ABSTRACT
The Japanese martial art of judo can serve as an apt metaphor for psycho therapeutic intervention. The patients before us are in conflict with themselves. They cling to the neurotic modus operandi that has seemingly served them well in the past, yet this past salvation traps them in the present suffering. As time and events have progressed in their lives, the capacity to resolve developmental tasks and their accompanying tensions require new behaviors. The emerging problems of life require not only new resolutions, but usually more currently adaptive modes of curtailing anxiety. As a simple example, it is not unusual for infants to use their more advanced oral capacity to abate anxiety or discomfort. Thumb sucking is so appropriate in infancy that many parents provide pacifiers. But the growing child that is fixated in thumb-sucking behavior soon becomes the object of derision among his/her peers. If this child remains trapped in oral modes of address to the problems of growing older (e.g., school, puberty, peer relationships), he/she may discover sniffing glue or smoking pot. Not only does this escalation of oral behavior temporarily pacify, but it may increase self-esteem, as many peers regard this as “cool.” This only strengthens and furthers the fixation until one day you are confronted with treating a heroin addict or an alcoholic.
