Mary Lou MacIlvaine, Ph.D.
Holistic psychologist
in San Diego (in Kensington) near the 8 and the 15.
(619) 501-0334
Understanding the processes of life
and making it simpler and more rewarding
Give me a call. I have a lot of experience helping people enjoy life more.
Dr. MacIlvaine (619) 501-0334
What is different about holistic therapy?
Emotional issues are rooted in our bodies as well as our minds. Each person’s character structure has developed to maintain a level of emotional repression that has been comfortable, even though it can restrict energy levels and happiness. There is a time and a place for holding back ones energy. However, because our vital energy is identical to our sexual energy, constrained energy always, in some way, interferes with full sexual functioning.
“Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our being.
They should also govern it.” -W. Reich
Orgone Therapy
Orgone therapy is a non-pharmaceutical approach to alleviating emotional issues by removing emotional armoring, which blocks the natural processes of life energy – including the rational expression of emotions, healthful sexual feelings, and health in general. The stepwise reduction of emotional blocks, in and of itself, moves people toward natural emotional and sexual health. Where blockage results from tissue damage, loosening of armor maximizes the residual potential for functioning.
In addition to talking, the orgone therapist uses three unique approaches: 1) Increasing breathing to raise the energetic charge and loosen blocks; 2) Working directly on armored muscles and their associated feelings and ideas; and 3) Dealing with negative transference and character rigidity. Intense emotions are released, and patients gradually come to tolerate the visceral sensations of increasing health.
Because orgone therapy addresses the root of a problem, it can treat a wide variety of conditions. Orgone therapy is best suited to people with high aspirations. Many are in the expressive arts.
For an illustrated introduction to orgone therapy, click here.
Sexuality
Orgone therapy changes a person’s body as well as their feelings and values. When armoring loosens, people give way to an increasing flow of energy through all parts of their lives. Naturally, this vitality enlivens sexuality. People develop stronger sexual sensations, deeper emotional contact with partners, more physical and emotional expressiveness, and rational protection of this aliveness. Progress in sexuality occurs all along as people function at higher levels.
Optimal sex is part of optimal health. Both thrive on the increased ability to feel deep, tender love and yield to intense erotic sensations, leading to involuntary convulsions of the whole body – and loving gratitude. The function of the orgasm is to discharge excess energy. Although orgone therapy aims toward a comprehensive approach to sexuality, quick fixes are sometimes possible, to everyone’s delight.
For an illustrated discussion of sex therapy, click here.
Emotional Armoring
We are sick because of the way we grew up. When children hold back from expressing “unacceptable” or painful emotions, they must contract the muscles that would have expressed those feelings. When holding back becomes
habitual, emotional armoring is in place. Then, without emotional release, chronic anxiety sets in.
The “nice little girl” who never gets angry and the “brave, strong boy” who never shows fear and sadness have both lost the full and rational expression of natural emotions. Rigid muscles and attitudes keep them from feeling intense emotion and organ sensations.
Armoring results in dullness, numbness, suffering, blaming others, and destructiveness. It clouds perception, thought, feelings and self-expression. It undermines general health by restricting the flow of life energy and blood to needy tissues. Emotional armoring is the crucial, overlooked factor in health.
Armoring constricts energy directly, but it also consumes energy to maintain the constriction. With release of armoring, new energy is available for life, work and love.
The Science
Orgone therapy has its roots in biology and biophysics. Wilhelm Reich discovered that Freud’s libido is a specific biological energy. His years of clinical and laboratory research revealed that emotions, sexual feelings, and all life processes are expressions of what he called orgone energy (organism energy).
Reich showed that pleasure involves outward movement of energy, whereas fear and misery are felt when energy moves back toward the core of the organism. The shift between expansive pleasure and contracted anxiety reflects actual lengthening and shortening of autonomic nervous system fibers.
Expansion is a parasympathetic function, contraction sympathetic. This healthy ebb and flow constitutes the pulsation of natural organisms. With emotional armoring, the pulsation gives way to chronic contraction. Chemical imbalances also result from armoring, we suspect, because they tend to normalize as therapy progresses, allowing for gradual reduction of medication.
Web: emotionalcontact.com
sextherapysandiego.com
Email: nature808@yahoo.com
Phone: 619-501-0334
Comparing Services
| Individual therapy treats a person’s own psychological functioning and provides the best opportunity for dealing with character and emotional armoring. |
| Sex therapy includes knowledge about sexual functioning, anatomy, expectations, etc., often with homework assignments to try new behaviors. |
| Couples’ therapy focuses on communication, power-sharing, perhaps affairs, money, in-law, or parenting issues. |
| I also provide Child Psychology for children's behavioral issues, especially regarding pelvic or sexual concerns. |
Services:
I don’t prescribe medication. However, I coordinate treatment with psychiatrists or other physicians who prescribe antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications. I provide equal access to treatment for people of all persuasions, orientations, and ethnic identities. I work with personality disorders if the person is cooperative with treatment. I don’t treat major mental illnesses, multiple personalities, groups, or provide court-mandated therapy or other coerced treatment.
(619) 501-0334
Dr. Mary Lou MacIlvaine, Ph.D.
Holistic orgone therapy by mind-body psychologist for emotional problems.
Located in the Kensington area of San Diego, off Adams Avenue and I-15