(Note: Each Energetic Holding Defense descriptions will be described in a separate blog.)
Instructions for Clients: Read the energetic holding defense descriptions below. Then select the one that resonates the most with you—that is, the one you most closely identifies with—to confirm your self-diagnosis of your primary energetic holding defense. Then select the one that resonates the next most with you to confirm your self-diagnosis of your secondary energetic holding defense. Repeat this process if you resonate, but less so, with another energetic holding defense descriptions, and so on.
The Holding Back Defense Description
If you live with a Holding Back Defense, which you adopted between the ages of three to five years, your caretakers were likely uncomfortable with their sexuality, sexual relationship, and sexual identify, and therefore were uncomfortable with your budding sexuality and sexual animal nature as they saw it; thus they either rejected or ignored your reaching out for their love and your desire to love them, since both your wanting their love and your desire to love them had sexual overtones and potential Oedipal underpinnings (Oedipal referring to a psycho-sexual stage that describes a child’s unconscious desire for intimacy with the opposite sex parent which causes jealousy and anger in the same sex parent—that is, when a child begins saying that she/he want to marry the opposite sex parent). This was the age when developmentally you were forming an I or ego sense of self, just becoming aware of your sexual identity as well as the pleasure of sensual and genital experiences, and beginning to reach out to show your love to others, especially with your parent of the opposite sex. You were rejected in this bid and most likely consisted of one or both parents pushing away your open expression of love for them, your physical desire for contact and closeness, and your emerging sexuality. With regard to their sexual development, your caretakers tended to go to one extreme or the other—that is, they were embarrassed or ashamed about their own sexuality and thus hid it with rigid ideas of sexual behavior, proper dress or wearing loose fitting clothing and breast flattening bras; or, being insecure about their sexuality, they tried to appear more sexual by wearing tight fitting, stylish clothing which accented their genitals and breasts as well as using in-vogue hair styles, hair colors, makeup, perfumes, jewelry, tattoos, and body piercings that made them more alluring, for example.
These negative sexual attitudes caused your caretakers to create several problematic scenarios into which you may have fallen. One, the parent of the same sex was jealous of your relationship with the parent of the opposite sex and thus took out his /her anger on you for it. Two, the parent of the opposite sex may have felt uncomfortable with your developing sexuality and thus pushed you away so as to avoid having to deal with her/his uncomfortable sexual feelings. Three, both parents saw you as a threat to their close relationship and allied together against you as a way to keep their relationship intact. Or, four, one or both parents hated your emerging sexual nature which they saw as animal-like and depraved. This rejection of your love was heartbreaking, and as a result, you attempted to cope as best you could by acting as if it did not matter and also acting in a guarded way to insure that it would not happen again. Of course, you still needed to express your love and satisfy your desire for physical contact and closeness, so you learned to move indirectly with great caution and discretion to attain this end. This moving indirectly in a guarded way was then carried on into your adulthood where you have become a skilled master at doing it. Or, you accepted your parents’ judgment of you as bad and tried to become the perfect person whom they wanted you to be or become just the opposite by acting out as the bad boy/girl.
Because of this rejection of your love and the heartbreak it caused, you tend to hold your head high in defensive pride as if to say to the world, ”I don’t need you,” and, “You hurt me, so I will go it alone.” You back this up by setting your jaw, locking your knees, and making your back rigid, ramrod straight, and stiff to indicate that you are unyielding in your attitude and behavior stance of not needing anything from anyone. Your rigid posture caused by the extreme rigidity in your muscles throughout your body, and especially in your back, is very characteristic of your Holding Back Defense. Your eyes, although bright, tend to have a guarded quality about them as if to say, “I am watching you so you won’t take advantage of my love,” and, “You won’t get a chance to reject my love.” Your chest is hard, stiff, and armored as if to protect your heart and say, “I won’t open my heart to love and get it broken again. ”
Rather than standing with your weight forward on the balls of your feet as if you are ready for action in the world, a large portion of your weight tends to rest on your heels making you look as if you might fall over backwards. This stance reflects your general attitude about holding back your love because of your fear of rejection which causes you to avoid intimacy and closeness, and to hold back your love, hence the origin of the name ‘Holding Back Defense’ for this self-protective position. This attitude of holding back affects your general behavior which is controlled, restrained, and disciplined rather than allowing you to freely and spontaneously express your feelings and emotions. Thus, your ego and mind tend to control and restrain your energetic movements which result in a lack of spontaneity in your body and life.
Body-centered therapists, including Reich (1933), Lowen (1958, 1975), Kurtz (1990) & myself (Howe, 2021), have posited a number of different rigid sub-types with differences in body structures and corresponding personal attitudes which persons with a Holding Back Defense exhibit. These go by various names such as the Phallic-narcissist sub-type, the Histrionic sub-type, the Obsessive-Compulsive sub-type, the Industrious Over Focused sub-type, and the Self-reliant Independent sub-type, for example. The name I use for the most prevalent sub-type is the Willful Determined Holding Back Defense sub-type. It gets this name from the willful, determined child who identifies with his/her willful, determined caretaker and thus adopts wholesale all of the behaviors and attitudes displayed by this caretaker in order please him/her and avoid rejection. Here I will describe in some detail, the Willful Determined sub-type which in my experience is the most widely seen and treated variant of the Holding Back Defense sub-types. I will also briefly describe two other Holding Back Defense sub-types. One is the the Stoic Rescuing sub-type; it is the next most prevalent sub-type seen by therapists. The other is the Designing Persona sub-type which in the Victorian Age was very prevalent but rarely seen now days by therapists..
