Dan is 25, white, and the oldest of two boys. Born into a family of educators, he is very bright and noticeably soft spoken. His presenting problem was depression with an increasing inability to speak in class and complete his work.

   Initially, therapy focused on mobilizing his anger. Intense anxiety arose with a brief period of impotence and loss of interest in sex; this subsided when he acknowledged his rage towards his mother. His rage wuld come out fitfully and would always be followed by deep anxiety and a brief exacerbation of his asthmatic symptoms.

   In one session Dan was over the breathing stool, and I added direct downward pressure to his soar plexus. Suddenly, he began to exhibit symptoms of acute anxiety (pupil dilation, face blanching), and he began wheezing asthmatically. He wasn't, however, actually experiencing anxiety. The sound emerging from his wide open mouth, where I had just been applying pressure to his masseter and scaleni muscles, became recognizable as a muted, high-pitched scream. His throat and lungs were severely contracted against allowing this sound its full expression. The sound continued for five minutes.

   This experience appears to have had a noticeable effect on reducing the recurrence and severity of his asthma symptoms, and significant progress in other areas has been noted.

[Source : Bioenergetic Analysis - The Clinical Journal of the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis, Volume 3, Number 1, Summer 1987, pp. 98-99]

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