Now I realize that the title of this piece may seem like an exaggeration. I thought Thomas Hanna’s introduction to his methods sounded like an exaggeration. What pathos! when the truth sounds incredible! when what sounds too good to be true IT IS certain!
To understand the “Socratic, Promethean, and Herculean” metaphors in relation to Hanna’s somatics, we must understand a few things about Socrates, Prometheus, and Hercules.
Socrates He was a teacher and prominent person in ancient Greece. As a teacher, he guided his students along the lines of consideration, asking them important questions so that his students could come to an understanding for themselves. His view of knowledge, contrary to that of most contemporary ways of operating, is that we inherently know everything, but have forgotten almost everything, and the teacher only reminds us of what we have already known but forgotten.
Compare the Socratic view with this conventional view of knowledge: we fundamentally know nothing and have to learn everything, and the teacher is the one who tells us what is what. One who really knows what it is that ends up in Who’s Who, and if you’re not in Who’s Who, you’re nobody.
Somewhat opposite, isn’t it?
So the Socratic method is “from the inside out, driven by what comes from the outside.” Hanna’s somatic education methods produce, to quote Thomas Hanna, “an internalized learning process” by guiding clients through certain self-explorations of sensations and movements.
This is not the same as letting clients dictate the course of a session or making a poor approximation of our instructions or adding irrelevant efforts to a move; It is not the same as accepting everything they give us in response to our instructions. Remember, they are amnesiac and generally misunderstand your condition.
Socrates led his students to conclusions. interactively, according to your answers; we lead our clients to results interactively, according to their responses. The instruction comes from outside; learning comes from within.
Now, Promethean. Prometheus was the son of the titan, Lapetos, and the nymph, Klymene. The name, “Prometheus”, means “foresight.” According to the myth, it was Prometheus who taught humanity the skills of civilization and gave us fire. (Crane, Gregory R. (ed.) The Perseus Project, www.perseus.tufts.edu, July 2002).
The gifts of Prometheus were the technologies of civilization and the corresponding awakening of attention of a special kind to receive and use these gifts.
Somatics is exactly an awakening of attention of a special kind. It is an awakening of attention on many levels of the human being, bringing self-control. The process teaches the relationship between the “mind and the” body (the “two” are internal and external manifestations of the same thing, and therefore they are not two). It awakens us to new sensations. Cultivate the ability to focus attention, act deliberately, recognize the relationship between effort and its result, be self-correcting, follow through to completion. It teaches how to direct attention and intention to the same thing. It gives us access to more of our abilities.
For almost everyone, these learnings generate a significant awakening. You can see how they are all elements of a solid civilization necessary to responsibly use the gifts of Prometheus. My hope of working and playing with people in the somatic realm is that their “pilot light” lights up (they receive the gift of fire) and they can continue somatic awakening largely on their own.
And now, Herculean. Hercules, known primarily for his strength, has been described as the perfect embodiment of pathos, the experience of virtuous struggle against great difficulties that leads to fame and, in Hercules’ case, immortality. (Crane, Gregory R (ed.) The Perseus Project, www.perseus.tufts.edu, July 2002).
Have you ever tried to get someone to do something in a new way? Has someone ever asked you for advice and then argued with you? Doing somatic processes with people, even for them to try it, even when they are interested in doing it, often “gets interesting.” It seems, at times, that a Herculean effort is needed to guide people through the process of change, even when they want to change.
Magnify that challenge to an entire culture used to placing responsibility for health and wellness outside of oneself, and you will see the scope of our work. Getting a culture to change its way of operating from dependence on a Doctor-Patient / Father-Son system (which saves people from the consequences of their own actions) to responsibility for their own well-being (reducing the need for saved from the consequences) is a Herculean feat equivalent to cleaning the stables of King Augias by redirecting a river. Hercules’ exploits, of which cleaning King Augiah’s stable was one of twelve, required strength and the use of available resources in new ways. They required more than the solitary strength of Hercules, but also his acceptance of the help and ideas of others, his perseverance, and his ingenious development of new ways to overcome seemingly impossible challenges.