Epistemology for the Feldenkrais Method
I recently gave a Functional Integration (FI) lesson to a young woman
who was in distress. I knew her briefly as a student in a Feldenkrais
training group where I was a guest trainer, and had given a lesson to
her once before in connection with the training. After the lesson she
wrote me the following:
“Thank you for the FI on Saturday. It was a return to my home
(myself) and I recognized I’m on the right way. It was a
liberation and the feeling for gladness. I believe
the power I felt will help me to find the right solution.”
The experiential consequences of the lesson while personal to her
situation and expressed in relation to her path in life in feeling
terms was not an accidental outcome of the lesson. Observably, the
shifts in her structure and functioning as measured by visual and touch
observation at the end of the lesson, led me to predict to myself that
she would have a different self perception and self feeling as a
consequence of the lesson. The lesson itself was predicated on my
ability to make precise contact with her in such a way that the small
movements I made in this contact would evoke in her the necessary
neuro-muscular and structural skeletal shifts that were necessary to a
resolution of her discomfort
The result of any lesson does not of course mean that the new state is
permanent. Life is full of contingencies and the new learning needs to
be used in daily life. Further learning is also important. Nevertheless
shifts of a person’s embodied state seem a common outcome of
an effective lesson
What I am trying to point out here is that the work I do in teaching
through my hands or in classes for Awareness Through Movement (ATM) is
a precise art and perhaps even a science. Yet to evaluate this art
seems like an intractable problem for a science based on
‘objective’ data and third person observation
alone. How do you evaluate “a return to my home”
and “a feeling of gladness”? How could an outside
observer evaluate the precision of my touch without personally feeling
what I can do and corroborate that my feeling sense is in fact precise
in the way I claim. And then could any person detect precision? People
vary in such a capacity depending on experience and such factors of the
state of their nervous system. And then the precision is within the
contact space between the person and me. The specific outcome of the
lesson is not predictable from the technique or the contact. It is the
dance between us that counts, and the state of each of us at the moment.
Recently another young woman who was born with a neuropathy that left
her without feeling in her lower legs and feet received a lesson from
me about standing, walking and balancing. She also was in training and
having arrived at the training barely capable of walking, was now quite
functional while still having to gird herself to maintain balance. In
my lesson I rolled the bottom of her feet over a Styrofoam roller and
later put each foot the long way on the roller and asked her to lift
her pelvis on that side. She was lying on her back. After I worked with
one side, I asked her to experience herself standing. Her first
reaction was that she had sensations in her foot that were entirely new
to her and she felt a steadiness on this side that felt quite novel to
her. She expressed her sensation as “feeling the bones of her
foot”. At the end of the lesson she walked with a security
she never experienced before. The experience led to tears and a
powerful relief after a lifetime of struggle. Here the change was
dramatic given the life history of the young woman’s
difficulty. One could say there is no need for a controlled study since
the person is unique and the improvement is measured in terms of
comparing the change with the past state of the person.
Afterwards the class had a discussion about the lesson. A person who
was trained in the medical field asked how it was possible for this
young woman to feel anything in her foot given that she suffered the
neuropathy, which interferes with nerve transmission? From the
person’s point of view, the whole thing was suspect and maybe
the woman just imagined some sensation. From the person’s
training and understanding the diagnosis of neuropathy meant that such
feeling was impossible. The evidence I detected in touching and moving
the young woman’s head in gravity while she was sitting
indicated that from a very shaky balance before the lesson her
reactions to shifts in gravity changed. The irregular reactions to
movement disappeared. For me, this was observed evidence that
a profound shift in her system occurred. Truthfully I didn’t
care whether it was possible in scientific understanding. I could only
consider her report as truthful to her experience at the moment. And it
was consistent with the functional change in her foot in relation to
standing and walking. It was certainly consistent with her experience
of new sensations in her feet.
For the young woman, the lesson was a triumph because her physicians
had often told her she could never improve her condition. As far as she
could find out the diagnosis of neuropathy meant that her feeling sense
was impaired for the rest of her life. The diagnosis had no meaning
beyond that, as no one could explain further or suggest how to help.
The question is, where is the difficulty? Do we need to expand our
understanding of what is valid? Are the standards of classical
scientific investigation and the accompanying model of epistemology
adequate to the task of dealing with the high level of complexity
exhibited by living organisms? How can we incorporate experiential
material in ways that can be appreciated as valid? All these questions
are pertinent to research into the validity of the Feldenkrais Method.
Limitations of Classic Scientific Methodologies
Classic scientific epistemology established a norm of scientific
investigation that very successfully dealt with questions of
pre-quantum physical science where clear-cut cause-effect relationships
exist. The sciences of living organisms adopted similar methodologies
partly with the intent of establishing the same rigor and certitude for
biology, psychology and other related sciences. What we know from the
findings of researchers during the past 150 years has added
tremendously to the store of knowledge available to these sciences and
to the practice of medicine. Yet as with the physical sciences, more
knowledge has led to impasses and revisions. In physics, the discovery
of atomic level phenomena has led to re-assessments of the notion of
cause and effect and the understanding of the nature of physical
entities. In the life sciences, the immense accumulation of findings
has given us a glimpse of mechanisms and understanding of
life’s processes. Yet at each point of seeming satisfaction
with explanations, new findings have upset the apple cart. I offer just
one example: Early experimentation established the fact that nerve
cells seem to transmit information via periodic impulses which release
neuro-transmitters to pass the signal to the next neuron. Seemingly the
neuron and the synapse where the neuro-transmitters are released were
fixed entities. Signals were passed forward to processing areas.
Changes such as happen in learning involved changes in the synapse,
which increased the probability that the neuron would pass on the
signals to the next neuron.
From the resemblance of this process to transmission of electrical
signals in devices such as computers, scientists postulated that
sensory information was projected forward to the higher centers of the
nervous system where the information was processed in fixed nerve nets
and then turned into output. The brain in other words was a digital
machine in which nerve impulses behaved like impulses in a computer and
input was directly linked to output. This model is still frequently
invoked to explain brain activity such as controlling movement or
speech. New findings suggest that this simple model is not at all
accurate even as a simplification for heuristic purposes. Professor
John Smythies in the introduction of his book, The Dynamic Neuron,
states, “Recent research, however, has shown that this
classic picture is wildly inaccurate.”i
Just to point out what is now better understood: Neurons are not simple
cause and effect linear transmitting devices, but are governed through
dynamic processes that can involve non linear bifurcations,
integrations, synchronizations, etc. following complex relations within
the context of processing. Even at the level of the release of
transmitters complex dynamic processes prevail. In the highly
intersecting web of neurons, neurons are always connected in tandem
between brain areas so that while feed-forward signals move between
area A and area B, feedback signals are also directed back to A.ii This
is also true for all the sensory surfaces. In addition, some neurons
are directing activity while others are inhibiting transmissions
creating a tensegrity dynamics.iii Without such balance of activity,
order could not be formed in the nervous system. Lastly single neurons
are never active as individual units but are linked into dynamic cell
assemblies in brain activity through integrative processes including
synchronization, and multifarious rhythmic activities. While brain
dynamics is at a beginning stage of development, dynamic processes seem
to govern the activity of life at all levels from the molecular and
cellular level to the level of organisms and then to the level of the
environment. Life is complex in a way that was unimagined not so many
years ago.
The realization of this complexity of living systems has slowly shifted
the concepts by which we understand the workings of life on the planet.
As the conceptual structure changes it becomes clear that findings are
often maintained, but they are not definitive in establishing
interpretations. New findings may clarify issues; on the other hand
proof of any specific theory or hypothesis is elusive. As E. T. Gendlin
puts it, “Theories can contradict each other, but findings
cannot.”iv Complexity challenges many long held theories in
biology, psychology, sociology, medicine, etc. But it is interesting to
note that in narrowing areas of inquiry, the conflict of
interpretations became common.
Gendlin gives as an example the historical conflict between behavioral
psychologists who study animals in the laboratory and ethologists, who
study animals in the wild. The findings of the behaviorists about
conditioned learning stand in relation to the learning phenomenon of
conditioning as do the findings of ethologists that animals exhibit
many complex behaviors that seem to never have been learned. The
contexts under which the observations were made are completely
different. Their respective theoretical and conceptual frameworks
clashed and each side made universal pronouncements from the findings.
There is a myth of scientific proof that hides the question of
interpretation. With new findings, we can now say neither side of such
debates could be definitive with regard to general laws. For example,
the laws of learning developed by behaviorists are specific only to
learning through conditioning. For the ethologists, the behaviors
considered were valid for only the question of a released behavior, and
not the behavior in relation to animal’s interactions in its
living situation. Neither side in this debate addressed the question of
developmental learning, which was hidden behind the theoretical stance
taken either in favor of conditioning or released behavior. As Moshe
Feldenkrais demonstrated, developmental learning and the use of
awareness is both rapid and overcomes the limitations of conditioning
and habit. Developmental learning is perhaps a prime example
of the efficacy of dynamic processes in the self-organization of order
in a living being. Complexity does not mean anything goes. The order
evolves out of the interaction of the person in the environment, which
includes other humans and the structure of the world including gravity.
The person finds the order that works through the interaction in
calibrating the nervous system to the world. The environment
doesn’t cause the learning and there is no program to guide
the process. Each normal person reaches the same developmental steps,
but in a personal and unique way.
In some disciplines the recognition of complexity lags. Much medical
and psychological research has continued without changing basic cause
– effect thinking. Such thinking while sometimes useful
surely has its pitfalls. For example, in our society, medical research
is considered the pathway to developing valid methods of
treatment. Its successes in understanding many disease
processes are abundant enough to justify such a designation. Yet the
lack of recognition of complexity often leads to what seem intractable
problems, often hidden under the notion of side effects. Thus the use
of antibiotics has resulted in the appearance of so called super bugs
which resist these life saving medication and result in serious illness
and death. There are many other egregious examples involving the misuse
of drugs and the effect of overprescribing, as well as the unrecognized
suffering that can result from surgery and its overuse. In diseases
such as cancer where there is still little understanding despite many
years of intense research, the major resort is to heroic medicine
involving radiation and chemotherapy, which can kill as well as save
some lives. With advances in molecular biology the complexity of living
systems still remain as an impediment to unlocking many mysteries of
life.
Nevertheless, we often still hold on to the myth of classic scientific
proof. The practice of science proceeds slowly at best and always with
revision of previously held beliefs. This has its good side in that
inadequate ideas eventually get replaced. But often the very practice
of rigorous procedures to find certainty may hide what we need to find
out. This is particularly so in the basic approach to a scientific
method, which extols the idea of creating specific limited experiments
to test hypotheses. Scientific progress often requires thinking outside
of the box. Sticking to common practice can be an impediment to finding
answers.
As an example, the drive in current medical practice is to find the
nirvana of exactitude through data. This particular attempt at hard
science can have unexpected consequences. Most egregious at the present
is the near universal reliance on hard measurable data to carry out
diagnosis and treatment. The attempt here is to eliminate the human
observer and thinker. Harvard medical professor Jerome Groopman,
documents in his book How Doctors Thinkv a number of cases in which
failures of proper diagnosis occurred. The extent of
misdiagnosis or failure to find a diagnosis is probably unknown. But
anecdotally one hears of numerous cases. Groopman tries to show that
the difficulty is all too human, that jumping to conclusions and not
attending to the person often leads to error as physicians focus
attention only on tests, body scans, and other data. Nicholai Bernstein
pointed out many years ago that “an elderly experienced
physician needs simply to glance at a patient with his weak eyes to
diagnose an old, neglected disease, whereas young medical students
cannot do so with their young acute eyes.”vi Good observation
then requires an attentive, aware, and perceptive human observer in
addition to data and other accoutrements of modern technology. But even
to understand hard data and ask the right questions requires human
observation and thinking. One wants exactitude but often gets
statistical inference. Life involves complexity at every level.
Scientific procedures that were developed for understanding simple
mechanical systems are inadequate for complexity. The growth of
statistical methodologies for testing everything covers up a great deal
of ignorance.
Gendlin points out one other difficulty in science. “Science
does not include its context. One result of this is that when it has a
satisfactory analysis, it finds no reason to pursue the existence of
anything it has not found. Then it claims to know all the
factors.”vii Complexity often kicks back. The
inventors of antibiotics never imagined that the use of these agents
would result in the evolution of super bacteria that resisted the
effects of the antibiotics. Gendlin says, “Actual events are
interactions, never just patterns and factors.”
The Cyberneticist’s
Debate
Around 1970 a small group of thinkers began to grapple with the
implications for scientific epistemology of a new idea about living
systems. These were the cyberneticists who had been gathering together
from the 1950 onward to discuss the then new concepts of feedback,
internal circularity, information, cognition, and how these concepts
could change thinking about life processes, and control at different
levels from the cell to society. These were the considerations that
moved thinking toward the current dynamic view. In a recent
publication, The Certainty of Uncertainty, Bernhard Poerksen dialogs
with a number of people involved with this movement.viii One can trace
in these discussions the evolution of a new epistemology, which could
begin to replace ‘the view from nowhere’
characteristic of the objectivist stance. The idea of objective
procedures was to eliminate human bias and error from scientific
observation and the search for truth. In the first dialog in this book,
Heinz von Foerster, at one time the Director of the Biological Computer
Laboratory at the University of Illinois, and the secretary of the Macy
Conferences on Cybernetics notes, “The moment you try to
eliminate the properties of the observer, you create a vacuum: There
isn’t anyone left to observe anything – and to tell
us about it.”ix Poerksen then notes that Heinz was quoted as
saying, “Objectivity is the subject’s delusion that
observing can be done without him.” The human being in this
view is essential to developing findings and interpreting. Peorksen
also notes that Heinz’s ethical stance involves an awareness
of one’s blind spots. Nevertheless, there is an opening here
to a giving up of any objectivity if such is possible.
In another dialog, Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana Maturana, who
was also a friend of Heinz von Foerster, says, “Becoming
aware that one is doing the observing and then being aware of being
aware that it is one’s self who makes the distinctions, one
attains a new domain of experience.”x It requires a kind of
responsibility. He says later, “The concept of the observer
is a challenge to study the operation of the observer and to face up to
the circularity of the understanding of understanding… My
proposal, however, is to accept this circularity fully right from the
start and make one’s self the instrument by which the
question of one’s personal experience and one’s own
actions is to be answered through one’s very own
activities.” One can then question the hidden
assumptions and hidden epistemology of experiments. In the objective
stance we are attempting to correlate our activity or the activity of a
subject to the external world. For Maturana it dawned on him
“that the correlation I was looking for could in all
probability never be established.” He shifted his researching
to the internal correlations in a system.
Maturana’s colleague and student Francisco Varela, who at the
end of his life was research director of the Centre National de
Researche Scientifique in Paris, said in his dialog,
“…scientific truth does not consist in the
correspondence between theory and reality. Scientific knowledge is
inevitably related to circumstances of the social world and –
between virtual quotes – the reality.” And,
“My concept of truth…is best understood as a
theory of coherence: what counts is the consistency of theories, the
coherence of viewpoints. Truth is, the motto of pragmatism proclaims,
what works.” xi
What can we do with all of this? These observations can lead to an
abandonment of all notions of an ultimate reality and objective truth.
At the extreme the temptation is to move to the stance of post
modernism and the notion that we humans are continually constructing
our own reality. Anything goes. Gendlin says, “Currently many
philosophers say that ‘nature’ is a cultural idea.
The scientific universe seems a mere
‘construction.’ If you don’t like your
findings, just change your hypothesis. Science is just a
game.”xii He then points out the following:
“Since we arrive by airplane at our conventions, let us not
announce there that science is a mere construction. While in the air we
have been hoping that factors such as the weight, speed, and amount of
fuel have been correctly calculated in relation to the curvature of the
wing.”
Can we be Precise without a
Classic Epistemology?
Last evening a young man came to me in a lot of pain with a back spasm.
He could not fully erect his spine. This morning he called to thank me
profusely. He was out of pain except for a few twinges; he slept well;
he was now moveable. How did that happen? Was it science or magic? Or
hypnotism? In fact I observed the evening before that he was
sufficiently improved. I could with good chance predict that he would
be much more moveable, be capable of erecting his spine, and mostly out
of pain the following day. There must be a valid empiricism in the
process. There is clearly enough regularity in the nature of human
beings as moving, living beings. But how can it be described in a
meaningful way?
Many people would want to put the process to a double blind test. Take
so many people with back spasm and pain. Divide them into a control
group (do nothing), and others into different intervention groups.
Evaluate the results by people who do not know which person was in
which group. Find out if there is statistical significance. But my
process is not a singular organized, algorithmic intervention and back
spasm pain is not a singular defined ailment that would require a
singular intervention. When you observe carefully, each
person’s back spasm has different patterns and resulted from
different processes. A double blind study does not make sense.
Furthermore, there is not any new information to discover in such a
study. It is a blind alley. I am not an aspirin. I contend with the
evidence of much prior experience that I could repeat similar successes
with many people in such a situation. Other Feldenkrais Practitioners
might also repeat successes and others not. We are not all equal in our
skillfulness and awareness. Is there any way to establish public
validity? As long as ‘experts’ insist on a standard
epistemological process, it appears not possible. I contend this
standard is both limited in its application, and such insistence a
political maneuver to protect the socially agreed upon consensus. But
worse, I contend that following a fixed protocol and standard procedure
would fail to achieve consistent results.
And do We Need a New Empiricism?
At this point at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the answer
seems to be yes. Where scientists have begun to consider the extent of
complexity in all of life and in the relation to environments, it
becomes clearer that we need to investigate beyond the simple stories
we have accepted for understanding ourselves and other life forms. In
his paper of 1997, E.T. Gendlin dissects the epistemological problem in
a very interesting way that should be of interest to we Feldenkrais
practitioners. Gendlin is both a philosopher and a psychologist who is
most famous for his work in developing experiential psychotherapy, and
for his process known as Focusing.xiii The process involves teaching
people to contact the embodied felt sense that accompanies us in daily
life, often unrecognized. Recognition and processing the meanings
involved can become a gateway to reorganizing the psyche, thus
Gendlin’s interest in an empiricism, which acknowledges
experience and alternative routes to validation. The title of this
paper, “The Responsive Order: A New Empiricism,”
introduces a new term and one that should prove to be very valuable to
us, the responsive order.
The responsive order goes beyond the logical order that sits behind
classic epistemology. The logical order need not be abandoned. But the
responsive order includes “us and our procedures.”
Thus the human observer is brought back into the picture as is the
complexity of interaction between observer and observed is
acknowledged. Moshe Feldenkrais implicitly understood this despite his
training in classical objective driven science. His intent was to train
himself and then other human beings to become much better observers.
The Epistimic Tools of the
Feldenkrais Method
Without accurate ways of assessing the progress of the client or
student in the lesson process, the outcome of the lesson can vary
considerably. This is so for FI lessons as well as in teaching ATM. In
a successful ATM teaching, the practitioner assesses the
students’ progress and modifies the lesson in response. In a
successful FI, the practitioner has a sense of what needs to be learned
and can detect when learning has occurred through touching, contacting
and observing visually and kinesthetically. When moments of shift occur
for the client, mutually acknowledging the change verbally or
non-verbally can affect the outcome for the better. In the
lesson with the young man with back pain, I used touching and moving my
client as the primary source for finding out what I needed to know, but
also for what he needed to know. When I felt a change, for example, in
how he allowed his pelvis to move, I asked if he noticed a difference.
His acknowledgement then signaled that I could move on. While I did not
follow a fixed protocol, I did create a natural progression for the
process. In doing so, I also created a contact and presence with him
that deepened a trust and connection between us. Without this, he very
well might not have been able to make the shifts necessary for a
successful outcome.
What are the conditions for this practical success? We know as
practitioners from our personal experience, that our nervous system
requires a quiet safe state for this kind of learning and changing
patterns. Thus we are trained through the experiential process of our
training to quiet ourselves, to listen to our sensations, to use our
hands and bodies as instruments for contact and further listening, and
to use the experience of our own kinesthetic sense in expanding
self-understanding as well as an ability to access what can work for
others. We have learned also specific techniques that can evoke
outcomes. In the growth process of the training, we develop an accuracy
in this that exceeds other methods of assessment. We become better
human instruments. We develop a useful implicit knowledge. We are
responsive to a context and situation. These are our epistemic tools.
We use them to know how to proceed. At the same time we avoid declaring
an objective ‘truth.’ Our measure is the outcome of
the process. How can we use our learned skills to establish both a
research track and public accountability?
Primarily, I believe, we have to expand our abilities to document our
work. Science is not adverse to carefully documented observations. I
cite two examples: Psychologist Paul Ekman inspired by Charles
Darwin’s study of emotional expression in humans and animals
began his career by studying whether people in different cultures could
recognize emotional states from observing pictures of human faces.xiv
There is a cross here between inner experience of emotions and outer
expression. Ekman eventually studied his own facial movement by
detecting how to move each facial muscle movement until he could
express different emotions and subtle variations. His research has been
well published, but he also teaches people who need such skills to read
emotional expression, even slight flickerings of facial movement, which
expose feelings that a subject may want to hide.
As a second example I include Daniel Stern’s research into
infant – mother interactions.xv Here Stern used videotaped
data to infer interactive states between mother and child by working in
a team to develop a consistent way to evaluate the video material, and
train others in observing. This work was a great departure from
previous objective based observing in which human interaction was
considered as invalidating observations. He created a revolution in
thinking about infant development. In later work, he explored the
experience of present moments in daily life through a process called
the micro-analytic interview in which experimenter and subject discuss
a particular experience through back and forth examination in detail
until a verbal statement is considered a valid expression of the
incident.xvi
Although Feldenkrais, trained as he was in objective science, thought
hard as to how he could use such methodology to publically validate his
discoveries. He found the challenge too daunting in relation to his
need to spread his work in training others to develop the necessary
skills and abilities. However, everything he presented was tested in
practice with his assistants. The moves he developed in FI work were
tried out with others and he had his assistants try the procedures out
with himself until the effectiveness in learning was clear.xvii ATM was
also tested with groups and Feldenkrais taped his presentations and
adjusted his directions until he could observe improvement in the
results with his classes.xviii In other words, he expanded his idea of
the scientific experiment to develop his work by crossing the objective
procedure with the subjective evaluation. It depended, of course, on
his own and his assistants observational skills. The subjective
evaluation is indeed in the realm of what Gendlin calls the responsive
order.
What Do We Need to Do?
In the light of what I have
outlined so far we need to take certain actions individually and
communally. First we need to document our work with video, interviews,
follow up, postural assessment, etc. We need to analyze our better
lessons and keep notes about what seemed to succeed. A lot of material
from the training groups and individual practice is already available
even though it has not been used for formal evaluation. We can learn to
use this material in a way that expands our understanding. For example,
noting how the practitioner may use an unusual position and try it out
to see what effect it has and then compare with alternatives. Second,
we need to train ourselves to observe the material and find other
expert evaluators to find out what can be seen in the documentation.
Human observers are indeed more sensitive than mechanical movement
recording as used in the movement laboratory. Third, we need to train
ourselves in describing the experiential realms of feeling and affect
as well as sensory changes to be much more precise. In this
Gendlin’s work can be very helpful, especially his work in
learning to describe the felt sense.xix I would propose that
the Research Committee could find practitioners who could form groups
to carry out these tasks and perhaps find experts to guide us in the
learning. Lastly I would propose that we look into research questions
that make sense to us and take advantage of new techniques that can
reveal changes in the nervous system.
What I mean in this is that we need to research what we do not know,
not what could be obviously demonstrated. With an ATM about turning, we
can obviously demonstrate that people can turn further after the ATM
process. On the other hand only research using some form of brain
scanning might reveal if doing ATM over a period of time would enhance
the growth of some parts of the brain. Other research needs to be done
to validate procedures that are part of our repertoire. For example,
does reducing effort and slowing the process actually enhance learning
possibilities? Does connecting through the skeleton out of gravity
result in changes in muscular organization along the pathway of
connecting? Does feeling a new stability after a lesson or series of
lessons result in different feeling and affective states for a person?
I am sure many other such questions can come to mind.
One aspect of research needs to involve those aspects of our work that
can inform other investigators. There are surprising
observations that occur as a consequence especially of the empirical
approach used in our practice. The first is that the observation of
organized movement, posture, and tonus for a subject turns out to have
direct links to the states of the nervous system. The second is that
changes in these observed characteristics imply direct changes in the
nervous system. This should be an obvious conclusion since the states
of the musculature are directed through nervous system activation. It
is little noted by other observers outside our work. We also observe
that feeling states are linked, although not necessarily one to one, to
embodied neuromuscular activity. Thus the most direct connection to a
person’s nervous system is through the body and through
modifications of states of mobilization and organization of tonus.
Since these factors are directly linked to skeletal organization in
gravity, what we call posture or what Feldenkrais called acture in a
living, moving being has deep connection to all other nervous system
activity including the autonomic nervous system. Changes then will
relate to affect, emotion, the feeling of well being, and numerous
other experiential qualities in life. I believe these observations need
to be taken seriously by researchers, psychologists, medical
practitioners, etc. and investigated in more detail. How can we
demonstrate them to others and how can we induce researchers to look
into our questions? We need research that excites and expands the basis
of what we do. At this point we need to act rather than creating more
discussion.
i J. Smythies, 2002, The Dynamic Neuron, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. (p. 2).
ii See M. Spivey, 2007, The Continuity of Mind, Oxford Univ. Press, New York, NY, particularly Chapter 5.
iii G. Buzszki, 2006, Rhythms of the Brain, Oxford Univ. Press, New York, NY, particularly Cycle 3, where he states, “Tensegrity dynamics can be maintained only if the excitatory effects are balanced by equally effective inhibitory forces, provided by specialized inhibitory neurons. If only excitatory neurons were present in the brain, neurons could not create form or order or secure some autonomy for themselves.” (P. 61).
iv E.T. Gendlin, 1997, “The Responsive Order: A New Empiricism,” Man and World 30:383-411, available at http://www.focusing.org/gendlin4.html. (p. 6 of download).
v J. Groopman, 2006, How Doctors Think, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA.
vi N. Bernstein, 1996, On Dexterity and Its Development, in M. Latash and M. Turvey (eds.), Dexterity and Its Development, NetLibrary, Inc., Boulder, CO, (p. 107). Bernstein wrote this text in the 1940s in the Soviet Union and before it could be published it was suppressed. It was recovered and translated by his student, Professor Latash.
vii Gendlin, 1997, (p. 16)
viii B. Poerksen, 2004, The Certainty of Uncertainty: Dialogues Introducing Constructivism, Imprint Academic, Brampford Speke, Exeter, GBR.
ix Poerksen, 2004, (P. 2)
x Poerksen, 2004, (p. 52)
xi Poerksen, (p. 93)
xii Gendlin, 1997, (p. 3)
xiii E. Gendlin, 1981, Focusing, Bantam Books.
xiv P. Ekman, 2003, Emotions Revealed, Henry Holt and Co., New York, NY.
xv D. Stern, 1985, The Interpersonal World of the Infant, Basic Books.
xvi D. Stern, 2004, The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Daily Life.
xvii Personal communication with Mia Segal and Gaby Yaron.
xviii C. Ginsburg, 1995, “Is there a Science of the Feldenkrais Magic” in Report: First Feldenkrais Conference Heidelberg, International Feldenkrais Federation
xix Gendlin, 1981.
(2008). Epistemology for the Feldenkrais Method.
Feldenkrais Research Journal. 4,
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