The 7 Belts of Tension & the Body’s Tightly Held Trauma
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian psychoanalyst and psychiatrist in early 20th-century. His primary work of note includes character analysis, body-oriented psychotherapy, and the concept of orgone energy. Reich developed the idea of “body armoring,” which later became known as the seven belts of tension. The concepts are based on his revelatory ideas that repressed emotions and trauma manifests physically in the body.
Emotions are the element of water. And as such, they are meant to flow. When they are not expressed (expressed as in being compassionately present with them and feeling them), they manifest overtime as rigidity of the nervous system and even tension of the muscular system. The muscular system represents the last line of defense as these emotions deepen into us, instead of flowing. This creates an armoring or defensive posturing of our bodies representing the armoring around our hearts and our true self, waiting to be fully realized and expressed.
Just think of how when we are sad or are crying, we naturally collapse our posture. And when we are excited, we jump for joy and open our arms and chests. These are our emotions manifesting through the body.
Reich's concept of the seven belts of tension describes areas in the body where this emotional and psychological stress can manifest as physical tension. Reich believed that releasing tension in these areas could help people access their emotions and heal.
He recognized the important interconnected nature of our bodies and minds, and the importance of feeling.
The Belts of Tension:
1 - Ocular Belt: the eyes, temples, forehead, and crown of head. This belt is often linked to emotions like suspicion or grief. Like our eyes flashing in REM sleep, we can also use the eyes to process deeply held trauma physiologically. I incorporate a full Brainspotting session when working with this belt in my breathwork series and we engage the breath only to the extend we need to help our intellectual mind surrender.
2 - Oral Belt: includes the mouth, jaw, and tongue. This belt is associated with feelings like longing or fear. This belt also represents how we express our authenticity and creativity to the world, or the extent to which we’ve had to “swallow” who we truly are. I like to incorporate the vowels when working this belt as the vowels are connected with our emotional expression.
3 - Cervical Belt: neck and shoulder area. This belt is further connected to self-expression and creativity. Like the jaw in the oral belt, this area is very often tense as we build up chronic stress, repressed emotions, or unprocessed trauma. Many of us are breathing from this belt, rather than our diaphragms and thus we’re living in a heightened nervous system state, more easily prone to reactivity rather than presence and intention.
4 - Thoracic Belt: the chest, heart center, and arms. This belt is my favorite. This is where love, grief, and joy can be felt deeply. The full spectrum of the human experience right at our centers. This belt extends out to the hands as they express and act on behalf of our heart, if we let them. With this belt, we can explore the heart space, giving and receiving love, and all the old survival strategies hindering our own innate self-worth and thus secure attachment.
5 - Diaphragmatic Belt: the diaphragm and stomach. This belt can block sensations from the lower body, like severing the body and its subtle energy or flow of life force into two. Our power to fully feel is from this space and this is the power of a truly felt deep breathe.
6 - Abdominal Belt: the belly. This belt is tied to feelings of nourishment and trust. Our gut instinct is activated here through self-trust or blocked through fear and unresolved trauma waiting to be complete.
7 - Pelvic Belt: the pelvis, hips, and legs. This belt is all about fully being in your body and a sense of grounding. This is our rock. It’s also connected to our sexual energy and thus can be a very powerful but also sensitive pelt.
Alexander Lowen was a student of Wilhelm Reich and expanded upon Reich’s theories in the 1950s and 60s by developing Bioenergetic Analysis, a form of psychotherapy that integrates the body and emotions. He emphasized how physical posture, movement, and breathing patterns reflect psychological states, and he worked to help people release emotional blockages through physical exercises and therapy. Lowen built upon Reich’s ideas of character structure (another post!) and muscular armoring, refining them into a more structured therapeutic approach as well as the use of typologies to better understand the manifestation of these various character structures.
Lowen also understood that emotional repression manifests physically, and he introduced exercises designed to release tension in specific areas of the body (Bioenergetics). His work focused on helping individuals reconnect with their emotions through grounding techniques, deep breathing, and expressive movement. While Reich’s approach was more focused on energy flow, Lowen made it more practical and accessible, incorporating structured exercises to help people physically release stored emotional trauma. These exercises can be combined with the belts of tension to further work through these stressors blocking the free flow of energy or life force within an individual.
Lowen is one of my favorites and it’s a shame how overlooked his contributions to somatic psychology have been.
I integrate many of these concepts in my somatic healing work. In my 7-session package, we work through the belts of tension while incorporating Biodynamic Breathwork, Brainspotting, Somatic Experiencing, reflective exercises, and the like, depending on your needs and goals.
-Susan Reis
