Core work

The Pilates and yoga world talks about the core as a fundamental element of the health of the human body. In yogic tradition the bandhas are the energetic equivalent to the core, and in Pilates one focuses on the inner muscles that underlie the superficial ones and have essential role in the healthy holding of the body and containing the inner organs. The whole body’s alignment and ability to move in an effective and sustainable way depends on this core. When you work out, practice asanas in yoga or strengthen your core muscles in Pilates, you are working on this core.
In psychoanalytic therapy there is something very similar happening. Dependent on the health of the structure of the psyche- - just as dependent on your body’s health in physical exercise – you will need to recreate the structure by recognizing, finding, strengthening and maintaining your core, your inner self. Throughout our lives we have gone through many experiences that have had strong impact on us. These impacts shape our core understanding of who we are. Who we are is in relation to others. Thus others, or the outside environment affects who we are at our core. This core develops throughout our lives, some stages of life having more permanent effects and some less important or less lasting ones.
About the psychic core it is said that it has been influenced a great deal in early childhood when our original interpersonal patterns were shaped, formed, molded and established. This can happen later in life as well, especially if we go through some traumatic influences. These traumas - whether in the word’s most often used sense, when something traumatic happened to us, but it is also true for other, major influences that leave permanent marks on us.
Again, the parallel with the physical body, we can say that our physical build gets created and recreated by such events as playing a certain sport or musical instrument for an extended period of time, or using our body regularly in a certain way, like driving. For women pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding can have similar long lasting effects on their bodies. The examples are endless and they surround us all the time.
The same way it happens to our inner psychic core as well. It gets molded and shaped throughout life’s interpersonal experiences. We internalize and process those experiences and some of them stay with us as our own.
The process of psychotherapy – as I see it – is a process similar to a Pilates or yoga training. The instructor – or the therapist – looks very closely at the minute manifestations of the person’s inner workings. We listen, or look, and observe. Soon a picture of manifestations clarifies a view of the inner core, and the therapist takes that inner core and helps the client rearrange their view of reality in a way that will be healthier, will induce less suffering and will clear the way to free flow of psychic energy, libido – as some call it – or the person’s capacity to live a fuller life.
The core of the personality is that inner container that needs to be strong enough to maintain its essential ingredients, on which the outer manifestations depend. These are not only the person’s behaviors, thought and actions, but their very details of their personality and interpersonal communications. The work is done at this core level. When it is out of alignment, it causes many unhealthy manifestations, and the process of bringing it back to alignment needs to be very gentle, precise and nonjudgmental. That is the only way that its well established ways will allow to loosen up, to shift and to heal.