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.Dr Birdwhistell has discov-ered a number of kinesic markers that supplement the lin-guistic markers.Watch a man's head when he asks aquestion.'What time is it?' His head comes up on 'it'.'Where are you going?' His head comes up on the 'ing'in going.Like the voice, the head moves up at the end ofa question.This upward movement at the end of a question is notlimited to the voice and head.The hand, too, tends tomove up with the rise in pitch.The seemingly meaning-less hand gestures in which we all indulge as we talk aretied in to pitch and meaning.The eyelid, too, will openwide with the last note of a question.Just as the voice lifts up at the end of a question, it alsodrops in pitch at the end of a statement.'I like this book.'With 'book' the voice goes down.'I'd like some milkwith my pie.' Down on 'pie'.The head also accompanies the voice down at the endof a statement, and according to Dr Birdwhistell, so dothe hand and the eyelid.When a speaker intends to continue a statement, hisvoice will hold the same pitch, his head will remainstraight, his eyes and hands unchanged.These are just a few of the changes in position of theeyes, head and hands as Americans speak.Rarely, if ever,do we hold our heads in one position longer than asentence or two.Writers are aware of this and also awarethat head movement is tied not only to what we are sayingbut to emotional content as well.To characterize a'cool' person, one who shows and feels no emotion, awriter will have him appear stolid, physically unmoving.James Bond, in the movies made from Ian Fleming's 007stories, was played by Sean Connery in a motionless style.His face rarely moved, even in the face of extinction.It123 BODY LANGUAGEwas an excellent characterization, since he played a manwho felt no emotion.In Jewish folklore a golem is a being who shows no ex-pression and, of course, feels no emotion.The high-fashion model holds herself in a rigid, unnatural pose tocommunicate no emotional overtones.When the normalman or woman talks, however, he looks to the right, tothe left, now up, now down.He blinks his eyes, lifts hiseyebrows, bites his lips, touches his nose - and eachmovement is linked to what he is saying."Because of the tremendous variation in individualmovements it is often difficult to link a specific movementto a specific message, but it is still true enough to say that,to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, the movement is themessage.Dr Scheflen, in studying psychiatric therapysessions, has found that when a therapist explains some-thing to a patient he may use one head position, but whenhe interprets some remark or behaviour he uses anotherposition.When he interrupts the patient he uses still athird and he has a fourth head position for listening.The patient, too, when listening to the therapist, takescertain definite positions.In one situation studied by DrScheflen, the patient put his head to the right when heacted in a childish fashion, and he kept his head erectwhen he spoke aggressively and maturely.The difficulty in studying and interpreting these move-ments is that they are personal kinesic motions, related toevents in the background of this or that particularpatient.Not all patients put their heads to one side whenthey act childishly, and not all therapists make the samehead motion when they listen.Yet it is pretty certain thatthe same man will repeat the same motion over and over.Dr Scheflen was surprised that these head movementswhich were repeated again and again during a thirty-124 POSITIONS, POINTS AND POSTURESminute interview were so stereotyped and rigid, yet heemphasizes that in this, as well as in many other sessionshe has studied, the patient and doctor rarely used a greatrange of movement.It should not then be too difficult to find specificpositions for a person and then relate them to statementsor types of statements, questions, answers, explanations,,etc.Postures and PresentationsMovements of the head, the eyelids and the hands are notreally postural movements, and Dr Scheflen calls them'points'.A sequence of several points he labels a 'posi-tion' which is much closer to a posture.A position, hesays, consists of 'a gross postural shift involving atleast half the body'.A position can last for about fiveminutes.Most people in a social situation will run through twoto four positions, although Dr Scheflen has observedpsychotherapists in a treatment situation hold one posi-tion for as long as twenty minutes.To illustrate the use of positions, imagine a situation inwhich one man is holding forth on a particular subject.The listener leans back in his chair, arms and legs cros-sed, as he listens to the speaker's ideas.When the listenerreaches a point where he disagrees with the speaker, heshifts his position in preparation for delivering hisprotest.He may lean forwards and uncross his arms andlegs.Perhaps he will raise one hand with the forefingerpointed as he begins to launch a rebuttal.When he isfinished he will again lean back into his first position, armsand legs crossed - or perhaps into a third, more receptive125 BODY LANGUAGEposition where his arms and legs are uncrossed as he leansback, signalling that he is open to suggestion.If you take all the positions a man or a woman goesthrough during the course of a conversation, you havewhat Dr Scheflen labels a 'presentation'.A presentationcan last up to a few hours, and is terminated by a com-plete change in location.Leaving the room, going to makea phone call, to get cigarettes, to the washroom - anymove to cut the conversation short ends a presentation.If the person returns, then a new presentation starts.The function of posture in communication, DrScheflen believes, is to mark these units, points, positions,and presentations.The units themselves serve as punc-tuation for a conversation.Different positions are re-lated to different emotional states, and often emotionalstates can be recaptured when a person resumes theoriginal position in which they occurred.The careful andobservant psychotherapist will realize, after a while,what postures are associated with what emotional states.This reflects the same thing Dr Wachtel found.Thewoman he studied made a definite gesture when she wasangry.The ordinary citizen who understands body languagevery well, and uses it, has a grasp of these postures,though he may be unaware of it, and he can relate themto the emotional states of the people he knows.In thisway he can actually keep a step ahead of other people inhis dealings with them.This art can be taught to peoplefor it is a function of careful observation but it can onlybe learned if one is aware that it exists.Before posture was analysed this carefully, psychiatristswere aware of it.The therapist in the anecdote at thebeginning of this chapter was aware of a postural changein his patient.He didn't consciously know that severe126 POSITIONS, POINTS AND POSTURESsuicidal depression is linked to a definite posture, a lack ofanimation and humour, a passivity and general drooping,but unconsciously he was aware of it, aware enough to bebothered and finally to take the steps necessary to savehis patient.Just as the lowering of the head indicates the end of astatement, or the raising of the head the end of a question,so larger postural changes indicate end points in interac-tions, the end of a thought, the end of a statement.For ex-ample, a shift in posture so that you are no longer facingthe person to whom you are talking, often means youhave finished.You want to turn your attention some-where else for a while
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