So many of us live at such a hectic pace filled with so many obligations that we have no time to make informed choices concerning the direction of our lives. This is especially true for those of who live in dense urban areas such as Manhattan and the New York City area. Unfortunately, even those activities which we say are “for fun” or “for our health” are often simply ways to fill up our time and prevent us from really addressing concerns we may have about the quality of our lives. Individual therapy allows you to set aside a specific time during your week to slow down and focus specifically on what you may want to change in your life, your behavior, your relationships, and your future. Individual counseling sessions provided a partner in myself in your search for better emotional health. The direct attention to your needs which you receive in individual counseling provides a blueprint for the kind of supportive attention which must be included in all healthy relationships whether it be a couple, a family, or a work relationship.

Although each individual brings a unique combination of issues as potential focus of treatment, I have experience working with a wide range of specific issues, including:

Reichian Somatic Psychotherapy

The principles of Reichian Somatic psychotherapy and the practice of orgone therapy were developed by Dr. Wilhelm Reich.

Orgone Therapy makes it possible to treat, cure, and most importantly, avoid many physical and psychological health issues which are still considered genetic, incurable, and fatal today. This powerful therapeutic process was developed by Dr. Wilhelm Reich, a physician, researcher, teacher, and pioneer in the field of psychological and physical health. One of the last and initially most favorite students of Sigmund Freud, Dr. Reich was expected to succeed him in carrying his psychoanalytic work into the future. Unfortunately, due to unresolvable differences, Freud and Reich parted ways. While Reich continued to consider talking, interpretation, and intellectual analysis an important part of the therapeutic process, he continued to emphasize the importance of working primarily and directly with the physical and biological underpinnings of emotional distress. In contrast, Freud abandoned his long-time focus on the connection between biological (somatic) and psychological processes in favor of promoting psychoanalysis, his “talking cure” which became the basis for the many forms of talk therapy we know today. Unfortunately, as too many people have discovered, talk therapy is ultimately limited in its effectiveness, although it can have some benefits in helping people manage their lives better through intellectually understanding their problems. However, Orgone Therapy, with its ability to access and eliminate the roots of our problems, is ultimately much more effective and can achieve more permanent results than those therapies which rely only on intellectual understanding and/or toxic medications.

As Dr. Reich continued his clinical research and scientific laboratory work on the connection between bodily functions and emotional health, he identified a new form of energy. This energy, different from electricity, gravity, or magnetism, is a biological energy flowing through all living organisms. It runs through plants, humans and other animals as well as planets, stars, and galaxies. Dr. Reich named this naturally occurring biological energy, which he could collect and measure in the laboratory, Orgone Energy. 

Orgone energy is also known in other cultures as Ch’i or Kundalini in Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist religions. However, Dr. Reich attached no spiritual or religious significance to Orgone Energy. His scientific research focused on the physical connection between the flow of orgone energy through the body and human health. In his extensive laboratory and clinical studies, he discovered that in addition to our circulatory, pulmonary, and nervous systems which regulate the flow of blood, oxygen, and nerve impulses in our body, an orgone system regulates the flow of orgone energy through our body. Dr. Reich found that just as impairment in these other essential biological systems leads to physiological breakdown, when our orgonotic system begins to become impaired, physical and emotional breakdown can begin to occur much more frequently and rapidly. 

In his research, Reich discovered that both psychological distress such as depression, anxiety, addiction, and psychosis/schizophrenia and physical ailments such as muscular pain, chronic fatigue, liver disease and even cancer share some underlying causes. In his clinical research, Reich discovered that both psychological/emotional distress and physical ailments result from chronic tension/ contractions of muscles restricting the natural movement of the body and the healthy flow of blood, oxygen, and orgone. He named these physical and psychological restrictions to bioenergetic flow “armor”. 

We use our armor as a necessary and natural protective boundary between us and the outside world, regulating what we allow to enter and pass through our biological system from the outside world as well as how deeply we allow ourselves to feel the emotions and muscular tensions we are holding so tightly. Our armor is physical — our posture, our way of breathing, and our patterns of muscular tension. It is also psychological/emotional — our beliefs, our style of thinking, our behavior towards others, and our reactions to stressful situations. When our armor is flexible, able to contract and expand fully and naturally, we are able to meet the inevitable challenges of daily life in healthy and rational ways. We are able to allow ourselves to breathe fully and fully feel, process, and release difficult emotions such as sadness, joy, fear, anger, longing, and sexual arousal. However, if our muscles become chronically contracted, we restrict the natural flow of blood, oxygen, and orgone passing into, through, and out of our body, creating blocks in those essential biological systems. We create physical blocks (muscular tension) as well as intellectual and emotional blocks (rigid thinking and reduced empathy for others). Our chronically contracted armoring restricts our ability to fully feel pleasure in life and make positive life choices. As a result, we become fearful and anxious of both the world and people around us, and we avoid feeling difficult emotions inside us. We become rigid in our thinking, intolerant of different opinions and beliefs, and less and less capable of allowing new information to change our mind. We also risk developing serious and potentially fatal physical ailments. To treat and prevent chronic armoring, Dr. Reich developed Orgone Therapy, which integrates a unique and powerful combination of both physical and psychological techniques.

My office is in Manhattan, NY. However, I am available for phone consultation House Calls for crisis and in-home therapy, and carefully planned interventions anywhere and anytime on this planet, schedule permitting. Contact me for information and availability at alexander@dralexanderbingham.com

Contact Me