SelfhelpMagazine

An interview with Stanley Keleman
by Terrence MacClure

Frequently asked questions about the somatic-emotional exercise practice

Can I expect to feel better doing the exercises?
As you shift your emotional shape you shift your mood. You can expect to open the door to emotional possibilities and a range. We're not looking to feel better but to influence this range of emotional expression.

What do you mean 'manage'?
The goal of the exercises is to manage the incremental shifts from shape to shape which give rise to degrees of depression and panic. If you have determined that pressuring yourself is a particular way that contributes to your depression, by pressuring yourself more then less you will give yourself a sense of managing a small window you have purposefully created.

And why should that be helpful?
The small window you have created - taking the same depressive pattern and doing it more, intensifying it, then doing it less - feeds back to the brain. And it tells the brain, "I did this much and I undid what I did. I managed myself." This eventually begins to have an effect on the more global depressive pattern. Remember, feeling better is not the goal. Self-management is.

What happens if I feel worse?
You may have participated in the exercises too intensely. You may have contracted yourself with too much vigor, for example. This is a sign that you should do it less. Another reason that you may feel temporarily worse is that you are deanesthetizing yourself to the muscular part of your depressive attitude. Experiencing it increases your awareness of the depressive attitude. This is part of reorienting yourself to how, in fact, you pressure yourself. In a while, undoing it will relieve the feeling of too much spasticity and contracting of the pattern.

How often should I do the exercises?
A general rule of thumb is to do it in very short spurts. To practice doing it for minutes at a time. Then doing it many minutes over a period of time - 8 or 9 times in a day for 2 or 3 minutes at a time. This begins to set up a pattern inside that feels comfortable and finally becomes somewhat automatic in that you just simply function as unpressuring yourself and containing yourself.

Is there an ideal shape?
A lot of people try to say that there is an ideal shape. I say over and over again that there is no ideal shape. There is knowing how you use yourself and there is knowing and recognizing the shape that gives you a sense of comfort.

Why is self management helpful?
Self management - being able to influence yourself - is important because it restores a sense of self potency. It gives the person a recognized and established ability to affect themselves. And this reduces the sense of being a victim to oneself. A part of panic and depression is that one is unable to manage themselves. Being able to effect yourself - do something more and do it less - restores a sense of being able to influence yourself. And this lifts part of the pattern of panic and depression.

How effective are these exercises?
Doing the exercises is a practice. The attempt is to be able to influence your behavior. There are many factors in any situation that afflicts us deeply and there's no accounting for all the possibilities inside an situation. I would say that I have found these exercises very beneficial for helping many people. I wish you luck.

About the author:

Terrence MacClure is a writer and video producer from Berkeley.

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