The Body is the Medium

The Body as the Primary Communicator

What our body communicates is more powerful than what we communicate orally i.e. through our words and voice signals

Understanding Body Language becomes crucial in every important interaction in life:

• A psychologist or psychotherapist understands the negative patterns of behavior and feelings the client is struggling with, by observing the client's bodily reactions.

• When we meet a person for the first time, we can say if he is a cheerful kind of a person or gloomy kind of a person by looking at their facial muscles and body posture. 

• A person talking to her friend knows whether her friend is happy with what she is saying or not by looking at the eye movements and facial expressions

Dr. Mehrabian's 7--38--55 Rule of Communication

Dr. Albert Mehrabian, an Iranian psychologist researched on non-verbal communication in the 1960's and came up with a rule for face-to-face or interpersonal communication. He proposed that there are three elements that contribute to the happening of communication. The three elements that contributed to our communication are: Spoken Word, Voice Signals and Body Language. He concluded that the three elements contributed to the happening of communication in the following ratio:

•          7% by Words 
•          35% by Voice Quality (Tone, Pitch, Volume and Pause)
•          58% by Body Language

From the above chart, we can understand the weightage Body Language carries in face-t-face or interpersonal communication.

The Different Aspects of Body Language

Body Language gives a lot of clues to understand a person and his or her personality. There are many aspects of body language that psychologists study. However, the following are the most elementary aspects of body language: 

1. Body Stiffness or Muscular Relaxation: When we meet some people, we know that they are very stiff and their body is uptight. We know immediately that these kinds of people do not mingle with others that easily and we know that we cannot make friends with them easily. We all know communication with such people is difficult because they do not open up easily.
2. Body Vibrations or Energy:  When we meet people, we also experience certain vibrations from them. We know how energetic that person is as well as the dominant emotion of that person by these vibrations. We speak in terms of positive vibrations and negative vibrations we get from people.
3. The Breathing Signals: By observing the breathing, we can understand the emotional state of a person. For example, a short and irregular breath indicates anxiety and tension while a deep and slow breath indicates calmness and composure. A sigh can indicate desperation or relief and a sniff can indicate disgust. 
4. Carriage and Gait: The way one carries his body around and walks can tell a lot about his personality. We can differentiate between a person who is arrogant and a person who is low in confidence by looking at the way he or she walks.
5. Sitting and Standing Postures: Posture reveals a lot about a person's mental state. Erect and square shoulders indicate a confident personality while a bent spine and drooped shoulders indicate somebody who is not very confident.
6. Gestures: The way we move our hands is called a ‘gesture’. A gesture like a sharp throw of the hand can indicate anger while folded hands can indicate disinterest or caution.
7. Facial Muscles and Expression: The face is an index of not only the mind, but of the whole personality. Paul Ekman, the world's authority on facial expressions, says that there are 43 muscles in the face representing different emotions. (https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-physiology-of-facial-expressions)
8. Eye contact and Eye Movement: The eyes can express a whole range of emotions-from a sadistic look to a secret smile. The way we move our can also indicate the thinking and emotion of the person.

Body Language and Script Analysis in TA

Transactional Analysis says that person’s body language and their script are related. A person’s script can be studied by studying the signals he or she is sending through their body language. Dr. Eric Berne calls these ‘Script Signals.” 

Six Therapeutic Ways That can Improve your Body Language

Since body language is a reflection of one’s personality deep down, we need to take steps that change the person inside out. Hence I am suggesting some activities that change the person inside out and that way change in body language happens.

1. Focus on Improving your Posture:  Posture is just not a reflection of one’s confidence; it is a reflection of one’s belief s about oneself and the world. A person with a stooping body posture thinks that he is not good enough as a person and that he cannot handle the world. People with stooping body posture can benefit by doing yoga. Yoga can improve the posture of a person considerably. Even other ways like Physiotherapy Exercises can help one in straitening the spine.

   

   Yoga

2. Release the Pent-up Emotions in the Body: From the point of view of therapy, our body is carrying the pent-up emotions that have been stored since our childhood.  Hence one needs to focus on releasing these pent-up feelings rather than just focusing on outward actions. Massage is one way to clear our pent up emotions. Any kind of massage can heal, but therapeutic massage can have better effect.   Massage relaxes the body muscles and it helps one in becoming a happier person. In that way, massage also cures a person of her script. Massage releases the emotions suppressed in the body and can make a person come out of their emotional past.
   
   

   

   Massage

3. Relax the Facial Muscles: As I mentioned earlier, the face is the index of personality and can show the beliefs and feelings of a person. The level of relaxability of face indicates how happy a person is and whether she has any behavioral issues. One of the best ways to relax the facial muscles is practicing the full-blown smile. In his book, “What Do You Say After You Say Hello?” Eric Berne talks about the smile of the Fijian Islanders. He says “a genuine Fijian smile starts slowly, it illuminates the whole face, it rests there long enough to be clearly recognized…”  Paul Ekman says, in a genuine smile, almost the whole face is illuminated in

   

   A Full-blown Smile

   which even the eyebrows and the skin between the upper eyelid and the eyebrow are involved.
4. Get Rid of your Fears:  Our fears also inhibit us from being free and relaxed. Most people have the fear of facing people; most also have the fear of speaking or appearing in front of a group. Once we overcome these fears, our body and face relax and we communicate better with the body. The posture can improve as well as our gestures can be spontaneous.
5. Engage yourself in a Passion or Hobby: Engaging oneself in a hobby or a passion also relaxes the person as they forget themselves in that activity. Often, the passion or hobby heals the emotional blocks of the person and they become relieved from their negative emotional patterns. This improves their overall body language.
6. Develop Intimate Relationships: Love is the best therapy. When we have intimate relationships, we become free of our negative past. Once we are free of our negative past, our body language improves as our body learns to relax and trust the other person

Besides all the methods above, getting psychotherapy is a systematic way to get rid of our inhibitions and contaminations in thought and feeling. 

• Transactional Analysis (TA) Therapy, in particular, will help a person to systematically dismantle their prejudices and delusions and thus release the body of its emotional built-up. 
• Body Psychotherapy or Somatic Therapy which works directly with the body releases the body of the emotional stress accumulated in the in the body. As a result, the body language of a person will be more relaxed, more confident and stress-free. The posture, gestures, facial expressions will improve and muscular relaxation will happen and breathing will be deep and stable.