Way back when I was in graduate school, which seems like eons ago (it was the middle 1980’s), I studied the work of an attachment researcher named Stephen Johnson. That is Stephen M. Johnson, apparently there are many Stephen Johnsons. He was also one of an early wave of somatic therapists that began to appear in the 1970’s and even then, before I really knew anything about attachment, I loved his work. He had his own version of the attachment styles that all had a somatic component. Probably my favorite of all is called Characterological Transformation: The Hard Work Miracle (Norton, 1985). The very title moves me as I remember it, and I still have my dog-eared copy, and all of his other books as well.
Johnson, as every school of thought seems to do, renamed the attachment styles. I am not fond of any of them really. The attachment style that most correlates to neglect trauma in formal attachment theory is the Avoidant, which I do not like at all. It sounds so very intentional and blaming to me. Johnson’s title was not much better, he called that group the Schizoid. One aspect of his work with Schizoid, that really stayed with me, and those who are familiar with my work, have heard me talk about it: “spine and voice.” Johnson always said, “the ultimate recovery tasks of the schizoid are to “get a spine and get a voice!”
About a year ago, I was feeling so grateful to Stephen Johnson for his vast contribution to my development, that I thought I would like to contact him and thank him. I could not find any information about him, and ultimately, I found a death announcement of a Stephen Johnson. There was really not much information about him at all, except a fund where you could plant a tree in his honor. I figured I could at least do that, and I included with it an inscription of gratitude. Somehow, when I got the certificate about my planted tree, I figured out that I had planted a tree for a different Stephen Johnson. I can’t remember how I knew – perhaps the middle initial was not quite right. Oh well… how can it be bad to plant trees? Tall and upward reaching, like a strong, healthy spine. His contribution to me continues to stand immeasurable.
Only recently, in the effort to find the merits of ChatGPT, I have been searching out questions like this, and I discovered that Stephen M. Johnson is in fact still living and resides and teaches locally, in my area! So, I can find and thank the “right” one! Thanks, ChatGPT!
Feet
In all somatic work we learn the foundational significance of feet- grounding, connection to the earth, rootedness, presence. “Feel your feet on the ground…” was a constant refrain, especially when “triggered”. As a kid, I was always ashamed of my big feet. Where the dainty ballet girls with their pink slippers were tiny sizes, I had big clod hoppers, particularly wide widths – so inelegant.
My mother had reasonable sized feet, but had many problems with them. I think by the time I was in junior high, she had a pretty severe set of bunions. A bunion is a bump of bone that starts at the base of the big toe, where it meets the foot. It starts its growing bulge when the bones at the front of the foot shift out of place, causing the tip of the big toe to lean toward the second toe. Over time, this misalignment grows into and increasingly unsightly and then painful bulge. My mother, who never did where pretty shoes or stylish heels, was progressively stuck with increasingly unsightly, unstylish “sensible” shoes and at home slippers as the bunions mushroomed on both feet. Ultimately, she resorted to surgery to have them all removed. The whole experience was pretty awful. I can’t remember how many years it spanned.
My mother died precipitously in 2001. It was very fast and truly unexpected. She seemed so healthy to everyone. I was caught by surprise and although I had done so much work on my trauma, I was not “ready” for her to pass, if one ever really is… And until recently I always said, I only have one regret in my life: that I did not get to make my peace with my mother before she died. I say “until recently” because only now, nearly a quarter of a century after her passing, do I finally feel I have completed my grieving and repair with her. Certainly in 2001 I was far from it. And shortly thereafter, I began to find to my horror, looking down, that my feet were starting to look like hers. On NO! I saw and felt the pressure and pain of growing bunions on both feet. Little by little my pretty, stylish heels migrated to the back of the closet, replace by nothing but clogs. Shoes became a necessary evil, and came off as soon as possible everywhere. I rarely wore them anymore. I don’t remember which was worse, the visual or the physical discomfort.
Meanwhile, I continued to do my work about my mother, doggedly. As we all know, that primary, foundational work is not easy! In 2009, I discovered neurofeedback. Admittedly I was pretty obsessed with learning and practicing the “new” to me modality – practicing on myself and whomever else would lend their head. It was an exciting adventure. I certainly began to forget about my sorry feet, in my flurry of beeping. Until I gradually began to notice something: don’t ask me how this happened – I have never been able to replicate it. Please don’t ask me to replicate it! The bulging bunion began to shrink. Apparently with all this work about my mother, the swollen bones slowly began to melt and return to their previous healthy sizes. The clogs migrated back to the back of the closet, or even to the recycling. The bunions healed and vanished, never to return. True story! Go figure!
Upward
In the last couple of years, I have suddenly had problems with my neck and back. My woes of pain and disfigurement have surely intruded into my life and work. Many have heard, certainly noticed the stiff, shrinking constriction and forward stoop in my carriage and bearing. It has been painful and humiliating, surely a source of “narcissistic injury” for this lifelong endurance athlete. It was not lost on me, to my horror again, that I have become increasingly “stuck” in the universally acknowledged embodiment of shame. I have pursued many avenues: Western medicine and alternative, with little progress or hope. I have become much more sensitized to issues of disability although admittedly this is a minor one. And have been admittedly more fearful about my compromised balance, and breaking my right arm this year was a painful and inconveniencing reminder that I must be much more mindful than ever before.
Only recently, as I have continued as ever to do my trauma work, that I began to connect some dots. The problems with my neck and back, seem to date back about 2020. Right at the turn of the year, my father passed. Thankfully he missed the Pandemic, and certainly that he is not around to witness the world nightmare going on now! Back then with him gone, I slowly became more able, freer and more willing to speak openly, even publicly about my personal story. In effect, I began to get a voice, like never before. I now am starting to believe, that my father – or my own ambivalence, my own “Bermuda Triangle” of anger, grief and guilt, began to take up residence on my back. Weighing me down. Pulling me forward, attempting to silence or at least slow me down. It occurs to me, that maybe with hard work, or to again use Stephen Johnson’s words, “the hard work miracle.” I have healed bone before, perhaps I can do it again. I do plan to continue giving voice. In Oxford next week I will be speaking about things I have never spoken about publicly before, and stand as tall and upright as I possibly can, like the trees I planted for an unknown Stephen Johnson. Reaching upward: voice and spine in Oxford. I am nervously excited, inspired. Perhaps I will meet you there!
PS In my flurry of uncharacteristic extroversion in Oxford this next week, we may have to suffice with “re-runs” the next week or two. I am sure you will understand! Back in regular rhythm as of 16 October.
