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Body psychotherapy saved my life...
Text: Gitta Magnell
When impersonator Göran Gabrielsson was at his worst, he found his way to body psychotherapy. He was saved by using his body as an aid to working through his pain.
Six years ago satirist and impersonator Göran Gabrielsson was in such bad condition mentally that his career was about to come to an end. At first, he sought help from a private psychotherapist in Norrköping.
“The therapist asked why I was crying and advised me to forget all the problems I had with my parents. I felt there was something wrong with me.” Then a good friend who had had a tumour told him about Mullingstorp Health Centre. There, they try to help people by using different body exercises, so called psychotherapy in order to work through painful emotional memories and to find the answers to who they are, and what their meaning in life is. Göran went there.
“In traditional psychiatry you learn to suppress problems with the help of your intellect and drugs. At Mullingstorp you will meet the core of your pain so that you can work through it and get better. It is just this that is the big difference between traditional psychiatry and body psychotherapy”, says Göran Gabrielsson.
“At Mullingstorp, I was, for the first time, totally accepted for the person I am. I met therapists and assistants here who were themselves self-assured, since they had all worked through their own pain and difficulties. You get to meet your panic and fear of death in a safe surrounding.
Göran’s story is a good example of how your pain can accumulate in your body when you have never been “seen” during your childhood. The problem was that his parents kept him at a distance in spite of the fact that he did everything to please them. The message they gave him was that something was wrong with him.
“I don’t mean to accuse my parents, but I feel it is my duty to relate how it really was during my childhood. I hope that they will gradually come to understand me and feel some empathy for my story. All my dad needs to say to me is “Forgive me Göran, for hurting you.”
His parents gave no support
Before Göran became an artist, he went to a technical college in Norrköping and studied engineering like his father. However, his father did not think much of his son’s talent. “If you don’t succeed as an engineer you can always be a truck driver,” he said when Göran took his heavy-duty driving licence during his military service.
In 1985, Göran Gabrielsson won the Stockholm final in Hase Wallman’s talent competition. After that he came third in the Swedish final. This proved to be the gateway to show business. The impersonator, Bosse Parnevik, served as his role model. In spring 1993, he also won Bosse Parneviks’s scholarship. In the beginning of the nineties, he imitated Carl Bildt and other politicians on TV and went on tour with Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson during the election campaign for the Social Democrats. Neither of his parents supported his decision to become an artist. On the contrary they predicted a gloomy future for him.
“My grandmother was the only person in the family who appreciated me. She lived until she was 96 and she came to one of my first official performances with the support of her walking frame.
Cried the whole time
In the autumn of 1997 Göran was totally burnt out. He had been working very hard for ten years without any breaks. He had built up his identity as an impersonator, started his own company, been working hard in the tough world of show business but he could never relax. His trouble started with a heavy pressure in his chest together with much anxiety. Later he even experienced bleeding in one eye. When he came to Mullingstorp, he was like a wet rag and cried all the time. Now he understands that he was striving after recognition. He does not want to lose hope of receiving the love that he longed for during his whole childhood and half of his adult life.
New dimensions
Göran Gabrielsson has done the Step 1 course at Mullingstorp twice.
“To do Step 1, is like seeing a good movie. The second time you see new dimensions which you didn’t see the first time.”
“With the first exercises I already felt something loosen up in me and I let my tears flow freely. It was such a liberating feeling that was strengthened with every new exercise. The core of this course is based on exercises around birth and death; unique exercises which were created by the founder of Mullingstorp, Bengt Stern.
The birth exercise comprises a guided meditation followed by a physical exercise. During the guided meditation, you picture yourself curled up in your mother’s womb and also picture the moment of conception. You picture how your parents met, the moment of intercourse and how it felt in your mother’s womb. After that comes the physical exercise where you have to pass through the birth canal with all the risks that existed when you born. A doctor is always present.
“It is almost impossible to describe this exercise in words, says Göran. But I never felt at home in my mother’s womb. I just felt that I had been conceived during a meeting of two very insecure people. Spontaneity and tenderness was missing in my parent’s relationship. After the birth exercise Göran felt drained of energy, sad and abandoned, which soon, however, turned into an indescribable relief?
“At last I began to come in contact with my own life energy.
Two days after the birth exercise its time for the death exercise that also includes both a guided meditation and a breathing exercise.
The first time I did the death exercise, it was hard to say goodbye to life. Here, I felt for the first time, that life was worth livingÉ
The exercise was not at all frightening. The participants are encouraged to keep a finger in reality while they picture their death long in the future. I, myself, imagined that I had met a woman and we had a child. However, as I went through my life there were only two people to whom I wanted to say goodbye. Then, with the help of a breathing exercise, I floated towards the land of the dead. I came to a foggy, castle-like room. Funnily enough, I saw some friends who had once cheated me when I bought a car from them. They strolled around in the mist with heavy rucksacks and I almost felt sorry for them. Then a dog that I had liked very much pitched up. And that’s about it É
By this time Göran had spent a lot of money on courses in self-knowledge.
“It was worth every penny. Body psychotherapy helps me to understand other people as well as saving my life and my career. I would have been put away in a sanatorium if I hadn’t come to Mullingstorp”.
Now he is back on stage making a great success all around the country with his different characters. He also does radio and television shows.
“I am continually developing and go on courses to get to know myself better. It is also a lot easier to tune into other personalities. However, Göran has not yet managed to make contact with his parents, especially his father.
Göran who? my father asked once when I rang home. He pretended that he had forgotten who I was.
Letter to his family
In the end Göran became so desperate that he wrote a letter to relatives and friends in which he revealed what suffering was behind his parent’s pleasant façade. His father was of course, furious. “Göran, there is something wrong in your brain” he said and ordered his son to distance himself from the letters he had written and apologise to everyone, sending a copy to his father. Göran also wrote to his mother and in a satirical way, thanked her for “never daring to stand on her own two feet and standing up to her husbandÉ”
“I was forced to write those letters. My father’s emotional coldness was about to kill me. What I have been through in my childhood are things that should not be kept quiet, Göran says, but adds
“To me life is to let go of things that don’t feel good. Now I feel that I have the right to be happy so long as I live on this earth.
Perhaps he can be reconciled with the thought that he will never be acknowledged by his parents. Most important for Göran is that he can forgive them. This is what Göran Gabrielsson said in his speech on the first day of spring, in Norrköping.
“Dear residents of Norrköping and of this earth. Spring is a time of old things crumbling into soil so that the new things can grow. Let spring into your heart; let it oxygenate your own inner soil so that something new and fresh can grow in yourself. Then we can let our inner fears be a resourceÉ”
“I wish that you one day will tell me about yourself. I still feel that I don’t know who my father really is.” From a letter that Göran wrote to his father.
Do you want to know more?
Meet Yourself courses at Mullingstorp were created in 1985 by doctor Bengt Stern. The course centre is run with the help of therapists and doctors. For more information ring Mullingstorp at +46 125 132 20, fax: +46 125 134 03.
www.mullingstorp.com
Reading tips: Feeling bad is a good start, by Bengt Stern (Mullingstorp 1994)
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