Respiration

Respiration occupies a surprisingly broad and contested terrain within the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as physiological substrate, psychosomatic indicator, therapeutic instrument, and cosmological metaphor. The ancient philosophical tradition, represented most fully by Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s De Anima, treats respiration as a mechanical yet cosmically ordered process — Plato reducing it to a hydraulic oscillation driven by internal fire, Aristotle linking it to the regulation of inner temperature and the production of voice. Pierre Janet, approaching from clinical psychiatry, maps the pathological varieties of respiratory disturbance in hysteria — polypnea, diaphragmatic paralysis, tics of inspiration and expiration — demonstrating that respiration can be selectively anesthetized and dissociated from conscious awareness. Jung’s early experimental research employs pneumographic measurement of respiratory amplitude and rate as a reliable index of affective charge and attentional inhibition. Contemporary somatic and polyvagal writers — Fogel, Ogden, Dana, Porges — converge on respiration as the primary accessible lever of autonomic regulation, noting the intimate coupling of breath rhythm with vagal tone, heart rate variability, and the shift between sympathetic and parasympathetic dominance. Across this range the central tension persists: is respiration a passive mechanical given, a measurable marker of inner states, or an active portal through which therapeutic transformation of the nervous system becomes possible?

In the library 18 passages

they show us here the disturbance of a function, that of attentive respiration, which is not a function known to the subject and which consequently cannot be disturbed through preconceived ideas

Janet argues that hysterical respiratory disturbances — including diaphragmatic paralysis and see-saw respiration — implicate unconscious somatic dissociation rather than conscious simulation, because attentive respiration lies below the threshold of the subject’s self-knowledge.

Janet, Pierre, The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, 1907thesis

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we automatically increase our respiration rate. Although overall we are taking in more oxygen the faster we breathe due to the increased rate, we take in less on each inhalation… breathing is affected not only by our physiological state… but also by our emotions.

Ogden establishes that respiration rate is dually governed by metabolic demand and emotional state, forming the physiological rationale for breath-based somatic intervention in trauma therapy.

Ogden, Pat, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015thesis

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Exhalation is the inhibition of the phrenic nerve and the relaxation of the diaphragm and intercostals, accompanied by parasympathetic (vagus) nerve activation that slows HR and BP.

Fogel details the neurophysiological architecture of respiratory sinus arrhythmia, demonstrating how inhalation and exhalation alternately engage sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, making breath a direct modulator of autonomic state.

Fogel, Alan, Body Sense: The Science and Practice of Embodied Self-Awareness, 2009thesis

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high grades of attention cause a very great or total inhibition of respiration, while relatively weaker attention generally produces an increase in the rate and a decrease in the amplitude of the respirations.

Jung’s psychophysical research documents how attentional intensity and affective load produce measurable suppression of respiratory amplitude, establishing breath as a reliable index of complex psychological states.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904thesis

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Plato has succeeded in reducing this to a purely mechanical process, which will go on throughout life, whether we are awake or sleeping, as an engine will run so long as the furnace burns.

Cornford’s commentary establishes that Plato’s account of respiration is a wholly mechanical oscillation driven by internal fire, deliberately excluding consciousness from the process and linking respiratory rhythm to digestion and blood movement.

Plato, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997thesis

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During normal respiration, we breathe about 12 to 15 times per minute. During forced inspiration due to heavy exercise or stress, breathing rate increases to as much as 40 times per minute

Fogel provides the anatomical and neuromotor parameters of normal and stress-induced respiration, contextualizing the diaphragm’s range of motion and accessory muscle recruitment that underlie somatic clinical observation.

Fogel, Alan, Body Sense: The Science and Practice of Embodied Self-Awareness, 2009supporting

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we might dwell indefinitely on the apneas, dyspneas, suffocations, respiratory disturbances, on the varied respiratory paralyses, on the innumerable tics, polypnea, yawn, sigh, sob, hiccough, cough, sneeze, bark

Janet surveys the remarkable taxonomy of hysterical respiratory disorders, arguing their variety and specificity demand systematic clinical classification equivalent to the alimentary disturbances.

Janet, Pierre, The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, 1907supporting

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you will be able, in certain cases, to recognize a very special anesthesia relative to respiration itself. We feel our respiration, and, above all, we feel the need of breathing.

Janet identifies a specific respiratory anesthesia in hysteria — the loss of interoceptive awareness of one’s own breath need — pointing toward a dissociation of proprioceptive and affective components of breathing.

Janet, Pierre, The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, 1907supporting

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The amplitude of the inspirations is always lower while the galvanic curve is rising and while the affect is acting, and slowly increases as the affect wears off

Jung demonstrates that inspiratory amplitude reliably tracks the rise and fall of galvanic affective response, providing empirical grounding for breath observation as an index of emotional discharge.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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The breath gets outside it encounters colder air, and the fire in it will presumably continue its journey and pass out of the expelled air. So the breath is cooled outside.

Cornford reconstructs Plato’s circular thrust theory of respiration, in which the exit of breath through mouth and nose sets off a chain displacement of air through the body’s pores, constituting a self-sustaining pneumatic cycle.

Plato, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997supporting

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When we breathe out, the columns of air flow back again towards, and out through, the mouth and nose. The external currents are thus reversed by the pressure of the breath

Cornford explicates the bidirectional column-of-air model in Plato’s Timaeus, showing how respiration is conceived as a pressure-based reversal system with no void ever left unfilled.

Plato, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997supporting

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By exploring specific breathing experiments to discover what is regulating for each client and his or her parts and taking very small steps (e.g., ‘Let’s try half a sip of breath’), dysregulated and dissociative clients may be able to make good use of breath as a resource.

Ogden articulates a titrated clinical approach to breath-work for dissociative clients, emphasizing micro-experiments that minimally challenge existing respiratory habits while building regulatory capacity.

Ogden, Pat, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015supporting

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the seed having life, and becoming endowed with respiration, produces in that part in which it respires a lively desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation.

Plato links the endowment of seed with respiration to the genesis of erotic desire, treating breath as the animating principle that transforms inert matter into living appetite.

Plato, Timaeus, -360supporting

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Nature employs the breath both as an indispensable means to the regulation of the inner temperature of the living body and also as the matter of articulate voice

Aristotle assigns respiration a dual teleological function — thermoregulation and phonation — positioning it as the material medium through which soul expresses itself both vitally and symbolically.

Aristotle, On the Soul (De Anima), -350supporting

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For two excellent examinations of respiration theories, see L. G. Wilson, ‘The Transformation of the Concepts of Respiration in the Seventeenth Century’

Hillman’s footnote directs scholarly attention to the transformation of respiration theory in the seventeenth century, situating alchemical pneumatic inquiry within the broader history of respiratory science.

Hillman, James, Alchemical Psychology, 2010aside

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Plato seems to be describing simultaneously digestion, the circulation of the blood, respiration and transpiration (through the skin), and even the transmission of sense-impressions.

Cornford notes the systematic ambiguity in Plato’s physiology, where respiration is entangled with digestion, circulation, and sensory transmission within a unified hydraulic model of the body.

Plato, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997aside

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ascribes to Empedocles an explanation of how the first animal drew its first breath, as well as an account of respiration similar to Plato’s

Cornford traces Platonic respiration theory to Empedoclean precedents, suggesting the circular displacement model was an inherited cosmological framework rather than an original Platonic invention.

Plato, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997aside

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