I know this is going to sound odd, but most of us women don’t realize that breast feeding is actually a male-like function.  If you think about it, the aroused nipple is actually a miniature phallus seeking to penetrate the open lips of a baby seeking healthy penetration.  If you’ve ever had the pleasure of nursing a baby as they curl their fingers around your breast, or your own finger, you can watch your babe become drowsier and drowsier as they seemingly get drunk on the warmth and love exchanged between mom and babe.  Some of you may have even noticed the babes cheeks suddenly quake and shake as they relax further into this nourishing exchange.  If they could speak, you might even hear them say, “I am safe, I am held, I am loved.”  This quaking in the cheeks is actually a facial orgasm!

As a dynamic Physician, I work with patients all the time whose needs were not met by their own mothers.  I have had clients who were force-fed as babes and toddlers, where a timer was rigidly set at the beginning of the meal.  One man told me he was instructed that he had 15 minutes to consume all of the food on his plate as a boy!  I’ve worked with obese folks who still have the feeling that if they don’t get all the food in at one sitting, they won’t have an opportunity to eat again.  I had one 300 lb. woman lie in her bed, raise up her arms in supplication and  begin to cry out the words “please feed me.”  As she cried, she began to claw at the sheets, she recognized that she must have been left in her crib and denied feedings.  She was furious.  In the 60′s and 70′s, some Pediatricians instructed parents that a babe should be nourished no more than once every 4 hours … by bottle, of course.  At the time, breast feeding was not in fashion.

Breast feeding has no rules.  Some babes may fuss for food every four hours around the clock, some cluster feed through the day, or evenings, and then sleep soundlessly though the night.  My own babe was premature, by 2 months, and he nursed every 1.5 hours day and night for the first 6 months.  At the time, I thought I was going to loose my sanity, but my job was not to question why, or listen to schedules or even other parents’ advice.  My job was to nourish Jordan as often as he felt he needed it.  He has grown into an amazing 15 year old teenager, almost 6 feet tall with size 12 feet, and he barely needs a weekly hug!  Some days, I’d secretly give a nickel to turn the clock back and share that level of intimacy with my beloved son.

Nursing, and nourishment, is hooked to our sexual organs.  Dr. Elsworth F. Baker, M.D., explains this phenomenon more thoroughly -”In the infant, contact with the environment is effected principally through the mouth, which at this time is a very highly charged, almost autonomous organ.  The mouth effects its own discharge of energy at its maximum point of intensity by means of a convulsive reaction which can appropriately be called the oral orgasm.  Many pediatricians, unaware of this, have made a diagnosis of infantile epilepsy when they observed this orgasm.”  What he is alluding to is that our babes use the breast to let go of pent up steam, or anxiety, through their mouths and if this capacity isn’t wholly nourished at this time, problems with food, sex and “saying” what’s on your mind can be affected later.

For babes who have good contact with a loving mother who is sensitive, warm and “alive”, the child will bond vitally with her, but also to his or her potential self as a warm, sensitive, autonomous, and “alive” sexual being.  As most of us know, nursing can bring on uterine contractions and it in some fortunate women, orgasms of their own, and if this arouses feelings of guilt in the Mom or she is genitally anxious, she will communicate this anxiety to the babe.  Resolving this schism, begun in infancy, is the area of treatment I specialize in.

I know this probably sounds like more than you bargained for with regards to simply nursing, but I will tell you why it is important.  If you will fast forward 30 years into the life of a babe that suffered a traumatic birth and did not receive the loving connection from the Mom through the aroused nipple you might be able to imagine that you are a fly on the wall in my medical clinic today.  You would see men and women cry with the pain and anguish of feeling abandoned, de-valued and despairing without being able to source out the cause.  If you watched one of my female patients mimic the sucking motion of the lips, you might gasp with wonder as they tell you they are experiencing the first genital sexual streamings (shivers of sexual yearnings) of their life.  One woman I treated actually had an orgasm!

Profound, I know, but it’s true that 80% of all emotional traumas are incurred before the age of 3 years of age.  All neurosis can be traced to blocked sexual energy.  The discharge never occurs.  We communicate so much more than just milk to our babies, in fact, most Moms will tell you that a babe suckles so very little in the way of volume that it is amazing to a lot of us that they even survive.  So, that that little bit of pus from the lymphatic system produced by the Mother on demand (milk is not actually stored in the breast) is enough to sustain a baby for up to 7 years if need be.

Rudolf Steiner recommends weaning a babe within the first 18 months of life, otherwise the babe will be subject to the Mother’s karmic baggage taking on such diseases as Cancer, Tuberculosis, Syphillis, etc. that may be coming down the family line.  Yes – these diseases still live within our genetic framework and can only be cured on the basis of the law of nature : like cures like.

Our babes actually need encouragement to healthfully separate from us so that they can begin their own journey to autonomy and freedom from us.  If all goes well, they should be packing up the George Foreman Grill and healthfully leaving for the frontier of their own lives by about age 21.  Most of us who’ve raised one of these sweet bundles of joy know that self-assertion starts as early as age 2 with a resounding “I do it!”  It is our job to pack in as much love and healthy intimacy with them between birth and the weekly hugs at 15.  It all starts with breast feeding!

We can celebrate this awesome adventure when we wholly cherish and nourish our babes with our whole labile, creative, loving and sensitive selves in the short time we’re offered this opportunity.  I recall the sadness I once felt coaching a new mom with inverted nipples and the Cancer state of mind.  Her breast did not display the vitalized, “alive” eagerness I’d seen in other Moms.  The babe was groggy for days after birth from the Oxytocin and I suggested she call in a La Leche league consultant.  They did eventually find their way, but it was a very tough go from the onset.   My hope is that we can resolve the issues now before that babe ends up in an office like mine 30 years from now.

My friend and colleague, Helen Daniels, sent to me the most amazing video the other day. When I saw that it was originally aired on Mr. Rogers, I did a double take. It is one of the most beautiful depictions of mothers nursing their young that I have ever seen. I have had the pleasure of knowing a small number of healthy, natural women who are completely in flow, relaxed and at ease with nursing their babes. I have also been invited to help a small number of moms first latch their newborn in the initial stages of establishing nourishing wisdom. It is indeed an act of love, pleasure and intimacy!

It is fascinating to perceive the process of nursing from an Anthropological perspective (the study of Man) as therapeutically, we’re finding a huge link between the way a baby is nursed and the sad potential for neurotic behavior, including over-eating, later on in life.  Wilhelm Reich recognized that musculo-emotional armoring was much more profoundly entrenched in folks that had not wholly been held and nurtured by loving mothers and fathers.  I’ve treated a couple of foreign adopted babes who were bereft of attention and their little bodies were stiff and rigid even at the tender ages of 2 and 4.  It broke my heart!

I have worked with adults who suffer obesity and with Reich’s medical orgone therapy, we go back and re-enact “the crib scene” by having the patient lie down and reach out beseeching, imploring and crying for their mother.  It is interesting just how emotionally available this primal need is still active in the present.  There is absolutely no surprise to us to hear patients crying in pain, even in adulthood, at not having been held, heard or fed, except on a 3-4 hour schedule; a pathetic and sad oversight on the part of rigid educators for new parents in the 50s and 60s.  One woman I treated, cried out while clawing at the sheets that she is turning into an animal and could devour anything if she got it.  This is key to the oral block that causes her gluttonous behaviour today as when she does access food, she still can’t get enough.  Sad, but true for many.

Patients with swollen adenoids, chronic sore throats, abcesses, or thyroid issues are also suffering from blocked oral energy that needs to be addressed by a medical system which understands all the causes.  Chronic loquaciousness or “over-talking”, perhaps typical of your spouse, or mother-in-law, is just a symptomatic pattern often stemming from not being wholly heard, nourished or honoured in early childhood.  Unfortunately, most drugs or psychotherapeutics just palliate or suppress further this armoring that seemingly cements the orally blocked energy behind beliefs and patterns that just keep repeating themselves.  By exorcising – and believe me, it can feel like a spiritual exorcism at times – Reichian therapeutics (Medical Orgonomy) actually engaged the patient with the hidden but living content to be able to liberate the root cause.

Typical old fashioned talk therapy just further engages the patient with their intellect while they talk it all out.  This approach is limiting, as the patient and Clinician are wholly dependent on what the patient can recall of the past from memory. The intellect loves this, as it can only dwell in the past or project onto the future; it hates the present … especially the feeling.  The thing is that both patient and Clinician totally miss the proverbial boat as “the feeling” is the key to the release and remains locked behind the armoring and belief structure, never wholly liberated by all the yacking and intellectual looping.  In fact, the talk therapy is just prolonging the disease process and providing the illusion that content is being excavated, while both clinician and patient are seduced by the patterns of the past – they just end up going round and round “the feeling”, rarely causing a noticeable shift in the state of mind.  I know, because I treat a number of Psychotherapists!

As Heilkunstlers, we are typically able to dislodge the block in 3-4 visits with a combination of homeopathic medicine, regimen, and appropriate medical orgonomy techniques.  We bet Reich would be impressed with our results as he didn’t have homeopathic medicine at his disposal to cure the underlying disease states, or the capacity to simultaneously cleanse the bowel of all the unresolved … well … crap.  Yes, it is related!  We love that our therapeutics are nailing down this dimension for treatment; it is why we use the word “wholistic” to describe our clinic.  Where else can you go to get Naturopathy, Homeopathy, and Psychotherapeutics all under one shingle?  Or even with one clinician who knows and cares for your healing welfare en route to your path to cure?