It is not common for us to consult our body to become aware of its energy level. Learning to listen to our body, to know its needs and to understand its language is challenging and takes time. Sometimes our body’s reactions can be surprising, unsettling and illogical to our intellect. This is because the sensibility is involved as well as the body. These two pivotal centres of the person are closely linked and need to live in harmony with one another. Sometimes the body or sensibility does not play its proper role because of blockages or traumas experienced earlier in life.

When we experience puzzling bodily reactions, the sensibility is often blocked and cannot express the emotions that it would if it were functioning properly. Emotions are then displaced to the body, causing psychosomatic reactions. The emotional shift from the sensibility to the body eventually becomes automatic. The sensibility learns to close off and hardens itself against pain. Whatever the sensibility finds threatening gets expressed unconsciously through the body. For this reason, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate a purely physical reaction from a psychosomatic reaction. Through PRH Analysis, however, we can learn to identify the source of these reactions and the sensibility can relearn its role of transmitting emotions.

“The self-knowledge approach proposed by PRH rests on becoming aware of the presence of these sensations within oneself and analyzing the ones which seem to be conducive to growth or to a better functioning. This analysis is proposed as a methodical deciphering of the message contained in these sensations to determine their origin. Having thus diagnosed what triggers the sensation being experienced, one is better able to handle one’s life by remedying it or, in the case of positive realities of the being, by finding an enhanced way of living.”
Persons and Their Growth, page 49.

As we follow Marie and Francine’s growth journeys in this chapter, we will see how PRH Analysis functions. But first, we need to clarify some topics that will be covered in this chapter.



Entering into a PRH Helping Relationship

Persons experiencing psychosomatic reactions at the start of a growth journey usually lack feeling in both their body and sensibility. They may experience pain or some bodily reaction. But they generally do not have sufficient awareness of their body to allow them to sense whether a specific limb or organ is tense or relaxed. Awareness of their extremities is nearly absent: hands and feet, a primary means of connecting with the environment, are often used mechanically and relate to the outside world only by use of their willpower. There is usually a limited connection between the sensibility and the person’s inner world. They often say: “I do not feel well”; “I am angry”; or “I am mad at him”. But the connection between what is said and what is felt is often hard to establish.

PRH Helping Relationship can be a helpful tool for people suffering from psychosomatic reactions. PRH’s relational dimension and methodical exploration of sensations enable persons to break down walls and allow life to enter buried or repressed areas of their body and sensibility.

In PRH, the helper agrees to enter into a relationship with persons and to accept them in a heartfelt way and without conditions. Persons feel received without judgment, understood and loved as they are. As a result, their sensibility often begins to awaken. They feel less threatened and less shut off to their emotions. A nurturing helping relationship which is free of expectations, of demands for performance and of manipulation, usually reawakens a person’s life energy. Persons recover self confidence and trust others more. They are more able to speak about themselves. Their taste for life, sometimes dormant for years, is often reborn. They experience the right to be fully themselves.

The sensibility and body are so closely related that a climate of unconditional acceptance also influences the body. Feeling accepted and loved often allows the body to relax. The body registers its own sense of entitlement and begins to live more fully in its masculine or feminine identity. Fears tend to subside, stress decreases, and feelings begin to get expressed.
“When Life Breaks Through” pages 103-106