Body and Avoidance
In destructive contexts, a change in body language and in physical awareness is often necessary for psychological survival. This happens involuntarily: Someone is stooped, is constantly ill, gives the impression he ought not be there, is the bull in the china shop, appears totally tense or unperturbable, moves like a shadow, hardly breathes, talks quietly or too loudly, hardly has any muscle or too much, and so on. This is only a small selection of body-related phenomena which may have an avoidance function. Anybody who is able to use such strategies, has a great advantage: he no longer needs to worry about it; the avoidance has migrated into the involuntary process of the body. The disadvantage is obvious: it is no longer so easy to influence the event deliberately. Counselling which pays regard to such phenomena, though, has quick and elegant intervention possibilities here – see the guiding process self-expression.