Until Love Flows

Questions to Jirina Prekop

What does HOLDING actually mean? How would you explain it briefly to somebody who hasn´t heard anything about it?

It's an opportunity for two people united by a common fate to express a painful conflict concerning their mutual relation, to settle it and to become reconciled by holding each other very tightly. Both of them have the right to shout out and cry out their hurt feelings absolutely frankly and straight to each other's face. It is a confrontation face to face, gall to gall, heart to heart. Their bodies must be detoxicated so to speak, until love flows again.

What does "people united by a common fate" mean?

Mother and child, father and child, husband and wife, two partners in a lasting relationship.

Is there any limitation of age for practising HOLDING?

Age doesn't matter at all - from your birth to your death-bed. Everybody needs holding, if he is in an emotional crisis, if he gets into a love-hate relationship to himself or others, if he is confronted with a deep feeling of anxiety. Speaking about children I don't refer only to the actual biological age. Each of us always remains his parents' child. That's why I also refer to grown-up children and their aging parents. Very often these children live all their life and even after their parents' death under an everlasting strain, and it doesn't go well with them on earth. That's in accordance with the warning of the Fourth Commandment: "Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."

It might be absurd for many people to take someone in one's arms or to be taken by somebody else, if you are furious with him. Is that normal? People always suspect that violence is being exerted.

The tendency to run away in case of a conflict is based on a primitive instinct common to all creatures - to sea gulls and crocodiles as well as to human beings. Fleeing from an enemy therefore is a quite normal primitive reaction. Human beings however possess a higher biological endowment. They belong to a species of creatures who are dependent on a very close contact body to body during the first years of their lives and have therefore to be carried all the time. During these first years they have to be carried close to the body of their parental persons. This prevents the primitive tendency to flee, so that on the one hand the child can't avoid conflicts and on the other hand he is always realizing to be loved without reservation.

Thus impressed in one's memory such an attitude is always reproduced later on. In spite of the love-hate relationship he is always confronted with when meeting other people such a child is willing to deal with an enemy, to love him even. I am always wondering about the wisdom of Creation and its laws according to them man learns the highest form of love. In holding each other love towards the enemy is practised. This enemy, however, is not represented by a distant politician, but by my own child, who I'd like to tear apart limb by limb sometimes, or by my husband, who I kill in my mind with my bare hands.

Oh - that seems to be very difficult to embrace such an enemy …

That's right. It´s particularly difficult regarding our high standard of civilization, because we have to transgress two borders. The first one is the primitive instinct to run away; like all drives it has got an enormous power. The second one arises from a sort of conditioning during our childhood: We realize again and again that we are punished by rejection if we become furious. That's how we learn to run away from conflicts like rabbits or crocodiles. You can easily recognize the enormous force of this conditioning, if you look at parents today and their incapability to deal with conflicts. Every third marriage goes on the rocks nowadays.

Many people have realized that HOLDING can bring about a revival of the ability to love in our more and more brutalized world. An increasing number of people consider it the right way and practise it. But there are more and more doubts and questions concerning the proceeding.

You shouldn't be surprised about that. We have been alienated from our instincts and traditions. Only in recognizing original wisdom, in committing to the laws of Creation we can find a solution to that problem.

From a practical point of view doubts arise if the child struggles against holding, e.g. by calling for his dad to get free from his mother. Are you allowed to break this resistance?

This resistance against confrontation is the utterance of the primitive instinct to run away. It intends the destruction of the relationship and is therefore to be stopped. Oh no - we don't leave each other full of hatred. I am the more mature, and that's why I assume the responsibility for our relationship. I cut off the possibility of running away and insist on a confrontation, until the conflict is settled. The licence to express what depresses you strengthens the will to present yourself, to assert yourself. At the same time you realize to be loved without reservation, even if you tell the unvarnished truth. I don´t know any other measure that enables a child to express openly every offence, even hate against his parents in confrontation without being punished afterwards. On the contrary: By the experience of being held courage grows to risk confrontation. Your ego opposes your counterpart, and by opposing it it is getting stronger and more mature.

Shall I tell my child why I hold him?

That depends an how mature your child is. If he hasn't got any insight, because he is too young or handicapped, you can't talk with him and appeal to his reason. But the more mature people are, the sooner I can and should do it thus respecting their dignity. Five or six year old children and older ones should be informed at any rate. They should be encouraged to express everything that makes them sad or furious; but violence is strictly forbidden on both sides. You can actually tell your child that he is physically stronger than his mother. But that's not the point; what matters is that both express everything that depresses them, and hold each other until both are all right again.

What can you talk about while you are holding?

In no case you should discuss about anything. What matters most is the faculty of perception - of oneself and of others. And here sensual perception plays a leading role.

You should use only words that bring about crises and open wounds, by no means negative attributions like "you are a naughty child" or pedagogical demands like "I want you to do your homework properly". The purpose of Holding lies in the confrontation of emotions. That's why both have to utter their own feelings and reflect the feelings of the opposite person to give him the feeling of being accepted. This reflection can additionally be brought about verbally, e.g. "You are so furious with me!" "I have hurt so much!" "Let it out, give vent to your anger!"

Only after the storm has passed over, after the crisis is settled and both enjoy holding each other and caress each other, then talking can help to happiness as well.

Is Holding easier when I am angry?

An acute occasion always makes Holding more dynamic. To the child it seems logical as well to practise Holding in an acute situation, but your anger must refer to the child. He shouldn't become a scapegoat if his mother is angry with a third person.

How long does one Holding Session last?

That depends on the temperament of the persons concerned and on the kind of conflict as well as on the depth of the grief and how long it has bottled up. I witnessed sessions of about a quarter of an hour and other ones lasting 3-4 hours. The common denominator of these very long sessions is that emotions are kept back and can therefore be not worked on. The process doesn't actually get started. That is a definite indicator that therapeutical help is absolutely necessary. The reasons for keeping back emotions can be very different.

What's hidden behind these kept back emotions, by which the process of Holding is obstructed? We know that particularly mothers don't feel well in that case.

They suffer under their inability to oppose the problem and they experience a deep anxiety. In nearly every case the reason for that lies in their own socialization. A spontaneous expression of conflict-orientated feelings has been punished severely under an authoritarian pressure. Thus an open confrontation has been put under a strict taboo. It also happens again and again that in case of a woman holding or being held tightly other taboos are touched, e.g. the strictly hidden secret of an abuse. She remains silent in Holding as she had been silent then. Sometimes women even get into a panic which suffocates every word or feeling.

And if a child is not quite at ease after Holding - what can be the reason for that?

This is always a sign that the Person holding has missed the crucial point, the central problem of the child. E.g. she expressed her anger about the child's retreatment, but didn't mention that she did him harm by prefering his little brother or sister. Even such few sensitive words like "I did you harm" would have broken the child's resistance. A satisfactory management of the crisis can also be prevented by a shift of positions in the family system. E.g. if a father is not yet grown up, but behaves like a child, helpless and full of self-pity, then the child would have to be strong instead of him. But such a sort of compensation is not at all satisfactory for both sides and quite unbearable for the child. In the process of Holding he tests his father if he actually is so weak, and is therefore disappointed if this test is 'successful'. But there are other offences against systemic patterns as well. E.g. a child fights against his mother because he stands in for somebody his mother has banished out of her mind. He stays loyal to his father after a divorce and ignores his mother to the same degree as she ignores his father. We can also make this observation with regard to adopted children who - deep in their hearts - stay loyal to their mother-german. Guided by his innate sense of balance many a child forms a coalition with the black sheep of the family. - In all these cases help from a Holding therapist is urgently necessary.

And what can break such a resistance?

You can only help if you are ready to love, to love the black sheep of the family dearly. In a holding embrace the child shall get the allowance to love his father, his mother-german or who-so-ever. As long as we separate from people belonging to us and repress our feelings towards them, we are ill. Only love, which allows every kind of emotion and has a heart for all people, reaches an integration into a consistent whole and heals.