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Performance Without Panic
Mary Hopkins
I began to smell a rotten and vaguely familiar smell. It reminded me of a person I once knew. Then, in a moment I shall never forget, the jumble of unrelated images assembled themselves into a place I remembered, and my uneasiness became a full-blown remembrance of a time and place of justified dread. There was music in that place, too. Twisted into the deep love I’d had for music, even then, was a memory of imminent danger — and a knowledge that the danger came from someone associated with music. My heart raced, pounded, thumped, and I realized with absolute certainty that my body’s current reactions were identical to my panic at that time long ago. I felt myself trembling all over.

Climbing Out of Depression
Carol Smith Ali
Where there had once been a dark and dismal void, I began to discover hidden feelings — sometimes of anger, fear, and sadness, and other times of peace and joy. As my Synergist and I worked with the events beneath each uncovered emotion, new layers of creativity and aliveness emerged. I no longer felt stagnant or stuck. My depression was gradually pushed off “ center stage” into the background, and finally disappeared along with my old habit of negative self-talk.

BodyMind Exercises
Peggy Kostyshyn
At the workshop, after Ilana had introduced us to the philosophy and theory of Rubenfeld Synergy, she instructed us to do a simple exercise by ourselves:
    1. Clasp our hands together with our fingers interlaced.
    2. Notice which thumb is on top.
    3. Take a mental picture of how this feels.
    4. Release our hands and clasp them again, this time with the other thumb on top.
I didn’t have to wait for her next instruction, which was to notice, because as soon as I clasped my hands in this nonhabitual way I felt a twinge of anxiety spread across my chest. I was taken aback. A mere change in the position of my fingers in relation to each other was causing me anxiety. I realized that it was not going to be as easy as I thought to stop having headaches simply by making certain changes in my body. I saw that the very changes I sought to make elicited the feelings I was struggling to reduce.

Remembering Eddie
Marita Bishop
Although blood tests showed that Janet’s chronic liver disease was in remission, her body, mind, and spirit were faltering. Traditional counseling was helping her learn to cope with her illness, the deaths of family members, and emotional traumas from her youth. But when she first came to see me for massage therapy, she was suffering from terrible headaches, fatigue, anxiety, insomnia and depression.
        After several massage sessions Janet’s headaches had subsided and she was sleeping better. By this time I had advanced to the point in my Rubenfeld Synergy studies where I needed to procure “practice clients,” people who were willing to let me practice my new skills without pay. When I invited Janet to be a practice client — I recall describing Rubenfeld Synergy to her as similar to “massage from the inside” — she readily accepted.

Leap of Faith
Suzanne Gluck-Sosis
I ask myself, “Shall I chance it?” A part of me hesitates: “What will I discover?” I am fearful of coming face to face with something I might not want to know. Another part of me says, “Go for it! Take a risk! What have you got to lose? You’re miserable — lonely and confused, empty,” although only my therapist knows I have such feelings.

My Dynamic Duo: Rubenfeld Synergy and Art Therapy
Margaret Cappi Lang
In Lisa’s first session, as I touch her I notice that her body is extremely tight, both to the eye and to the touch. She flinches when I touch her foot. I decide to introduce touch gradually over the next few sessions, to start by touching only her head and shoulders. After the Rubenfeld Synergy session on the table, Lisa makes a drawing. The drawing, a huge black cloud, communicates the scope of her depression. To my trained art therapist’s eye, there are also indications of anxiety and a wish to cover up and hide her pelvic area.

My Body Suits Me Fine
Barbara McKenzie
Over time, thoughtless comments made by others and my embarrassment about how I looked in clothes took their toll on my self-image. I thought of myself as being large and overweight when, in reality, I was quite small, though with very different proportions from those of my sisters. Dieting didn’t seem to help. No matter how thin I became, my “internal mirror” — like a fun house mirror — distorted my reflection so I still saw myself as grotesquely fat and much heavier and bigger than I was. My initially innocent diet and exercise regimens soon escalated into full-blown anorexia and occasional bouts of bulimia.

Sexual Reawakening
Erica Goodstone
His face took on a sad expression as he explained that his whole life changed drastically when his mother became ill, first with diabetes and then with heart disease. From the time he was eight, his mother was in and out of hospitals. After more than two years of being an invalid at home, she died just before Danny’s eleventh birthday. During this period his father teetered unpredictably between severe depression and sudden outbursts of rage. “He took his frustration out on my brothers — and they took theirs out on me!” Danny exclaimed.
        Danny told me about being beaten by his father and being teased and hit by his brothers. He had loved his mother and still loved women, but he didn’t want to “be the man” with any woman.

It Takes More than Talk
Diane Montgomery-Logan
Despite her physical attractiveness and her loving nature and inquisitive mind, she was self-conscious and retiring, motivated primarily by fear and self-judgment. Her sense of inadequacy showed itself in the way she compared herself to other people. It was there when she limited her choices of career and when she argued with herself as she struggled to leave a husband to whom she was invisible. Her inadequacy was the part of her that selected her clothes and her friends. And it was there in her body when she stood or walked, for she rolled her whole body forward, as though to shrink herself so that no one would see whatever secret she hid. She felt strain in her shoulders and back, as if from the weight of the family messages she had carried for most of her thirty years. Understandably, she was tired.

Wanting a Baby
Suzanne Forman
Worst of all for Trish was how she felt about herself: Her apparent inability to receive triggered deep insecurities about her body and sexual adequacy. She was cloaked in shame, and saw her childlessness as a public advertisement of her failure as a woman. As these feelings grew increasingly difficult for her to talk about with family and friends, she became quite isolated. Deep inside she wondered if she was being punished by God for something she had done or failed to do.

My Dynamic Duo: Rubenfeld Synergy and Art Therapy
Margaret Cappi Lang
Lisa skated in, a skeleton on wheels with a mischievous grin on her face, defiant. Anorexic and bulimic since she was sixteen, she was in the hospital after a suicide attempt. I also knew that she had been shoplifting for several years, yet I liked her pluckiness, her tenacity. We did art therapy together for several months after this, and she healed parts of herself.
        In 1992 Lisa re-appears, still a skeleton and again suicidal. This time we meet in my studio-office. Her psychotherapist has heard of my work — combining art therapy with Rubenfeld Synergy — and has suggested that Lisa try it. Each of our sessions follows the same pattern: a Rubenfeld Synergy session with Lisa on the table, followed by Lisa’s drawing a picture.

Choosing a Partner
Renate Novak
Before long I was connected to a hurtful memory from my childhood — the sadness of being left alone with an old grandmother who didn’t love me. The feelings of sadness and the pain in my chest grew stronger until they were almost unbearable, seeming to crush my chest. The slight pressure I had noticed there earlier had been only an indication of the strong emotions buried for many years. Feelings of being unloved and deeply lonely surfaced from inside my body. These were not distant, colorless memories of my childhood; I felt as if I were right there reliving them.
        Over the course of several sessions I came to see that, when it came to intimate relationships, I was still living my life out of these childhood experiences. In order not to feel unloved, misunderstood, and lonely, I had accepted anyone who wanted me, without checking to see if there was a basis for a good relationship.

The First Time Ilana Touched Me
Mike Schlesinger
Liz listened intently and we savored our wine as I recounted the highlights of the week. After several minutes our fourteen-year-old son, Jake, came into the room and with a cheerful “hi!” tossed his jacket onto the coffee table — knocking over one of the glasses and spilling the rich red wine across the tiled coffee table and onto the light earth-toned Navajo rug that was one of my favorite possessions.
        Jake and Liz caught their breath, waiting for the explosion that was as inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun. But no explosion came! Instead I calmly said, “You go get some towels, and I’ll get some club soda.” Liz and Jake looked at each other in amazement for a few moments before getting the towels and helping me clean up the spill. The profound change from my usual reaction took all three of us by surprise.

Life After Death
Patricia Ellen
As the session comes to an end I find myself saying to Ilana, “This feels so easy. It feels strange and wonderful. It didn’t hurt.” I realize that when waves of guilt and gray mush engulf me, I can call someone and play them away. As this realization sinks in, Ilana reminds me that this is a different way of doing it, different from the way I’ve always done it, different from the way Doug did it. I feel I’m beginning to heal a very old and deep pattern. I am amazed that this healing has begun — without agony! — with ease, gentleness, and laughter. I didn’t have to tough it out alone.

Wanting a Baby
Suzanne Forman
One time as she lay on her back she described her neck as feeling open and loose, yet the muscles were so tight to my touch that they prevented any side-to-side movement of her head. I asked her, as an experiment, to tighten her neck muscles as much as she could. After a few seconds she began to laugh and said, “I see what you mean! I can’t tighten them any more than they already are!” As her laughter subsided I again gently touched her at the base of her skull and, with my hands, invited her head to roll from side to side. This time it did, and she was able to feel the difference between her neck’s new softness and its previous rigidity. This awareness of what her body was doing was very new to her.

Learning the Conscious Good- bye
Margaret A. Healy
During my high school years, a number of intense mentoring relationships had ended very abruptly and painfully. I was devastated by these losses and, with each one, told myself that I must have done something terrible; otherwise these wonderful people would not have hurt me as I felt they had. To avoid experiencing this kind of pain again, I had unwittingly adopted a pattern of emotionally abandoning a relationship the instant I perceived conflict or felt I had been wronged. I did not ask others to meet my needs for fear of being rejected outright, and, not wanting to experience again the devastation of being left, I was always prepared to leave first.

What I Learned in the Pauses
Meg Morris
And then, very calmly, I noticed that I was aware of this difference between my left and right sides without feeling that I had to fix or change the left side to match the right. For the part inside of me that has always striven for perfection and labored to “get it right,” this was a great learning — and, boy, what a surprise! The gift for me was not only the experience of how relaxed and open I could be, but also that my relaxation was the result of a small, focused movement that “spoke” directly to the sole of my foot and indirectly to my hip and pelvis. It reminded me that movements do not have to be big or forceful to be effective.

BodyMind Exercises
Peggy Kostyshyn
I have had some remarkable flashes of insight while doing bodymind sequences — suddenly becoming aware of a new insight into an issue, a behavior, a relationship. One such insight was that although a certain person never listened to me — never even heard me! — I was still talking to him and expecting him to behave differently. Another was recognizing that I often play “Savior,” feeling responsible for the whole world and trying to live everyone else’s lives for them. No wonder I felt overwhelmed and resentful.

Choosing a Partner
Renate Novak
In my late thirties, I became increasingly aware of the fact that my second marriage was just not working, and that it was time to do something about it. I was doing well in other areas in my life. I loved being a mother and was successful in my work, but how to be happy in a long-term romantic relationship was a mystery to me. It was fun and easy to get swept up in the beginning stages of falling in love. However, the longer a relationship continued, the more the excitement would fade, until eventually I was left feeling misunderstood, unappreciated, and used. No matter what I tried to do to improve the relationship, I ended up feeling sad and frustrated. I was tired of repeating this pattern.

It Takes More than Talk
Diane Montgomery-Logan
Madelaine worked hard in (talk) therapy. She pounded her rage into many a pillow and wept for all the years without nurturing. She made new friends, took a new job, and shopped for new clothes. But through it all there was a piece missing.
        I recognized this phenomenon, for I had seen it for years with other clients, and I had heard other therapists speak of their frustrations as their clients sometimes hit similar impasses. The missing piece was Madelaine’s invitation to her body to participate in her therapy. For all her growth in understanding, recognizing, and experiencing her feelings, Madelaine’s body still carried the early programming that she was not acceptable. Through three years of therapy Madelaine’s nervous system, soft tissues, and skeleton still didn’t know that she was entitled to make choices unlike the choices her family had made for generations.

The Depths of Beliefs
Sonja Contois
She said that the physical process of erasing old rules was so valuable that she has integrated it into her daily life. When, for example, her employer uses a certain tone of voice and phrases that clearly sound like his rules, she makes small erasing motions with her hand as a reminder that those rules are not hers.

I Can Take It!
Jeanne Reock
I pay less attention to the chatter in my head that schedules and plans and worries about all the work I have yet to do.
        Some days I am tempted to play the heavy, to be the overburdened workhorse. I feel the ache in my upper back and shoulders as I slip into the harness. Then I remember the Wise Woman and I see with her eyes that all my work is my choice, that it enriches my life in countless ways, and that it rarely needs to be done this very minute or even this very day.

Embodied Memories
Betty Esthelle
And I got ready. I got ready to fight for my mother. I loved her. She was my life, my identity. My arms got ready, the muscles about to strike. My legs got ready, tense thighs, knees pulled up, feet ready to spring into action. My neck and my eyes were searching for that enemy. My stomach muscles tightened to protect my innards in the coming battle. Even my jaw got ready, ready to snarl with ferocity. My neck strengthened like steel to hold my head.
        I was only three years old and I would protect my mother.
        I never found that enemy. I am still prepared for that fight. Until now, I never remembered. I couldn’t relax and I didn’t know why. I got ready for that battle forty years ago.

Self-Integration, Piece by Piece
Diane Junglas
Integration is a gradual process. First there is heightened awareness; then movement toward empowerment. The sessions with Ilana and Werner were milestones in my process of integration — getting to own every part of myself.
        In the first session, which I named Am I Acceptable?, I was closed off, peeking through a crack in the door and asking, “Am I really okay? Can I trust you?” I was not aware of my body or Ilana’s touch in that session. In the session called Pinocchio I started to experience my body, especially the hips and legs. I began to walk on and feel the ground underneath me, instead of tiptoeing around. In I Am the Gong I began to incorporate the upper half of my body. Swinging my arms and my shoulders, I began to open my chest and breathe more deeply, and to see the possibility of real change in my life. In Wild Horse of Living I got in touch with my whole body and began to take the reins of power in my life — literally and figuratively. In Eagle’s Wing I recognized my fear of allowing my life to “take off” and my commitment to healing my broken wing. The private sessions dealt with extending my own healing to others by just being.

Dancing the Two- Step
Julia Smith and Dan Wilder

Dan,
        I can’t take it anymore. You’re normally not violent. When you threw the lamp into the wall last week, I bolted. When I returned and saw the mess from the lamp on the floor, it seemed like a symbol of our marriage — you make a mess and I clean it up. I’m tired of cleaning.
        I do not want to talk to you now. I’m taking the baby to Nelson. You can contact me there if you want to. I need space.
                                                                  Julia

Mom, Alzheimer’s, and Me
P. Tanzy Maxfield
When Mom would mention her forgetfulness Bill and I would minimize it by saying, “Yeah, that happens to me, too.” One moment we’d be trying to convince her how well she was doing; the next we’d become frustrated when she didn’t remember something we had just discussed. We had no experience with old people, and we were in denial.
        That soon changed for me. In the Rubenfeld Synergy Training I discovered that what people want is not my advice — of which I have plenty — but for me to be fully present with them, listen to them, and experience them as they experience themselves. As a result, my hours spent talking with Mom around the kitchen table began to change. Rather than try to deny, minimize, or spin information in a positive way, I was able to hear what she was saying. When we were together I became more interested in her than in myself and I began to ask questions about her childhood. While “Describe your childhood” produced little response, questions such as “What was your favorite room?” and “Who else walked with you to school?” stimulated her memories. As she allowed the memories to surface, I came to see her through her experience.

A Leap of Faith
Suzanne Gluck-Sosis
My throat tightens a bit — I find myself telling Don about my family of origin. Tears flow freely down my face as I choke out, “I feel angry, hurt, ashamed, and constantly guilty. I’m remembering my family when I was a kid. I hate them! My brother is manic-depressive; my parents are depressed — full of uncertainty and doubt, not knowing what to do. Somehow I feel I’m to blame for everything.”
        Don makes a sympathetic sound. “Tell me more about how you feel.”
        “I am furious with everyone! No one knows how to help Roy. My parents and other relatives are afraid of him and try to control him. When Roy is finally diagnosed as manic-depressive and is hospitalized, I feel ashamed and guilty somehow — it’s my fault: I cannot save him.”

Wanting a Baby
Suzanne Forman
The strain was beginning to show in Trish’s relationship with Malcolm, her husband of seven years. It had taken Trish three years to convince Malcolm to have a baby. Now she often wondered if she would have conceived more easily had they tried when she first wanted to. Her resentment toward him was increasing with each month’s disappointment.

The First Time Ilana Touched Me
Mike Schlesinger
Even though I loved my wife and kids and had learned that, for me, anger was often a cover for other feelings, especially fear and sadness, I still became critical and angry at times. I sensed that I often “held back” in my body and that I was restricted in my movements and energy. Furthermore, whenever I was sad I felt constricted in my throat and could not cry.
        I understood how these energy blocks had formed: I clearly remembered my father’s forbidding me to cry, and threatening that if I didn’t stop the tears he would give me a real reason to cry. But understanding the source of these blocks had not released me from anger’s grip. When I realized that my father’s need to control was driven by his fear that I might get into trouble or be hurt, I forgave him, but even that did not release me from the anger.

Learning To Mother
Carol Seewald
At 10:00 a.m. I was tired. Having slept fitfully the night before, I was already at the end of my emotional rope. It was during the early weeks of an unplanned pregnancy. My four-year-old son, Luke, was bored, and he amused himself by taunting his two-year-old brother, Ben. By the third round of shrieks, I snapped. I screamed venomously at them both to stop, and lunged at them in anger. Luke turned away and Ben gasped. Suddenly I noticed their faces. Terror.

Remembering Eddie
Marita Bishop
Janet told me about her brother Eddie, lying on a hospital gurney shortly after his car accident sixteen years ago, when she was fifteen. Soon, she began to experience waves of emotion. When I asked if she wanted to talk about it she replied, “I feel scared and very sad. Eddie has a broken neck, collapsed lungs, and a serious head injury.”
        Her story unfolded. Her mother, brothers and sisters were with them. After one look at Eddie, her mother headed for the door, telling Janet’s sister Mandy, “Your brother is going to die.”
        As clients often do while reexperiencing old memories, Janet spoke as if the events were happening in the present. She continued, “I feel I should go with Mom, but I want to stay with my brothers and sisters. I don’t want to leave Eddie alone.”
        I asked her, “How did you feel about your mother walking out and leaving you alone with Eddie?”
        “Furious!” she blurted out.

Seasoned by Celeste
Bill Miller
Celeste has recently returned to New York from Italy to escape her husband of nine years. She met and fell in love with him out west and followed him back to his homeland and family. He traveled on business, leaving her with his family, who seemed uninterested in her. Alone most of the time and hindered by not speaking the language, Celeste began to fill her time by baking. She opened a bakery, which brought with it prosperity, friends, and some visibility, as she and her bakery appeared on the evening news.
        Her in-laws began to pay more attention to her, but when her husband returned, he was upset by her new independence and self-confidence and almost immediately scheduled another long trip. While he was away she realized that their relationship was not good for her, and she decided to leave him. She has just learned that he has located her and plans to come for her soon.

Sexual Reawakening
Erica Goodstone
By the end of two years, the clump of tension in his upper back had noticeably softened. He had come to realize that this part of his body had been literally holding on to angry and hurt feelings since his mother’s illness so long ago. As his invisible knots gradually released and unwound, Danny found himself getting angry, too, at many of the women he had cared for, who had only wanted to be his friend.
        One time he exploded, “You just want to be my friend. I’m not man enough for you. Why can’t you see that I need your help? I need you to protect me just like my mother did.”
        In that session he got it! He finally understood that he had been seeking and expecting women to replace his mother. In the next few sessions he began to forgive his mother for leaving him, then to forgive his father and brothers for not being more caring and supportive, and finally to forgive himself for having ruined his own chances to connect with women.

Life after Death
Patricia Ellen
Ilana asks me to put words to what I am feeling. I talk about my guilt and my sense of failure as a mother. I cry and cry. Gently, slowly, Ilana helps me connect with my inner self. As I begin to listen to the timid, nurturing voice within me, instead of to the loud critical voice, Ilana continues to touch my shoulders and hold me gently. I begin to discover the self that remembers I am a good mother, the self that knows Doug’s suicide wasn’t all my responsibility, the self that knows I was only a part of the whole picture. At Ilana’s suggestion I keep repeating two phrases: “I am a good mother” and “I am only part of the whole picture.” These phrases are like salve to a savage wound.

Parallel Paths to the Light
Suzanne Selby Grenager
In the six months following Lucy’s death, the lid to Pandora’s box flew off, revealing a lifetime’s stash of horrific psychic pain — fear, grief, anger, and shame. I was besieged by nightmares, insomnia, chest pains, and — once, after taking only half a low-dose Valium prescribed by my doctor — hallucinations. Terrified, I thought I, too, was about to die.
        Fortunately help was on the horizon, in the form of two seemingly different but remarkably parallel paths to the light. Over the next several years, a three-thousand-year-old Eastern spiritual tradition and a contemporary Western therapy helped me understand that in order to break through fear and reach love, I would have to reinhabit my body, temple of the spirit we all essentially are. I was very fortunate that both Kripalu Yoga and Rubenfeld Synergy offer practical, body-based tools to help me.

Letting Go of Grief
Gail Benton
We explored his grief over his father’s death and the loss of his childhood pets, from whom he had felt unconditional love. He became tearful as he described how he had never fully grieved over these losses or his failing health. He had not dealt with his son’s drug problems or his daughter’s divorce and remarriage. His mother, chronically depressed and anxious, was living in a nursing home. He began to recognize a pattern in how he dealt with unpleasant people or situations — by avoidance and withdrawal.

I’ve Got To Be Travelin’ On
Valerie Bain
Almost as soon as I lay back on the table I was jolted by the thought, “This feels like an operating room!” I didn’t say anything, but kept trying to follow what Ilana was saying and doing. I became increasingly distracted. Something about the bright video lights above me and the circle of faces all around me was making me uneasy. Ilana noticed that my attention was not at my left hip, where I was attempting to make it go, and she asked me what was going on.
        Suddenly noticing that my arm was outstretched as if it were attached to an I.V. tube, I told her that I had been triggered to memories of the operating room in which, six years before, both my breasts had been removed.

Going Out on a Limb To Lighten Up
Estela M. Hernandez
In less than an hour’s time I relived the helplessness of a lost love, the anguish, guilt, and shame of an abortion, the hopelessness of an attempted suicide, and the lonely despair of an abandoned teenage girl. I perceived these memories as black areas stuck in my pelvis, especially on the right side. I don’t know how or where I found the strength to survive this painful experience, but I remember Marilyn as being with me all the way. I cried and cried and, perhaps for the first time, truly felt my broken heart.

Clues from Within
Linda Stoffel
Immediately I saw an image of two hands dealing cards onto a pile of cards lying on a table. I was puzzled at first. Card playing held no significance for me. Then I became curious. When my Synergist asked me, “What about the cards?” I “saw” the jack of hearts. My thoughts moved to “gambling with my heart,” then to “trusting my heart to someone else,” and eventually to “I’m not yet willing to gamble with giving my heart to anyone.”
        At the time, I was struggling to understand my noncommittal attitude in a romantic relationship. My initial image proved to be a symbolic image of my emotional state. Its unusual content invited me to explore “the same old story” from a new perspective. The process of exploration, which required me to trust in it enough to temporarily suspend judgment, helped me to clarify my confusion.

Anchors Aweigh
Rose M. Andrzejewski
Diane said, “Rose, the anchor of a ship comes up when the ship goes out to sea.”
        I was perplexed by this. I had always thought of anchors as staying in the ocean and providing support and strength. The possibility that my anchor might come up scared me. She asked, “What would it be like to move forward?”
        “Scary!” I replied. This was the first time I had ever realized that I was afraid of moving forward. But my body’s signals were clear. My left side, my “anchor,” was afraid to move anywhere and my right side went in many directions. Either side, by itself, was enough to explain my not moving forward toward my goals. The combination made it doubly impossible. I felt safer keeping my anchor in the ocean even though it meant going nowhere. But what was I afraid of?

Feeling the Paint
Toni Luisa Rivera
Gay Marcontell
Donna Ulanowski
P. Tanzy Maxfield
In response Ilana invited me to work with Tanzy’s shoulder. When I was positioned at Tanzy’s head, Ilana asked me what I most liked to do. Being a horsewoman I said, “Riding.” She asked me to move Tanzy’s shoulder and use riding as the metaphor. I did so and, when I noticed a slight glitch in the movement, my mind jumped to the transitions in riding, where the goal is to have the transitions — from walk to trot, from canter to walk — be as smooth as possible.
        As I spoke of this out loud, Tanzy’s arm began to make the transition from the upward movement to the downward movement and vice versa in a much smoother way. I was so involved in what I was saying that I didn’t pay much attention at all to Tanzy or her shoulder. She seemed to fade into the background, though of course I did notice the change in the quality of the movement.

Seasoned by Celeste
Bill Miller
I approach the table and touch her head. Her first awareness is of a wall between her body and what she describes as herself. She tells me she feels safe behind the wall, yet she longs for what is on the other side.
        When I touch her feet, my hands confirm the split she describes. Compared to the energetic buzz I felt at her head, her feet feel lifeless. At her hips, too, there is little energy. I am curious about this contrast and, after a while, decide to explore it with Celeste. “Are you willing to do an experiment?” I ask her.
        “Yes.”
        “Send the wall away on a long vacation, and listen to your body without the wall. What messages do you get from your body?”
        The first messages are all about numbness in her neck. She continues listening to her body and tells me that her neck is blocking her head from her body. After a while she describes a numbness in her back and says she thinks this numbness is about not being in touch with her heart.

Dreams, My Other Pathway to Healing
Patti Allen
I could no longer ignore my feelings and keep them at arm’s length. They turned out to be less frightening than I had feared because my body was engaged in the process and kept me grounded. Being grounded meant focusing on the “here and now,” on what is, rather than on what might or might not happen in the future. In a session I could feel my solidity and strength. I felt like a tree, with my roots reaching deep into the earth, keeping me upright, even when the emotional winds blew. Or in the words of one of my clients, with whom I have since done dreamwork, “I wasn’t alone. I had my body.”

Dream Body-Mapping
Gisèle Robert
I asked Louise to lie down on a large sheet of paper and I traced with a dark marker the contour of her outstretched body. Sitting on a chair a few feet from her, I then guided her in a short relaxation process with focused breathing, designed to facilitate an inner awareness. I next asked Louise to recount her dream to me, retelling it in the present tense and including details of the settings, characters, and principal objects, as well as the emotions she felt. When she had finished I asked Louise to sit up and begin to draw the various dream images within the outline of her body-map.

Self-Integration, Piece by Piece
Diane Junglas
Werner and I got in touch with the pain that I have had in my left shoulder ever since an accident years ago. Werner’s bodywork really got into that pain and evoked a lot of sadness and deep feelings about how I, the eagle, do not fly. I have one good wing and one injured wing, so I sit in the nest and don’t fly free. We worked to discover what keeps me in the nest. We followed a metaphor of my flying with the injured wing. I saw myself as an eagle flying out and falling into the sea, going right down to the bottom and not resurfacing — staying down underneath the water with my broken wing — and I got in touch with the fear.
        It was important for me to recognize that I wanted to reclaim my wing, mend my wing, empower myself and fly. By the end of the session I wasn’t there yet, but I recognized that I had a major fear of flying.

Listening for Metaphors
Mary Jane Hooper
When I placed my hand on her right hip, Kathy said she saw the image of an old Indian. “He looks defeated....He’s my warrior.”
        “Where does your warrior reside in your body?” I continued.
        “In my heart.”
        We began a dialogue with her warrior. Giving him a voice Kathy said, “I’m tired, I’m tired of fighting.”

Parallel Paths to the Light
Suzanne Selby Grenager
When Diane says how much it hurts and how tired she is of having to deal with this “damned hip,” I suggest that she tune in further and direct her relaxed, receptive awareness into the sore hip. As I continue holding and rocking her leg like a baby, I feel her let go a little, which makes me — and, I suspect, her — all the more conscious of how tightly she is still holding on.
        Diane remains quiet, even as she begins to look distraught. I ask if there’s anything she wants to “say” to her hip or that her hip might want to say to her. Without hesitation she blurts out, “It’s not fair.” Then, more upset still, “I didn’t do anything to deserve this!”
        I invite Diane to repeat what she just said for as long as she wants. I suggest she follow her words wherever they lead her that she is willing to go.
        Diane takes to this idea at once. “It’s not fair!” she bellows. “I don’t deserve this!” As her outrage escalates, her face starts to contort, and she wriggles her hands and body this way and that as if to escape from some demon I can’t see. I’ve never known this self-contained woman to be so wrought up.

Dancing the Two-Step
Julia Smith and Dan Wilder
I had three sessions during the week with Marisha, my Synergist for the year. Pretty intense! In the first session my “chronic” lower back pain vanished. I’ve had it for the past two and a half years, ever since I had Nancy by C-section. I always figured that it was because my stomach muscles had been cut. But no, it was the experience of being physically and emotionally cut off from Nancy at that time. Marisha and I replayed the scene so I could communicate and tell Nancy that she was okay and not to be scared of the knife. What blows me away is that I was so unaware. All I knew and felt at the time was lucky — that I had a beautiful baby girl and that both of us were healthy! When I got off the table at the end of the session, my back pain was gone. And it’s still gone! Pretty wild stuff.

Breaking the Cycle of Pain–Fear–Pain
Peggy Kostyshyn
SESSION 8: Ken arrived complaining about soreness in his right great toe. I asked him to remove his sock and sit on the table as I examined his foot. The great toe was curled up and over, toward the second toe, almost overlapping it. The large tendon on the top of his foot, which connects the great toe to the ankle, was so tight that even Ken could see it. Cradling his foot with both my hands I asked him what the foot and toe were trying to tell him.
        Ken looked at me, puzzled. Then his face lit up and he said, “It’s fear. I’m so afraid of injuring my toe — and getting gangrene and needing an amputation — that I curl it up to protect it. The pain’s not from lack of circulation; it’s a muscle spasm.” He was intrigued by this awareness. “No wonder I have a callus on my foot!” he added. “I’m not walking properly.”

Dream Body-Mapping
Gisèle Robert
When Louise first came to see me, her main complaint was chest pain that had bothered her for over ten years. Like several other Rubenfeld Synergy clients of mine, Louise found it difficult at first to notice subtle physical sensations or to “see” her body in her mind’s eye. One day, after many sessions, she said that having some visual cues might help her in this regard.

The Depths of Beliefs
Sonja Contois
I asked, “If that pain had a voice, what would it say to you?” The following dialogue ensued, with many long pauses for silent awareness and thought:
        “‘Be perfect,’” she answered. “‘Be perfect.’” The pain spoke these words aloud, over and over, with increasing intensity and crispness, until it was barking a staccato, military command.
        “Whose voice is that . . . giving you that rule, ‘Be perfect’?” I asked.
        “My piano instructor’s.”
        “It’s your piano teacher telling you to be perfect?”
        “Yes.”
        “Are there other rules?”
        “Yes,” she said, adding, “‘Win’ and ‘Look good.’”
        “And whose rules are those?”
        “They’re her rules, from her rule book,” she exclaimed with a slight overtone of indignity.

Sam’s Story
Linda Thomas
In 1993, while doing roadwork with heavy equipment, Sam was hit in the back with a load of steel. The list of his surgeries and medical procedures since then creates a file thick enough to awe any physician and to stop a lesser human spirit dead in his tracks. There have been multiple spinal surgeries; his stomach ruptured and was fastened with mesh; some bowel has been removed; his heart is taxed from the physical labor and emotional heartache.
        Since the road accident Sam’s lifestyle has changed dramatically. Confined by chronic pain and medical interventions, Sam grieves the loss of his former physical strength and active lifestyle. Dancing, gardening, and volunteering — the great pleasures in his life — are no longer available to him. And most painful of all, his wife of many years, whom he loves deeply, has abandoned him for a healthier partner.

Clues from Within
Linda Stoffel
Barbara was experiencing constant pain from injuries she had suffered in a car accident several months earlier. The pieces of her shattered left thighbone were held together with a metal plate and bolts. She was barely able to walk, even with the aid of a walker, and was discouraged by the lack of progress despite constant visits to physical therapists and doctors. A very active woman in her midfifties, she was suffering emotionally, as well as physically, from her inability to get around.
        By the start of our third session, Barbara’s main concern was no longer the pain. Now she worried that she would never again be able to walk normally.

The First Touch
Millie Grenough
When I touched Gabriel with the intention of changing him, I noticed that I focused on what was wrong with him and what my agenda was for fixing him. When I then approached him with listening hands, both my mind and my hands were more open. I felt curious about what I might find. I was open to surprises and to whatever information might be there.

What I Learned in the Pauses
Meg Morris
When Jos assessed the state of my pelvic area by moving my feet and ankles slightly with his hands, I noticed that, as usual with me, my feet and ankles barely moved. I know that I tend to have a lot of tension or “holding” in my hips, and I felt ashamed that this part of me did not move as freely as I imagined it should.
        What a coincidence, then, that Ilana said she would teach Jos a movement called the metatarsal spread, which speaks to the hip from the sole of the foot! Ilana began showing Jos how to apply pressure in a slow, steady, gentle pattern to the sole of my right foot. At one point I felt a ping! in my hip socket, followed by a rush of warm energy flowing back to my foot. I remember feeling my right ankle become loose and fluid in an uncharacteristic way, the way I imagined it should be.

The Eye of Memory
Lydia Foerster
We hear stories. Fantastic stories. Of fathers who never said much and cars that came out of nowhere. Of young mothers who fly into rages when glasses are broken or suppers not eaten. Of grandmothers who tell secrets and brothers who laugh when sweaters are missing. And Mother is angry. Thirty, forty, fifty years later, Mother is still angry.

Reflections
Annie McCaffry
One of the ways by which Ilana tested our awareness and sensitivity was to lie on her back on the massage table and invite the students in turn to stand at the head of the table behind her and place their hands either side of her head with the light touch that is such a stamp of Synergists. My turn came and, as my hands lightly touched her head, I heard her say, “Let go of your left knee, Annie.” My heart leapt. How could she know through the touch of my hands what my left knee was doing? But she did, and today those I teach and with whom I work express amazement as I demonstrate that same degree of awareness and sensitivity.

The Theatre of Self
Bernard Coyne
This is an experience of the first time. There is a wave of energy in the crowd. Who will be the chosen one? Hands dart up. The woman in the third row has the energy. I invite her and she begins to walk the firewalk of faith, from the community circle to the center. She is the one who makes this act sacred; she represents all of us. The heroine’s journey has begun. Everything is heightened. There is a rich silence. Time stands still. This is true theatre, where the divine in the person can be seen. This is the theatre of self.
        We meet in the now; I am truly present with her. I hear her voice — the tone, the feeling, the quality, the energy behind the words. I see her physical self — how she moves, her gestures, her tiny micromovements. Almost always in the beginning there is something about the person that jumps out at me, out of the background into the foreground. It is a key that opens the treasure chest of mystery, the secret self, the core of the person. A key that reveals the divine spirit, the daemon within.

Feeling the Paint
Toni Luisa Rivera
Gay Marcontell
Donna Ulanowski
P. Tanzy Maxfield

DONNA: I noticed a tremendous change in the quality of Gay’s touch. Her hands seemed to come alive. I felt more “received,” as if she were actively listening with her whole being, not just her hands. And I felt more listened to throughout my being, not just in my shoulder. Safety is very important to me. After Ilana asked Gay to draw on her artist’s sense, and I passively let Gay move my shoulder, I felt more trusting than the first time she tried it. I allowed her to move my shoulder more easily.
GAY: This issue of safety is primary when we use touch. “I’m with you, not doing something to you.” I believe the changes I noticed were due to Donna’s level of safety with me and our nonverbal communication, as well as her own interior conversation with herself.
TONI LUISA: What struck me was the paradox — that the more Gay was with Gay and Gay’s world of painting, the more she was with Donna and Donna’s world of the shoulder movement.

Transforming Wounds into Possibilities

Getting Out of War
Bineke Oort
With infinite patience and gentleness Ilana led me to reexperience being in the war, while making it feel safe enough for me to enter and remain for some time in this dangerous, fear-filled place.
        We focused on one recurring situation: standing in the basement of my home, covering my ears, and waiting for the dreaded roar of aircraft overhead and the thunder of their exploding bombs. Ilana accompanied me back into my time and place of terror. With calm presence she coached me through a reliving of the experience of covering my ears so as not to hear the next bomb. My spine shivered and I heard noises inside my head.

My Dynamic Duo: Rubenfeld Synergy and Art Therapy
Margaret Cappi Lang
Lisa brings a drawing to her fourth session. It depicts adults fighting and a scared child cowering in the corner. These images are disturbing. She curls up on the table and describes her feelings of despair and pain. She talks about how her brothers called her ugly and teased her relentlessly. She feels helpless. With her permission I place one hand gently on her back, the other on her head. She reaches out to me. I take her hand and hold it. I feel her body release some tension and soften a bit. She says, of the drawing she makes afterwards, that it depicts the death of her soul, the loss of her power.

Going Out on a Limb To Lighten Up
Estela M. Hernandez
Ilana explained that she wanted to work with someone willing to explore the deeper issues surrounding physical and/or emotional discomfort, rather than with someone who just wanted her to “fix” the pain. Al, who was a bear of a man, volunteered to lie down on the table, while the rest of us settled down in our seats to watch and listen.
        In a soft voice, Ilana asked Al questions as she gently touched his hips and shoulders in turn. Within a few minutes I saw each leg and shoulder drop, relaxing deeper into the padding. Then Al closed his eyes and began to tell his story. On that day, in a room full of strangers, he revealed the pain and horror of his childhood. He became the little boy who had witnessed his father drinking and beating his mother and had experienced verbal and physical abuse from his mother. To survive he had told himself over and over again, “I’m big and tough. I can take it.” This outwardly powerful man was speaking from the place of a lonely, scared, and defenseless child.

Tales My Left Leg Told Me
Joy Gates
I am already on the bodywork table when I remark, “I think that the reduced flexibility in my left leg is just the way it’s made and not something I’m imposing on it.” As I speak, my leg develops a cramp — first in a toe, then in the foot as well, and finally extending up the calf to the knee. “Ow!” I yelp. “I’ve got a cramp in my leg! Maybe I’m holding something emotional in this leg after all.”
        “What does your left leg want to say?” Lalitha asks me.
        “I’m not ready yet to give it voice. I’m not ready.” I feel stubborn, resistant.

Anchors Aweigh
Rose M. Andrzejewski
It was a dark day in February. I was sitting on one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs at La Guardia Airport, waiting for my flight to Buffalo to visit my mother, who had undergone major surgery the week before. I had taken this Sunday off from to be with my mother when her diagnosis came down. My boyfriend had just broken up with me. My singing and dancing mentor was gravely ill. Commuting between temp jobs, production assignments, and voice lessons in Manhattan and rehearsals in Connecticut was taking its toll on me. I was exhausted.
        I slumped in the chair as I realized that all my efforts were not bringing me closer to realizing my dreams — of singing on Broadway and being financially independent. Now, worrying about my mother’s diagnosis, it was all I could do not to fall apart. I was running hard, but in too many different directions. I decided right then to start doing things differently.

Sam’s Story
Linda Thomas
Linda: (pondering) Sam, what did your dad used to say to you when you were a kid and you wanted to go play like the other kids?
Sam: He’d say, Didn’t I want to work? Did I want to be a shiftless, lazy bum?
L: How do you feel when you hear him saying that?
S: Terrible...ashamed...(The shoulder blade tenses more beneath my hands.)
L: What do you wish your dad would have said?
S: (long silence)
L: I mean, say you could write the script. What words would you give to him?
S: (with gravity and solemnity) “You done a good job.” (Opening his eyes and looking back at me behind him.) Because he never said that, either. (Closes his eyes.) So, let’s see, “You done a good job. Take the day off. No need to kill yourself....” Something light like that.

I Can Take It!
Jeanne Reock
Immobilized under the mountain of books, I knew in my gut that I too often sacrifice my bodily comfort to the demands of doing a task. I thought of how I stay at the computer long after my back informs me that it is aching and sciatic pain has set in. Or how I make just one more phone call even though my ear hurts from the pressure and I’m tired of talking and listening and thinking. I let the weight of my commitment to whatever I’m doing overwhelm my need to take care of myself.