Angry in the Great White North

The email from the Toronto Police Service was simple, but intriguing:

The Toronto Police Service is investigating a Sexual Assault where a woman has alleged she had been seeking treatment from a psychotherapist in the Bloor Street West/Christie Street area.

It is alleged that:

• during the course of treatment, the woman was asked to undress and lie down on a table, underneath a blanket,
• during the treatment, the accused touched her inappropriately.

Gregory Nye, 59, of Toronto, has been arrested and charged with Sexual Assault.

Now what sort of psychotherapy is conducted in the nude?

I guess the best person to answer that question is Gregory Nye, via his website:

My involvement in psychotherapy and somatic-emotional therapy began and continues with my own therapeutic process. I believe that a therapist helps and teaches others from their own life's journey. This belief has been affirmed, over and over again, both by my clients, and the effective teachers I have studied with and who have influenced my work.

My studies began in the early 1970's with traditional Freudian and Jungian analysis, deep relaxation, mythology, Self-psychology, and psychodynamic psychotherapy. I also pursued instruction in body psychology: bio-energetics, cranial-sacral therapy, bio-dynamic massage, natural healing, and homeopathy. In 1988 I co-founded the Institute for Psychotherapy and Emotional Bodywork, which I co-directed for fifteen years. In 1990 I began to study directly under the mentorship of Stanley Keleman, the founder of Formative Psychology. I have lectured and taught in Canada, the U.S., Jamaica and Mexico. I continue to train therapists and professionals in methods of psychotherapy while maintaining a thriving private practice working with individuals, couples and groups in and about the Toronto area.

Cranial-sacral therapy? Bio-dynamic massage? Somatic-emotional what's-it?

OK, let me digest this down for you. Literally.

Bio-dynamic massage is the branch of psychotherapy that heals the mind by working out the intestinal blockage created by unresolved feelings. No. Really.

A hallmark of biodynamic practice is the Practitioner’s use of a long stethoscope or anaesthoscope, which is placed upon the abdomen of the patient during treatment. We use the stethoscope in order to listen to the “psycho-peristalsis” which Gerda Boyesen describes as an “actual healing mechanism” in the body that is situated in the viscera, and specifically in the gastro-intestinal tract. This mechanism - the psycho-peristalsis - is the basis for healing in the human body and mind. Sounds from the gut can be heard via the stethoscope and used as a form of bio-feedback. By working to get the maximum psycho-peristaltic sounds, the Practitioner is enabled to find the metabolic "key" in the client that can safely “unlock” deep inner tensions and unravel old uncompleted emotional or nervous cycles that can cause symptoms and/or pain.

By monitoring the autonomic nervous system via the stethoscope the Practitioner can assist the client’s body to progressively clear the tissues of the hormonal (bio-chemical) by-products of stress, and assist the client to clarify attitudes and beliefs that can lead to mental disturbance and dysfunction. Psycho-peristalsis is the means whereby the interruption to the flow of life energy in the body and mind is organically re-connected.

Cranial-sacral therapy is essentially acupuncture without the needles:

CranioSacral Therapy is a gentle, hands-on method of evaluating and enhancing the function of a physiological body system called the CranioSacral system.

The CranioSacral system is comprised of the membranes and cerebrospinal fluid which form the fluid-filled sac around the core of the nervous system - surrounding, nourishing, and protecting the brain and spinal cord.

Like the pulse of the cardiovascular system, the CranioSacral system has a rhythm that can be felt throughout the body.

Using a touch generally no heavier than the weight of a small coin, skilled practitioners can monitor this rhythm at key body areas to pinpoint the source of an obstruction or stress.

Once a source has been determined, they can assist the natural movement of the fluid and related soft tissue to help the body self-correct. This simple action is often all it takes to remove a restriction.

Somatic-psychology is about the link between the body and feelings -- to be more accurate, the recognition that there is no link because they are not truly different concepts. The emotional life of the person is the emotional life of the body, and healing one means healing the other:

Stanley Keleman has developed and is still developing his approach to somatic therapy. He has been expounding his ideas since the early 70's and has written numerous books. It is noteworthy that references are almost totally absent from his writings.

Although Keleman trained with Alexander Lowen, the founder of Bioenergetics, his approach to bodywork offers a unique vision, and parts company from both Reich and Lowen. Reich proposed an absolute transformation of society that would accept the full animal passions of man and woman. The goal was total orgastic [sic] potency and sexual liberation. Lowen reintroduced Freud's reality principle into the picture. In contrast to Reich's excess, Lowen recognised the social limits to total gratification. His exercises are designed to enliven the body in order to experience pleasure and joy.

Keleman's approach to somatic therapy follows on naturally from the identity of attitude and form. Accordingly, our emotions and thoughts are intimately connected to our muscular gestures. Our postures and form, our mobility and motility recount our emotional and cognitive history. We therefore organise our own emotional and mental realities. And here is the nub of it; if we organise our realities, we can disorganise and reorganise our muscular emotional pattern. This then is the central feature of Keleman's work today.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Sit up straight!"

Nye buys into all these concepts, and then teaches them out of his Institute for Psychotherapy and Emotional Bodywork on Spadina in Toronto (see update at the end of this piece):

This four year program is conducted over 5 three-day weekends in Toronto from early September to the end of May. In addition, each year of the four year program, candidates are required to commit to the following:

1. A fall term Emotional Bodywork workshop.
2. A winter term weekend residential workshop.
3. A summer weeklong residential workshop.
4. Two additional ISPEB-sponsored workshops.
5. A small on-going study/bodywork group that meets approximately twice a month.
6. Approximately sixteen hours of independent and/or co-operative study per week.

The cost to become a therapist through this rigorous program? A mere $200.

Other programs of spiritual self-discovery incorporating psychotherapy are available at a special retreat in Jamaica.

The whole thing sounds vaguely cultish. Actually, there are a lot of pseudo-spiritual elements in this "Institute". Even the domain name, registered by Gregory Nye, is "spiritcentral.com".

In any case, Gregory Nye has contributed to the Institute's newsletter:

Knowing ourselves is knowing how we use our bodies, how we form and use our emotional bodies. By learning how we have constructed our bodily shapes to facilitate certain emotional states we can learn how to destructure these shapes and actively and consciously participate in the process of self-formation.

So here's my problem. The police have picked Nye up for "inappropriate contact" during a therapy session with a naked patient. But everything I've read about Nye's chosen field of psychotherapy and about Nye's operation in particular suggests that it operates well outside of the realm of traditional psychotherapy, and that touching and manual manipulation of the body form a core portion of the therapeutic process. So who is to say what is inappropriate?

The challenge for the prosecution might be to separate the legitimate therapeutic touch from the inappropriate. But who do you ask? I mean, what if Nye argues that the "blockage" was down there...and that he was acting in an entirely professional manner, as defined by his particular field. Any expert witness who claims that the whole theory is bunkum will be labeled as someone with a professional axe to grind, and in any case, in no position to pass judgment. Any expert who does practise these therapies who testifies in defense of Nye will be labeled by the prosecution as someone desperate to protect their fringe form of psychotherapy from the bad publicity that will be used by their professional enemies to further undermine support for their approach to mental health.

What seemed like a simple alert might be something very interesting indeed.

Update: On March 31, I received this email:

CLARIFICATION

This is to inform you and to clear any reference to present day connections to Gregory Nye. Gregory Nye resigned from C.P.E.B. Therapies, Inc. and the Institute for Psychotherapy and Emotional Bodywork in March, 2003. He is no longer connected with the either of the above and there has been no interaction between him and the companies named above.

Yours sincerely,
Daniel McDonald
Director

Thanks for the heads up.