousness can be likened to a sibling relationship in which both partners agree to take the role of the elder sibling in turn. The method does not eliminate the problems which therapists label resistances, dependency, transference and counter-transference. But it seeks to minimise them in the following ways.
The Contract. In psychotherapy the client often ends the therapy or changes therapists when a particularly difficult area of buried feeling is encountered. In peer work the partners agree at the beginning how frequently the sessions are going to take place, and over how long a period. It is best to choose a short period (say, three months) and then decide by mutual agreement whether to renew the contract.
Different people at different times will vary considerably as to how frequently they want to work. There will only rarely be a perfect match between partners. For instance, one person may want to work once a fortnight; another may want to work five times a week for a time. The latter person will need in most cases more than one partner.
Trust. Trust in our own self-regulating process and that of our partners and a willingness to discuss any problems that arise in the work can be relied upon to deal with the other problems.
Peer consciousness work has some disadvantages compared with working with an experienced therapist or guru. But it also has some advantages. Not the least of which is that the role of guide can be as healing as the role of traveller. In both roles there is a commitment to stay in touch with your feelings. In the role of TRAVELLER there is freedom to express feelings and to act. In the role of the GUIDE there is a conscious decision to inhibit the expression of feelings and to inhibit the impulse to act, in the interests of the TRAVELLER.
Both sides are equally important for self-regulation.
For more information see Mind and Movement and Liberating the Body.
Tony's in print Books in the UK or USA
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