compared German words to rails because they are so extraordinarily long: “Some German words are so long that they have a perspective.” This quote turned out to be so shocking for Olga that she immediately lost any interest towards the German language. Even years later, Twain’s words still had so much power over Olga, it stuck like a pin in her head, and it prevented her from making progress quickly. During the session of self-regulation based on the method of psychocatalysis, Olga “removed’ this pin and absorbed the light of a much calmer and natural attitude towards this language. She realized its importance and its beauty despite the words of Mark Twain. Moreover, Mark Twain himself learnt German though he was always making jokes about it.
Recycling our first impression and setting ourselves free from some idle and harmful speculations is one of the stages of our work.
Tensions and complexes acquired in the early stages of learning
A bit of knowledge, but a lot of tension — this is a law of mental life. Our body has the following logic: “I don’t know what to do, but I hope that this energy outbreak will do the trick.” It is purely a reflex reaction. However, this energetic outburst will hardly compensate for the lack of experience! As a result, the student is sweating for no apparent reason. The only result it leads to is wasting energy, tiredness, and burnout. By the end of the class or some episode of interaction in a foreign language, beginners often say that they feel exhausted absolutely. Only the toughest can survive this challenge, and the majority tries to do everything they can to avoid the repetition of such unpleasant experience.
Even the subsequent increase of linguistic competence and constant practice do not set you totally free from this ‘primordial’ tension. This tendency occurs not only when learning a foreign language, but in any other sphere where one is supposed to improve their skills, like in sports.
Setting oneself free from the old blocks, calls for a specific effort. The case I am going to adduce further might play the role of the introduction to the following practice.
A young tennis player
Jane is a wonderful young tennis player. She is ten years old, and she has been playing tennis for five years. During the training, she shows a great game, but something happens to her during competitions. She gets upset because of mistakes and easily gives up in a peak situation.
I asked her if she had the information on how to win in tennis and where this knowledge was in her body.
“It looks like some light in my head,” answers Jane
“Where is the sensation that blocks your skills during the competition?”
“It’s in my chest. It’s stone the size of a fist.”
What can this “stone’ be? Most likely, this is fear, which appeared when Jane was only learning to play.
Anyway, she was now an experienced player!
Jane eagerly agreed, that the knowledge she had accumulated over these years of training, should be given more space so that it could spread over her body, and she had to let that “stone’ melt. She observed these two processes. Her knowledge spread, and the stone turned into streams of warmth that filled the body too: first, her hands, and then the rest of the body. A spot left by the stone quickly disappeared as well.
Then I asked her: “Could it be that there was some moment during the training when you got scared and felt lost?”
“Yes, there was such an episode.
“Where are the sensations connected with this experience?”
Jane discovered a black cloud in her stomach. This is how many people often describe the consequences of fright if they focus their internal vision on it. Soon, everything cleared up inside. Jane became even more relaxed and calm. Now, she imagined how, during the coming competition, she would easily, as a pro, show everything she had learnt while training.
Another aspect that required attention during our session with Jane was the sensation of some heavy burden on her shoulders, which was bothering her. It felt like bricks. Many people express their heightened sense of responsibility this way.
“Whose load is that? Is it yours or somebody else?” I ask her.
“It’s mine!” Jane says.
This is the pressure, which she experiences, but it is in her best interest to find the way to deal with it, even though it might seem like an unpleasant feeling. She observes how her body absorbs this heaviness. Jane throws back her shoulders and stands straight. Now, she even looks a bit more mature.
All this work took us about 20 minutes.
Since then, Jane has been playing with more confidence and freedom8.
Such sessions have been conducted with sportsmen of different training levels. Even the high-rank professionals need to work through their sensations to spread their experience on their body, to relieve the tensions and consequences of psychological traumas received during the training or competitions. Even after one session, the sportsmen acquire better mental strength. This is the key ingredient that leads to success.
It is always great to find out that two or three months later, these people have considerably improved their results and become champions.
Something similar should be done to our linguistic competence: we need to strengthen it, melt the tension associated with the learning process, and get rid of fears.
Fright is a variant of information trauma that may lead to a phobia. Getting rid of fear and tension is a necessary step to overcome a linguistic barrier.
Student-time traumas
It also happens that a person suffers not only some tensions, but also traumas inflicted during the learning process. A teacher, who is too strict, or jokes of the classmates can “contribute’ to such complex.
A barn lock
I often think of a story told by one sensitive young woman9 who was so afraid of one strict teacher that every time before a class with him, she would get diarrhoea. She had to come to university hours before this class, and she would always ask her relatives or friends to give her a lift there in order to avoid any possible catastrophe in public transport. Even after the graduation, her fear of making a mistake remained so strong that she compared it to a barn lock on her forehead. This “barn lock’ kept blocking her mind years after the university. After some time she got married to a diplomatic officer and spent a considerable amount of time abroad. This means that she had plenty of opportunities to learn and speak a foreign language. However, she never managed to do so. This paralysing anxiety concerning her possible mistakes in her speech was what we focused on during our session.
An unpleasant quality of a complex is that it cannot go away by itself, and you need to work on its dissolution. You have to make a conscious decision in order to unblock a complex.
Background tensions and traumas remotely connected with the learning process
When stressed, a person burdened with unsolved
This session took place on December 17 2010 in Odintsovo.
Written down in 1996 in Moscow.
