tructural ntegration S ® I THE JOURNAL OF THE ROLF INSTITUTE JULY 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION: FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 2 THE JOURNAL OF ® THE ROLF INSTITUTE INSTITUTE NEWS July 2018 Announcing an Upgrade to the Journal 3 Vol. 46, No. 2 COLUMNS PUBLISHER Ask the Faculty: Rolfing® SI, Psyche, and Consciousness 4 The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration ROLFING® SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 Awareness-Oriented Structural Integration and Higher Consciousness 8 Boulder, CO 80301 USA Edward Maupin (303) 449-5903 (303) 449-5978 Fax The Earthbound Metaphysic: 10 The Art of Rolfing® SI and the Art of Sculpture, Part 2 Szaja Gottlieb EDITORIAL BOARD Anne F. Hoff, Editor-in-Chief The Co-emergence of Mind-Body-Spirit: 15 Shonnie Carson, Lineage Editor Considerations for Practitioner, Client, and the Potential for Change Anne Hoff Szaja Gottlieb, Research/Science Editor Linda Loggins, Movement Editor The Dialogue of Touch: Inspirations from Psychotherapy after 21 Heidi Massa, Latin America Editor Forty-Five Years of Rolfing® Structural Integration Keren’Or Pézard, Arts Editor David Kirk-Campbell John Schewe, Faculty Liason Some Psychological and Spiritual Dimensions 24 Matt Walker, Asia/Pacific Editor of the Rolfing® Ten Series Naomi Wynter-Vincent, Europe Editor Jim Gates Jason Beickert Rolfing® SI, Consciousness, Energy, and Awareness 29 Diana Cary Stanley Rosenberg Lynn Cohen Craig Ellis The Power of Words: Borrowing Psychology for Bodywork 33 Heather L. Corwin Lina Hack Dorothy Miller Consciousness: Challenge Your Worldview 38 Deanna Melnychuk Deborah Weidhaas Max Leyf Treinen Presence, Perception, and Embodiment: 42 Continuing a Conversation with Sally Klemm LAYOUT AND Anne Hoff and Sally Klemm GRAPHIC DESIGN Do We Choose a Path, or Does It Choose Us? 45 Susan Winter Considering Consciousness, Ida Rolf, and Rolfing® SI Nicholas French Articles in Structural Integration: The Reclaiming ‘Pudeur’: A Counterpoint to Rolfing® Culture 50 ® Journal of The Rolf Institute represent the Naomi Wynter-Vincent views and opinions of the authors and Balancing Traditional and Spiritual Experience: 52 do not necessarily represent the official States of Consciousness and the Logical Container positions or teachings of the Rolf Institute Linda Grace and Janet Castellini of Structural Integration. The Rolf Institute reserves the right, in its sole and absolute The Sensing of Ethics: Our Inner Knowledge of Good and Evil 54 discretion, to accept or reject any article Karl E. Humiston for publication in Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute. PERSPECTIVES Rolfing® SI and Recognition: Keeping the Trust Amidst Skepticism 57 Structural Integration: The Journal of The Noel L. Poff Rolf Institute® (ISBN-13: 978-0997956979, ISSN 1538-3784) is published by the Rolf “Sometimes I Feel the Dance of the Fingers”: Institute, 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103, Peter Legård Nielsen’s Body of Work as Writer and Rolfer™ 60 Boulder, CO 80301. Naomi Wynter-Vincent The Art of Seeing: An Extract from the Novel De kendte (‘Celebs’) 62 Copyright ©2018 Rolf Institute. All rights Peter Legård Nielsen reserved. Duplication in whole or in part in any form is prohibited without written REVIEWS permission from the publisher. Gravity in Inner Space; Gravity in Outer Space: A Review of Two Books 64 “Rolfing®,” “Rolf Movement®,” “Rolfer™,” Szaja Charles Gottlieb and the Little Boy Logo are service marks of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. CONTACTS 66 FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Rolfing [SI] is not primarily a psychotherapeutic approach . . . but [its] effect on the human psyche has been so noteworthy that many people insist on so regarding it. Rolfing [SI] is an approach to the personality through the myofascial collagen components of the physical body. It integrates and balances the so-called “other bodies” of man . . . modernly designated as the psychological emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects. Ida Rolf

In the quote above, from her introduction to the Psychotherapy Handbook (quoted in Rolf 1978, 26), Ida Rolf speaks to the interface of Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) with psyche and consciousness, our theme for this issue of Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute®. What is it that allows our work to address more than physicality, that makes it different from other modalities with more mechanically correlated results? My belief is that we must look to Rolf as a person, her lived knowledge and experience. Rolf’s interest in body structure/function was just one domain in her overarching interest in the human being. Her explorations were intellectual and practical, but also personal and experiential, ranging from her doctoral work in biochemistry to General Semantics to homeopathy to classical tantric yoga to osteopathy to the Gurdjieffian work of J.G. Bennett. Perhaps as a result, the system she developed is holistic in nature and effect. Its entry point is the fascial matrix, and the organization of that biotensegrity structure in relation to the gravity field has the potential to activate / engage / integrate the holism of mind-body-spirit. Rolf’s first students were primarily chiropractors and osteopaths. According to Rosemary Feitis, they “tried to take bits and pieces of her work, not understanding that it was an organic whole” (Rolf 1978, 13). It took the right time and place – Esalen® Institute in the mid-1960s – for Rolf to find students who wanted to learn Rolfing SI as a holistic system. Her work flourished in this crucible of the human potential movement, and it became commonplace to see it elicit change in other layers of consciousness. Again and again it revealed how the body holds traumatic memories, unresolved childhood issues, and the underpinnings of familiar identity. Consider these quotes from Rolf’s teaching (all from Rolf 1978): What we do to a body physically starts to release it emotionally . . . We take a person along . . . opening him a little and a little, and all of a sudden he is stuck with something which was an arrested problem or a childhood problem, an early problem (156). We can see where [people’s] bodies are literally offering blocks to the gravitational forces. The gravitational force is immense, and their resistance isn’t much good except to close the body down, compress it. Sometimes the block has been put into the physical picture by a traumatic episode . . . [and] is in the actual structure, in the flesh of the body. Then there is the kind of block that is basically emotional. Little Jimmy loves Papa. Papa goes along bent over, so Jimmy goes along like that because this allows him to be Papa in his mind. And by and by Jimmy gets a set into his muscular body which he cannot let go of (77). A child may grow bigger, but as long as he’s still stuck in the same child form is it surprising that he should be stuck in his same emotional child thing? It’s worked for him for a long, long time. How does he know that anything else is going to work any better? . . . And then changes happen through Rolfing [SI], and it begins to be possible for a body to take on what we consider appropriate adult form. Then the person continues on psychologically, and develops (99). The exploration of how the body relates to psychology, and to consciousness in general, remains deeply relevant even though the human potential movement of the 1960s-1970s waned. The questions are still in the culture, whether related to the specificity of something like trauma or to the generality of what it is to be human and to feel fulfilled. Not surprisingly, many Rolfers™ actively explore the domains of psyche and consciousness, so we have numerous contributors to this theme, spanning the global Rolfing community and including practitioners whose tenure goes back to Dr. Rolf; faculty from the Rolf Institute; Rolfers cross-trained as psychotherapists; and others deeply involved in energetic and spiritual explorations of consciousness. We follow our theme of Rolfing SI, Psyche, and Consciousness with our Perspectives section. There Noel Poff discusses his intial concern about Wikipedia’s representation of Rolfing SI, and how he reconciled himself to the amount of research and the efforts it will take for our work to get a certain type of recognition. Next we have Naomi Vincent-Wynter’s interview with Peter Legård Nielsen, a Danish Rolfer who is also an accomplished novelist and literary figure. To accompany the interview, he translated an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, influenced by his life and by Rolfing SI. We close the issue with Szaja Gottlieb’s review of two books concerning gravity: Gravity and the Creation of Self: An Exploration of Self Representations Using Spatial Concepts by Elizabeth Burford and Artificial Gravity edited by Giles Clement and Angie Bukley.

Anne F. Hoff Editor-in-Chief Bibliography Rolf, I.P. 1978. Ida Rolf Talks About Rolfing and Physical Reality. R. Feitis, ed. Boulder, Colorado: Rolf Institute®. [Later republished as Rolfing and Physical Reality by Healing Arts Press (Rochester, Vermont).]

2 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org INSTITUTE NEWS

ANNOUNCING 1977 AN UPGRADE TO THE JOURNAL

Next edition out in November 1980

Our Journal has evolved over the years, in both look and content, from the Bulletin of Structural Integration 1985 to Rolf Lines® to its current format. In each iteration, we’ve upgraded our content and professional profile, and we plan to continue this progress. The November issue will debut a new design, and we have in the works plans to include new features. At a time when fascia is increasingly on the map in both academia and the public 1989 consciousness, we aim to enhance the global profile of Rolfing® Structural Integration while providing our members with content that will benefit their practices.

Have an idea for the Journal? We always welcome member input. 2011 Email us at: [email protected]

2016

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 3 COLUMNS

whether he had gotten the body flexibility Ask the Faculty he wanted, and he said not yet, but that everybody who knew him was saying, and Rolfing® SI, Psyche, and Consciousness he was also feeling, that now he was a light and happy person. He was surprised, and Q: Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) found an early audience in the human really happy. potential movement of the 1960s, at the intersection of mind-body-spirit. The This example is interesting because it has culture has changed a lot since then, yet our work continues to have a relationship various levels we can elucidate. First, we to psyche and consciousness. Please share what you find interesting about can speculate that his consciousness and this interplay, whether an experience, a story from your practice, ways you psyche developed after the process ‘ended’, consider your own consciousness when working, ways you open a student’s or as frequently happens. Second, we can client’s perspective, etc. imagine that the client’s single-minded focus on flexibility kept him from seeing/ feeling other things. There’s the old adage A: It is a fact, we all, as human beings, are Rolfing SI. Our presence in the relationship that says “If you only have a hammer, not in this interplay, we are this interplay: with clients and students, our presence in all you see are nails.” So what happens body-psyche-consciousness-energy-body- our own bodies in relating to others, our when there are no nails? Nothing is there. spirit. The culture has changed a lot since refusing to put our words onto the other’s For Rolfers, this example shows us that if the1960s. Social, political, family, and experience – these are the context that we are focused on visible body changes work relationships have changed. The way creates the possibility for the student or (sometimes to prove to ourselves that we people live has changed. The way Rolfers™ client to inhabit the full dimensionality of are good Rolfers), we can become blind to and people in general talk about what Rolfing being human. He/she is not just a physical other dimensions of changes. SI is has changed. What brings students to body with pain. A painful body is also a Rolfing SI trainings (at ABR in Brazil, at least) painful psyche, a painful spirit. Sometimes either practitioner or client may has changed. not be able to see the relationship between The relationship may not be obvious at first body-mind-psyche-spirit, as seeing it But how and why and the way we get to be (mainly for the client and sometimes for the requires an ability/skill we may need to human beings are things that have not changed Rolfer also), but since the process is based develop. As human beings we evolve our (although too much technology and pure on the principles, theory, method, and human potential as we develop the ability rational/logical perspectives can reduce techniques of Rolfing SI, as the client to be present in our own body, to hold any our consciousness, psyche, ourselves, becomes a more integrated person – much experience in a significant and personal our lives). How can I back up such a more or just a little bit more, it does not way, in a creative way or personal gesture. statement? Well, has your way of knowing matter how much – the relationship exists It is easy to say the words ‘presence’ and you are alive changed? I doubt it! Or has and sooner or later will be visible. ‘embodiment’, easier to say them than to the way you would be aware of stepping For example, I once worked with a client experience them. on a small rock changed? Consider, when who loved the whole process but didn’t feel we step on something we didn’t see, How can we facilitate the development that his goals had been reached (he wanted we immediately become aware of whether of consciousness? Say that after a first more body flexibility). And so, there he was, we stepped on a small rock or on a small session, the client says she feels taller. You at the interview after the fifteenth session insect! We feel-sense if it is something alive could end it at that, “Good! It worked!” Or (we did structural and movement sessions), or not alive. you can take it further: “Is that a good or telling me that the work had been good to bad experience?” Take care to not assume it For me, it is not possible to not have this receive but hadn’t made a difference in is a good experience, because the experience interplay of body-psyche-consciousness- his life. I wasn’t expecting this and was is not yours, but the client’s. Let’s say the energy-body-spirit in our practice of surprised! I thanked him for his honesty client replies that it is a good experience. Rolfing SI. If it is not there, we are not and told him that although his main goal of You can support that being enhanced by practicing Rolfing SI. In order to open much greater flexibility wasn’t yet in place, saying, “Great! And as you walk around the perspective of a client or a student, first something very important had happened, the room feeling you are taller, what is we need to develop the ability to be an open even if he could not see it or consciously your good experience like?” Or, “Now, presence to the client/student, to inhabit know what had happened. I continued, when you walk around the room feeling our own body. We can’t go to, or invite noting that we both could see postural you are taller, is there something else you someone else into, places we didn’t go changes in the before and after pictures, can feel or become aware of?” One client before ourselves, or places we don’t know and stated that as posture changes, other in this situation said she was seeing the through experience. things are changing. I finished by saying whole room in a different way: she could that he could come back for a body of work In our current times, bombarded by meet the space with a feeling of peace, in the future, and maybe then he would technology and an exclusively rational and breathing easily. So a simple dialogue attain the body flexibility that was his main logical perspective, the tendency is that we can open the client’s experience to a new goal. Well, three months later he phoned become objects. For example, we commonly embodied experience and bring her to other me. He was very happy and once more see people walking around who don’t levels of consciousness. said he was grateful for the process we did seem to consciously inhabit their bodies together. He was really happy! I asked him in the way we describe as ‘embodiment’ in

4 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org COLUMNS

Self-perception, self, psyche, and The act of observing is a first step, but able to experience the fullness of my being, consciousness are human dimensions incomplete. Einstein noted that simple in the future. created and developed through body observation is meaningless, “as if you When I am with my clients, I can help experiences lived in presence and in described a Beethoven symphony as a them to reference these same hallmarks of relationship with other human beings. We variation of wave pressure” (R.W. Clark, presence and embodiment, the feeling of invite clients and students to inhabit their Einstein: the Life and Times. London: Hodder increased adaptability or volume or support bodies by living experiences, a process & Stoughton, 1973, pp. 227-228). In order or filled-in-ness. At the same time, I have that never ends. The skills we need for this to generate meaning or value, we need to to recognize that they are also negotiating depend upon our own personal evolution. experience our perception in a context, or their presence in the presence of another It is not something we can learn or teach in a relationship. In my own work, I orient to person, myself. The layers of complexity the way that we learn and teach techniques. the room or the horizon, or to the contact I of the therapeutic container cannot be The principle of holism, the first important have with the floor, or some other element underestimated. In science, when we skill for the practitioner, must be embodied of my current situation. So, we have layers begin to explore an area that falls outside in ourselves in the nature of our own of awareness, the sensation layer, perhaps the bounds of objective knowing we call relationship with ourselves, with the pleasant or perhaps unpleasant, perhaps it ‘transcomputational’, which means that environment, with the theory and practice neither, in the context of the current time the situation is so complex that it defies of Rolfing SI, and with clients. and space. When contextualized in this algorithm. Bryan Appleyard (Understanding way, often a shift occurs in the intensity To finish, I would like to remember one the Present: Science and the Soul of the Modern or quality or locus of sensation. When I of Dr. Rolf’s statements from Rolfing and Man. New York: Doubleday,1993, pg. 153) become aware of this shift, I may shift my Physical Reality that I read in Therapeutic puts it very succinctly: “Complexity is real, cognitive construct about it. It may bring Relationship classes: “What I am trying it is not just an excess of simplicities.” forward a cognitive construct, a label, an to do is to create a group who can work image, or a memory. When I become aware When I reflect that the therapeutic container back and forth from ideas to substance of the relationship between the construct of the session is complex beyond our and understand why and how this is and the sensation, I have an opportunity, capacity to parse, and then I add in the done.” Wouldn’t it be good if we included through the light of awareness, to bring that additional layers that touch and touch more time in the trainings for the second construct present in time. within the context of a Rolfing structural part – understanding “why and how this or movement session include, then I begin is done”? For example, if through this process I to understand why this field does not lend perceive a sensation, let’s say tightness, itself to reductionist study. As Dr Rolf said, Hulda Bretones which evokes a memory from another Rolfing SI is not defined by its technology. Rolfing Instructor time, let’s say fear, and I stay oriented to While we can explore particular elements my present context, let’s say my office, then A: I really appreciate this question, as it within the session, or technologies (what I have an opportunity to allow my current relates directly to what keeps the work we might call ‘techniques’), what continues self to just accompany those perceptions interesting and fresh for me. Our global to remain untouched by them is the value and to watch what happens. Perhaps culture shifts increasingly to one of of the work for both the practitioner and the sensation of tightness dissipates, technologies, and an interest in discerning the client. Yes, I need to develop strategies perhaps it shifts to another quality or the causality of events. Our work is not for hands-on intervention, which the series location. Perhaps it disappears. There is immune to this, and while these are natural provides for us, and at the same time, I need no guarantee that this process will resolve outgrowths of wanting to understand, to be open to whatever happens next in into an unmitigated pleasantness, however I find the field of exploration of values, my self and my client. Or, as Jeff Maitland it is an opportunity to recognize that it is like consciousness and embodiment, to (personal communication, 6/16/2017) there. This process of recognizing patterns be the most invigorating activity. For me, so succinctly states, “Work like hell of association is essential for me in order Rolfing SI is literally a re-creational activity and meditate.” for which I am compensated in real world to be clear about what I am bringing into terms. Aside from the financial livelihood my relationships, and in particular, to the Duffy Allen that Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement® therapeutic relationship with clients. Rolfing Instructor Integration provide for me, it is the Once I have some familiarity about what A: For me this is the most fundamental opportunity to create meaning and value it feels like to be myself, by myself, then I premise of our work: the unity of for myself, and to facilitate the same for can begin to notice how different contexts being and several dimensions of the others, that drives me. or therapeutic environments affect me. experience. I start my teaching there, It is the simple act of attending to the When I begin to anticipate the arrival of a and remind students that the choice of sensation of my body in the context of my particular client, what happens in me? Do addressing the human being from the present environment, what we might call in feel light or alert? Or do I feel tired or bodily perspective is just an entryway. orientation, that generates meaning. This heavy? Do I feel anxious or lose volume Dr. Rolf said this in a very clear statement is a multiple-step process. First we must somewhere, etc.? If I notice that, and allow in the very first chapter of her book. quiet ourselves, then tune into our feeling it to be there, then I can begin to do my own Fascia connects and makes possible the internal sensation, while keeping awareness work (somatic-based therapy, meditation, interplay of all of these dimensions. of our external environment. rest, or other supervision) to begin to be able to be more fully present, e.g., neutral, Any joint is in a moving system that is a person. Different systems come to play

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 5 COLUMNS like a beautiful symphony. Explorations Client goals for the process: retreat and workshop center called regarding human being and integration The Esalen Institute, otherwise • Body awareness reinforce this premise daily, so this topic is known simply as Esalen. Their still very contemporary. • Harmony and balance between body goal was to create a space where and mind people could explore and practice To fully embody this premise of mind- what Aldous Huxley called “human body-spirit integration is not simple. Our • Align emotions potentialities” — or various holistic culture does not currently trend this way, • Improvement in pain by getting to approaches to wellness and personal meaning that we must make it – instructor know the body better transformation that involved the and students, practitioner and clients – a body, mind, and spirit (D. Ollivier, continuous exercise and exploration. Here • Getting rid of a depression felt in the “The Esalen Institute and the are some useful lines of inquiry: body Human Potential Movement Turn • How does any change resonates in other • More body awareness and dealing 50.” Huffington Post 5/25/12). levels of one’s experience? with anxiety Esalen was the epicenter of the human • How am I emotionally touched by this Rolfer goals for the client’s process: potential movement, and its message physical pattern? of transformation radiated out from the • Higher level of structural support California coast. It was at Esalen that Fritz • What does it mean to me to move in a so that he may have more emotional Perls, founder of Gestalt Therapy, invited certain way or in different way? support Dr. Ida Rolf to begin teaching her work • What can be expressed with this new • More emotional stability of Structural Processing – later known structural arrangement? as Rolfing SI. Rolfing SI quickly became • More stability through more body an integral part of the human potential • Who am I and how do I like myself awareness movement. The body – not only mental coming from this set of sensations? • More support to improve client’s sense attitudes and beliefs – could be changed. • What’s the interplay between all the of trust in herself As Dr. Rolf stated, “the body is plastic”! dimensions, physical, emotional, Don Johnson’s The Protean Body, as well Results of process on client’s perception: cognitive, spiritual? as Kurtz/ Prestera’s The Body Reveals, Ken • Now, everything feels more integrated Dychtwald’s Bodymind, and Huxley’s Consciousness plays a big role in this The Doors of Perception soon became cherished exploration, and we deal with the whole • I experience a higher sense of trust dog-eared pages on my nightstand. spectrum of consciousness in our work – from unconscious to conscious. Many • I’m happier A key phrase in the movement was self- times the client’s unconscious can be • I have more attitude in my walking actualization and ‘the body’ became affected by somatic work, with the impact an essential portal to that realization. wobbling through layers until language • I believe I made a clear connection Dr. Rolf’s emphasis on the ‘Line’ and and consciousness gradually come into between my physical and emotional upright alignment gained traction within play. Here the practitioner (or instructor) aspects this movement. can play a vital role by finding the layer of • I’m much more balanced, more I first heard the term ‘Rolfing’ SI from my availability in the client (student), as well as centered, not anticipating problems beloved high-school teacher Sr. Donna himself/herself. Being conscious in this way as I used to Nickel. Donna, who left the convent in the will help affect whether the process moves early 1970s, wrote me about an incredibly towards greater consciousness or not. • It was an experience that taught me a lot about dealing with my emotional expansive process that changed her life. It is also possible to work from the other side For me, Rolfing SI became synonymous direction, to use consciousness to help with transformation – intensity – psycho- access more reflexive somatic layers, such as • Way more balanced emotional growth. Those words described starting with pattern recognition, the search • Safer . . . everything I was looking for at that time. for the meaning of a behavior or a pattern. However, it took seven years for me to find In any case, client and student interactions • Emotions are more easily perceived a Rolfer. In 1969, Detroit libraries had no are enhanced by acknowledging emerging knowledge of it in their reference sections. Pedro Prado changes in a conscious way. Basic & Advanced Rolfing Instructor, I continued moving west. Once in Seattle, I have written a number of times for Rolf Movement Instructor in the mid-1970s, I discovered two of this journal about my research into the Dr. Rolf’s students, Ron McComb and A: Rolfing SI burst into awareness in the psychobiological domain of Rolfing SI Jack Donnelly. I had the great pleasure of context of the human potential movement. using reports from NAPER (the São Paulo getting Rolfing sessions from them. It was Rolfing ambulatory project). Even in In 1962, on a stunning stretch of on their tables that the seeding of Rolfing SI, comments on the initial interview, both land bordering the Pacific Ocean transmitted through their hands and hearts, Rolfers and clients were speaking to body/ in Big Sur, California, two Stanford initiated the unfolding and calling to study mind unity, for example in: graduates named Michael Murphy Dr. Rolf’s work. and Dick Price founded a small

6 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org COLUMNS

In those early days, trainings were held Advanced Rolfing Instructor Jeffrey at 302 Pearl St. in Boulder, Colorado, in Maitland: the books Embodied Being: the Annex and Skylight rooms. What The Philosophical Roots of Manual Therapy a generative time it was! Auditors and (excerpted in our March 2016 issue), practitioners sold cars, homes, collected Spacious Body: Explorations in Somatic Advanced Training pre-paid Ten-Series sessions, etc. to finance Ontology, and Mind-Body Zen: Waking Up to their study. The Rolf Institute® was – and I Your Life; also from this journal “The Being Take It to the Next Level believe continues to possess the potential of being of Rolfing SI” (June 2014 issue), “Seeing” – the ‘mystery school’ for anyone wishing to (December 2014 issue), “The Felt Capacity study the multiple dimensions of the body to Do Work: Working with Energy” (June AT1.18 as the integral ingredient in the realm of 2017 issue), “Letting ‘What Is’ Show Itself: with Tessy Brungardt human development and evolution. Jeffrey Maitland on Mind, Zen, and Energy Work” (June 2017 issue), and “The Mystery As Dr. Rolf fondly stated: “The body is what & Valerie Berg of Consciousness Is the Mystery of the you can get your hands on.” Body” (September 2017 issue), among Carol A. Agneessens others. October 1-18, 2018 & Rolfing & Rolf Movement Instructor Basic and Advanced Rolfing Instructor January 21 – February 7, 2019 Ray McCall: “The Work of ‘The Work’: San Francisco, CA An Interview with Ray McCall” (March Further Resources 2016 issue) and “Energy, Geometry, and Presence: Part 2 of an Interview with Ray Because consciousness is so deeply interwoven AT2.18 McCall” (June 2017 issue). with the work of Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement with Pedro Prado Integration, the topic is often addressed by our Rolfing and Rolf Movement Instructor faculty in their writings and interviews in this Lucia Merlino: “Metaphors of the Body” & Sally Klemm journal. While there are many examples, we (July 2015 issue). particularly refer readers to the following (in Basic and Advanced Rolfing Instructor and alphabetical order): October 27 – November 4, 2018, Rolf Movement Instructor Pedro Prado: February 23 – March 3, 2019 & Rolfing and Rolf Movement Instructor “An Ongoing Inquiry into Mind and Body: Carol Agneessens: “‘The Map Is Not the An Interview with Pedro Prado” (March June 22-30, 2019 Territory’ – ‘The Word Is Not the Thing’” 2016 issue) and “The Role of Consciousness Boulder, CO (July 2015 issue), “Flowing Wholeness: The in Transformational Rolfing” (written Vibratory Resonance Beneath Perceivable with Heidi Massa; July 2015 issue), among Form” (December 2013 issue), “The Female others. Pelvis: Igniting a Transcendent Portal” Register Now Advanced Rolfing Instructor Michael (December 2017 issue), among others. Salveson: “Burning Man: An Interview Rolfing and Rolf Movement Instructor with Michael Salveson, Part 1” (March www.rolf.org for more info Monica Caspari: “Self, Other: New 2016 Issue) and “Burning Man, Part 2: Considerations in Rolf Movement Continuing the Interview with Michael Integration” (June 2014 issue). Salveson” (September 2016 issue). Rolf Movement Instructor Kevin Frank: Advanced Rolfing Instructor Peter “What Is the Role of Language When We Schwind: “Navigating Between Technical Integrate Structure?” (July 2015 issue); Refinement and the Vast Dimensions of the and “Energy Work: Re-conceptualizing an Soul: An Interview with Peter Schwind” Inclusive Spectrum of Interventions within (March 2018 issue). an Informational Model of SI” (June 2017), Basic and Advanced Rolfing Instructor among others. Russell Stolzoff: “Therapeutic Use of Self Basic and Advanced Rolfing Instructor and in Rolfing® SI and the Bodynamic System: Rolf Movement Instructor Lael Katharine An Interview with Russell Stolzoff” (July Keen: “Rolfing SI, Trauma, Orientation, 2015 issue) and the Autonomic Nervous System” (July Rolf Movement Instructor Hiroyoshi 2015 issue). Tahata: “Working with Ma: Further Basic and Advanced Rolfing Instructor Refinement of the Yielding Approach Sally Klemm: “Explorations of Earth and through Time, Space, and Intersubjectivity” Sky: An Interview with Sally Klemm” (June (March 2018 issue). 2017 issue) and “Presence, Perception, and Embodiment” (this issue).

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 7 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS What Do I Think Awareness-Oriented I Am Touching? There are two levels of assumptions that Structural Integration need to be examined. One is the question of whether the body is a subjective being or merely an object to be manipulated. and Higher Consciousness This suggests the need for an adequate psychology of the body, which will be By Edward Maupin, Rolf Practitioner discussed later. Imagine someone has asked “how are Ida Rolf came to Esalen in the summer The second is the age-old debate (in you?” and he means it. You engage in of 1967, and I undertook a ten-session Western civilization) as to the nature of a a moment of nonverbal scanning – of series. When she reached the inner-thigh human being: is it ‘good’ or ‘bad’? This your body, your feelings, your thoughts, work of session four, it was so painful I is fundamentally a moral question, but it your environment. That nonverbal had to go into The Witness to deal with is one that dominates even our politics. scanning, expanded to a more sustained it. That was it! I had found my way back One political scientist has suggested that observation – that is meditation. into witness consciousness which had American political debate takes place not been accessible for a long time. I between two positions: the liberal position Hubert Benoit, paraphrased asked her to train me, and thus began my holds that human beings are basically good When I read these words, I was walking life as a Rolf practitioner in 1968. and deserving of nurturing support while away from the Detroit Public Library the conservative position holds that human Dr. Rolf was a material scientist; she where I had just borrowed Hubert Benoit’s beings need force and restraint to function approached the body as a surgeon The Supreme Doctrine (1955), which positively. The question emerges, in part, might. Her work was precise, accurate, described the use of Zen meditation because of the Christian belief in original sin and sometimes it hurt like hell. She in his psychoanalytic practice. It was and the more recent (since the Renaissance) considered that the pain was an 1959, and I was a doctoral student in optimistic estimates of the innate goodness important part of the learning; but her clinical psychology. of human nature. goal was core alignment in gravity; and Suddenly, I had a ‘beginner’s her hands were somewhat coercive in This may seem outside the subject matter enlightenment’: I discovered ‘The Witness’. pursuit of that goal. She was respectful of manual therapy, but there are many I could step behind my field of awareness of emotional reactions, but she was not consequences. In raising children, the and observe everything with detachment. a psychologist. Core alignment produces positive assumption leads to education (the My fears, anxieties, and embarrassments a dramatic experience of integration (I root word educere means ‘to lead out’) that faded in the light of objective observation remember feeling the integration of my fosters the innate abilities of the child, while in the present moment. I could return legs during the standing foot work in the other leads to more coercive ‘molding’. to The Witness easily for the next few session eight), but there was not much In structural integration (SI), the difference months, making profound discoveries that two-way communication with the body’s is between calling out the body’s own sense transformed my life. own awareness. of organization or ‘fixing what is wrong’ by force. When I find myself becoming At one point, I stepped beyond the As a fledgling Rolf Practitioner I had determined to break through some resistant witness state and entered an astonishing, much to learn about the organization tension by force, I have probably moved nonconceptual realization of the body of the body in gravity, and I found back into some form of moral coercion. in the present moment – a body epiphany. my clients and I were producing big I experienced the nonverbal existence alterations in body awareness. Don A Psychology of the Body of myself as body, an intelligent body Johnson describes some of his experience Dr. Rolf had an inner-outer model. She that seemed antecedent to, and more in our sessions in the introduction to distinguished between the ‘sleeve’ and the fundamental than, my ordinary mind. At his anthology The Body in Psychotherapy. ‘core’ – the extrinsic level and the intrinsic. that point, I decided I wanted to find a Other clients who had been out of The outer layer involves voluntary muscles method of body-oriented psychotherapy. touch with the body were having body epiphanies as a result of our work. that carry out the ego’s will by contracting. After I wrote my dissertation (on Zen The inner, intrinsic muscles maintain an Buddhism) and got my degree, I continued Gradually it became apparent that the expansional relationship with gravity. This to look for body-oriented methods of focus on communicating with the body layer we must ‘let’ rather than ‘do’. In her psychotherapy. When I was invited to awareness was resulting in less painful, view, when the sleeve is released and the become a resident at Esalen Institute in more easily integrated structural results. core is able to balance on a vertical ‘Line’, Big Sur, I had plenty of opportunity to Not that I was alone in developing a there were changes in psychological feeling examine what methods existed at the time. more awareness-oriented approach – and behavior. Esalen was very body-centered. My own many others were moving in the same I think we can distinguish between two workshops were entitled, “Body Awareness direction. My own steps included more minds: the relative, conceptual mind of the and the Sense of Being.” articulation of the process of touch itself, which in turn led to an examination of my ego and the nonconceptual mind of the body fundamental theoretical assumptions. and deep psyche. We can infer awareness

8 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS whenever there is reactivity. Thus we can say approaches the deeper muscular barrier. 4. Use my hands to organize your body: the body is aware on many levels, not all of Adding movement, gently rocking the This is the invitation to participate which are accessible to conscious attention. bones, for example, uncovers patterns of in the work and to help guide it. What is nonconceptual is inaccessible to skeletal tension – how the bones are held. Again, it can only be done by the thought. Nevertheless, the body is aware. Touching the body in this way – receptively body awareness, not the ego mind. We (rather than trying to make something assume the body has its own sense of There are two levels of the body-mind’s happen) – engages the client and promotes organization that can lead the process. functioning of which one can become aware body awareness. – the sensory experience and movement. These four steps engage the client in a These are where the ego can experience the Wherever one touches, there is a sort full-scale participation in the project of body-mind. If the body therapist can assist of barrier: go deeper than that, it hurts; reorganizing the body structure. the client to pay attention to the sensory don’t go that deep, and the contact can Awareness vs. experience, especially of touch, and also be seem uninteresting, irrelevant. (I am not Consciousness: aware of movement, then the work can bring discounting the power of subtle touch the ego awareness into relation with the in another context). At the barrier one Levels of Consciousness body-mind. It then becomes more possible can pause and wait to feel for the body’s Up until this point I have used the term for the client to be present in the body in the response. As the barrier melts, the hands ‘awareness’ for this kind of work. The term present moment – which is my primary goal are guided to additional contacts. It is not ‘consciousness’ is more complicated and in body-oriented psychotherapy. that the practitioner has no goals: the theory deserves further comment. of structure in gravity (the ten-session Sensory awareness is fairly obvious, but ‘Recipe’) guides us where to touch in the The philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) movement awareness is a little more first place. Once there, though, the hands was the first to use the word ‘consciousness’. complex. If the client simply receives the are exploring, feeling, listening for how His definition included reflexive awareness, work passively, this aspect is mostly lost. In to proceed. awareness of being aware. But Locke was SI, we ask the client to move in structurally describing his own subjective awareness, accurate ways in order to produce changes Training the Client which in a larger sense is only a level of in alignment. Dr. Rolf (1968) said, “Hold consciousness. From the standpoint of Naturally it is necessary to guide the client things where they are supposed to be and higher levels, he was entirely in illusion; into this kind of communication. I use the ask for movement. This is the law and the because, ultimately, the ego is an illusion. gospel of the method.” following four steps: In many spiritual traditions, there are 1. Pay attention to my hands: We But there is another aspect of movement: descriptions of states of consciousness that do not want the client to drift off the ‘urge’ to move. In my search for body- entirely. Reminding the client to pay transcend personal awareness. People have oriented psychotherapy, I studied with attention keeps him/her in touch been experiencing and describing these Mary Whitehouse, one of the originators of with the sensory experience even if states since the beginning of time. There what is now called Authentic Movement. it is accompanied by a rich reverie is a fair amount of agreement about these In her classes, we learned to feel how our tinged with dreams, memories, and levels. For example the terms samadhi in bodies wanted to move. No performance, associations. Hinduism and unio mystica or ‘mystical no planning, this was simply following the union’ in Christianity refer to an experience 2. Draw me in: It is an amazing body’s movement. It was a huge discovery, a of the ‘Ground of Being’ in which the ego phenomenon that we can mentally sense of inhabiting the body and going along is suspended as a tiny drop in the presence influence the flow of energy in our with, rather than forcing, its movement. bodies. It is with this step that the of a vast ocean of Being. This can also be called ‘Divine Contemplation’ because All of us have learned to ‘sit still and be client chooses to receive the work. the ‘Ocean of Being’ clearly feels divine. quiet’. Years of school have taught us to curb Most clients can find an ability to Whatever God is, it is a human experience, the urge to move. Our clients may be inclined direct the sensation of touch, rather ineffable, indescribable, but divine. From this to lie passively and receive the work. But like a sponge draws water. Women standpoint, ‘consciousness’ does not appear if they can learn to include the urge, the tend to find this receptivity quickly. Some men take more coaching. to be a personal faculty, but something pleasure, of moving, it will engage the body- divine that inhabits human existence. mind in a whole new way. This part of 3. Pay attention to pleasure: At this training the client will be discussed later. point, we engage the body-mind. The Oscar Ichazo of the Arica School has offered ego awareness can pay attention and a map of levels of consciousness. The map Touch Communication decide to be receptive, but pleasure is is consistent with other spiritual traditions. something that has to be experienced Touch communication is a two-way process. The upper levels he calls in the body. By pleasure, I mean any The practitioner needs to be receptive to qualitative sense that evaluates the Divine Unity what he is touching. The client needs to pay touch as positive – like an itch wanting attention and let the body respond. to be scratched, or a movement that Divine Contemplation Touching to Know feels good. Pleasure, of course, is an Divine Love ambiguous topic in our original-sin The practitioner has three tools for getting culture. Here we don’t mean sexual Divine Life to know the body – touch, pressure, pleasure, but the multidimensioned Empty Mind (entering the and movement. Touch alone can be richness of corporal sensation. Thomas subjective mind) very powerful. Add pressure and one Hanna called it ‘sarcal pleasure’. www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 9 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

These levels are quite recognizable when to release physical tensions and the Integration – both published by Dawn Even they occur. Divine Unity and Divine psychological experiences they express; to Press (San Diego, California, 2005). Contemplation are the experience of the become aware of the body in the present Ground of Being described above. Divine moment; and to reside more and more in Bibliography Love is a heart-opening perception of the the quiet of the empty, witnessing mind. Benoit, H. 1955.The Supreme Doctrine: Love underlying everything. Divine Life Edward Maupin is the earliest trained (1968) Psychological Studies in Zen Thought. New is experiencing the present moment in the Rolf Method practitioner still in practice. York: Pantheon. body without conceptual thought. A clinical psychologist (PhD, University of Maupin, E. 2001. The Body Epiphany. San Consciousness and the Body Michigan 1962), he is the author of a two- Diego, CA: Dawn Eve Press. volume manual of Structural Integration, Below these upper levels of consciousness A Dynamic Relation to Gravity – Rolf, I.P. 1968. My personal notes from are deeper and deeper levels of subjectivity, Vol. 1: Elements of Structural Integration; Dr. Rolf’s class in 1968. more and more clouded by personal Vol. 2: The Ten Sessions of Structural conditioning, cultural beliefs, and conflict. It is my opinion that our work, and most psychotherapy in general, works to release tension in these lower states so that the client has increasingly greater access to the The Earthbound Metaphysic Empty Mind from which the higher states can sometimes occur. The Art of Rolfing® SI and the Art of Sculpture, Part 2

Empty Mind - The Witness. When Ida Rolf By Szaja Gottlieb, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ leaned on my inner thigh, I felt so much pain I went into the witness state. At that Author’s Note: This article is the second part of “The Art of Rolfing SI and The Art of Sculpture” point, I could release the tension. With that which appeared in the March 2017 issue. In 1978, when I was thirty years old, I was in therapy (art I had also arrived at a point of insight into therapy) and received the Ten Series. Almost immediately, my orientation changed from being an my holding pattern. intellectual and a scholar to being a physical laborer, doing construction and furniture moving but also art and sculpture. In light of the theme of this issue, “Rolfing SI, Psyche, and Consciousness,” Ichazo describes Divine Life as a pure I decided to reduce my personal viewpoint from this article so that elements of transformation awareness in the body with “no thoughts that I underwent might be understood more analytically and objectively. My personal aim is to in the head.” I suspect this is the same as understand what happened to me almost forty years ago and my hope is that this approach will what Zen Buddhism calls satori. What I illuminate for the reader the fascinating and mysterious relationship between SI and psychological have called a ‘body epiphany’ is, I think, growth. The artwork included is meant not to illustrate any of the ideas discussed but simply to an instance of this level of consciousness. record a personal journey and to evoke a feeling. What I remembered from my own body epiphany, I expressed this way: Then the Lord God formed the man from work. The psychological effects of SI were My body is me: I am my body. My the dust of the ground. perhaps unexpected but too obvious not body is intelligent, responding in to be noticed, and by the time the human The Book of Genesis 2:7 the present moment to the world potential movement in the 1960s was it imagines it lives in (which can be So that is what I’m talking about, the unfolding, Rolf delightfully accepted it. distorted by conditioning). Where gravity field, the earth field, the great Almost a third of the entries in Rolfing I center in my body determines my field of the earth always wins . . . What and Physical Reality (Rolf 1978b) deal experience (Maupin 2001). can we do about it? We can change the with some aspect of psychological or field of the man, the small field, even The experience itself was nonverbal, personality development. But she was though we cannot change the large field. nonconceptual, and life-changing. very definite that the aim of Rolfing SI was Ida Rolf (1978a) not psychological transformation. In the Once in a while, often in the aftermath of introduction to Rolfing SI written for the the first Rolf session, a client will have such All this metaphysics is fine, but be Psychology Handbook, Rolf wrote, “Rolfing a radical discovery. I have the impression mighty sure you’ve got physics under [SI] is not primarily a psychotherapeutic that it is people like myself – intellectual, the metaphysics. approach to the problems of humans, but intuitive, not sensory-aware – who have it Ida Rolf (1978b, 206) the effect it has had on the human psyche most dramatically. has been so noteworthy that people insist Psychology has always played the I have not seen the levels of Divine Love, on so regarding it” (Rolf 1978b, 26; quoted doppelganger to structural integration Divine Contemplation, or Divine Unity in Rosemary Feitis’s introduction). Her (SI). Famed Gestalt psychologist Fritz emerge directly as a result of SI, although explanation of the psychological effects, Perls helped launch Dr. Rolf and they are real, discriminable experiences. which were referred to by Feitis as “succinct Rolfing SI at Esalen, but even previously, in They are said to be gifts of Grace beyond and cagy,” focused on the spillover effect England where she hosted workshops, Rolf our control. of the myofascial reorganization of the favored having psychological work with human body on the various other “bodies”: Meanwhile, in session after session, the a client done at the same time as somatic psychological, emotional, mental, and touch communication leads our clients 10 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS spiritual. A more fully balanced and is well explored in twentieth century Gravity is a little understood source integrated body allows a greater efficiency psychology, specifically in childhood of energy which shapes the whole and greater energy. development by Swiss psychologist universe . . . From the experiential Jean Piaget (1896-1960). He introduced point of view it is of all-pervasive When discussing the psychological effects of the idea that developmental stages of importance. Though we are barely SI, most practitioners point to the emotional children, particularly in early childhood, aware of this unseen force working episodes that they themselves or their clients are directly connected to the physical world its effect upon us, all our experiences have experienced during SI sessions. David by sensorimotor engagement, and that have the imprint of the structure Lesondak, in his recent book Fascia: What It thinking and feeling are not differentiated that it imposes. The attainment of Is and Why It Matters, refers to these episodes as separate functions until the later stages erect posture accrues emotional as somatoemotional releases (SERs), which of childhood, usually after seven years of significance and comes in itself to he describes as a change or release of age, when intellectual capacities such as symbolize individuality, integrity, mechanical tension in the body coinciding mathematics and language are developed and power (Burford 1998, 24). with emotional response, often in cases of (Wikipedia). Until then, thinking and feeling PTSD (Lesondak 2017, 89). Explained from Simply put, early interaction with the are not differentiated; this is sometimes a Reichian point of view, the rationale is that physical environment in childhood creates thought of as a magical period where a once the emotional ‘body armor’ is removed, the future personality in all aspects. child’s thoughts, desires, and feelings are a release of heretofore restricted energies merged, as, for example, by Joseph Chilton Two spatial dimensions, according to results. Significantly, Rolf cast aspersions on Pearce (1977) in his book Magical Child. Burford, are of particular importance. the importance of such emotional releases: The first is the up/down axis as a result Built upon Piaget’s insight, the People think that just because they of the need to resist gravity, which she contemporary field of childhood psychology get tremendous release of emotion identifies as an assertion of self. The second was born. In the 1930s psychotherapist they’re getting help. This is so dimension relates to objects outside the Margaret Lowenfeld (1890-1973) developed much a part of the current ideas of child, especially sources of nurturance such innovative therapy techniques of play, such the culture. You’ll get people who as parents. In her view, these two spatial as sandbox games and drawing to discern are working with a therapist who conditions, when optimally met, lead to a a child’s emotional landscape, reminiscent say, “I can’t really get that scream healthy individual, independent but also of those used today in art therapy. One of out.” Make it clear that you are integrated with the outside world. Lowenfeld’s disciples, Elizabeth Burford, doing work to bring that person wrote a little-known book, published in While ‘up’ is usually a positive and ‘down’ to a greater spatial integration; 1998 with the intriguing title, Gravity and is a negative in Burford’s cosmology, the emotional release is like a pebble on the Creation of Self: An Exploration of Self psychotherapist points out there is one the path. Respect it but don’t spend Representations Using Spatial Concepts. In the area in relation to ‘down’ that expresses a lot time analyzing it (1978b, 151). book, the author focuses on the emotional a positive, and that is the feeling of being A Pebble on the Path: life of children in early development close to the earth: and her remarks concerning the spatial ‘Spatial Integration’ and But there is one spatial idea interactions in the gravity field resound, as Emotional Transformation involving lowness which goes if written by Rolf herself. against this generalization, feeling The relationship between psychological We live in a three-dimensional ‘close to the earth’ is understood development and spatial relationships world, subject to the force of gravity to be a good, satisfying experience which grounds us. This force has probably associated with continuity been one of the main determinants of loving care in infancy . . . (Burford of our physical shape during the 1998, 29). evolution of mankind. Spatial One cannot help but note that this idea is concepts are developed as we learn reminiscent of the ‘grounding’ concepts to maneuver ourselves around in associated with Bioenergetic Analysis the real world attempting to satisfy developed by Alexander Lowen in the our basic needs. These spatial ideas, 1930s and intended to rebalance the upper- reflecting a world dominated by the pole orientation by reaffirming the ‘lower’ energy force of gravity, are used to energies, especially the sexual ones. place objects, including ourselves, in our version of the concrete world. From a mechanical point of view, the These positions are then used to concept of support in the gravitational indicate emotional states (Burford field is physical; our bodies hold us up. 1998, 8). But there is also the psychological concept of support, usually related to issues of the And this quote as well: emotions and nurturance. Traditionally, in The erect living object on earth psychoanalysis, this emotional component uses energy from within itself to focuses on an individual’s relationship “Tower” 1991. Sandstone, wood, wire, defy the downward pull of gravity. with the mother. The close relationship nails (8’x2’x2’). www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 11 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS between these two concepts of support, a pathway to healing, wholeness, and Being the first responders to terrestrial the mechanical in terms of the earth integration on a psychological level, even gravitational forces, it was plants who and the psychological in terms of the if an individual has suffered “neurotic first engaged the problem of maintaining mother, is borne out in our vocabulary. disturbance” in childhood. equilibrium in the gravitational field The origins of the words matter, mother, by using specialized cells to orient matrix are associated with, if not derived simultaneously in two directions – upwards from, the Latin word, mater, or ‘mother’ and downwards using roots and shoots, (Online Etymology Dictionary). While it is which a Rolfer might call palintonicity. It is commonly accepted that in psychoanalysis thus to the vegetative kingdom, rather than the therapeutic process focuses a great the animal kingdom, that we owe gratitude deal on the relationship of the client to for our evolution to uprightness. the mother, the notion, however, that an Though a great deal of attention has been emotional relationship is established with paid to fascia by researchers in the past the earth similar to and related to the twenty years, Rolf’s original insight into relationship with the mother as part of the role of mechanical forces, specifically living in the gravitational field is startling gravity, in shaping life aligns with the recent and mind-bending, and, I believe, an developments of contemporary science. The important consideration in the SI process. study and research of mechanotransduction The well-known psychoanalyst, C.F. – biochemical responses at a cellular level Rycroft, in discussing vertigo, for to mechanical influences – is a staple in example, uses this theme in explaining the the modern laboratory. As the title of her relationship between vertical alignment and book Rolfing and Physical Reality indicates, neurosis. He is quoted by Burford saying: Rolf understood the primacy of mechanical forces in shaping the human response to Vertigo is a sensation which occurs “Cone” 1994. Sandstone, wood, wires, the gravitational field to create a greater when one’s sense of equilibrium nails (5’x3’x3’). efficiency. She also declared that this is threatened. To an adult it is a same restructuring of a human’s body in sensation which is usually, though Though uprightness in evolution is usually the gravitational field plays a vital role by no means always, associated associated with the animal kingdom and in psychological transformation. At the with the maintenance of the erect then humans, the response to challenges of root of this declaration was her unproven posture, and there is, therefore, gravity was first taken up on land by plants. assertion that psychological maturity a tendency to think of giddiness A remarkable article published in 2016 accompanies physical maturity when exclusively in terms of such by two scientists, Tabir Najrana and Juan there is a movement away from use of the relatively mature anxieties as fear Sanchez-Esteban, “Mechanotransduction extrinsic muscles and to intrinsic muscles of falling over or the fear of heights as an Adaptation to Gravity,” describes the for postural stability. and to forget that infants, long evolutionary process of life first appearing before they can stand, experience in the sea thirty million years ago and then The business of living in extrinsics threats to their equilibrium and that moving on land four million years ago. is characteristic of the very young; some of their earliest activities such Whereas gravity was easily neutralized in it is characteristic of the immature. I as grasping and clinging represents the oceans by buoyancy, once life forms do not know, it may be that as long attempts to maintain the security of moved from an aquatic to a terrestrial as you preeminently use extrinsic being supported by the mother. As environment, a new set of responses needed muscles you are immature. Perhaps the infant learns to crawl and later to develop. These responses began at a maturity occurs as you begin to get to walk, the supporting function cellular level as certain cells specialized and intrinsics into the picture and bring of the mother is increasingly taken developed biochemical signals in response both to a balance (Rolf 1978b, 125). over by the ground; this must be to changes in gravitational forces. As a result of the SI process and more one of the main reasons why the In spite of the more or less constant efficient use of intrinsic muscles, the earth is unconsciously thought of gravitational force on Earth, physical transformation also has a as the mother and why neurotic mechanical load of organisms psychological effect: disturbances of equilibrium can so on land is approximately 1,000 frequently be traced back to conflicts If a Rolfer aligns a person times larger than in water. About 4 about the dependence on the mother appropriately, his behavior will be million years ago, the first terrestrial (Burford 1998, 35). more what we label mature. That organisms, plants appeared on the goes whether the kid is five or fifteen The implications here are twofold. land from the sea. The terrestrial or twenty-five or fifty-five. At fifty- First, psychological development of the plants have adapted to and evolved five we don’t call him immature; individual from infancy through adulthood on the land environment, so that they we call him neurotic. But it is the is expressed by the vibrancy and vitality can extend their roots downward in same problem; he’s stuck in an of vertical alignment. Second, the correct the soil and their shoots upward early place. As you align his body in relationship in the gravitational field to against 1 x g (Najrana and Sanchez- accordance with the structure that is the earth or ground potentially provides Esteban 2016).

12 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

of Rolf’s thinking when she said that orients to the space in front of our bodies emotional episodes are merely pebbles which we can see, work with our hands, on the path. This differentiation between and walk toward. The overall neutrality the psychological and the emotional is in gravity is easily lost in deference to the important to be noted by many practitioners many tasks that lay in front and ahead of who tend to identify the two as identical. us – simply, form adapting to function. Evolution guarantees functioning adaptive But if the up/down polarity is so endemic structures to the overall challenges in our and a natural part of evolution as presented environment, not necessarily the best one in “Mechanotransduction as an Adaptation suited to gravity. to Gravity”, why do clients walk into our office misaligned and completely unaware Thus, despite the protests about the of the gravitational field? constancy and objectivity of the gravitational field, space turns out to be anything but – Spatial Bias our interaction with space is perceptual A relatively unexplored issue in the field and this is why Godard referred to it as the of somatics is the problem of what I call symbolic. This is why SI, at its highest point spatial bias. Godard himself comments on of delivery, begins with understanding, “Off the Wall” 1990. Sandstone, wood, directional spatial bias. “If you ask a person insight, awareness, and sometimes even a wires, nails (4’x4’x18’). to point to the sky, you can see that there change in consciousness. Rolf (1978b, 87) are two different ways to point to the sky: recognized the difficulty of the task when written into the tissue itself, you get one comes from the ground and the other she said, “There is something about the fact evidence of more mature behavior comes from the upper body” (Newton 1992, that we live in the gravitational field which (Rolf 1978, 100). 48). Godard comments further, “To have the makes us insensitive to the recognition of that field. So we always have to keep pulling Psychology and Rolf capacity for fight and flight, the two . . . if it in intellectually.” Movement® Integration you are only ‘up’ you have no grounding. If you are a pusher, you have a tendency The client who walks across the threshold To understand more completely Rolf’s to be stuck in the structure, on the ground, of our office or studio has an opportunity to intent and the psychological import of SI, and to change the stuff around you” cleanse the spatial doors of perception and we have to turn to another Rolfer, Hubert (Newton 1992, 46). to rediscover himself as a singular body in Godard, a movement teacher and member This is expressed not only in our attitudes relation to space as well as a singular body of the Rolf Institute® faculty known for but also in our language. Individuals want of space within space. The perceptual shift developing the Tonic Function Model, to be ‘up’ and not ‘down’. We want to ‘walk that SI requires then has the potential of which has been elucidated by Rolfers Kevin on air’ and not be ‘put down’. After death reconnecting the person with what might Frank and Aline Newton. I do not know we hope to go to ‘up to heaven’ rather than be called the intrinsic self or the adamantine his present viewpoint, but in 1992, when go ‘down to hell’. Anthropologist Edward self. Proprioception gives us a clue to interviewed by Aline Newton, psychology T. Hall (1914-2009) wrote a number of this potential. The Latin root of the word and Rolfing SI were for Godard integral books such as The Hidden Dimension (1990) proprioception is a combination of two with one another. Significantly, similar to exposing the differences in perception and words, proprius, or ‘one’s own’, and capio or Rolf he differentiates between the emotional behavior in relation to space embedded in capere, ‘to take or grasp’ (Wikipedia). Thus, and the psychological. “But to talk about various cultures and manifested in language. the literal meaning of proprioception is to the line,” commented Godard, “I need to be grasp one’s self. really open to [the] emotional around that Additionally, in our technological society and to use my skillfulness in psychological with its emphasis on the cerebral and The Rolfing Ten Series can be viewed and stuff, but the aim is not to have an emotional using tools such as cell phones, computers, presented as proprioceptive scaffolding, release” (Newton 1992, 44). automobiles, etc., there is also a heavy bias reorganizing not only the client’s body to the ‘upper pole’ and loss of connection to in relation to space but also the client’s He further explained that his goal is not the ‘lower pole’. In 1985, Joshua Meyrowitz spatial awareness. I have referred to this to deal with “neo-Reichian armor” but wrote the book No Sense of Place: The Impact of schematic in my previous article (Gottlieb to work directly on the ‘Line’ so that the Electronic Media on Social Behavior where he 2017, 30): “The ten-session series thus armor simply falls away. Once the client’s explored the displacing effect of television can be presented as a series of sessions to inner line is reinforced and greater access on social space, i.e., the elimination of reorganize the client’s directional awareness to the core is attained, often the problems face-to-face conversations. He could have of space: the first session, up or north pole; psychoanalysis was intended to solve will just as easily included a chapter on the the second session, down or south pole; the either drop away or be more easily handled disembodying effect of media on physical third session, sides; the fourth, fifth, sixth, in therapy. “I have often seen people in a space, a theme that, if anything, has and seventh sessions, center (lower), center, psychoanalytic process,” remarks Godard, amplified since the introduction of cell center, center (upper), respectively.” “who, with Rolfing [SI] giving supporting phones and computers. effect in the gravity system, make a very Spatial reorganization of the body and quick end to many years of psychoanalysis” And then there is the simple morphological perceptual shifts in relation to space shift (Newton 1992, 46). This is the explanation bias due to the design of our bodies, which the psyche and have the potential to initiate a spiritual journey. Existentialist

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 13 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS psychologist Karlfried Graf Dürckheim in as similar to neurotic patterns that block, modified. And that in modifying it, his classic The Way of Transformation: Daily but it is a pleasing idea nonetheless. you make available to the human Life as Spiritual Exercise explored posture Hubert Godard, a Rolfer who was also being the energy field of the Earth as a manifestation of personality and accomplished as a dancer and dance which surrounds him. And that commented on the effect of embodying teacher, demonstrates this point of view in even though we be unconscious of this center of gravity, which in Rolfing SI discussing the shoulder girdle, theoretically, the fact that we are working with we refer to as the Line: as a psychological point of freedom of the the energy field of the Earth, that body that often takes on psychosomatic this is truly what is giving us the This effort to attain the correct centre restrictions. “Because the arm, if free ability to change the situations of of gravity is the fundamental mental from gravity, it is full of emotion . . . the man, and of his feelings, and of practice by means of which we are The glenohumeral joint will reveal a lot his abilities, and of his acceptance, enabled to live in the world in the about where a person is psychologically. and of his general behavior to the right way. Thus resting in the basic And it makes sense, because the arm world around him. I think I am sorry centre, we are relaxed and free and is so free, it becomes a psychological to say, this is all of my message. But at the same time feel ourselves issue” (Newton 1992, 48). Removal of if you take it to heart, you’ll find supported (Dürckheim 1971, 38). restrictions to the shoulder girdle thus can you have quite something to think And: have a corresponding liberating effect on (Rolf 1978a). psychological restrictions in the individual. Understood in the personal sense While psychology is obviously included, my “centre of gravity” does not refer to view is that the concept of ‘consciousness’ any specific area, but to what we call would better serve in describing behavioral the root of personal or existential changes stimulated by SI. That change in life. Nevertheless, it is possible to consciousness begins with an awareness of perceive whether or not a person one’s body within space and in relation to is properly rooted in his physical the gravitational field, again the ‘embodied body. When a man has found this self’. A term in vogue, nowadays, is correct centre of gravity in his planetary consciousness. I would assert, body he can open himself to the in the spirit of getting the physics under forces that lie at the essential core the metaphysics, that the idea of planetary of life and anchor himself therein consciousness begins with the individual’s (Dürckheim 1971, 67). physical relationship with the planet as a physical entity, what Dr. Rolf might describe Psychological as aligning the smaller gravitational field Transformation that is man with the larger gravitational If spatial relationships become a field of field that is earth. It is the Rolfer’s job to play cleared of bias, what Dürckheim help do just that. viewed as ego attachment, the potential Author’s Note: I would like to add a note of for meaningful healing and psychological thanks to Rolf Movement® Instructor and transformation now are introduced. Certified Advanced Rolfer Kevin Frank for Interestingly and perhaps significantly, this correspondence and conversation about Hubert same process takes place in art as well. Otto Godard, saving me from entering the ‘extrinsic/ Rank, Freud’s disciple, modeled his therapy intrinsic muscle’ morass. as a tension between neurosis and creativity “Polymonolith l” 1990. Sandstone, wood, wire, nails (10’x8’x2’). with the goal of removing obstacles and Szaja Gottlieb first received Rolfing sessions restrictions to the development of the in 1978, which resulted in him becoming personality which might then manifest in Conclusion a stone sculptor, which, in turn, led to his works of art. From his point of view these becoming a Rolfer in 2001. He lives with his To be clear, as Rolf stated, psychological wife Ko and daughter Judith and practices in works of art were a record of the artist’s transformation in and of itself was never transformation. Many biographies charting San Luis Obispo, California. He believes in the the goal of Rolfing SI; but transformation, transformational potency of SI. the voyage of the artist by analyzing his such as is experienced in various disciplines work echo this point of view. like yoga, meditation, and practices such as Bibliography art, was. In her remarkable address, entitled This psychoanalytic model of neurosis, in Burford, E. 1998. Gravity and the Creation “Structure: A New Factor in Understanding fact, is a mirror image of the SI process and of Self: An Exploration of Self Representations the Human Condition” in 1978 at the its potential for supporting transformation. Using Spatial Concepts. London and Explorers of Humankind Conference in Los Removal of restrictions and fixations is Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. akin to reducing neurotic attachment Angeles, Rolf declared her truth: “structure with the aim of returning what might be determines behavior.” Dürckheim, K.G. 1971. The Way of Transformation: Daily Life as Spiritual referred to as flow on a somatic and psychic As far as I am concerned, this is the Exercise. London: Unwin Hyman Limited. level. It is perhaps overly simplistic to message of structure, that structure think of body fixations and restrictions even within human beings can be

14 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Gottlieb, S. 2017 Mar. “The Art of Rolfing® SI and the Art of Sculpture, Part 1: Seeing, The Co-emergence Embodiment and Space.” Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® 45(1):28-32. of Mind-Body-Spirit Hall, E. 1990. The Hidden Dimension. New York: Anchor Books/Random House Inc. Considerations for Practitioner, Client, and the Potential for Change Lesondak, D. 2017. Fascia: What It Is and Why It Matters. Pencaitland, Scotland: By Anne Hoff, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Teacher of the Diamond Approach® Handspring Press. Meyrowitz, J. 1985. No Sense of Place: The In the province of the mind, what is same way. To use a word common to Rolfing Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. believed to be true is true or becomes true, SI and also known in spiritual work, I wasn’t New York and Oxford: Oxford University within limits to be found experientially embodied despite being young, healthy, Press. and experimentally. These limits are uninjured, and relatively fit. further beliefs to be transcended. In the Experiencing the Ten Series in 1987, I was Najrana, T. and J. Sanchez-Esteban 2016. province of the mind there are no limits. “Mechanotransduction as an Adaptation to fortunate to have a Rolfer, Richard Podolny, Gravity” Frontiers in Pediatrics 2016(4)140. John Lilly, MD (Lilly 1972, xv-xvi) who was deeply cognizant of the mind- body-spirit connection and knew that he Available at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ Introduction articles/PMC5183626/ (retrieved 5/15/2018). was in the business of transformation. None I first learned about Rolfing® Structural of this was particularly explicit – he was Newton, A. 1992 Winter. “An Interview Integration (SI) reading The Center of the taking me through a classic Ten Series – but with Hubert Godard.” Rolf Lines 20(1):42-48. Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space, it was an underlying thread. With the Ten Online Etymology Dictionary: John Lilly’s account of his explorations Series, I landed in my body in a new way www.etymonline.com/word/matter with dolphins, LSD, isolation tanks, Esalen, – and that was a crucial element to other (retrieved 5/15/2018). Rolfing SI, Arica, etc. For me, Rolfing SI significant growth processes in my life. has always been part of a larger context Pearce, J.C. 1977. Magical Child. New York: A core premise of many spiritual paths is of mind-body-spirit integration – or what Penguin Books. to be ‘present’, to be in the ‘now’. As Ram I’m coming to recognize as mind-body- Dass famously said, ‘Be here now’. What Rank, O. 1935/1968. Art and the Artist: spirit coemergence. In this article I will share is that directive but a set of coordinates Creative Urge and Personality Development. some of the tools and understandings on axes of time and space? We can only New York: Agathon Press. that have been most beneficial to my grow and develop if we first locate ourselves understanding of the interplay of Rolfing SI Rolf, I.P. 1978a. “Structure: A New in both the current moment (time) and in the and consciousness, both for my own growth Factor in Understanding the Human body (space). This means freeing ourselves and when working with clients. Condition.” Audiotape from the Explorers of ways that we live in the past, and of Humankind Conference in Los Angeles. A Discussion of Rolfing SI ways we try to project ourselves into an idealized future. Rolf, I.P. 1978b. Rolfing and Physical Reality. and Consciousness On a mental level we can cling to the past R. Feitis, ed.. Rochester, Vermont: Healing We will begin with some broad strokes by, for example, clinging to an old identity, Arts Press. looking at Rolfing SI as a holistic, like the role we had in our family as a child. transformational process that fosters Wikipedia. “Jean Piaget,” We go to the future if our goals and ideals embodiment, at the implications of the Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, have implicit in them a rejection of where ‘Line’, at Rolfing history, and at how https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index. we are in the moment: we are not okay Rolfing SI is a good opener of consciousness php?title=Jean_Piaget&oldid=839126116 until we reach that idealized place. On an but not in itself a path with a map and a (retrieved 5/15/2018). emotional level we can, for example, cling to methodology to explore consciousness. Wikipedia. “Proprioception,” Wikipedia, old relationships, or again negate our present The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia. Embodiment experience by feeling that we can’t be happy unless certain things come to pass. Even if org/w/index.php?title=Proprioception&old I didn’t come to Rolfing SI as a client we are not projecting into the future, we can id=834541677 (retrieved 5/15/2018). because of pain. I had poor posture, but that use fantasy and daydreaming in the present wasn’t really in my awareness until I saw moment as a way to be other-than-present. the comparison of my ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos. Rather, I sensed that my body was in Being ‘present’ means being in the body. some way disconnected, undeveloped. My This supports being in the now if one is in mind was sharp, and I had begun opening touch with sensation. Yet there are many more to my emotions, as well as pursuing ways the past is held in the body. How longstanding interests in spirituality. But my often do you see a client whose structure (or body had not found its place in this journey, part of it) looks childish? Or have a client was not partaking of it and developing in the tell you, “I have my father’s feet”? And old

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 15 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS injuries, of course, are the imprints of past goal was to resolve an old ankle injury that begins to enter nondual and nonconceptual events; the physical deficit from the injury periodically caused foot pain. He once said terrain that challenges the egoic self. Thus, may be current, but there’s often other to me something along the lines of, “I wish I do not believe that Rolfing SI alone is an layers of content from the past that overlay I could put my foot in a box, send it to you adequate vehicle for consciousness work. that objective limitation. So when we come to be worked on, and have you send it An opener, yes. A path, no. into the body what we are often present to back.” The process of receiving bodywork We know some things about psychology first are imprints from our past (and these did not engage his curiosity. His motivation from our training (e.g., concepts of may underpin a familiar sense of self, as was ‘second paradigm’ (see the schema transference and countertransference), and will be discussed later). Note John Lilly’s developed by Jeff Maitland; 1993). we know about consciousness, particularly experience of Peter Melchior working on his I find that a large proportion of Rolfing as it relates to the psychobiological and foot, cut deeply by an axe in an old injury: clients are oriented primarily to the energetic taxonomies, so we are able to help Suddenly I realized that I had physical. Sometimes the intake interview our clients metabolize many of the shifts blocked the pain in the original reveals other layers, but there’s often a engendered by our work. But our Rolfing experience. This scar had held the reticence unless the person is engaged in training does not give us the knowledge to potential of that pain ever since. It other mental, emotional, or spiritual work effectively and ethically become spiritual also had a basic traumatic memory . . . (e.g., trauma therapy). It is important to teachers or consciousness guides any more I had favored that foot, favored meet the client where s/he is, and also to than it prepares us to be psychologists. For that region of the foot, and had be open to seeing where the work goes as either, specialized training – and personal not completed the hole that was s/he is impacted by it. experience of the terrain – is required. left in my body image there. The Rolfing [SI] allowed this hole to fill What Rolfing SI Paths of Consciousness Work Can and Cannot Do in, allowed my posture to improve In the past, many teachings on consciousness in respect to that foot and the What can open when we engage the fascia, occurred in mystery schools, or required realization of the pain passed away or align the body in gravity? In my Unit 2, as the full surrender of one’s personal life to (Lilly 1972, 107). Pedro Prado led an exercise on sensing the become a monastic. These days we live in a veritable spiritual supermarket – you can As we explore the body of our history, ‘Line’ while standing, I began to experience try on many teachings to find what suits we begin to unwind the old impressions my body as an effulgence of energy; it was you. And it can also lead you astray, as the and find that we can be here in a body a bit frightening, and made me slightly ‘seeker’ can go from teaching to teaching, of now. If this exploration is open to and nauseous. Moving slightly off the Line tasting but never deeply engaging inner aware of shifts in consciousness, another returned me to familiar experience. Rolfer work. It is the rare individual who finds level of transformation opens, what I Will Johnson, who regularly speaks to and realization without a path – the ego will describe as body as portal – the possibility voluminously writes about Rolfing SI and always attempt to appropriate the spiritual of experiencing with immediacy that the consciousness, spoke to the power of the journey for its own goals. Part of the function body is a vehicle of human consciousness, Line in his article “The Line As a Mudra of a teacher and a path is help expose this a doorway to other realms. of Transformation”: ‘spiritual materialism’ (Trungpa 2002). A Different Culture . . . The embodiment of the Line creates a mudra (a bodily gesture or I was fortunate that openings of consciousness Although Rolfing SI can open consciousness posture) of transformation capable led me to find a spiritual teaching that I could through the body, the client does not of generating a radical and profound ‘harness myself to’. This may seem like a always run with this. This may be for shift in embodied consciousness . . . strange expression, but it expresses a level any number of reasons to do with either The shift in consciousness that I am of engagement that allows one to effectively practitioner or client, but I believe there referring to here takes one from an do inner work. As I’ve discussed elsewhere is also a cultural factor at play. In the late exclusive and isolated awareness of (Hoff and Knight 2017), my twenty-plus 1960s and early 1970s, when Ida Rolf was at egoic self that experiences itself as years engaged in Rolfing SI as a student and Esalen and establishing the Rolf Institute®, separate from everything it perceives practitioner has overlapped almost exactly clients came to Rolfing SI wanting holistic to exist outside of the body to an with my time in the Diamond Approach, transformation, and they were often inclusive and palpable awareness of again as a student and later a teacher. Each engaged in other forms of transformational self that is profoundly embedded in, discipline has fed insight and development work such as therapy, encounter groups, and deeply connected to, what has to the other, supporting my personal meditation, etc. It was a grand experiment traditionally been referred to as the development and my work. Interestingly, on all levels, with openness and curiosity “ground of being.” All the spiritual Rolf also used this term ‘harness’ in a similar and passion. In that environment, it was traditions speak of this dimension of way: speaking about the need to study to not strange for Rolf to be talking about the experience (Johnson 1999, 33). attain a mastery of ‘form’ that would make potential of her work to contribute to the the practice of Rolfing [SI] easy, she quoted So Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement® work evolution of a new human being. Robert Frost’s line “You have freedom when can elicit radical shifts in body experience you’re easy in your harness” (Rolf 1978, 182). Now? Not so much. A client comes to mind, related to consciousness. Rolf created a tech guy busy with work, family; not a a potent methodology, but she did not The Diamond Approach is particularly ‘seeker’. He did fix-it work with me, and create a map for traversing the shifts in suited to those with an interest in the body the Ten Series. Throughout, his overriding consciousness Johnson describes, where one and in psychology. It is a path of developing

16 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS presence that includes active exploration pleasing, withdrawn, petulant, . . . Each session was a difficult and of the body through inner sensing and stubborn styles, for example, extraordinary initiation. My sixth breath work, and the work of students and become a uniform we wear in was particularly hard: I had one teachers over the decades has brought forth relationships – our suit of armor . . . of those tight high butts, that are a detailed ‘map’ of how different states of As Reich’s work progressed considered cute and sexy, but are consciousness typically bring forth certain scientifically, his focus turned to very painful to live with . . . [My types of issues or challenges for the psyche. the body and the way it mirrors husband] was out of town when In this sense, it deeply interrelates body the character in all systems. He I had my sixth. We had a bedtime mind-spirit. found that our bodies embody the ritual of going to sleep on our bellies template of our personalities and side by side; as we were settling, he Fortunately, there is a trend in other spiritual conform to those dictates . . . When would reach over and pat me on schools too to be more body-inclusive we are armored . . . the energy flow the bottom and say “Good night, (rather than body-transcendent), with some throughout our body is impeded. honey.” The first night that he was Buddhist teachers bringing in body-based We may experience this as a lack home after my sixth session, he practices or, in the case of Johnson, bringing of sensation, aliveness, a stiffness reached over to pat me as usual. bodywork into meditation retreats (Johnson or tension. Armor can develop into Then the light went on, and Sam et al. 2013; Hoff 2015). painful sensation if places in our was sitting up in bed, throwing Three Gatekeepers body have chronic holding or are back the covers, exclaiming, “What to Consciousness under-charged. So our physicality happened to your ass?” speaks as well as our voice. Our Similarly, our sense of identity is also Now let’s look at three elements that I armoring reduces our creative based on an inner body-image and self- consider ‘gatekeepers’ to consciousness and capacity, our natural expression of representations. As noted by A.H. Almaas, how they can affect our consciousness as a our unique Self (Frisch 2013). practitioner, the client’s consciousness, and founder of the Diamond Approach: the potential for change in a Rolfing session. The structuring of mind (character) and “According to psychoanalytic object These are: 1) body armor as a manifestation body creates an ‘armor’ that maintains relations theory, body-image actually of ego and self-image; 2) the inner critic a bound body shape and the familiar forms the core of the self-image. The self- as an inertial and repressive force; and defenses of our personality (Figure 1). We image forms as self-representations are 3) not-knowing. know from Rolf that fascia is the organ of gradually built around the experience of structure; our familiar tensions and shape the body image” (Almaas 1986, 28). In Underlying all of these, and weaving are part of how we know ourselves and Diamond Approach private sessions, the between them, is the question of openness each other, as noted by Heather Starsong student explores any self-representations (receptivity). Nothing – body, mind (2009, 6), describing an experience with her brought forth by the work. These may be (including emotions), or spirit – will change husband during her Rolfing series: images of oneself at a certain age (accurate easily if we are not open. The epigraph that or distorted); images or the felt sense of opens this article speaks to this. I’ll repeat it here with one adjustment, changing ‘mind’ to ‘individual consciousness’ to cover our broader and co-emergent territory of body- mind-spirit: In the province of the [individual consciousness], what is believed to be true is true or becomes true, within limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the [individual consciousness] there are no limits (Lilly 1972, xv-xvi). Body Armor Wilhelm Reich (1945/1972) developed the concepts of character armor and body armor. Reich was initially a student of Freud, but diverged to follow his own path that became much more body-based and was concerned with liberating life energy. Reich called our habitual demeanor, stance and attitude character Figure 1: Body/character armor is akin to medieval armor. It defines our shape and self- image; limits sensation and mobility; restricts perception and emergy; and is defensive armor. Our dominant, submissive, in nature.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 17 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS objects in the body (e.g., a metal shield over what you are open to, how many layers the heart, a robotic apparatus in the ocular of body-mind-spirit you are willing to be segment; a sense of holes or wounds in areas present with. I remember watching Liz of the body; a sense of various materials in Gaggini do visceral work with a client the body or body segments (plastic, metal, who had a long and medically challenging wood, glass . . . ); or a sense of colors or history with asthma, including emergency energies in the body or body segments. It is hospitalizations. As Liz worked with the also possible for such material to arise when pleura, the client, balked: “Oh, it’s dark in working with the body through Rolfing SI there.” [Liz is a master at working many or another bodywork modality. I once was layers; there is much to be gleaned from doing bodywork on a client’s abdomen and my interview with her: “SI on All Cylinders: asked her what she felt under my hands. I An Interview with Liz Gaggini” (Hoff and expected her to describe bodily sensation, Gaggini 2015).] such as ‘tight’ or ‘sore’, but she said ‘there’s Almaas (1986, 104) notes: “Inner change a spikey machine in there’. must involve a change in self-image. When body images and self images are Otherwise the change is either temporary dissolved at the level of the psyche or soul, or it is no change at all, hidden behind a a common experience is the arising of space: new form of the old.” A client resistant Figure 2: The inner critic limits the scope to a shift in identity will most likely resist “. . . The more the rigid boundaries of our consciousness through its carrot- change to the tension patterns that are of the self are made porous and and-stick approach of (seemingly) positive part of the shaping of identity, or else will dissolved . . . the experience of one’s and negative directives. quickly reconstitute them. According to self and one’s mind as open, pure Rolf, “There comes a time . . . when you see spaciousness, an empty clear space, there will be a limitation on the openness, that your [client] is able to align himself, but becomes increasingly available . . . and therefore the transformative potential he doesn’t want to do it . . . There is always In the experience of spaciousness of the work. This limitation arises because a physical factor in him which doesn’t want and openness, one experiences the the inner critic is the guardian of whatever to do it; there is often a psychological factor absence of emotional heaviness and status quo solidified out of the childhood involved as well. There is the problem of a release of the sense of burden. relationship with the parents. In a sense, a self-image – the image that he is trying There is mental clarity and a you as a child were like a wild horse that to project in the world . . . He will revert lucidity of perception. All the senses your parents had to domesticate. In doing and try to project that image, even when become sharper, as if cleansed that, they built a corral to contain you, and he is able to project another image, until and rejuvenated. The body feels the bars of the corral are your parents’ he sees a light and gets into his realization light, relaxed, agile, and buoyant. values and prohibitions. The inner critic’s that there are other images that might be It is similar to the experience of job is to keep you in that corral. Anything more desirable . . . Some people say that the being in a clear open space with that questions its limits, that seeks to minute you get the idea that another image fresh and crisp air – as if on the expand it, is threatening to the inner critic. might be more desirable you are changing top of a high mountain on a clear ‘karma’” (Rolf 1978, 85). Individuals with There are many ways a client’s inner critic day, or on a broad beach – but it is weak ego structures will also often need can show up, both (seemingly) positive experienced inside. And ultimately it their tension patterns: they are challenged and negative (see Figure 2). One vivid becomes clear that we are not a subject by a sense of inner fragmentation, so body appearance was when I asked a client to experiencing this spaciousness – we are tension may be important for their sense feel into her body pattern of hunching the spaciousness (Almaas 1986, 22-23; of coherence. forward. That posture could have come italics added for emphasis). from computer work, or from holding young The Inner Critic Thus, working with either physical body children, we didn’t know. When I asked her boundaries (fascia, tension patterns) or Our next gatekeeper to consciousness is to describe it, she said, “My father is behind self-images can dramatically shift both the inner critic (what Freud called the me with a big stick and he’s going to hit me.” felt sense and identity. Touching fascia, ‘superego’). The inner critic is a mental More commonly, the inner critic shows up we are directly engaging body armor, and structure that forms in childhood from the as the client’s critique of his/her body (too therefore character armor. Going further, edicts and messages of parents, teachers, fat, legs too short, etc.). (As taught in Rolfing Johnson (1993, 41) believes we are engaging and other authority figures. It served a and Rolf Movement training, it’s important the ego itself: “Ego . . . is simply a function role in childhood (we all had to learn not to speak to the client in ways that do not of bodily holding, of the particular pattern to run into the street, not to touch the hot reinforce these messages, otherwise we are a of chronic muscular tensing through which stove, etc.), but it remains operative past stand-in for the inner critic.). The inner critic our bodies most familiarly resist gravity.” childhood – until / unless you learn a way can also show up in blanket self-judgment: to disengage from it. “I hate my body.” (No child is born feeling Why do some clients experience more self-hatred (rejection of the self); it is learned transformation – of structure, as well as of The inner critic shows up in all realms of behavior, an internalization of the inner other elements of being – than others during life, including Rolfing sessions. As long as critic.) Or the critic may show up as the client Rolfing work? Perhaps it’s a question of it’s present – whether for Rolfer or client – being overly skeptical of the Rolfing process

18 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS before giving it a chance, or critical of the the scope of this article. Ultimately, it is we succumb to fear and inner-critic attack, results if they don’t meet some very high bar. experiential work. For more guidance, or do we find the place that is curious and please see the list of Inner Critic Resources says, “hmmm, I’ll put my hands on the body On the Rolfer’s side, your inner critic may at the end of this article. and see what I find”? give a running commentary in your head evaluating your work. The messages will Not-Knowing Taking payment ups the ante, as you may be unique to you and your vulnerabilities feel that you need to know definitively how Rolfing training has been described as a (based on childhood themes), but for most to help someone if money is going to be mystery school. There’s so much to learn, people there will be messages around exchanged. Rather, as with any wellness with the paradox being that you have to do competency, knowledge, results, being a or healthcare activity, the payment is for it to learn to do it. One of the greatest gifts fake, etc. There are also manifestations of your time (and the efforts you have put of my Rolfing training was when the Unit the critic that may seem positive; maybe it into training and practice). Your obligation, 3 assistant said something like, “I didn’t praises you when you’ve done something at its most basic, is to be present with all know what I was doing for the first nine it considers good – but there’s usually the of yourself with all of the client, and to years I was in practice. It still worked, and implicit caveat of “you’d better keep up see what comes through based on both then I gradually came to understand why that behavior.” Or it shows up in ideals – your learned and ‘stored’ knowledge and it worked.” often unattainable – that you have to meet your in-the-moment experience through to be okay. Most people are challenged by not-knowing the trained palpatory instruments of (Figure 3), which is our third gatekeeper. your hands. Rolf said, “[The client] and When the inner critic is in the Rolfing room, But before we can know something, we have to I form one for at least the time that I’m openness is stifled. Your inner critic (or the not-know. Not-knowing creates receptivity working. Look and feel. A guy walks in client’s critic directed at you) is going to to learning, to direct knowing, and to displaying all kinds of things that talk to limit the potential for you to do your best guidance. Yet our culture places great value you. You don’t need feedback – you need to work; on the client’s side, the critic will on knowing. Most of us have had some look at what’s there” (Rolf 1978, 96). limit his/her potential to be receptive and experience of being put on the spot about open to receiving the full benefits of the There is value to all that we have learned what we know – called on by the teacher work and letting them ripple through his/ (‘stored’ knowledge), and all that we when we weren’t prepared, a pop quiz, etc.; her mind-body-spirit. Thus, we encourage can learn (‘future’ knowledge) through such experiences leave a sense of deficiency positivity and ease during the body reading research, consultation with peers, and or shame about not-knowing. (prime time for the client’s inner critic to continuing education, but when you are arise), and speak and touch at all times in Once we are in practice, there’s plenty of with the client the primary demand is to the ways that “evoke” rather than “demand” opportunity for more not-knowing. Clients now as that is the only place anything can (Rolf 1978, 94). walk through the door with all sorts of happen. You want access to your knowledge things we’ve never seen or heard about. Do of anatomy, but that map can rest in the Defending against and disengaging from we cling to rote application of the ‘Recipe’, background of your consciousness while the inner critic is a big topic, beyond do we stress over our anatomy books, do you allow an open spaciousness in the forefront. That spaciousness will draw in any stored knowledge that is needed; it will give you guidance about what to study later; but, most importantly, it will put you in living contact with the client’s being and allow an immediacy that will direct your work far more effectively than your conventional mind. In this immediacy there can be a direct knowing unmediated by our stored knowledge. Not-knowing invokes guidance. Have you ever been working on one part of a client’s body and had a thought arise, “I need to go to the left knee.” Do you take heed? If you don’t, what happens? And when you follow that guidance, what occurs? My most magical sessions tend to occur when I first consider all that I know about what the client brings in, and then go to work holding that lightly in an open field of waiting to discover what this particular client needs. That balance of knowing and Figure 3: Before knowing, there is not-knowing. Allowing not-knowing creates the space not-knowing, allowing both, tends to create for immediate knowing and guidance to arise, as well as the relaxation that allows the space for both immediate knowing access to ‘stored’ knowledge. and guidance.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 19 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Ultimately, the body is a mystery. New development (body, emotion, mind, spirit) published by Shambhala Publications, information will come to be known through become freed up? Can you be free of outside Boulder, Colorado.) research and science, and we will also learn agenda and open to your own potential? Brown, B. 1999. Soul Without Shame. Boston: through our own experience. The unfolding Can you allow knowledge/guidance to Shambhala Publications. of the mystery is greatly compounded when arise independent of your conditioned we open to the domain of ‘body as portal’ mind? We are involved in a wonderful Frisch, P. 2013. “Reich’s Concept of and begin to explore inner phenomena and body of work that has the potential to Armoring.” The Orgonomic Institute spiritual mind-body states. What happens ignite this exploration and guide us into of Northern California website to your experience of your own body transformative inner space. https://orgonomictherapy.com/2013/07/29/ if you allow that you truly don’t know armoring/ (retrieved 5/18/2018). In the Diamond Approach we use the what a body is? What happens in your expression ‘open and open-ended’. That Hoff, A. and G. Knight 2017 Mar. “Body Rolfing practice? This openness leads to an means that there’s a fundamental posture as ’Portal’: An Exploration of Rolfing® SI incredible journey. of openness, and that we don’t posit any and the Diamond Approach®. Structural Reprise on Openness particular goal. This view allows the inner Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® journey to open to unexpected vistas. The 45(1):16-19. The theme of openness interweaves through same view can inform our Rolfing practices these elements under discussion – body Hoff, A. 2015 Jul. “Will Johnson’s Grand to open our work to increasing awareness armor, inner critic, not-knowing – and how Experiment: What Happens When SI Meets of co-emergent mind-body-spirit. the three play into each other. To make that and Informs the Field of Meditation?” more explicit, here’s a few examples: Anne Hoff is a Certified Advanced Rolfer with Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf a practice in Seattle, Washington; her bodywork Institute® 43(2):55-58. • Body armor as fixed identity will help website is www.wholebodyintegration.com. hold the inner critic in place, as ego is Hoff, A. and L. Gaggini 2015 Jul. “SI on All She is also a teacher of the Diamond closely intertwined with inner critic Cylinders: An Interview with Liz Gaggini.” Approach, working with students in person (superego). Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf and by Skype; her website for that work is Institute® 43(2):58-63. • Body armor creates a familiar sense of www.InnerWorkForOurTimes.com. self, which includes a familiar mind and Johnson, W. 1999 Jan. “The Line As a Mudra Author’s note: Thanks to Szaja Gottlieb for familiar ways of thinking. Body armor of Transformation.” Rolf Lines 27(1):33-34. reading an earlier version of this article and will resist opening and letting go into pointing me to Ida Rolf’s parallel use of the Johnson, W., D. Newby, J. Ashley 2013 Jun. not-knowing, the doorway to new and word ‘harness’. “Eight Days in the Mountains: Bringing immediate knowing. SI into a Buddhist Meditation Retreat.” • The inner critic is the guardian of the Inner Critic Resources Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf status quo, so its agenda is to keep body • Soul Without Shame by Byron Brown Institute® 41(2):43-46. armor and identity in place, or else to set (1999) goes deeply into the Diamond Johnson, W. 1993. Balance of Body, Balance of unattainable goals for transformation Approach understanding of and Mind. Atlanta, Georgia: Humanics Limited. that effectively keep you stuck as methodology for defense against the you are. inner critic. Lilly, J.C. 1972. The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space. New York: • The inner critic is based on the values • I’ve written a number of posts on Bantam Books / Julian Press. and thinking of your parents, so it only different aspects of the inner critic wants you to know what they knew, and successful defense on my Maitland, J. 1993 Jun. “Das Boot.” Rolf Lines what they valued, and the lines in Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ 21(2):1-7. inquiry they endorsed. The inner critic AnneHoffDiamondApproach/). Reich, W. 1945/1972. Character Analysis. will attack you or shame you when you New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. do not know, so it will resist the space • I teach a weekend workshop called “Free Yourself from the Inner Critic” that is a of not-knowing that opens new thoughts Rolf, I.P. 1978. Ida Rolf Talks About Rolfing learning incubator for understanding and guidance. Further, the inner critic and Physical Reality. R. Feitis, ed. Boulder, and disengaging from the inner critic. does not want its role in guiding you to Colorado: The Rolf Institute®. [Later Classes are always announced on my be supplanted by true guidance. republished as Rolfing and Physical Reality by Facebook page. Healing Arts Press (Rochester, Vermont).] • Until one is comfortable with not- • I and other Diamond Approach teachers knowing and with opening (relaxing) Starsong, H. 2009 Mar. “In My Practice: work with students in person and by into it, the experience may trigger body- Receiving, Learning, Teaching, Becoming. . . .” Skype. See www.diamondapproach.org/ armor tension patterns. Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf teacher for a list of teachers. Institute® 37(1)6-8. • Likewise, not-knowing may trigger an inner-critic attack. Bibliography Trungpa, C. 2002. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Conclusion Almaas, A.H. 1986. The Void: Inner Spaciousness and Ego Structure. Berkeley, Publications. Can your body be open and permeable California: Diamond Books. (Subsequently to experience? Can areas of arrested

20 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

him about thirty minutes into The Dialogue of Touch his meditation. 3. A woman who was going for artificial Inspirations from Psychotherapy after insemination wanted her body and ® mind to be more receptive so she could Forty-Five Years of Rolfing Structural Integration get pregnant. By David Kirk-Campbell, BA, MFA, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, European 4. A fifteen-year-old girl who was active Certificate of Psychotherapy with multiple sexual partners wanted to have one partner. This article has four interrelated subjects: decide if we meet again.” The psychotherapy model values making explicit that which 5. A writer wanted more flow, more 1. Insights, precautions, and strategies is implicit in the practitioner and client acceptance of creative ideas when he from psychotherapy that I use in my sat down to write. Rolfing Structural Integration (SI) relationship. It is easier for the client to practice. say s/he wants to find another Rolfer in In these examples it was better for me the first session if the client is given the to know their real motivation. Knowing 2. How the unconscious and/or cell opportunity to express expectations for the their real motivation allowed me to both membranes of the client control when session. It makes it easier for me to stop after give more work to certain areas of the and if connective tissue and emotional the first meeting if I think s/he will benefit body and to focus my intention to invite change will take place. more from another Rolfer who has more them to integrate more permission to get 3. Invitation for all Rolfers and Rolfers- specificity for the client’s presenting topics. what they really want. Drinking without in-training to seek out psychotherapy spilling tea led me to include work with Psychotherapy emphasizes the need for a for increased self-awareness. the arms in every session. With more contract which clarifies the motivations of openness to meditation I simply worked 4. A film I have made, which gives Rolfers the client and gives the Rolfer an opportunity with ’no mind’, no expectations. When he tools to use when clients re-experience to build a therapeutic relationship around came for his third session, he said, ”This is traumas from their childhood. meeting the client’s stated needs. I have my last as those thoughts that distracted received Rolfing SI from twenty Rolfers and This article is based on my experience, me have disappeared.” Getting pregnant most of them looked at me front, side, and discoveries, and findings working as both with artificial insemination cued me to back, then told me where they will work. a Rolfer and a psychotherapist. I had two give extra work in a supportive way with In this context, the Rolfer takes most of the years of psychoanalysis before becoming her abdomen and solar plexus, hoping to responsibility and it is more chance if the a Rolfer. Soon after becoming a Rolfer, I release some of her ambivalence about result meets the real reason that motivates felt a need to be more comfortable with getting pregnant. Wanting to have only one the client to come. A contract creates a the emotional releases of my clients so I sexual partner was helpful information. relationship for shared responsibility and completed my training as a psychotherapist. I treated her with the utmost respect, for often reveals the client’s real motivation in For sixteen of the twenty years after example, asking her permission each time coming. These two factors stack the deck in becoming a Rolfer, I was a client with three I touched her in a new place and often favor of satisfaction, success, and referrals. different psychotherapy modalities: Gestalt, asking her if she wanted more pressure or Jungian, and transactional analysis. To set the stage for building a contract with less pressure. And the client who wanted It was only after moving to Denmark in a client, the Rolfer needs to ask a question. his writing to flow needed to find ease in 1991 that I began working as a Gestalt I have experimented with many initial his body, so I gave extra time to his sacrum psychotherapist. From 1992 to 2008, I co- questions and have settled on: ”How do you / fifth lumbar and his atlas / occiput. These owned and co-led Gestalt Terapeutiskinstitut. want to change with your Rolfing session?” elements were the real measure for their My private practice with Rolfing SI and or ”How do you want to benefit from your satisfaction and gave me direction to meet psychotherapy has been a wonderful ride Rolfing sessions?” These questions are their real needs. open. The client may respond with how of satisfaction as the clarity of my awareness Requirements for a good contract are: and consciousness has created more safety s/he wants to change physically and/or with for my Rolfing clients to make profound a narrative that focuses on his/her life story. 1. To be intrinsic – meaning that the connective-tissue and life changes. client wants the change him/herself Most of my clients reveal a motivation and not because a lover threatened to I have experienced that Rolfing SI and beyond the ’home-page’ description of leave if he or she didn’t do Rolfing SI. Gestalt psychotherapy supplement and Rolfing SI. Here are five examples of clients 2. Positive language – encourage the benefit each other as long as there is a clear that came to me for Rolfing SI and received client to name something s/he wants contract with a client as to what s/he wants Rolfing SI without any psychotherapy: rather than something s/he wants to during any particular session. 1. An elderly woman from Munich, get rid of. wanted to lift her teacup to her lips Insights, Precautions, without shaking so much that she 3. Make it measurable – so the client has and Strategies from spilled the tea. a way of evaluating if change is taking Psychotherapy place. 2. A man wanted more openness in his Early in a first meeting with a client I say, meditation. Some thoughts distracted A good contract makes it easier to identify ”One purpose of this first meeting is to success or disappointment. Success leads

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 21 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS to referrals. If the session has a trend of learned to ask the question: “Now we have and experimented as to how these disappointment I refer to the contract talked for some minutes, do you feel safe five basic permissions of early child and either make a new contract or stop and ready for me to touch you?” There was development interfaced with Rolfing SI. the session. an extended pause. She said, “I am not sure. The five permissions are: to be, to be close, I do not really feel safe for a man to touch to do, to play, and to succeed. My feedback A contract is two sided and the Rolfer needs me and yet I believe you can help me.” from clients told me that Rolfing SI was to verbally accept the contract. It is helpful interfacing well with the permissions to to refer to the contract when evaluating the This was the therapeutic moment. I do, to play, and to succeed. My group of success of the work. Examples of when I do encouraged her to listen to her “no” feeling clients longed to integrate more permission not accept a contract are usually because a and instead of touch work we talked about to be and permission to be close than I was partner or a parent is telling the client s/he her ambivalence and her touch history offering them. Their dissatisfaction puzzled needs the Rolfing SI session. When I decide with men for the rest of the first session. and provoked me. to stop after the first session, I do not charge The next time I came to Toronto, I saw for the session. Often the client returns in a that her name was again on the schedule. My thinking went like this: the first six few months under his/her own motivation. She said “My saying ‘no’ to you was so months after birth are the primary window profound. I have talked about this with my of time to receive the permission to be, the Sometimes one client’s experience psychiatrist and now I feel ready for you to first twelve months of life are the time to influences my procedure with subsequent touch me.” I assert that if I had proceeded receive the permission to be close. During clients. An example is a client who had with the Rolfing work in the first session, these months, the skin is the primary orgasms when I touched her sacrum. She her ambivalence and emotional resistance sensory organ of communication. Ashley said, “Oh, don’t worry, I should have would have greatly reduced the connective- Montagu (1986, 3) writes in Touching: The told you that in the beginning.” From this tissue change. Human Significance of the Skin, “The skin . . . experience, I began to ask the question, is the oldest and most sensitive of our before beginning the table work, “Is there There are many paths for Rolfers to develop organs, our first medium of communication, anything else I should know about you?” their capacity for quality contact with and our most efficient protector.” For the This question often creates an opening for clients. For example, it can be of value to infant the skin is constantly registering the client to tell something from his/her try an extended process of meditation, and signaling to the brain whether the family or personal background that affects journal writing, tai chi, or psychotherapy. social environment is safe or dangerous, how I orchestrate where and how much For me, the most cost-effective way has and whether s/he is wanted or not wanted. time I spend working in different parts of been psychotherapy. I have benefitted from For the infant, the more touch the skin the body. being with a therapist who would support experiences as a communication of safety me when I was vulnerable and confront me A number of research studies conclude and being wanted, the more permission when I had more ego strength for insight that the primary criterion for success of that individual has to be and to be close. and transformation. psychotherapy is the quality of the contact This is carried into the nervous-system between the therapist and client, including The Role of the Unconscious architecture of adulthood. the motivation of the client. Success is not and Cell Membranes The opposite of permission is an injunction. linked to the modality of the therapy. A When the infant does not receive enough psychotherapy client can choose Gestalt, In the mid-1980s while doing Rolfing SI positive touch communicating safety behavioral, Jungian, cognitive, transactional work in New York City, I noticed that and being wanted, the child carries the analysis, or psychoanalysis. Success is many clients after a series of sessions were injunction of don’t be and/or don’t be correlated with the quality of the contact satisfied with their body changes, and close. Subsequently the adult also has these between therapist and client, plus the were fulfilled with improved awareness injunctions. From this information I made client’s degree of motivation. of how their decisions could be grounded in their body sensations and emotions. a leap in logic that these permissions and/ I am convinced that the same is true for They expressed being fulfilled with their or injunctions are carried into the adult Rolfing SI. If the Rolfer does not meet the improved communication with colleagues through the unconscious mind and/or the client with full attention, undistracted and partners, yet they longed for more cellular membranes of the tissue. Back awareness, and warm, unconditional closeness with their partners. They told me in the 1980s I did not know if memory acceptance building toward a relationship they wanted more peace with their own from childhood was conveyed to the in which the client feels safe, then the being and more strength of self during adult through the unconscious or the cell client will not release his/her inner control moments of solitude. Their dissatisfaction membranes. Now we have more evidence mechanisms (sometimes called defense provoked me to experiment during sessions to consider it is both. mechanisms), which reduces the potential as to the way I touched and talked. I Back in my treatment room, I was more connective-tissue change. scheduled time between sessions to reflect focused on results. I wanted to change A Jungian psychiatrist from Toronto invited and write about what seemed to work and the injunctions to permissions. I wanted me to work with some of his clients. A what was a waste of time. to change don’t be to okay to be, and don’t woman about twenty-eight years old My psychotherapy experience often has be close to be close. I followed the path of had intrinsic motivation for change. She me reflecting on the five basic permissions my experiments and findings to develop presented a clear contract that she wanted of early childhood described by Robert a touch sensitive enough to reprogram the better sex with her partner. Just before and Mary Goulding (1997) in Changing infant experience. suggesting moving to the table work, I have Lives Through Redecision Therapy. I thought

22 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

My first touch experiments in which I the way you think while you work, and my own emotions and feelings during the imagined different ways to touch were a it explains why it is difficult to collect years leading up to those moments. For two waste of time. I realized my touch had to empirical evidence about how Rolfing SI years I had done my own personal work be a response to the client. It had to be a gets the results that it does. Just to give with progressive psychoanalysis before dialogue. I focused my touch sensitivity to you a taste, here are some excerpts from beginning the Rolfing SI training. After that, distinguish when the tissue signals from the Chapter Three: I was more comfortable with my emotions client were danger or unwanted, and then I and the invisible field between Rolfer and The true secret of life lies in responded with a touch that communicated client, and I believe this allowed the clients understanding the elegantly safety and wanted. The touch dialogue to feel safe enough to release deep-seated simple biological mechanisms between myself and my clients gradually emotions and gestures. of the magical membrane – the became more gentle and minimal. The mechanisms by which your body I think my Rolfing SI practice in New York, touch communicating safety and wanted translates environmental signals Frankfurt, Berlin, and Copenhagen attracted was a movement that they could register into behavior (45). the network of referrals it has because I and perceive. continued as a client with psychotherapy: Cells possess a uniquely ‘tuned’ The results were profound and consistent Gestalt, Jungian, and transactional analysis. receptor protein for every with this style of touch dialogue, which I found psychotherapy the most interesting environmental signal that needs to responded to the client’s remembered and rewarding way to spend money on be read (53). longing for safety and feeling wanted. At my development. this point, I did not care if the source of Receptors can read energy fields, Rolfing clients adapt to the inner comfort change was the unconscious mind or the the notion that only molecules zone of their Rolfer unless they have done cellular membranes. Instead of either/ can impact cell physiology is personal work to free themselves from their or thinking I was thinking both/and: my outmoded. Biological behavior can child adaptive patterns. If the Rolfer is not clients’ responses convinced me that a be controlled by invisible forces, comfortable with his/her own emotions, deep motivational matrix was changing including thoughts (53). if the Rolfer is not at peace with his/her from negative to positive. I realized that the Together, the receptor-effector own being, the client will consciously positive energy needed to focus, it needed complex acts as a switch, translating or unconsciously inhibit or restrict his/ a harness by which the rider of this energy environmental signals into cellular her emotional flow to match the Rolfer’s could direct it. This realization influenced behavior (54). comfort zone. The Rolfer’s inner comfort me to give even more attention to the zone affects whether clients have a more contracting process during the first session What is the relevance of all this to Rolfing open or restricted experience with their so that the client could use the increased SI? The touch of Rolfing SI focuses on the Rolfing SI work. permission to be and to be close to fulfill connective tissue; that cannot avoid having the goals in his/her contract. an effect on the cell membranes. If the Invitation to Seek Rolfing SI touch causes pain or discomfort After three years of experimenting and Out Psychotherapy to the degree that the client tightens tissue discovering, my book Touching Dialogue: A in resistance, then the cellular membranes My recommendation for all Rolfers to Somatic Psychotherapy was born (Campbell are sensing danger and close down. If the improve their professional work and for 1989). It is a description of body-centered Rolfing SI touch conveys a quality of safety, Rolfers-in-training to start their practice psychotherapy that changes a client’s being wanted, and accepted, then the client with the best efficacy is for all to have at permission system from caution to potential, will take in more permission to be and to least twenty sessions of psychotherapy from stress to calm, from fear to courage. be close. with the therapist of their choice. Such an I also produced a film demonstrating this experience is likely to result in a Rolfer who work (Campbell 2010). How does a Rolfer acquire a touch that is more in touch with his/her own feelings, conveys a quality of safety, and being Bruce Lipton wrote a definitive summary with more awareness of him/herself and an wanted and accepted to the client? I think of the new biology linking cellular biology increased comfort with his/her unconscious that the way to do this is for a Rolfer to with the workings of the mind in The mind. This increased awareness will develop more permission to be and to be close Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of automatically transfer to the work as more within herself or himself. I believe that as a Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles (2008). safety in the Rolfer-client relationship. Rolfer embodies more permission to be and It scientifically validates that the cell The Rolfer’s increased self-awareness and to be close, then clients absorb it through the membranes function as a brain, deciding comfort with his/her unconscious will invisible human bio-field to the degree that when to open for osmosis and when to increase the likelihood that: the client is longing for these permissions. close to reduce osmosis. Lipton writes that 1. The client will disclose his/her real the cellular membranes make this ongoing Looking back, I do not think it was by motivation for coming to Rolfing SI decision based on their sensing of safety or chance that four of my first six Rolfing sessions. danger, in both their immediate physical clients had strong, sometimes extended, 2. The quality of the contact between social environment and also their past emotional releases during their ten sessions. Rolfer and client will increase. experiences as a type of memory. Lipton’s These clients expressed crying, laughing, book confirmed my thinking and findings shaking, and quivering. I think they gave 3. The client will assimilate the of tissue response during the late 1980s. themselves permission to express this affect permission to be and to be close to I recommend this book, it will change because I became more comfortable with the degree s/he is longing for these permissions. www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 23 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS 4. The clients’ emotional needs will of what actually happened – now Bibliography become part of his/her Rolfing SI that one knows how it should have experience. been. Even though I, as a Gestalt Campbell, D. 2017. A Letter to Your Inner therapist, am familiar with these Child from a Good Father (film). Available at 5. The Rolfer will have the inner peace https://tinyurl.com/Kirk-Campbell-Letter. to be comfortable inviting connective- things, your film has impressed me tissue change without the need to force. on a deeper level and I think I’ll be Campbell, D. 2010. Touching Dialogue forever carrying your film around in Demonstration (film). Available at https:// I co-owned and co-led a four-year Gestalt my ‘system’. In this fast world the tinyurl.com/Touching-Dialogue. psychotherapy training institute in slow pace and beautiful sound and Denmark for sixteen years. In my opinion, pictures were very healing. Campbell, D. 1989. Touching Dialogue: A the most profound, transformational part Somatic Psychotherapy. New York: In Hand of that training was not the classroom Charlotte Carlin, Books. experiential learning, but the required Gestalt colleague Goulding, M.M. and R.L. Goulding 1997. individual psychotherapy with a therapist It is one of many pieces for me to Changing Lives Through Redecision Therapy. of the students’ choice. better understand my history with New York: Grove Press. A Film Resource my father and the story with me as a father to my daughters. Lipton, B.H. 2008. The Biology of Belief: to Use with Clients Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter Claus Fardal, I made a short animated film, A Letter and Miracles. 5th ed. Carlsbad, California: a father to Your Inner Child from a Good Father Hay House Inc. (Campbell 2017), to celebrate the sunset but After living and working in New York City, Montagu, A. 1986. Touching: The Human not the sundown of my career. Sometimes, Frankfurt, and Berlin, David Kirk-Campbell Significance of the Skin. 3rd ed. New York: when my clients were re-experiencing a has settled in Copenhagen for the past twenty- Harper & Row Publishers Inc. childhood trauma, I made an agreement six years. He likes to work with artists. He with them for me to say what an ideal recharges his batteries by reading the poetry of parent or nurturing parent would have Rumi, Antonio Machado, Pablo Neruda, and said to them in a similar situation. This Juan Ramon Jimenez. film sequences these sayings into a story of what a good father would say at the time of conception, birth, infancy, and early childhood. These sayings give Rolfers ways to respond when your clients re-experience Some Psychological and childhood traumas. Here is what others have written about the Spiritual Dimensions of film, to give you a sense of what impact it may have: ® A Letter to Your Inner Child from a the Rolfing Ten Series Good Father, as the film is called, By Jim Gates, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ offers a good father’s voice; an ideal father, that puts words on In our effort to grow in the practice and territory, as others have done, to expand our what people have a need to hear understanding of Rolfing Structural conversations about our work. Ultimately, a from their earliest beginning. The Integration (SI) we may often ask ourselves big part of who we are to ourselves and to film’s soundtrack guides the inner the questions: where am I, who am I, and others is the story we tell about who we are. child to a place where they are safe where am I going? These questions can Dr. Rolf developed her system and shared it and wanted; where they experience expand to include SI in general and our with osteopaths and chiropractors for many unconditional love and have all teaching institutions. Speaking and thinking years with little traction until she went to their needs met. about our work in terms of anatomy is Esalen where people saw its potential for simpler and more easily agreed upon than Agnete Dybro Stoffregren, personal transformation. I use the term its psychological and spiritual dimensions, Journalist ‘transformation’ interchangeably with the latter being a more intangible field. ‘evolution’, ‘growth’, and ‘consciousness- I’ve just watched your film and They were important to Dr. Rolf, as she raising’, as they mean the same in my want to tell you that it has a very, was both a scientist and a mystic. Even as a vocabulary. Werner Erhard, creator of EST® very calming, relaxing and peaceful young woman she studied yoga, a path of and a very influential pioneer in personal effect on my mind and body. Like spiritual transformation, when it was almost transformation, promoted it for that purpose a very deep meditation. The ‘head’ unknown in the West (Love 2010). As these and recommended it to all his students. I knows that childhood was not like fields are very close to my heart and have heard that in the early days of Rolfing SI that, like the idealized film, but the been important to me most of my life – as you could go to a city and tell the local est body feels totally different, almost they are to many of us – I want to explore office that you were a Rolfer in town and as if courage and confidence can and stake out some landmarks in that vast still be achieved, independently you would immediately have a full schedule. 24 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

J.G. Bennett invited Dr. Rolf to England and energy fields. In the book Ida Rolf how big do I dare make it? We can keep it in the 1950s to teach her work. He was a Talks About Rolfing and Physical Reality she to ourselves, but I think it is good to lean brilliant thinker and dedicated much of is quoted: toward grander and express it to reveal all his life to personal evolution and to the of it or at least an aspect of it to the public. Rolfing [SI] is not primarily a evolution of humanity. Like Dr. Rolf, he was I can at least say that part of my mission psychotherapeutic approach to the a scientist and a mystic. His autobiography statement is that my clients experience the problems of humans, but the effect Witness (1962/1983) is a very interesting joy, healing, and well-being that comes it has had on the human psyche book. The two of them must have had some from experiencing the flow of their life has been so noteworthy that many great conversations. He founded a school in energy more strongly as their structure people insist on so regarding it. the US at Claymont, West Virginia, where the becomes more integrated around their Line, Rolfing [SI] is an approach to the Rolf Institute® now gives classes. The first and around who they are. As I have clarified personality through the myofascial owners and builders on the land were in the that in myself, I have brought that focus collagen components of the physical family of George Washington (the current more intentionally into my work. A mission body. It integrates and balances the mansion was built by his grand-nephew), so statement describes: where am I, who am so-called “other bodies” of man, I like to think there is some connection here I, where am I going? It tells the world that, metaphysically described as astral between our lineage and the ideals of life, but even more importantly it tells our own and etheric, now more modernly liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with self that. In Rolfing: The Integration of Human designated as the psychological, which this nation was created. Structures Dr. Rolf writes: emotional, mental, and spiritual Personal transformation is an important aspects. The amazing psychological Structural Integration involves part of Dr. Rolf’s SI. Without it we have changes that appeared in Rolfed fascial change. The pain of fascial less to differentiate ourselves from massage individuals were completely change is transitory; the minute the therapists, physical therapists, chiropractors, unexpected. They inevitably suggest pressure is removed, the “pain” and osteopaths, and the differences between that behavior on any level reflects is gone. In a majority of people, them and us could become minimized over directly the physical energy level of the quality of the drama changes time. Dr. Rolf saw her work as a contribution the initiating physical structure . . . . abruptly and surprisingly into a to the evolution of humanity. In the last Rolfing [SI] postulates on the basis feeling of physical lightness and chapter of her book Rolfing: The Integration of of observation that a human is joyousness. This is entirely different Human Structures she summed up her work basically an energy field operating from the residual “pain” following and wrote: in the greater energy of the earth; hurt or damage of some sort . . . particularly significant is that The sensation following fascial Our personal evolutionary potential energy known as the gravitational intervention . . . is a “high”, a sense lies with us. Originally, this was field. (Rolf 1978, 26-27). of great well-being enveloping the the message of mystics and individual totally (Rolf 1977, 283). occultists. At this point, it is being At this moment, we have perhaps wider documented in the changes brought and more sophisticated resources to think I am giving more importance to the about by Structural Integration. The and express understandings in the arenas feeling of well-being and joy because I practitioner of Structural Integration she was interested in. We can make more have come to believe that these qualities separates the confusion of random distinctions and have a more expanded are of great significance; that they are fascial structure and re-relates it world to play in than she did in the middle indications of our natural, ideal state, around a vertical line with new of the 1900s. where our bodies are organized around appropriateness. The result is a our Line and experiencing that integration. spectrum of subjective experiences Integrating Ideas of Well-being and joy is the experience of that throw light on conceptual Evolution into Our Work that alignment and is the energetic and formulations of earlier cultural ideas. There is the concept of a mission statement emotional nourishment guiding us in the The latter, in turn, offer additional that each business should have. It clarifies direction of healing. keys to understanding our results what its aims are. In Rolfing SI, it is much Later in this article I describe the Ten (Rolf 1978, 285). like our concept of the ‘Line’. It is the Series session by session as seen from a This kind of evolution of the material center of who we are on many levels upon psychological and spiritual perspective, body, accessible to anyone, is a start which we build and orient ourselves; or transformative perspective as hinted at on the road. There may be other the Line can be a profound concept. in the saying: “The first three sessions are evolutions possible of man – of Perhaps if she had written one, Dr. Rolf’s about ‘Where am I?’, the next four, ‘Who am the “finer body” of the occultists, mission statement might have been: I am I?’, and the last three, ‘Where am I going?’” of the group body, of others yet contributing to human evolution, both personal First I will go through session one in detail unsuspected (Rolf 1977, 292). and cultural, by organizing people’s physical, and show how I work in alignment from emotional, and energetic bodies around a this perspective. The first session is opening She saw her work as moving humanity central line in relationship to gravity. And I am the door to a new sense of who we are and forward in our evolution, both individually creating a system to teach others how to make to new possibilities. and as a species – that our work was that contribution. on the whole human being, at all levels We start with the intake. I work with the including physical, emotional, mental, As for my own personal mission statement, client’s goals for the work – to be expressed it is evolving. A question comes up as to

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 25 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS positively such as changing the wording being flowing, we just shift around our I have actually clearly experienced it”. Some from ‘less pain’ into ‘feel good’. Instead symptoms from one condition to another clients do not get much of what I am hoping of running from something negative, we and do not get to the source of healing. It is for, and many exceed my expectations. I feel are moving toward a positive feeling or our connection to the restorative life energy that healing must come from well-being, potential. We may evolve the goal into ‘feel that heals our condition. Without it we and being able to have clients experience wonderful’, ‘enjoy my life’, or ‘be able to tend to slowly degenerate and may blame this new sense of lightness and a relief from enjoy specific things I want to do’ – creating it on aging or other things. It can lead to pain and restrictions gives them a great boost a positive vision is a key step towards feelings of discouragement and lack of hope. toward a new sense of possibility of that. A empowerment and healing. Our work is to Experiencing this new sense of aliveness on client wrote in a testimonial: “I would like keep the client moving toward that vision, an arm is opening a hole in the proverbial to express my gratitude for all the good step by step. dam of stuckness, which is a longtime habit Rolfing work you did for my body and spirit. of disconnection from our natural wellness. After each of your great Rolfing bodywork Rather than just wanting the client’s pain By re-experiencing our well-being, life treatments, I have felt re-energized. Hours to go away, we want to move forward energy and freedom can begin to flow. and even days after the Rolfing [session], the toward new possibilities. People tend Expanding the size of this break in the dam sheer joy of well-being would make me stop to focus on their pain and malfunctions, is an important part of future work. what I was doing (in my quite busy life) to which is often why they come to us. I have ponder why I was feeling so good (and well), come to see that shifting towards positive I then move on to work with the other when I would realize that it was my body goals as mentioned above, and noticing the arm, shoulder, then the chest. After doing rebounding to a state of inner energy that accomplishment of steps forward, is more one side I ask clients if they notice more I used to feel quite often. It is a wonderful empowering and healing. Paying attention space to breathe there. After work with the feeling and I can only imagine the many to what is seemingly wrong with them, even hips, legs, and some seated back work, I beneficial ramifications that will continue to if they believe something is, or other people then ask if it feels different and if they are ripple through my life. So very many thanks have told them there is, even if they want finding it easier to sit. If so, and if they feel for your wonderful work.” me to tell them what is, is something I see a ‘lift’ – which may include an upward or as disempowering and not contributing to expanded flow of energy, lightness, ease One client, a healer and shaman, is an a positive vision of possibilities. It shifts the of sitting erect (most clients do notice such unofficial representative of the Brazilian power to me as the practitioner rather than lift) – we expand that sensation as I work spiritual healer John of God, who people to them. Healing is about reclaiming our with more of the back, neck, and shoulders. from all over the world visit, both in Brazil power and self-worth and I want to have Near the end most are feeling the lift quite and at the Omega Center in New York. everything I do support that. strongly and a significant reduction in Several times a year she takes people to him discomfort, pain, or tightness. Expanding in Brazil for healing. During her Ten Series I begin with an arm and shoulder as a small their awareness to include noticing further with me she exclaimed: “This work is right and contained area for clients to experience qualities of that lift with words such as up there with John of God.” the effects of the work, and it is a great place ‘buoyancy’, ‘freedom’, ‘lightness’, and ‘joy’, for our bodies, energy fields, and touch to Many clients cannot retain the experience, it is explained that these qualities are our meet. They can compare arms after one is perhaps even as a memory, but we can natural state that we are working to recover; done and I will ask what they notice; after reinforce it and renew it each session. As that young children often feel these things. their response, I will point out things that I that has become more clearly my goal, I can would hope they notice, and to see how far At times, I add an additional perception more clearly hold that in my sessions. The they can take their awareness – noticing new by asking whether they feel an expansion search for well-being gets more and more perceptions is an important part of the work. in their chest along with the sensations felt individualized as the Ten Series, and client, I may ask: if a difference is noticed between elsewhere. If they do, I explain that these unfolds and progresses. the arms, whether one feels warmer, has feelings and ‘lift’ are just their own energy, I am contributing some of my understanding better circulation, more energy flow, a sense and they can do whatever they choose with that has arisen in the practice of Dr. Rolf’s of lightness, more presence and aliveness, it. No one else has any say over it. I ask work from where I am, with my unique more possibility of self-expression, a sense them to expand the feeling out in front of perspective. Other people are contributing of well-being? When we feel good our body them and then to fill the whole room with theirs, based on what we have been feels like its composed of energy rather it, that they can expand it as far as they want given and what we can understand. than that we are dragging around 100-plus or bring it in; they have complete freedom Dr. Rolf’s legacy is growing and expanding, pounds of flesh. I may say that this energy, with it. This buoyant, free, joyful, expansive flourishing in this time and place. I am not lightness, aliveness, or wellness is our energy is who we really are; we have suggesting that my viewpoint should be natural state that we are trying to restore mistakenly come to think that we are the copied; I only want to open the conversation through this work. We are removing the thoughts in our head. This first experience a bit and hope that more people will feel restrictions that have accumulated and were is reinforced in every succeeding session. free to contribute. As our culture and we hindering this natural state. I feel that to get clients to some experience of evolve, we need to keep our conversation, Understanding that well-being is natural their natural well-being, energy, and joy is a context, and space expanding so that our is more empowering to them than that it is good first session and foundation for the rest work can always be new and vital. something I did. In this state of well-being, of the series. As a yoga teacher said at the end Thank you, Dr. Rolf, for your brilliant, healing is possible and likely. Without of this session: “I have been teaching about creative gift to humanity. our awareness of the life energy and well- this energy for years, but this is the first time

26 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS The Ten Series is. Anything else is just shifting around ourselves with our social persona and with the burden of pain. The feet can be a great the thoughts in our head. Now we can see Session One is opening the door to a reservoir for this delight and pleasure more clearly our energetic connection with new sense of who we are and to new because they can connect to it so easily. creation. We can understand that, as is said possibilities. I start with the arms, a place in Buddhism, our thinking mind is not Session Three is where we let the freedom where people first connect and reach out who we are, but only a sensory organ that and well-being of the first two sessions fully to each other and the world. It is a mutual perceives thoughts Some thoughts come into our whole body. We begin to experience place. Here we open a hole in the dam of from what we have learned or are generated our true size, length, volume, and fullness. ‘stuckness’ so that life energy and freedom by processes within us, some come from We feel new levels of expansion and can begin to flow. Future work is about other people outside of us, while some appreciation for our physical form. We have expanding the size of this break in that thoughts are perhaps inspirations from new levels of presence and joy at being in dam. Clients get a first experience of the higher energies or levels of integration. the physical. truth that we are buoyant and self-directed Yet our thinking mind is only one aspect energy, consciousness, and/or beingness Sesions Four and Five: We become aware of our awareness and consciousness. To that is creative and self-expressive. They of and start building our center, our Line, experience that clearly is a great awakening. experience the difference of this place and awareness of our own uniqueness and We can begin to stand as an energetic being from where they have previously stood, beauty. We are coming to appreciate and in communication and resonance with an and get a glimpse of what is possible experience our personal power and creative energetic universe. from once experiencing the self as a lump center; the center where our body, mind, of flesh animated by thoughts, to then Sessions Eight and Nine: Now that we have heart, and soul can be integrated into a having the experience of their self as this opened to an expanded sense of what we powerful, unhindered unity of our self as self-expressive energy and consciousness. are with many facets and dimensions and a unique creative being. experience, these two sessions reintegrate When our body is in its natural state, like that Session Six works on opening the back, all these aspects into a coherent whole sense of a young child, we experience ourselves where much of our being and resources are, of ourselves integrated around a central line as energy, beingness, and joy. Healing apart from the social self of the front of our or sense of self and in harmonic flow with is possible and probable for this place body. This social self is where we live in our our environment, so that we can live a joyful, and our health condition will continue to social world and it tends to consume our loving, creative life in an amazing universe. improve. Further, that expansive energy is awareness, yet our social persona is only a beyond the body and beyond our thoughts. Session Ten is the completion of our small part of the wonder and magnificence This possibility of seeing ourselves as journey of discovery and integration at a of what we truly are. This session helps us that, rather than as the thoughts going higher level. The completion of one cycle to experience and bring into awareness through our head, or just our body, is an is the beginning of a new cycle. We are more of the fullness of who we are and to important experience. This first experience born anew into a new world. As Abraham feel some of the power of what lies within is reinforced in every succeeding session. Hicks said: us. The back is in part associated with a lot This understanding is an experiential one of struggles to stand upright and adjust The basis of life is freedom. and cannot be fully described or explained to our world. There are many patterns through words. Also of great importance is The purpose of life is joy. connected with survival that are deeply to experience that this well-being is natural held there. As we release these patterns a The result of joy is transformation. to us. Stress is a disconnection from that, new level of confidence, support, ease, and and we can continue to develop the ability sense of power can arise. We can more fully Further Thoughts to choose that well-being over stress. We rest in our wholeness. free the breath, the life force; experience Stress is a major factor in our lives and expansion and our natural lift and lightness. Session Seven is about the head. We tend a major cause or contributor to any We begin connecting those possibilities into to live in our head and face, our social dysfunction. If we were to consider what our legs and hips and opening to a new identity. In this session we work at clearing is the opposite of stress, we might answer sense of freedom in movement. away a lifetime of stuck patterns built something like, it is relaxation or peace – the around maintaining our social persona. way modern medicine defines health as Session Two: Here we connect deeply into The understanding and experience from the being the absence of disease. When we try our feet and through our legs. Length and previous sessions of the energetic, conscious, to diminish stress we usually look at how organization arise out of having the up and and profound nature of who we are provide we can change our environment in order down direction realized simultaneously. a potential to experience the world from this to remove stressors. This is good to do, but We experience the pleasure of the life- new expanded place. The universe itself now stress is not coming from the environment energy flowing through us, especially from can be seen from this new perspective to be so much as it is our own reaction to it. the feet, and allowing it to fill our whole a vast multilevel energetic experience. In the To give external factors all the cause is to body-mind experience. This life energy is language of yoga, we are opening our sixth disempower us. To realize that stress is our the source of healing for our body, mind, and seventh chakras. reaction, that we have the ultimate power emotions, and soul. It is a dimension of over our beliefs and over where we direct how love expresses itself in this physical In session seven we expand our sense our attention – the two things which cause experience. Pleasure, delight, joy, and of presence into a new connection with our reaction – is to give the power to our harmony colors our experience of what creation, the universe, and the vastness of own self. I would say that the opposite of it means to be alive, and of what healing life. In the past, we have tended to identify stress is a feeling of well-being, happiness,

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 27 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS or joy, the same qualities that Dr. Rolf comes from our disconnection with that individual people – the recognition attributed to SI in a quote about Rolfing SI well-being on the other. In the Rolfing SI of the fact that fundamentally you given above. It is connection to our natural process, we put our hands on those areas are not relieving their backache, energy, self-healing abilities, alignment, where fear shows up, whether due to you are not trying to mitigate lift, well-being, and joy, and from that trauma, the struggle to survive, stress, or that “bellyache” – you are on comes the sense of self, the appreciation other pains that cause these patterns to form a bigger job. You are trying to of self, our place in the world, and our in the body-mind. We touch them with our make it possible for that nervous creativity. Access to these qualities often hands trained in the right way and give the system which distinguishes them as becomes tenuous and difficult when we client the support to let go of those patterns humans, rather than as two-legged have lived a life full of stress. Simply of fear. Whatever can be let go of allows the animals (of which there are other), knowing we can access them, and having natural love and well-being of the truth of to function more appropriately and a way to do so, is a large part of healing. who we are to manifest more clearly. more economically. . . . SI can make a significant contribution by We could view our work as repairing a To me, this is a basic and extremely connecting people to their well-being. Just biological machine and that would be important idea. Some of you, I knowing that this reconnection is possible is okay. I prefer to have the view that we are hope, will someday develop it powerful and special. Not knowing we have working with a profoundly intelligent, further than I have. This is our a choice is almost the same as not having a sensitive, and complex, conscious being function as Rolfers. When you say choice. Experiencing our well-being as the existing on many physical and energetic it in those terms, the task we have alternative to stress offers a direction to levels and linked to the entire universe and to accomplish becomes more and further well-being. Especially if we teach universes we may know little about. We more apparent. Our job becomes clients that that this is our natural state and stand at the doorway of infinite possibility to instigate personal evolution SI is one way to clear some of the restrictions and we must do so with love and respect in humans, to further individual that get in the way. and humility as if we were standing at a differentiations (psychological Each series is different depending on the sacred altar, temple, or in front of God, in as well as physical) in mankind. goals of the client and practitioner and what front of the great Mystery. Structural Integration is the tool by is available to them at that time. It is always which this can be implemented. . . . Dr. Rolf said that we are educating our a transformational process for both of us. clients. One major thing we are teaching To go on this trip, you need to Yet, I think these spiritual dimensions are them is about relationship; relationship to stretch your imagination. This is always present consciously or unconsciously their body, the parts of their body to each an important prerequisite. There is as part of Dr. Rolf’s inspiration and creation. other, to gravity, to their environment, no limit to the infinite territory into How much, if at all, one may choose to to their inner world, and to other people. which this leads. . . . emphasize these aspects of the work is up to We can teach what we have learned, so the individual practitioner. I relate to each We must find out what it is that the more we have, the more we can teach. of my client’s understanding and beliefs to changes spirits as well as bodies, Hopefully we can teach that the basis of any decide which aspects of the work I discuss. In that gives direction and purpose to relationship is love and respect. From that general, a significant percentage relate well the man himself, as well as to his basis a relationship can expand and flourish. to ideas of transformation and well-being as body. We don’t know. We can talk goals. We generally attract those with whom Dr. Rolf was ahead of her time (and still at it, we can talk about it, but at this we share a commonality. We each need to is in my opinion) in her understanding time we can realistically point only find a way that suits our self. of the wholeness of what we are and the to the fact that it happens, that the importance of getting our entire structure man himself seems to change. . . . Another important question is what is integrated into a functioning whole as healing at a basic spiritual level? The basis You have all heard me talk about the basis for healing. Most everyone else of healing is giving up fear for love. It is “relations” and “relating.” I don’t focuses on fixing a dysfunction. We do not choosing love over fear. I believe that love doubt that in our early acquaintance fully understand why her system works so is our basic nature and the basis of creation. it was a source of confusion. Today well, but the room is there for each of us to Fear is that which disconnects us from that I feel that the basic units which do the work as we see it, and together her basic nature. This does not mean that fear is are related are less units of flesh work can continue. We attain and retain bad, because like yin and yang, the interplay than energy fields; these fields clients that resonate to the way we see and of these two is the dance of creation. Losing are enhanced or minimized in approach the work. Her creation is a great touch with love and then finding it again terms of their relation to the larger container for human growth and evolution gives us the chance to understand and gravitational fields within which in many ways. Let us not make it too small appreciate it. This process of losing it and they exist. These lesser energies in order to fit our own limitations. finding it, and then losing it again and must first relate appropriately, then finding it again, is the expansion and growth I will conclude with an excerpt of the improved physiology really of the universe and consciousness and the Dr. Rolf’s address to the 1974 Annual Meeting takes over. . . . driving force of evolution. (Rolf 2003): Today I hope that among you there Healing is the process of coming back to I am saying to you that as individual are the kind of fish that will go love. We have a choice between our natural Rolfers you need to preach to out and bring in another school of well-being on one hand and the stress which your clients, your students, your fish . . . not to get their aches and

28 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS pains taken out, not to have their ® symptoms removed, but that they Rolfing SI, Consciousness, may contribute to the understanding of energy in the human universe. . . . You, as Rolfers, are dealing not only Energy, and Awareness with the physical levels, the flesh, By Stanley Rosenberg, Certified Rolfer™, Craniosacral Therapist but with the finer energy levels – and Teacher, Author the psychic, perhaps the spiritual (I do not consider myself to be an Introduction We had anatomy study with Louis Shultz, expert in differentiation of these but that class was separate from the What is your own response to the question, latter two.) This kind of progression hands-on demonstrations. Watching the “Is the work that you do as Rolfer physical is the reality of energy; it is the demonstrations in the class, I was not that or energetic?” I think that most of us would manifestation of human energies on strong in my anatomy, and my teachers did say that it is both. their way to a more conscious world. not always name the structures that they As Rolfers we travel a fascinating What do you mean by ‘physical’ and what were working on as they were working. road. I thank you for the privilege do you mean by ‘energetic’? Why is this The teachers worked relatively softly. of accompanying you. important to you when you work? I think By contrast, when it became our turn to that the idea that you have about what a Author’s note: Special thanks to Bob Schrei for work on our clients, my classmates and I body is will determine how you approach posting Dr. Rolf’s 1974 address onto the Rolfer’s worked as hard as we could pushing into the body of your client, how you work on Facebook group. the models’ bodies with as much force his/her body, and how you bring about as we could muster. We wanted to make Jim Gates began practicing Zen in 1967 desirable changes. sure that we got positive changes and our and before long realized how important the Learning About the Physical unspoken idea was that the more force we body is in that endeavor and in personal used, the better. growth. After ten years of Zen he worked with When I started out as a Rolfer, I found it J.G. Bennett’s followers and spent some reassuring that Ida Rolf had a PhD and was Where did we get this idea? I remember wonderful time with them at Claymont, in West a researcher at the Rockefeller Institute, one hearing in my Rolfing classes that Ida had Virginia, in the late 1970s. After that he studied of the leading scientific research institutions said that the practitioner should plow their with the great guru Swami Muktananda for a in the U.S. at the time. Ida’s background in fingers, fist, or elbow slowly and firmly number of years, in the US and in India. He science seemed to give more credence to the through the tissue creating friction. This realized a longstanding dream in 2003 when he work that I was doing. was supposed to warm up the ground became a Rolfer, and at present he lives only a substance of the connective tissue, turning short drive from the place where Dr. Rolf studied I had come to Rolfing Structural Integration gel to sol and thereby melting it. Observing yoga (Love 2010) and took some of the first steps (SI) after a short but intensive education the work, the angle of the application of toward her creation of SI almost a hundred in Esalen Massage – a form of full-body force, in the old days, was into the body years ago. For more information about Jim visit massage with oil, long strokes pushing at a 45- or 90-degree angle. (Most body www.TheConsciousBody.com. into the body to find and loosen places therapists – not just Rolfers – still work of hardness and tightness in the muscles. this way, pushing into the body with a fair Bibliography Rolfing SI opened the playing field of where amount of pressure. Those who describe I worked in the body to include working in Bennett, J.G. 1962/1983. Witness: The their work as “deep-tissue release” seem the fascia. My Basic Training was at least Autobiography of John Bennett. Charles Town, to believe that the harder they push, the three decades ago. In class we worked from West Virginia: Claymont Communications. deeper they get into the body and the more the ‘Recipe’, and notes were gathered and effective their treatment is.) We may have Love, R. 2010. The Great Oom: The Improbable passed down from one class to the next, also gotten our idea of how to work from Birth of Yoga in America. New York: Viking. telling where we should go first and then hearing that Ida preferred to have students where to proceed until we had gone on to Rolf, I. 1977. Rolfing: The Integration of who were men and who had good, strong loosen the important points in the session. Human Structures. Santa Monica, California: physical structures. They could handle Dennis-Landman Publishers. My first six-day continuing-education working hard pushing and pulling their seminar was with Jan Sultan and he opened hands firmly into their clients’ bodies. Rolf, I. 1978. Ida Rolf Talks About Rolfing my eyes to a new challenge. He asked us and Physical Reality. R. Feitis, ed. Boulder, Becoming ‘Softer’ a question. “If you have only one place to Colorado: the Rolf Institute. [Republished work, where will you choose to work on On this point of how to work, Peter Schwind as Rolfing and Physical Reality by Healing this person next?” There was no handful was the first teacher I had who tried to Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont.] of written notes. Suddenly, we had to look, communicate how we should work with Rolf, I. 2003 Jun. “Address to the Rolf to evaluate, and to think. No more painting our hands in the client’s connective tissue. Institute Annual Meeting, 1974.” Structural by numbers. (In the Ten Series, we had a My earlier teachers focused on helping us Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® goal for each of the sessions. The strategy to decide where to work, but Peter put into 31(2):15-18. we created to help the client get there was words how to work, and he showed me that up to us.) extreme force was not necessary. He had us sensing into the clients body while we

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 29 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS were working, and said we should place our The legacy of that lack of imagery of the arms along his side, getting ready for his fingertips lightly on the surface of the body loose connective tissue is that therapists who movements, his whole demeanor changed. and let them float down through the tissue learned anatomy and physiology before (or He ‘came into his body’. As he started to until we hit a resistance that felt a little bit in present time, without) Guimberteau’s make his movements, he suddenly had like grains of sand. Then we should work film usually do not have much of an idea great presence and concentration. This at that depth and release the tension there. about it, and, as a result, they often do not made me curious, and I asked to meet work in it. Guimberteau’s film gives us a his teacher, Ed Young, who was himself a This was very far removed from kneading whole new world to consider, and new student of Cheng Man-Ch’ing, one of the muscles as I had learned in classes in Esalen implications for how we work. It becomes greatest teachers of tai chi in the world. Massage, or plowing through the tissue with unthinkable to me that there is any need my elbows in my first attempts at Rolfing SI. Meeting Ed and seeing him move blew to push hard into this stuff to get it to It changed how I worked. After I completed me away. He was so poised, simple, and change. Guimberteau’s film shows this my training as a Rolfer, I took some courses quietly graceful. I saw power and focus loose connective tissue under the skin, and in energy medicine with Jim Oschman (who in his movements. I decided to study with some body therapists work just getting the had co-taught with Ida in her last Advanced him and over a few months I learned the skin to slide with great results. However, Training). He was intent on passing on a Yang Style short form. Eventually I went there is also loose connective tissue between picture of the qualities of connective tissue to see Ed’s teacher, Professor Cheng, and adjacent ‘bags’. I find it very effective to and how to affect it. Jim had watched many he blew me away even more. Walking work there, and I get a lot of improvement Rolfers over the years. I prided myself when through the door of his studio in a loft in in both structure and the movement. he said in class that I was one of the “softest” Chinatown, I saw some people learning that he had observed. Hard Movements and practicing the tai chi form that I was vs Soft Movements learning. Professor Cheng was seated at Sliding Layers a long table with his fingers on patients’ Robert Schleip and Tom Myers taught a I learned karate to the level of brown wrists reading their pulses and prescribing model of connective tissue that the body belt when I was in graduate school at the Chinese herbal medicine. At one end of the was made up of “bags within bags within University of Hawaii. Karate is an example big room, other people were doing ‘push bags.” For me, this model developed into of generating a force to overcome another hands’ – where two people stand with an approach of sliding adjacent structures force – meeting force with force. The idea their arms up making light contact at the in relationship to each other. The structures is to develop speed and momentum greater wrists, then move back and forth slowly, were the bones, the muscles, the tendons, than your opponent. Most people think of shifting their weight from one foot to the and the visceral organs. Releasing tensions developing a greater force when they want other, until all of a sudden one of the two between two adjacent structures and getting to do something to another person, whether seemingly tenses up in his whole body only them to slide in relationship to each other it is martial arts or bodywork. to be lifted vertically into the air and thrown gives a good result in terms of aligning the After graduate school, I moved to New horizontally backwards. As I watched, body in the field of gravity and in terms of York and one day bumped into John, a sometimes people would fly three to four improving the client’s movement. ‘Sliding guy I knew from Hawaii, at the coffee shop feet through the air before being ‘caught’ layers’ and not ‘pushing into the body’ in Greenwich Village where he worked by the wall behind them. Strangely enough, became the essence of my approach to the washing dishes. He told me that he had when you are thrown with a tai chi push, work. I’ll explain more about how to do this started to learn tai chi, which translated you relax rather than tense up, so people in the ‘application’ section of this article. For as ‘universal energy’, and everything were never hurt when they hit the wall – but now, let’s look at what aspect of connective that he told me about it sounded wrong. so many people had been thrown against tissue it works with. I was proud that the karate teacher I had the wall so many times that the plaster and the bricks had crumbled little by little, The kind of connective tissue between found in New York was a fourth dan – an advanced level black belt. John’s teacher leaving a hollow indentation the height of adjacent structures is loose connective a man and several inches deep. tissue. Strolling Under the Skin, the video did not even have a colored belt. I prided taken by French hand surgeon Jean-Claude myself on having learned to move fast with You can see Professor Cheng in the video, Guimberteau, brilliantly captures this, my karate movements, and I was in fact “Cheng Man Ching -Push hands play” (www. showing that the loose connective tissue is starting to learn how to focus the force of youtube.com/watch?v=fSYPOhSgiis), finer than the finest lace imaginable. Part of my blows to break boards. John said that he and my teacher, Ed, is the student wearing the reason the film is so important is that did his tai chi movements in slow motion a vest in the second to the last clip. The tai while we have lots of anatomical drawings, and went on to claim that tai chi was an chi push is as an example of how a force very few of them show loose connective effective martial art. That sounded absurd. of four ounces can overcome a thousand tissue – it’s hard to draw because it is How could something slow and soft stand pounds. It is hard to put this into words for amorphous and dries out very quickly; it up to my hard and fast movements? people not familiar with push hands. Since is not solid like the Achilles tendon of the We went out back and John gave me our work as body therapists for most of us fascia lata, and at the molecular level it is a demonstration of his tai chi form. has often been a question of pushing into more like water and ever-changing. (If you John’s character was a bit flakey, totally the client’s body, it is interesting to see the do not know the video, you can watch parts unconcentrated, and he had a hard time power that Professor Cheng generates from of it on YouTube.) getting his life to hang together, yet as he his postural alignment and his sensitivity. stood there relaxing into his stance with his

30 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS I did not understand how these tai chi Cheng’s view of the accumulated drops of Consciousness practitioners ‘did it’. When another of my water, Gehin said that a practitioner started tai chi teachers, John Chung Li, would push to have savoir faire when s/he had given In his teachings, Bennett explained that the someone and the person would be lifted a 10,000 sessions. energy of consciousness is a heightened few inches off the ground and fly away, state of awareness that everyone experiences Mr Li would laugh and say, “I didn’t do Rolf and J.G. Bennett sometimes. One of the goals of his work was to increase the amount of time that one was it, the chi came out.” Tai chi is is a form of The way tai chi led me to working with in this state of consciousness. wu wei, which means to do without doing. intention was part of what got me into Push hands creates an automatic response Rolfing SI. I had first heard about Rolfing SI He said that consciousness can be explained in the body. Rather than wanting to do from Ann Parks, my teacher in Esalen in a metaphor: it is like someone watching something the way that we usually use our Massage. What she told me sounded television; you have the show on the screen bodies, the body responds immediately and interesting so I decided to find out more and there is someone watching the show. automatically when you sense tension in about it. At the time, there were no Rolfers Consciousness has to do with witnessing the other person. The tai chi writings do not in Denmark, where I was living, so I went – with not only watching what is on the offer an intellectual explanation on how this to Berlin and met with Sigfrieid Libich, a screen, but at the same time being aware works to satisfy the curiosity of a scientific Rolfer from southern Germany. We had that you are watching. mind. They give you a picture, and then a good long talk about many things. I Directed Awareness Is they suggest a way of doing something, told him of my interest in working with which you try and practice. intention from my practice of tai chi. a Form of Mental Energy Savoir Faire He said that Ida Rolf had also been very The idea of putting our attention into interested in intention and often talked different part of the body comes up many When I started to do tai chi seriously, I about it in her classes. I was sold. places; for example, yoga nidra, where you stopped using using my body the way that scan through the body slowly, one part at Some years later, I was asked to teach tai I had out of my understanding of karate. I a time. Many body therapists use a form of chi to an experimental theatre group in stopped trying to use my physical force to this directed awareness, for themselves as Copenhagen. The director of the group was overcome resistance in the client’s body. a practice, or guiding clients. Horacio Munoz from Chile. He had been Instead, I switched to trying to push into studying spiritual development with John the client’s body according to the principles My first day at Sherborne I was given their G. Bennett (originally a student of Gurdjieff) that I was learning from tai chi. first level of meditation. Sitting with my and was taking his actors with him to study eyes closed, I was directed to move my Chi is the Chinese word for energy. When for a week at Bennett’s center at Sherborne awareness through the parts of my body. you want to make a movement with chi, House near Oxford in England. He invited But this meditation was a little different the first step is to send yi. As I understand me to join them. than anything I had done before and it, yi is the idea, a form of visualization. anything that I have done other places Years later, I found out that Ida Rolf had Next you send the chi, which is a form of since then. There was a unique addition in a deep connection to Bennett and had energy, the emotional desire of wanting Bennett’s version of body sensing. I learned several times come to Sherborne House to do something. And then you send to ask, “Where is the last digit of the little for a few months at a time to be with him. the body, which results in a movement. finger on my right hand?” Then, when I Bennett had a publishing house for his own Every time that you do anything with a sensed it, I should say to myself. “There is books, and published one of Ida’s early process involving yi and chi and followed the last digit of the little finger on my right writings, “Structural Integration: Gravity, by a physical movement, you are moving hand,” followed by “I am sensing the last An Unexplored Factor in a More Human ‘consciously’ – ‘with an intention’. It has a digit of my little finger on my right hand.” Use of Human Beings” (available at https:// different quality and a different force. In In other words, I was sensing my body tinyurl.com/Bennett-Rolf). The connection tai chi, we can practice moving consciously parts one at a time, but also recognizing that of Rolf and Bennett was confirmed for me with an intention. Professor Cheng said that I was sensing. some years after that when I took a course your chi is like water. When you practice in craniosacral therapy with Jim Asher, one using the combination of yi, chi, and the The meditation then moved awareness to of the original Rolfing teachers. He told me physical body, you build up your chi one the other digits of the little finger one at a that he often gave sessions to Ida, and that drop at a time. One drop of water is not time, then to each of the other fingers, then during these she relaxed and talked about very much, but one drop again and again to thumb, then to the palm, then to the back many things. He confirmed that she often can have a lot of power – think of how of my hand. From there, awareness was spoke about her experiences with Bennett. accumulated water movement carved the moved to the front of my wrist, the back of my wrist, forearm, elbow, and shoulder. Grand Canyon. (I’ll return to this in the I don’t know what Ida learned from And every time I moved my awareness, I application section.) Bennett, but I’ll share what I’ve learned would also called my attention to the fact from my week at Sherborne and from my My craniosacral therapy teacher, Alain that I was sensing that part of my body. readings of his work, tying that into what Gehin, said that working with osteopathy Directing my mind in my body had an effect I learned from tai chi and how both have was not something that you could learn on my physical body. After I had ‘done’ my informed how I now work with my clients. and know intellectually, but it was a ‘savoir right hand, I looked at it and compared it to faire’, a ‘know-how’ – a knowing how to my left hand. Directing my awareness into do with your hands. Similar to Professor my body had a big effect: my right hand

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 31 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS was filled with more blood than it had at ‘stuck’. In TCM, these areas of resistance comes from the fact that we are existing the start; it looked bigger than the my left are ‘congested’ acupuncture points. When together in the gravitational field of the hand and it had more color. an acupuncturist inserts needles into these Earth. In addition to gravity, directed points and then twirls them, first in one energies include magnetism, electricity, Application in direction and then back in the opposite and light. Rolfing Sessions direction, the needles ‘grab’ tissue. There In our body therapy, we can also talk about is more resistance in one direction and less You can apply these ideas based on the level of structural organization. When in the other. Helene Langevin’s research intention and directed attention in your one person works on another person with discusses the anatomy of these acupuncture sessions. First, applying the idea, from his or her hands, there is a difference in the meridians and the relationship to fascia. Bennett’s meditation, of sensing and being level of structural organization from one aware of your sensing, when you finish a When you can recognize tissue resistance, person to the other. We can observe or stroke, take a pause on the physical level. you can add in the principle of yi from tai postulate that there is a flow of energy Stop moving. Hold your body still. Sense chi. As I wrote, yi is the idea, then you add from the person with the higher level of what is going on in the client. Sense what chi, the energy of intention, and bring in the structural organization to the other one is going on in you. The Ten Series opens body. Here’s how I do it. I put my fingertips with a lower level of energy. pathways of awareness in the client’s body, lightly on the client’s body and move Now we’ll look at cohesive, plastic, and which is why Rolfing SI allows us be more my hands around to find the direction of colloidal energy, two forms of mechanical fully embodied. resistance. This is working with directional energy that are relevant to Rolfing SI. Now let’s go back to the discussion of energy. When I find it, I hold my fingers the connective tissue of the body being in the direction of resistance. I then send Cohesive energy is the energy of organized as bags within bags within bags. my thoughts, yi, in that direction. I add connectedness. Things are held together in a How we push into the body depends on our my desire sending the chi in that direction particular pattern because there are energies idea of the body. I mentioned earlier that until I feel the very first sign of resistance. that bind them, for example chemical many therapists push into the body at a Then I stop and do absolutely nothing, but bonds. When things are bound together 45- or 90-degree angle, but if working with the tissue is already under resistance so I with a cohesive energy, they always have the ‘bags’, this would push onto the surface have the body component present. From some things that they share. Cohesive of the bags and compress them. I thus work this, I will feel the client’s tissue release energy is the source of the persistence of at a 180-degree angle. and slide freely. all kinds of bodies. It is much more highly organized than directed energy. I hook the tissue with my fingertips and Closing Thoughts then I slide it parallel to deeper layers. on Energy Plastic energy is the quality of changing As I am sliding the tissue, I am sensing/ shape without losing coherence. People I want to close leaving you with some brief searching for the very first sign of resistance can still recognize us by our shape after thoughts on energy. Bennett wrote a book to the sliding. Then I slide that bag in thirty years even though we have gradually called Energies – Material, Vital, Cosmic that different directions in order to find out the succumbed to the ever-present pull of classifies different types of energy. He lists direction of greatest resistance. When I find gravity. People generally develop a more physical energies that we use when we that resistance, I stop the movement of my forward-head position and an increasingly work ‘hands on’ such as thermal energy, hands and I do nothing. I keep my hands constricted thoracic cavity as time goes on. coherent energy, elastic energy. He also in exactly the same position and feeling the The fantastic thing that Rolfing SI does is goes into emotional energies, kinds of same level of resistance; that is, I do not back that we are able to restore our shape to some mental energies, and levels of consciousness off. As I wait, the connective tissue ‘melts’ extent and to turn back the clock. such as awareness and intention. There are and the client’s autonomic nervous system implications for our Rolfing work. I will The quality of these plastic energies in (ANS) shifts – which you may recognize point to a few and leave you more to ponder. the human body is due to a combination by the client sighing or swallowing. Gehin of hormonal levels and which one of the called this a ‘release’. The client’s release Bennett starts by describing the mechanical three circuits of the ANS is in play. In the comes at the same exact instance that the energies. The first of the mechanical story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” resistance I was pushing against melts. This energies is a dispersed energy. It has no Goldilocks, in the cabin of the three bears, is a good way to achieve the changes that I organization. Heat is the lowest, least- has just eaten a bowl of porridge. She is want in my Rolfing sessions. organized, and most insensitive form of tired and wants to lie down to sleep. She mechanical energy. Everything that exists As an exploration of ‘bags’ and resistance sees three beds. She tries the first and it is contains some heat – the air, the water, our that bridges between Rolfing SI and too hard, then she tries the second and it bodies, the planets, and the stars. Heat just traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), is too soft, but when she tries the third, it flows from where there is more heat to here’s an exercise where we use the is just right. where there is less heat. The intensity of groove between adjacent muscles (‘bags’) heat is measured as temperature. We can use the metaphor of the three beds in the big muscles of the thigh. These as a description of states of the connective grooves, which are the territory of the loose Some forms of energy are directed tissue under our fingers when we do our connective tissue, are often the pathway of e n e r g i e s . Directed energy o c c u r techniques. If the connective tissue is too soft, acupuncture meridians. Pick one of these everywhere where there is an attraction it is often from a depressive state, which we grooves and lightly run your fingertips in between two things. Everything on Earth call the dorsal vagal circuit. If it is too hard, it. You will hit points of resistance and get has a certain amount of energy that it comes from the spinal sympathetic chain.

32 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

If the texture of the connective tissue is just emotional energy is Love. You can open In the usual ways of thinking about hands- right, then we can say that it is coming from yourself to receive it, Love can come from on work, there are only two elements: the ventral vagal circuit. your heart and be directed towards one the active – the practitioner – and the person, to several people, or to everyone receptive – the person receiving the work. In terms of plastic energy, we have desirable in the entire world. “I do something to your body and you qualities of elasticity and resilience. Without change.” That is the way that we have these, people would be rigid. Rolfing SI is There is also the category of the mental been conditioned to think, but it does not possible because we have these energies, energies such as yi and chi, visualization, work. When the therapist stops doing including the plastic energy. Increasing and consciousness. and becomes passive, he can create the resilience and elasticity are the positive One last element from Bennett, related to conditions for real change. In becoming outcomes of Rolfing SI for most people, consciousness and with application to our passive and witnessing, we make room for especially those who are rigid at the start work. In another of his books, How We Do the third force to enter the equation. of their Ten Series. Without elasticity Things, he talks about the ‘third force’, an and without resilience, people have the Stanley Rosenberg has been a Rolfer since 1983. idea he traces back to Babylonia. We usually undesirable opposite quality of rigidity. He studied various areas of osteopathy with Alain think of cause and effect, but Bennett’s This often goes together with a state of Gehin, his teacher for thirty years: craniosacral Third Force is a missing the third element, stress. On the opposite pole people can and visceral as well as working on the joints. which is consciousness (which he terms be without sufficient elasticity, and have Rosenberg founded a school in Denmark that the ‘passive’ in this model). According to a body that is too soft and that can hardly had thirteen teachers and taught these subjects. Bennett, in order to create anything or to resist being pushed out of shape. Good old- At the time, it was the largest craniosacral school change things, three elements have to be fashioned Rolfing techniques do not work in Europe. In December 2017, North Atlantic present: the active, the receptive, and the as well on soft bodies. If you work hard into Books released his book Accessing the Healing passive. To bring about change, assess the person’s tissue, it is often painful. These Power of the Vagus Nerve, which is based on which of the two elements are present people often suffer from fibromyalgia. We his work for the past twelve years with Stephen and what is the third element that is not might look for a different way to work with Porges’s Polyvagal Theory. present. If the person wanting to facilitate our hands. Here it might help to put your a change adds the missing element, s/he hands on the person and ask him to “come can be successful. to your hands” with his awareness. With colloidal energy the change is not in shape, but rather the actual consistency of the ground substance of the connective tissue itself. The colloids are like jello, which The Power of Words when poured into a mold and cooled in the refrigerator takes the shape of the mold. If Borrowing Psychology for Bodywork the jello is warmed, it becomes fluid and By Heather L. Corwin, PhD, Certified Rolfer™ loses its shape. Ida talked about the firmer state as gel and the more fluid state as sol. She said that we could use friction from our In the end, we will remember not the how relationships form and evolve. One hands to put heat into the tissue and get the words of our enemies, but the silence such element is boundaries. Webb (1993, gel to melt into sol. This works and is the of our friends. 1997) defines boundaries“ in relationships as establishing cultural, physical, emotional, reason that Rolfers plowed firmly though Martin Luther King, Jr. the tissue. intellectual and spiritual limits.” Many of Words have power. Words incite nations, us as Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) However, there is another energy that entice people to action, calm people when practitioners may have found ourselves in turns gel to sol in the human body. This heated, and so much more. When we as relationships with clients through which is awareness, which affects the colloids in healers approach our clients, mindful we intuitively felt that a client was in need the connective tissue. As the practitioner, communication will not only support of psychological help alongside our work. if I become aware of the resistance to my healing, the therapeutic relationship can We do not replace psychologists or talk very light push into my client’s body, then help redefine a client’s relationship with therapy. Some of our clients will need more I get the positive change without the hard his or her self, inside and out (Corwin 2015 than just our help to make the life changes work and without causing discomfort to Jul). When I went through my training they desire beyond SI. Notwithstanding, the client. My client’s awareness comes up as a Rolfer over ten years ago, I found our work can always benefit from clear to meet mine. my teachers borrowing many words and communication, mindful intention, and Another category is emotional energy, a ideas from psychology. This adoption of understanding of how some therapeutic big topic. On this I would suggest that language from a field that focuses on the relationships operate. This article will you read my book, Accessing the Healing mind, when we work explicitly with the explore some useful tools defined and Power of the Vagus Nerve (North Atlantic body, acknowledges we are always working used in psychological application that can Books 2017), which goes into the new with the ‘bodymind’, also known as somatic support a healthy relationship with our understanding of the ANS based on Stephen work. This infusion of psychology is clients including intake process, transference Porges’s Polyvagal Theory. One form of useful to create healthy elements within and countertransference, forming clear relationships as well as to understand boundaries, dual relationships, and how touch is complicated. www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 33 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS First Contact active listening, I have found that I gain a the client. If a client is honest, and shame or better understanding of the layers of the embarrassment does not override the ability The foundation of each relationship with hopes and challenges that are in the work to examine what feelings are presenting our clients begins at our first contact. Each we embark on daily with our clients. At the and why, on rare occasions a client is able of us has a way in which we like to vet same time, I enjoy a deep connection with to realize that unresolved feelings about our clients prior to the first session. This my clients. A note of caution: for clients a mother, sister, brother, ex, etc., have investigation is crucial to discover if any who are less secure or nervous, slowing somehow come into this relationship now. red flags exist when moving forward to your tempo and being mindful to serve I would not encourage any person who hands-on work. Technology has offered the needs of the client through checking is not trained in psychotherapy to name us some options in how we communicate in with the person, rather than intimidate an event as transference to a client, even and book our clients, which may also pose through active listening, is important. What if you think that is what is happening. As distinct challenges in vetting clients. For I mean by this is, since active listening Rolfers, we can attempt to name what is example, many of us allow or encourage involves a form of repetition, there exists happening in any given moment from our clients to reserve sessions online versus a risk of patronizing or overwhelming the perspective. This might sound like, “I’m establishing a relationship through a phone client. Overall, I have consistently found the feeling some big feelings in this room and call. Through your scheduling form or benefits of active listening and emotional want to acknowledge that.” If you feel like during that first communication, you might attunement outweigh what might be an the client is trying to make you feel a certain include questions about why the client is extra five minutes of my time; most notably way, you might name that as well if you seeking the work, the anticipated goals because clients who feel heard will return feel doing so would be valuable because and outcomes, and any limiting factors again and again. you don’t understand how your behavior such as health challenges (e.g., diabetic, merited this reaction. Although attempting autoimmune, psychological diagnosis) to Transference and to address this issue might be tempting, this understand how to best support the client. Countertransference is an ideal opportunity to remind yourself This investigative background gathering Over time, we build relationships with our and your client that people are available not only informs how we work together to help address interpersonal styles of and suggests the client’s tolerance level for clients based in trust and communication. Because of the depth of our relationships communication, such as talk therapy or a the intensity of work, but also builds the somatic psychologist. Lifelong relationships foundation for emotional attunement. with clients, feelings can come out on both sides of the relationship that surprise and ways of communicating require time Emotional attunement occurs when one us. Sometimes, our clients will have and support to make any conscious changes person is able to accurately sense and reactions to our work that we do not see in ways of being. respond to another’s experience. The results coming, which can fall into the category of Articulating what is happening in the of emotional attunement are often feeling transference. Freud (1924) coined this term room sounds like an easy directive; it heard and seen, which is the cornerstone and defined it as the patient displacing is not. This recognition that the client/ of a healing and healthy relationship. feelings from the patient/self to the Rolfer relationship is off balance can The trust that is inspired from listening therapist. (For our discussion, I will now trigger the client into all sorts of behavior allows the work we do in our sessions to use the term ‘practitioner’ rather than reminiscent of the significant relationship flourish and potentially increase the rate ‘therapist’ since we are speaking of this on which the transference is based. At the at which clients are able to integrate the in the context of the Rolfing therapeutic risk of repeating myself, I offer a word physical work. Ways to engage, informed relationship.) This concept has evolved to of caution: most of the time, I would not by emotional attunement, include open- clients’ feelings about a significant person suggest introducing to your client the idea ended questions that allow the client to in their lives being projected onto the that transference might be happening. express what he/she/z feels is pertinent therapist/practitioner, as if the therapist is Instead, you can simply name that some to the work done together. I often ask, that significant person. This process is not of the relationship needs to be adjusted “What brings you to Rolfing work?” and a conscious one. As such, identifying the to accommodate your boundaries, which “What hopes do you have for our work problem as transference can be tricky. takes responsibility for your needs in the together?” and, my favorite, “If I could Some elements would need to be in place relationship. Psychological diagnosis is not wave a magic wand, what would happen in our purview or anyone’s best interest. through our work today?” Throughout the for both the client and practitioner to be able to detect if transference is occurring. For Nevertheless, knowing that transference client’s response, I practice active listening. exists and why is a useful tool when Smith and Fitt (1982, 247) define active example, in order to identify the origin of the feelings, awareness is required. Most people working with people to support healthy listening as, “the listener (receiver) of the and lasting relationships. message attempts to confirm what the just feel the feeling and do not stop to think, message is, by putting his understanding “This reaction may be out of proportion Avoiding taking transference personally of the message into a tentative statement with the current relationship and situation.” is hugely difficult. We can’t read people’s in his own words, and feeding it back for Transference is not occurring if the feelings minds to determine the source of the outburst the sender’s verification.” Dr. Carl Rogers are of an appropriate intensity based on or behavior directed at us. Ultimately, when is the psychologist who codified active events and interactions that have taken played out, transference can erupt into a listing when he discovered the profound place within the client/Rolfer relationship. personal attack that simply feels terrible. impacts of this therapeutic technique. By In contrast, transference commonly feels The ferocity of the attack is not congruent combining emotional attunement and disproportionately fierce in regards to the with the depth of actual personal connection power of the feelings being displayed by

34 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS because the attack is born from a history relationship more complicated was that mom issue with the client was helpful so with another human being, not you. Of countertransference was also taking place. she could clearly identify why my behavior course, an attack is not always inevitable, Countertransference is when the therapist’s changed and what I needed to acknowledge but some sort of reckoning is usual during feelings regarding a significant person are to move forward in our relationship. transference, which is based on unresolved superimposed onto a client. In the case However, Jane was thrilled that I had cast feelings that have nothing to do with you of Jane, I was entangling emotions about her as my ‘good mother’ – so much so, and everything to do with the significant my mother (who I had always wanted to that she wanted me to continue with that. person in the client’s life. So how do you be this generous and kind) with Jane. So, When I explained that doing so would be know if the problem in the relationship is here we had Jane’s feelings of transference hurtful to us both, she was disappointed. transference or another cause? If you are layered on top of my feelings of my mother Ironically, I recognized that in her able to discern that the reaction from the (countertransference), making a complicated transference she had cast me as someone client seems to be disproportionate to the and potentially volatile situation. whom she wished would appreciate her interaction (informed by history of your generous nature, which complemented What makes transference and relationship together), transference is a my countertransference: a perfect storm. countertransference so problematic is the likely cause. What can also make this process These complicated relational dynamics are relationships we superimpose on people are complicated is that we, the client and the why having clear boundaries and roles is commonly unhealthy and dysfunctional. practitioner, are unwittingly involved in supportive of healthy relationships. So, when we endow people with these traits roles in which we did not know we were that may or may not actually exist in those cast. Sometimes people remind others of the Dual Relationships people, the result is a recipe for disaster. I significant people in their lives. Remember wish I could tell you that I knew from the Sometimes we push boundaries by having this if a client says, “You remind me of my beginning with Jane that I was engaging in more than one relationship with our clients, mom” or whomever. This information could transference and countertransference, but also known as dual relationships or multiple be informative if interpersonal relationship I cannot. Jane’s therapist began asking me relationships. Expanding a therapeutic challenges occur later. questions, because he was aware of potential relationship to a dual relationship requires I am also reminded that emotions lay transference on Jane’s part. As soon as he thought and intent, as well as respect for in wait in the body for a safe time to be began investigating my relationship with any professional and legal codes involved expressed (Corwin 2015 Mar). Bodies can Jane, and I began naming events of gifts and consideration of standard practice in be a minefield of triggers, and as we are and offered time, I was utterly surprised one’s profession. Particularly, one should working directly with the body, various at the revelation that I was engaging in never consider any romantic relationship unexpected responses can be elicited. countertransference. The psychotherapist because that type of relationship would reminded me that we all have ways of being breach ethical restrictions. With this in Let us now look at an example to depict that serve how we operate in the world. mind, let’s look at dual relationships and transference. A past client of mine, we To recognize what is not helping us in any when those might occur. will call her ‘Jane’, came to me with a relationship gives us the opportunity to long list of psychological diagnoses and Through my Rolfing practice, I have had make choices. Knowing what I was doing trauma. I am not a licensed marriage and the great fortune of meeting inspiring, helped me decide how to move forward family therapist, even though I have a compassionate, and impressive people. in a healthy way, which is the best we PhD in clinical psychology. However, the Some rare clients inspire dual relationships can hope for in any circumstance. Here implied understanding of my knowledge where a therapeutic relationship might was my opportunity to advocate for the often calms skittish clients and draws to expand to include a friendship, a teaching boundaries needed to maintain a healthy me challenging clients. Jane wanted to relationship, etc., but doing so can open the Rolfer/client relationship. work on trust through touch and to help door to blurred lines with false expectations align her body to feel better about herself. The next time I saw Jane, I was able to of the dual relationship by either party, With her permission, I conferred with her name some things happening for me with particularly in regard to boundaries. Forging psychotherapist to be involved in a support countertransference. I told her that she a friendship beyond our professional alliance team for Jane. After a short amount of time, was treating me like the mom I wished can be natural, but it requires deliberation I became aware that Jane was treating me I had, but that I could not continue with and alignment with the guidance in the Rolf ® with kindness and generosity beyond that behavior. I defined our roles together, Institute Code of Ethics. Specifically in the what seemed to be appropriate for our underlining how much I enjoy her and Code of Ethics (Rolf Institute 2006), we will relationship duration and scope. She was our work together. Asking Jane about any not “induce [any client] to enter into other giving me expensive items at her insistence, transference would not have helped Jane, therapeutic, commercial, sexual or social offering to help with childcare, and many so I left that piece for her psychotherapist to relationships with us; nor do we engage in more generous, but disproportionate and address. For the work between Jane and I to relationships with our clients that are likely inappropriate, suggestions. Because I be effective, we needed to stay in the roles to interfere with or be detrimental to the am a human being, I was at first deeply of Rolfer and client. When transference Rolfing Structural Integration process.” If a touched by the generosity of these acts or countertransference occurs with our client and I decide to explore a friendship, and offerings, but I began to recognize that clients, what serves us as Rolfers is taking I always weigh the possibility of losing these gifts could not be accepted when the responsibility for what we are putting into the client and the friend. Please note the little voice in me recognized that this was the relationship that does not belong in likelihood of a relationship withstanding not a mutual relationship. What made this the relationship. In my case, naming my a dual relationship is far lower than a pure singular relationship, because the

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 35 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS layering of relationships exponentially does the intersection of being human and the healthcare industry; most healthcare opens up miscommunication possibilities being the expert occur? professions in our culture avoid the use and incongruent expectations in both people. of touch as much as possible, and medical Some questions to ask yourself prior This weighing of pros and cons when practitioners are taught to avoid physical to entering a dual relationship include adding a personal relationship to an existing touch, even when counseling critically ill the following. (These questions are not professional relationship is necessary. and terminal patients diagnosed with cancer comprehensive but might shed light on (Armstrong 2015). In clinical psychology, For transparency, if I feel the professional what is motivating you to layer your touch is taboo; psychologists often suggest relationship might withstand the expanse to relationship with this client.) to patients to look for hands-on work outside include a personal relationship, discussing • Will I financially be okay if this person of sessions (Harrison 2012). Touch can mean my reservations will always make me feel is no longer my client? (The pressure to so many things to so many people that some better and address some potential boundary please the person so she/he/z remains a psychotherapists do not wish to breach the challenges within the dual relationship. For client can be tremendous and should not gaping hole of mixed messages, triggers, and example, my cancellation policy requires be underestimated.) unintended consequences. twenty-four hours’ notice or the client pays the session fee in full. If ‘Toni’ and I • Has this client been a client long enough Thus, touch makes the relationship of are friends and have dinner now and then, for me to determine if we could be good bodyworker and client unusual from other does being friends presume a leniency on friends? healthcare relationships, and it is what we my policy if Toni forgets our appointment? are paid for. Physical contact is usually the • What do I enjoy about this person? I may not think that our friendship includes point of our work together – physical change this shift of understanding professionally, • Does this person ask about me in our through direct physical contact. As Rolfers, but Toni might because that’s how she sessions or is the relationship one- we hold the power of helping people engage treats friends. Again, expectations of a sided? (Note: one-sided with a client in healthful, healing, and kind touch, which relationship drive communication and focus is not a negative for a professional is particularly important when we consider miscommunication. The key to a thriving relationship.) that a significant percentage of people and successful dual relationship is stating have been victims of physical aggression, clear boundaries as needed, ideally prior • Will I remain an authority on healthful violation, and misuse of touch. Yet there to the challenge occurring so you both can practices if we become friends? are challenges. Although Rolfing work is have clear expectations about events. This • Is becoming friends trying to please the a direct form of manipulating tissue that is communication will also help foster an client or a relational shift I am genuinely not often associated with sensual pleasure, understanding of how you both wish to be interested in? it might unintentionally elicit a sexualized treated in the relationship moving forward response from someone who does not while offering the opportunity to discuss Key Dynamics in the differentiate sensual and sexual feelings. the contract of friendship in light of the Therapeutic Relationship For some clients, touch in general evokes therapeutic relationship already established. Level of Dress a sexualized engagement. I found this prevalent throughout my eighteen years To be clear, the relationship that is already We have not yet mentioned a power as a massage therapist, but thankfully not present is one-sided where you as the dynamic in the Rolfer-client relationship during my time as a Rolfer. While massage caretaker listen and give your expertise that does not exist in many relationships: therapists commonly work with a client based on the client’s needs. This uneven that is that one person has clothes on, the unclothed under a sheet, Rolfers work relationship does not offer the bedrock of a other has clothes mostly off (as most Rolfing with clients in underclothes or clothing, fair or balanced friendship. Consequently, clients will be in underwear or else attire depending on the clients’ preferences – growing this one-sided relationship into a like a sports bra and sports shorts rather this is a small but profound difference that friendship may not, in the end, appeal to the than full street clothes). When I was training perhaps simulates the relationship of a client because the inequity may have been to become a Rolfer, a suggested guideline physician and patient. what was appealing to the client to pursue was to encourage and follow the client’s a friendship. This assessment may sound Trauma and Body Armor comfort level to thereby determine what cold and selfish, but it is accurate. This last the client wears in the sessions. This will be Sadly, the power dynamic in the Rolfer-client point can also be challenging because when more or less significant for the relationship therapeutic relationship can sometimes it is discovered that a one-sided position depending on considerations of gender, the bring forth childhood trauma in the form of cannot occur in the friendship, the dual client’s level of modesty, the client’s cultural molestation, incest, or more. When someone relationship is likely to deteriorate. If the background, and other factors. comes for bodywork, the possibility that friendship fails, shifting back to Rolfer/ there is a trauma history that will be client is almost impossible. Touch touched is in a sense an undeniable factor. Other complications can easily arise. Yet the weightiest relational element is William Reich, a protégé of Freud, was the The Rolfer is commonly viewed as the that the client receives touch. This is the first psychologist who deduced that the healthcare expert. If you both go drinking most profound element of the Rolfer - body builds ‘armor’ because of experiences and one becomes inebriated, what happens client relationship. Touch is complex and united with psychological events. “Reich then? This is one of many possible scenarios. spans many types of relationships, but in determined that the etiology of early Where do the boundary lines form? Where our work the Rolfer gives and the client childhood trauma had to be elucidated receives touch. Touch is controversial in first through recognition, understanding,

36 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS and loosening of barriers that he named Conclusion old, and a fan of historical romance. To read character armor – a protective psychological more publications and learn more, please visit attitude and muscular tension reflecting When beginning my path as a Rolfer, I did BodybyHeather.com and HeatherC.com the body component” (May 2018, 40). All not intend to change people’s lives through trauma fosters armor in the body, and by this work. The fact that we can and do every Bibliography day is miraculous. By borrowing ideas and touching the body, and particularly the Armstrong, C. 2015. “Bending Boundaries language from the field of psychology, we fascial system that shapes the body, we are in Oncology Counselling.” Therapy Today can better understand mechanisms of how touching body armor. 26(10):22-25. people operate, define how we would Peter Levine’s book In An Unspoken Voice like to interact with clients, and discover Corwin, H.L. 2015 Jul. “Attachment (2005) explores how the body wishes ways to support our clients without taking Theory and the Therapeutic Relationship.” to let go of stored trauma through on any endeavors that remain out of our Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf acknowledgement of impulses stifled scope of practice. Knowing that the body Institute® 43(2):24-26. at the time of the traumatic event to reflects the mind (Hanna 1970), we can rest Corwin, H.L. 2015 Mar. “Empathy and heal the holes in our souls. The age and assured that we do not need words to help Applied Empathy.” Structural Integration: severity of the trauma will have an impact people make profound change in their lives. The Journal of the Rolf Institute® 43(1):30-32. on the pace and locations of the work Knowing about, and engaging in, emotional you do together. When you feel a client attunement and active listening can help Freud, S. 1924. The Dynamics of the ‘leave’ the room or ‘vacate’ his/her body, you engage in a healthy relationship and Transference (1912) – Collected Papers, Vol. dissociation is occurring. Dissociation is identify and maintain clear boundaries II. London: Hogarth Press. when a person cannot tolerate the moment for you and your clients. Understanding and disengages with it by separating from that transference and countertransference Hanna, T. 1970. Bodies In Revolt: A Primer a sense of self, identity, and memory in can and do exist will allow you to better in Somatic Thinking (2nd ed.). Novato, the current moment. Dissociation is often understand how a situation ignited so California: Freeperson Press. seen as a coping skill for many children, quickly into an event that you did not see Harrison, C., et al. 2012. “We’re People and adults, who have survived traumatic coming. Trauma exists in all of us; being Who Don’t Touch: Exploring Clinical events. However, when dissociation mindful of moving forward will help us Psychologists’ Perspectives on Their Use of occurs in our sessions, pausing hands-on identify if dissociation occurs so we can Touch in Therapy.” Counselling Psychology work to verbally check in with the client ground our clients in the present moment. Quarterly 25(3): 277-287. is necessary. Naming the parts of your experience can and does help you and your client orient Levine, P.A. 2005. In An Unspoken Voice: I recognize when dissociation happens in to the situation, to best determine how to How The Body Releases Trauma and Restores session with my clients because I feel alone move forward. Goodness. Berkeley, California: North in the room; I also get uncomfortable in my Atlantic Books. skin because the energy shifts. Whenever We are ambassadors of health, working in I have any feeling that raises a warning the vast vulnerabilities of the human body, May, K. 2018. “Collaborating with the for me, I pause the session. I ask about the complicated by the complexities of the Fortress around Early Childhood Trauma: A client’s experience, to describe what she/ human mind. In closing, I leave you with Depth Psychotherapy Process.” Perspectives he/z is noticing. I ask if the client is having the wisdom of Ida Rolf: “. . . no situation in Psychiatric Care 54(1): 39-45. any sensations that would alert me to the exists in a human which a psychologist Rolf Institute® of Structural Integration nervous system being triggered (sweating, would diagnose as a feeling of insecurity 2006. “Code of Ethics.” Available at cold, trembling, shaky, etc.). If the client or inadequacy unless it is accompanied by www.rolf.org/docs/code_ethics.pdf. and I have already discussed past trauma, a physical situation which bears witness (Retrieved 5/14/2018). I might ask if she/he/z feels present or in to the fact that the gravitational support is another place (dissociated). Offering the inadequate.” Let us be the support we wish Smith, N.M. and S.D. Fitt 1982. “Active client water or sitting up and placing feet to witness in the world. Listening at the Reference Desk.” RQ on the floor can help a person come back to 21(3):247-249. the present moment; this is also known as Heather L. Corwin holds a PhD in clinical psychology with a somatic concentration from Webb, S. 1997. “Training for Maintaining grounding. We can elaborate that grounding Appropriate Boundaries in Counselling.” is when the practitioner supports a client The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and an MFA in acting from Florida State British Journal of Guidance & Counselling to tolerate living in the present moment 25(2):175. fully and wholly while feeling connected University/Asolo Conservatory. Currently, to the earth (or whichever element seems she is the Head of Movement for actor training Webb, S. 1993 Aug. “Boundaries: A most centering to the client). As a Rolfer, at Northern Illinois University working with Workshop.” Conducted at the Conference a leading principle is to help foster health, graduates and undergraduates. As an actor for of the International Round Table for the tolerance, and alignment in the client’s over twenty years and a theatre arts professor, Advancement of Counselling, Auckland, body. Since the mind echoes the body, we she examines behavior through the lens of New Zealand. are helping our clients evolve into better psychology, allowing the flaws of being human versions of themselves, which in turn to unite us through creative expression. Corwin facilitates health and well-being in their is a Rolfer, a belly laugher, married to the love families and communities. of her life, a mother to an energetic seven-year-

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 37 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

cross-crawl pattern in my systems. Patterns Consciousness we developed, or didn’t, through physical development, could be a severe dysfunction, Challenge Your Worldview a nuisance, or could be the basis of the uniquely special gift called you. By Deborah Weidhaas, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement® Practitioner Family Conditioning Family conditioning is something we I have been blessed to recognize, and work Someone recently asked if you need to get all got at a very early age and were from, a level of consciousness where what to this level before you have it. I said we all indoctrinated in for years. It dramatically a client’s structure needs, and in what already have it (though many don’t know shapes our consciousness through who- order, is information that presents itself this and/or have blockages to it). Just start you-are and how-you-are-to-be in order as I work. I believe this is because I drop from wherever you are. to survive and succeed (and sometimes agenda, become fully present, open myself Consciousness, succeeding is merely surviving). It includes to perceive what is, know and trust that a norms, values, rewards, punishments, higher level of consciousness and truth is Simply Stated observations, and reactions. Some of these present in both the client and me, and know Consciousness is the awareness of oneself are spoken and much is unspoken, but that the client’s structure knows exactly and one’s environment. That’s it, plain and everyone in the family knows them. Family its own right answers. Years ago I worked simple. However, there is a vast spectrum conditioning can also be so subtle that, ® with a client where her Rolfing Structural of levels and layers to one’s awareness of while we sense it, we can’t put words to Integration (SI) sessions made no sense to self, others, experiences, and environment. it, or it can be so ingrained that we don’t me until two to three days after a session. Also, there are base levels of consciousness know it’s there, think it’s normal, or have I confessed to her, “I have always known we get stuck in, and perhaps don’t know been conditioned to doubt our own sense/ I am not the conductor on this train, but we’re stuck, so we continuously look for knowing of what’s happening. until you, I hadn’t realized I’m riding three the answers there. They say consciousness An example of this subtle stuff, from my own cars back.” is the ability to think and feel which, then, family, is: the children’s accomplishments builds the framework to what one knows. Recently, I did an event of mini-sessions. were owned by the parents. As a kid I called I suspect those Rolfers who are skilled in A lady came into my room for a session it living vicariously. It was a sense that my the energetic taxonomy would be more wearing a knit cap on top of scraggly hair, accomplishment, pride, and excitement were comfortable saying higher consciousness torn jeans, and a worn-out coat. I’ll confess: being sucked off of me while I began to live is always available and is accessed through I thought (rudely) to myself, “What am I this experience that the accomplishment perceiving and sensing. going to do with this for fifteen minutes?” had never been mine to begin with. My She took off her coat, sat cross-legged on Consciousness determines what you pay youngest brother, the youngest of five and top of my table, and looked at me. I asked attention to, your experiences, what you ten years my junior, told me, when he was her if she had any ache or pain places, and hold as true, what you think you know, a teenager, that he never tells mom and dad she said no. I asked her why she came for life skills, professional skills, and your what he’s going to do, or has accomplished, a mini-session, and she said because she inner world. It influences who and how so it won’t get swallowed up. Over time, was curious. Then, what came into my we get to be, the possibilities available to family conditioning is so ingrained that we consciousness was a question I’ve never us, and defines the ways we engage with enact the patterns/dynamics, unconsciously, asked before. I said, “In the depths of life. What’s challenging is that much of on ourselves, and these can take decades to the depths of who you are, what are you this, that which limits our access to higher unlearn and un-embody. I believe family working on right now?” levels of consciousness, is held in our sub- conditioning is how we pass dysfunctional As she pondered the answer to that or unconscious. patterns from one generation to another, and question, more and more color came into (for those whose worldview includes it) from Those who have had NDEs (Near-Death one incarnation to another. her pale face. Her whole energy shifted and Experiences) are hard pressed to find words kept shifting, and I watched her, second to convey what they experienced and now Sometimes, though, some aspects of our by second, become beautiful. By the time know. They do, however, have a common family conditioning can disturb us in a way she began to speak, she was amazingly opinion about how we live our human lives that we begin to search out the message, beautiful. She said that she hides behind and what we’ve been thinking we know. recognize its falsehood, and choose to masks out of fear and disappointment and They suggest we question all of it. discard it. As an example, in my family is trying to figure out how to be okay. Of there was a pattern of offering something course I told her of the transition I had just Original Formation to someone so that the other could thank watched, and told her that she’s beautiful The beginnings of our conscious awareness you while repeatedly declining what you (in a way so she could hear it). For me, it came through the development of our bodies offered. In my twenties, I recognized this was a sight to behold: to see a body/person/ and brains. As is known from practitioners of and decided I was done with it, no matter structure shift like this in a matter of ten Brain Gym®, not all of us learned or evolved the consequences. I told myself if the family seconds. I didn’t know this was possible. all the same patterns. For example, since I disowned me, so be it. Later, during one visit Then, I silently asked her structure where went straight from sitting to walking as an to my grandparent’s home, my grandmother and how it needed me to engage, and we infant (i.e., never crawled), I don’t have the went on and on about how poor the crop of did our mini-session. raspberries had been that year. (Mind you, 38 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS my grandmother’s raspberry jam was to die he had asked again, and she didn’t hesitate and perspectives have taught you to hold for.) The crop had been so tiny that they had for a second before saying, “He looks like as true. Beliefs are not thoughts. Beliefs only gotten seven jars of raspberry jam. Only golden sunshine.” are embodied. Our thoughts and reactivity seven. She asked if I wanted one. Contrary arise from the beliefs that we hold in our We have all been socialized about how we are to family conditioning, I immediately said systems as true. People can hold onto ‘supposed to’ pay attention to ourselves, to yes. The look on her face, and the quality of these, and defend them, like they preserve others, and to our environment. In the course the moment that hung in the air, was as if the very pillars of truth and life when of this, at very early ages of growing up, we the planet had cracked in half for her. This they are really only the pillars of our map/ learn not to pay attention to, no less trust: is how potent family conditioning is, and it worldview. In some ways, beliefs could our intuition; our inner sensing/perceiving forms the foundation to our maps of how be compared to operating systems and (like animals use when they know a tsunami things work in life, in living, with others, application programs. is coming or a predator is behind the next and in the world. bush); the gift of imagining (which is really At an energy and energetic level, beliefs Some of us live our whole lives at a level an incredible tool); and a direct relationship are resonances/vibrations that permeate of consciousness that is ruled by family with, and the embodiment of, our bodies. the field in which we live and function. As conditioning. With this, defense mechanisms And, yet, our bodies, because they sense and resonances/vibrations, they have a direct (ego, masks, denial, hiding, etc.) become perceive, are one of the direct lines to higher hold on what we, and our physical body, can our way of coping with the disharmony levels of consciousness. do. Beliefs are a tough nut to crack because between our true self, our conditioned self, they organize and affect our experience and the inner and outer environments we He Said, She Said (mentally, emotionally, physically). So, from constantly try to negotiate. All the dualities Through socialization and education we experiences we form beliefs. Those beliefs are prominent and dominant at this level. acquire another level of consciousness then inform and direct our experience. Luckily, we can grow, choose, and change. where we learn to pay attention to our Then experience reinforces our beliefs, and beliefs reinforce our experience. Recurring Other Conditioning thoughts. From this, we become entangled in analyzing, and in our emotional reactivity experiences, emotions, and thoughts are While our most primary foundation to to thoughts and experiences. I call this the indicators to our embodied beliefs. early consciousness is the family, we also ‘he said, she said; he did, she did’ level of To shift to a higher level of consciousness, get conditioning from education, religion, consciousness. Many of us live our lives one has to recognize, challenge, and discard community, locale/state, nation, etc. For here, and there is absolutely no healing, no many of one’s beliefs. Some of our beliefs those who have experienced trauma, abuse, resolution, and no potential for change at fall away in the course of doing Rolfing SI injury, or loss/absence of a family member this level. We simply spin endlessly around and Rolf Movement work, but many require in the course of growing up, even more on whether what was said or done meets great courage, persistence, and a ruthless complexity shapes one’s consciousness, our expectations and beliefs or doesn’t. commitment to picking apart one’s own who we are, and how we are trying to find When we talk to friends or associates, we psyche in order to recognize patterns and our way. focus on whether they agree or don’t. If find solutions or ways to transcend the belief. they don’t, we’re off spinning again about It is crucial to realize that conditioning, this apparently new ‘he said, she said’. There is value in challenging everything maturation, and education affect our level That word, ‘apparently’ is important here we think we know. We, and each one of of belief in, trust for, and knowing of self. because it’s not new at all. Our response is our clients, are grappling with this kind of It moves me nearly to tears to think of the a common pattern, based on beliefs, that we material, each in our own unique way and ways we have learned to shut down, turn have set up in order to survive, manage, and at our own pace and level. This material off, and inhibit our own inner knowing. succeed in our lives. Shifting out of a ‘he- can be disturbing, confusing, frustrating, My favorite story of all time was published said-she-said’ level of consciousness starts and most often not at all rooted in what we in Reader’s Digest® many decades ago. A with identifying one’s beliefs. thought was the answer. So back to what the mother wrote it. The gist of the story is that NDE folk say: question everything. Beliefs one day the mother saw her toddler walking Patterns toward the bedroom of her newborn. She When I spoke with someone recently, he followed, quietly, to see what was up. The thought ‘beliefs’ meant religious beliefs. He We have all been perplexed by circumstances toddler walked in the room, pressed his face hadn’t yet realized that we formulate beliefs that seem to happen to us repeatedly, or against the crib, and said to the sleeping about everything. It’s how we began to map happen with the same outcome no matter infant, “Will you please tell me what God out the way to make sense of, organize, what the circumstance or venue. Beliefs, looks like because I’m beginning to forget.” self-protect, manage, and move forward and the ways we made sense of our world I relayed this story to one of my clients in our lives. as we matured, formed patterns that most who just so happens to have a toddler of us don’t realize are there and yet these and a newborn. The following week, he We formulate beliefs about life, self, and inform and determine our awareness, shared with me that when he asked his others. Beliefs can be found by listening and our consciousness. toddler what God looks like, she scowled hearing reactions, intensities, behaviors, The consciousness level of patterns is at him and went back to playing. I told him thoughts, and the interpretations and where the potential for change and perhaps she doesn’t remember or perhaps judgments you form about self and others. healing happens. This is why our work she does but it is too special for her to talk These are indicators that can point you is so valuable. Rather than fixing people’s about. A week or so later, he texted me that toward questioning what your experience symptoms (which we all are incredibly www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 39 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS skilled at), we work at the structural I have never had another client who withheld. It is the very nature of being, pattern level, the level where real change accessed core/psoas as quickly, and used it and it evolves and unfolds for us within is possible. Our work, and particularly Rolf as efficiently, as she did. She used it like a us. Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement are the Movement, allows people to expand their super highway and found her trust in self most potent vehicle I’ve ever experienced conscious awareness. I also hold it as a goal again. I was blessed to have worked with to bring mind, body, spirit, and ‘God’ that this work can help people regain access her through her basic Rolfing SI process. (whatever God means for you) into a reality to their intuition and, thereby, regain a Then she went to Africa for two years on that you experience and live. sense of trust: in self; in their capability and an educational mission. I look at a client as a coherent inseparableness possibilities; and in sensing their own truth. Clients and the Mind, that knows exactly why s/he is in my office. Base levels of consciousness demand our Body, Spirit Relationship My framework is that it’s my job to listen to respect because they encompass how a the inseparableness, to hear what it needs human being put himself together in order Some clients come to us with an from me, from my work, and for my client. to mature and survive. At the same time, understanding that mind, body, and spirit I would hope for clients, ideally, that this though, structure changes most easily when are intertwined. Some may be sure of this work becomes a discovery and reclaiming we connect into the true/innate self of the and some may only suspect it. Some may of their inner knowing, self-truth, trust in client as we work. feel they have plateaued in their personal self, trust in intuition, and embodiment of journey because mental and emotional body-with-spirit and spirit-with-body to There are Rewards issues feel to them to be stuck in their the fullest of one’s abilities at that moment. As practitioners, getting out of our heads, bodies. These clients may be ready to begin I know we’re on the right road when they our techniques, and what we think we to question or pick apart base levels of experience their body supporting them or know, and finding ways to find, follow, consciousness. Some clients come to us for connecting into parts they haven’t been and trust our inner knowing, sensing, and specific physical reasons only to realize, at living in, or come to realize that their body perceiving has tremendous rewards in how a deeper level, that they really arrived here is a partner, or realize that the aches and to do this work and also holds high value in order to begin dismantling their mental, pains of the body are its only way (when for our clients. One’s inner voice, sensing, emotional, and spiritual blockages. There we’re not embodied) to signal that there is perceiving, and experiencing that feeling in are also some clients who have many years a distortion in the system that is keeping the cells of your body of knowing, of “yes, of, and many skills for, healing their own them from experiencing the amazing that’s true and accurate,” are pathways mental, emotional, and spiritual self. journey that is who they are. Do I say this to higher consciousness. Over time, we No matter where the client is, engaging the to potential clients? No. Do I do the best I acquire enough experiences to realize interplay of mind, body, and spirit begins can for them to possibly discover on their we can trust ourselves, trust our inner with becoming familiar with where the own that this is happening for them? Yes. knowing, and trust the information that client is, his or her worldview or map, and A Specific Client Example arises into our conscious awareness. how his or her physicality is expressing I worked with a fellow who came to I’m reminded of the young lady, age itself. What is possible depends on what Rolfing SI because his wife told him he twenty-two, who called me early in my the client’s true/innate self (meaning was slumping. He thought slumping was a career. She had a rare bone disease that ‘structure’, which means physical plus all structure issue, and then he heard from me caused additional bone growth. As a result, of who s/he is) is calling for. that Rolfing SI works at the structural level. she had had a surgery to remove bone I use the beginnings of the traditional We made a lot of really good progress with every two years since her birth. Physical Rolfing SI process to become more familiar his structure over about eight sessions, but tissues had been reattached by the surgeons with these aspects of a client and to let the he was unable to sustain it. In addition to anywhere they could. By the time she came client acquire some trust in my skills. I am working with his body, in one session he to me, she had half of each scapula, bone an avid listener and an avid questioner. I mentioned he thrives with analyzing and pieces had been cut out of lower legs and have zero qualms about asking a ‘dumb’ that he expects/wants only basic survival: forearms, and each innominate was nothing question. I strive to have a huge worldview to keep a job and provide for his family. A more than an arc of pubic bone, hip joint, because it is then more likely that I will be session or two later, he talked to me about and SI joint. Everything else had been cut able to comprehend whatever my client’s his meditation practice and how he knows away. I contacted three Rolfers who were worldview is. It is not the job of my clients to God is out there, and he’s been trying to get also MDs about this bone disease and this understand or accept my worldview. It is my out there and connect. I told him God is not lady’s desire to do Rolfing SI. All three of job to understand theirs. This is the meaning “out there”; God is in you, it is here, inside, them said clearly and emphatically, “Don’t of ‘meet the client where the client is’. and you won’t find what you’re looking for touch her!” Meanwhile, my inner voice was by trying to get “out there.” In the following screaming at me to work with her. I called In my ideal world, when a client comes to this session he said he’d been sitting with the idea her back with the only approach I know that work knowing there is an inseparableness that God is “in here” and likes it. To this, works best: be straight up and honest about and interdependence of mind, body, spirit, I said that the truth is that God is out there where you are. I told her I had no idea what and ‘God’ (whatever God means for you), AND in here, and everywhere, all the time. to do for her or how to help. She said she my hope is that the client would know My client liked this even better because he never asked if I knew what to do or how this at an experiential level. Most don’t. now realized that if he goes inside, he can to help. She said she was asking if I was The experience is not ‘thoughts about’; not then sense “out there” and still also be “in willing to take the journey. Oh my God! Yes! hoping and asking; not doing or making it happen; not beyond one’s grasp nor being here” to sense what his truth is.

40 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Our next session was 70% talking. He These concepts are very common for me to identifying when you speak and think went back to the subject of analyzing. He use with clients who are beginning to get a this word. talked about so many things he should connection between body, mind, and spirit The final task: Change the ‘sh’ of ‘should’ and shouldn’t be doing, that he is trying to or have been working on it and not making to a ‘c’. ‘Should’ is a rule; ‘could’ is a follow these, has reasserted a new resolve, much progress. For others who come in choice. If you’re like me, you’ll probably and is determined to find his purpose in with a lot of tools and skills already, I draw spend another week tripping over your life. I suggested he let go of the purpose on all they know and listen to their structure words, like, “I sh- sh- sh- could have gone question, that many times purpose is too for the directions on how I can contribute to the store.” You are now on your way to big of a question to answer. I suggested to move them forward. eradicating should from your thoughts and instead that he look for those places where spoken word. he can make a contribution and that, from How to Eradicate ‘Should’ this, over time, the purpose may become ‘Shoulds’ are really important when we As I said, there are always exceptions to a more clear to him. I told him a contribution are kids because they protect and teach us. ‘should’. A lawyer-client once challenged doesn’t have to be money or volunteering. You should hold hands and look both ways me on the premise that he’s in the business Sometimes it can be as simple as slowing before crossing the street. You should stop of telling people what they should do. down and flagging a driver that you’ll let at a red light. However, that rule no longer He’s right. I suggested that he distinguish him make his left-hand turn. applies when the stoplight is broken and between the ‘shoulds’ that he needs for his profession and any predisposition for using I also asked him if he realized that ‘should’, staying red for ten minutes. Every ‘should’ ‘should’ that may be limiting his choices in ‘ought to’, ‘have to’, and ‘must’ were rules we has at least one or dozens of exceptions in his personal life. live by but didn’t create. He kind of got this, real life. Shoulds, ought tos, have tos, and musts are all rules, and you are not their but not really, so I said, “When we live based Conclusion on ‘should’, we either get to do what we creator. When we live by these, we live in an should, or do what we want as we get angry environment where we do what we should You never know, really, why people show at ourselves for not doing what we should or berate ourselves for not doing what we up in your office and how this work is have done. I turned my body to the right for should have done. We go back and forth going to feed into the life they are going “do what you should,” then turned to the left between the two poles never realizing: it is to live. What I do know is that the potency for “be angry that you didn’t”; then turned running our lives; it is deciding our choices; of Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement work right, left, right, and left, to demonstrate and that we are stuck here. This pattern can open a whole new world of possibility the craziness of living in a should world. deserves eradication. and ways of being. As a practitioner, it is a blessing to know how to be open and He got it. I gave him the beginnings of the After hearing this, many decide to stop present in the moment, to perceive what process to eradicate ‘should’ from one’s life. using these words, but this is only a is so for my clients, and perceive what is (This process is explained at the end of this decision. It is a thought. It has little power needed so they can get what they’re after, article.) During this session, I also taught over the pattern/rules that are imbedded in even if they’re not yet consciously aware of him how to recognize what yes and no feel who/how we are. Plus, we humans are far what that is at this moment. It is an honor like in his physical body. I asked him if he too quick to settle on limited data before to witness their consciousness, questioning, could think of a simple activity in his life we run out to fix something. If you go after and experience unfold as they expand in to begin noticing this physical experience changing ‘shoulds’ at this point, the task ways they hadn’t known were possible, of yes or no. He said he could use it to find will be long, frustrating, and incomplete. out if he should eat one thing or another and to see light and lift come into them for lunch. I looked at him blankly and said The first step in eradicating ‘should’ is data as they experience the possibility of new nothing. He looked at me oddly for about collection. For one to two weeks, the only job possibilities. Being invited by clients to take three seconds and then burst out laughing is to listen ruthlessly to everything you say this journey with them is a blessing. and notice every time you speak the word when he realized he had said ‘should’. I Deborah Weidhaas is a Certified Advanced Rolfer ‘should’. Do not change a thing except to congratulated him on noticing. and Rolf Movement Practitioner. She has been in start really hearing what you say. Once that practice for over twenty-five years. She had over In his next session, he reported he did is accomplished, the next task is to spend one 110 Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement sessions in only one day of noticing ‘shoulds’ and to two weeks ruthlessly paying attention to her body before she trained as a Rolfer. After a then completely forgot about it. He said, when you think the word ‘should’. You will Rolfing SI and a Rolf Movement series, this large however, that he had found many ways need to pay even greater attention during number of sessions was prompted by her inner every day to make contributions. He was this phase because our thoughts pop in and voice, which told her to go back to Rolf Movement practically beaming as he told me all the flash through our minds very quickly. I tell and it would tell her when she was done. For two ways he’d applied this idea. As for the clients I know the solution to ‘should’ but, years, she coupled weekly Rolf Movement sessions ‘should’ homework, I told him it is common also, that I won’t give them the answer until with guidance from her inner voice to clarify and to forget if the task is too big, or the issue is they do their data collection. so ingrained in us, or when it’s just not yet pick apart her own psyche/consciousness levels. time. After this brief conversation, his session Once you have completed these two Deborah recognizes herself as highly adept in was 100% Rolfing SI with micromovements. phases of data collection, you will have the organization and dynamics of the structure We’ll see what the-structure-of-who-he-is accomplished two things: 1) you’ll have a of being and in engaging her clients in ways that wants help with next. good sense of how persistent you’ll need allow them to resolve consciousness issues that to be with the rest of this task; and 2) you arise from receiving Rolfing SI. She recently will have acquired the skill of immediately relocated from Los Gatos, California to live and practice in Richmond, Virginia. www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 41 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

was it a process of re-regulating your Presence, Perception, nervous system and sort of landing back in your body? Was that ‘landing’ different? Do you feel, in a sense, that you’re a and Embodiment different person? SK: I do feel, in a sense, that I’m a different Continuing a Conversation with Sally Klemm person. Especially in terms of my autonomic By Anne Hoff, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Sally Klemm, Basic and nervous system. It’s taken me a long time Advanced Rolfing® Instructor and Rolf Movement® Practitioner to bring down the sympathetic charge that was the aftermath of the norepinephrine. Note from Anne Hoff: This completes my interview with Sally Klemm. Earlier parts of the interview You know that quote “In theory, theory and were published in the June 2017 issue (“Explorations of Earth and Sky”) and the December 2017 practice are the same, but in practice they’re issue (“Working Women”). quite different”? I think this is relevant to the portraying of the basic Ten Series Anne Hoff: You had a long sabbatical from to beginning Rolfers: there’s the theory ® teaching Rolfing Structural Integration of Rolfing SI and a certain rhetoric that (SI), from 2013 to 2016. Would you be surrounds it, and then there are the people willing to share what brought that about that come into the training more because and how the experience changed and they have had an actual lived experience of informs you? the work. And it’s the personal experience Sally Klemm: Sure. I had a near death of the work that is often awkward at best experience and everything changed for me. to put it into words. In 2012 I’d done workshops in Switzerland Anne, this hearkens back to an aspect of the and then did a Basic Rolfing training in work that you brought up when we were Malaysia. After the two months teaching in talking about your idea for an issue of the Kuala Lumpur, I needed to get out of the Journal about consciousness, including city and reconnect with nature. I planned a the theme of presence – being present in layover in Seoul at the Zen Dance Temple the moment, for the experience, and how because of the nearby hiking trails. I’d Sally Klemm that differs from our concepts about time been there before in the spring, but now or life; what we believe to be so, what’s the verdant blossoms had given way to actually lived. That goes a long way with hot, dry terrain. On the first day a jolt like my attraction to and appreciation for the a shock from an electric fence zapped me. phenomenal world. I wheeled around to see a hornets’ nest. Uh oh, I didn’t have my EpiPen®! I was being It’s been my experience over the years, stung again and again. I went into and an both in terms of meditation and Rolfing altered state way beyond any meditation experience, that embodiment is an ongoing or drug experience I’ve ever had. Pure project. It isn’t a goal that we achieve or a sensation. No thought, no feeling, and no destination where we arrive so much as sense of time. The venom coursed through an ongoing experience that continues to my system with such exquisite sensation shift, change, and morph from moment to that my palms and soles lit up like neon. moment. It’s one of those paradoxes that Somehow I stumbled back toward my we talk about Rolfing SI as if we’re about room hardly aware that I was going into accomplishing this end: integration. And yet shock. My lurching gait alerted the dog the ongoing experience of what that means, and hostess of my return, but I was passing Anne Hoff or what that entails, let’s say, again changes out by the time I reached the door. I do from moment to moment. It seems we’re remember sliding down onto the floor as myself as a robust, resilient person. The juggling this moment in time and space she managed to find, uncap, and hand me EpiPen brought me back from the brink and with all of our technology and the emphasis the EpiPen – although she balked at the task saved my life, but it also significantly de- on quickness and speed and results and of injecting me. Swinging blindly, I landed regulated my nervous system in the process. how to retain our connections with gravity the dose as I was fading into black. I felt like Instead of a quick bounce back to what I and ground. Uma Thurman’s character in the overdose considered ‘normal’, I began to contend AH: I’ve always noticed a quality of scene in Quentin Taratino’s Pulp Fiction. My with the disruption to my autonomic presence in your work. blood pressure skyrocketed, my skin was nervous system and to my immune system covered in hot welts, hives, and my heart being compromised. SK: Presence and perception are big. I thumped like a jackhammer. mean, I can only use my perception, but AH: Wow. I knew the sketch outline of this I encourage people to find out how they I’m still processing this experience five but not the whole story. How frightening. perceive things. plus years later. I’ve always identified So in terms of integrating the experience,

42 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

AH: How do you perceive things, Sally? AH: So when you’re teaching, sometimes you how to do it to someone else.” I always For example, the session you did on me a student will call you over and ask for ask permission to enter in, and I think the other day – I’m still working with that assistance. How do you sense how to help that’s helpful. You know, “May I make piece you ended with. It’s actually quite that person, how to enter into the jazz a suggestion?” profound right now. We worked with my improvisation with the student? There’s But in terms of learning itself and feet and calves, but we ended with this something so seamless in how you do it. perception, it’s said that all learning begins tracking piece of really finding the space It’s not, “Well, let me show you how to do with perception. It behooves us to know in front of my spine. That’s something I’ve this!” I’ve never experienced you that way. how we perceive our world and how we ‘known’ for years, that we commonly talk There’s some way that you ‘loop’ with a put it together. Because that’s much of how about in Rolfing SI, and that I use it with my person, that you kind of find out where we form ourselves, right? And in terms of clients. But something about the way you he or she is coming from, that seems to embodying the world that we perceive, brought it in, I’m relating to it and working be done very nonverbally. Maybe there’s it can have some great implications in with it in a whole different way. The time some words included, but it’s not a big how we embody or concretize ourselves. was right for it to land in a new way, be head-centered thing of, “Well, what are you I highly value the attempt to see things embodied differently. Perceptually, what having trouble with?” Yet you hone in and from different perspectives. Otherwise the led you there in that session, that you knew then offer something very attuned to the tendency to objectify is too great, and leads it was an important piece? We all do this all person. Are you able to take the process to projection. I don’t like it when other the time with our clients, make choices to apart at all and speak to what you’re doing? people do it to me, and I would like to do bring in certain things, but we don’t often SK: I think so. Here’s a piece of that: In it less to others. articulate the process of how we each do Basic Training, when I’m with students over that, how we perceive what is needed. AH: It’s interesting what you bring up, the a seven-week period, I track the process Do you see things? Do you feel things? way perception is concretized. Effectively, through student feedback on a weekly Do you just know things? Do you have from the psychobiological taxonomy, basis. They articulate their process in terms intuitive insights? when we’re working with a client’s body, of what works and what doesn’t work for we’re really working with his or her whole SK: Thank you for your expressions, Anne. them: the edge where they find it, how worldview concretized into a body. How do My guess is the depth arises from of our that comes up for them and where, so that we engage that in a way that respects that mutual participation. We were both in the they can begin to identify it for themselves. worldview? In a sense, if we are trying to session and present with the work; a little There’s a lot going on during the Basic change somebody’s body, we are trying to bit like jazz improvisation. We begin to Training; it’s difficult at the onset to distill change his or her world. Clients come to us work together and have this sense of where and organize the experience. In my own wanting change of some type, but sometimes it could go. I don’t have any pat formula life, participation in an ongoing discussion they want to change their body but not the that I use. group for over ten years has helped me to way they perceive the world or perceive their track process like that. Tarthang Tulku’s text If anything, I might take a moment to job or their boss or their relationship. Time, Space, and Knowledge contains exercises ground and center myself prior and designed to provide an experience of how SK: Hmm, in retrospect ‘incorporate’ subsequent to connecting with a client. we might perceive our world in a new and would be a less rigid word choice than I emphasize this in my trainings, as it’s fresh way, different from our habitual bias ‘concretize’. Basically we have to get around palpable and perceivable when someone is and perspective. ourselves and our yearning for certainty there, present, and when someone is not. If not, it only takes a moment to bring that to To comment on experience can be edgy. AH: So it’s basically a conundrum? awareness and to step back and say, “Okay As challenging as it may be to describe SK: What your calling conundrum can also let’s reconnect here,” and then go back into an experience, reading about it is not the be considered paradox. the session. To give people permission and same as having it. Experience happens in space to do that at the beginning can soften the present, moment to moment. There is AH: So I want to go back to how I see you the edge and allow us to ease into work also something to be said for articulating engage with clients. Another way of saying we’re participating in rather than doing and describing the nature of one’s own it is that it feels like you have a very skillful something on another or trying to get the experience in order to communicate, share way of engaging the person’s body to also tissue to bend to our will, so to speak. it with others, to hear it within the group engage his or her worldview and give it so that we can recognize and appreciate a little more ‘breathing room’ rather than The sense of presence has been important how different it is for every individual. directly challenging it. to me in my own learning process. Earlier I think that in terms of Rolfing SI each in the interview (see “Explorations of “Give it a little more breathing practitioner develops his or her own style SK: That’s it! Earth and Sky” in the June 2017 issue), you room.” according to how the person experiences I love that you said that! So much is mentioned my work as an instructor at the the work of giving and receiving. Yeah. happening moment to moment all around tables. I may not be the top presenter in our There’s something about that. Maybe I’m us; I like to ‘Keep It Sweetly Simple’ (my field, however I am skilled at supervision of not articulating it well. version of ‘KISS’) in order to not provoke work at the tables on an individual hands- overwhelm. I regard the client and consider on basis. This skill has value for me and is Once the work begins, it’s more of a level what is being asked for: more space (i.e., what one I particularly look for in the assistants playing field. I kind of shy away from we call ‘gravity’) or more support (what we that I work with. hierarchical relationship, “I’m going call ‘ground’). This gives me a place to start. impose order on you” or “I’m going teach

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 43 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Something that I’ve come to appreciate elliptical machine, even a Pilates reformer. You had mentioned in that earlier part of more recently is how we are conditioned Most people don’t question this. our conversation how there’s a feminine by the world that we occupy. It may not be aspect to the Hawaiian Islands energy that There is beginning to be more recognition a consensual reality, but it does influence is very soothing. I appreciate that I’ve been of this, particularly in the fitness and us particularly in terms of the technology of able to follow in the footsteps of a female conditioning realm, the movement away the past thirty years that has a huge impact practitioner and Rolfing instructor, Stacey from gym environments and into the on how we are in our world – and how Mills. That’s been invaluable to me. Not natural world, using nature as our gym – we learn. I’ve had the great good fortune that I am necessarily the embodiment of uneven and dynamic surfaces to interact to have wise teachers and mentors who the feminine or anything, but I know I am with. But then at work people are still very don’t ascribe to the notion that learning in a woman’s body. And from an early restricted; even if they have a sit-stand desk is arduous. There are so many pressures age I was drawn to other cultures. I was or a treadmill desk, it’s still very patterned. around education today, whether it’s in drawn to be in the world and of the world. So as I see it, our bodies are subject to the public school, private school, the Rolf I mentioned when we started our interview world we’ve created in a way that they Institute®, etc. I think this stress negates (“Explorations of Earth ad Sky” in the June never were before. something inherent in our being that 2017 issue) that I was able to be an exchange enjoys – in fact, thrives on – learning. This SK: We’re influenced and shaped by student at seventeen and that was a first fits with embodiment. There’s a yearning, the increasingly digital world we find glimpse and taste for how other cultures not necessarily for information, but for ourselves in; there is also a hunger to be see things differently. experience. An innate curiosity about what in the natural world. I know in my own AH: And therefore hold their bodies being alive in a body feels like rather than life it’s become increasingly important differently. being degree- or certificate-oriented. for me to do activities outside when I can. I’ve been practicing tai chi and chi gung SK: Yes, even in our own country that’s AH: Yes! It’s making me think that there’s on a weekly basis for a long time, and I’ve true. In general people from the West Coast a way that the world we’ve created, recently stepped it up from once or twice carry themselves differently than those particularly the industrial world and even a week to a more daily basis. I’m fortunate from the East Coast, the Third Coast (i.e., more the technological world, is in some to live in Hawaii, where I do these practices Midwest), and those from the South, etc. ways shaping our bodies more than the outdoors. I’m more inclined than ever to go world of the past. I remember learning in AH: Thank you, Sally, I’ve loved this do an hour of chi gung and tai chi in the anthropology classes how each ‘advance’ exploration with you. park three or four times a week than to go in our physical reality, from being hunter- inside a gym. I do recognize that we have Advanced Rolfing Instructor Sally Klemm gatherers to being agriculturalists to being to make more of a concerted effort to be in sought out her initial Ten Series as closure to a factory workers, has resulted in less free nature. Yeah, I think about that a lot in terms four-year stint crewing charter yachts around time – more hours per day required to of our precious planet and the phenomenal the world. Encouraged by her Rolfer Stacey work toward survival, rather than rest, world and how much our natural world has Mills, Sally enrolled in the first Foundations play, just be. And I think we could extend to inform us. course taught at the Rolf Institute® in 1985. that to say that each ‘advance’ has also That same year Jim Asher was her first imposed more limitations on how we use Anne, this brings me back to when you craniosacral Instructor and Jan H. Sultan her our bodies during that work time, more asked me about culture (see “Working first Rolfing Instructor. Since joining the Rolf shaping of our bodies around particular Women” in the December 2017 issue). I’ve Institute Faculty in 1995, Sally continues activities. As a hunter-gatherer you’d have been a resident of Hawaii during my entire to teach both Rolfing and craniosacral work a certain range and freedom of movement practice. Access to the Hawaiian culture internationally. Her teaching style attempts to that was diminished by settling and over the past thirty-two years has greatly support each student in his or her unique ways practicing agriculture, yet agricultural influenced and impacted my work. I’ve of learning both the theoretical material and the work (in the past at least) would involve been fortunate to be able to study with development of personal experience. Her private more varied activity season to season, differentkahuna and kapuna and kumus. practice is based in Honolulu (Oahu) and Kapa’a and probably also day to day, than would AH: You’re going to have to define those (Kauai) in the Hawaiian Islands. factory-line work. And now, with workers for our readers. in the technology sector – or people whose Anne Hoff is a Certified Advanced Rolfer with recreation is computer-based – we see so SK: Okay. Let’s see. I’ve been fortunate a practice in Seattle, Washington that incudes many people shaped even more by what enough to study with Hawaiian teachers Rolfing SI, craniosacral and visceral work, and they do all day. There’s a fixed shaping of the Hawaiian healing arts. Kahuna nerve work. She is also a teacher of the Diamond to checking our mobile phones, working means ‘master’, kumu means ‘teacher’, and Approach®, a modern path of consciousness work on our laptops, and watching television, kapuna means ‘elder’. I’ve had access to all that supports embodiment and the exploration of gaming, or surfing the web that is much of those, and unfortunately many of them who and what we are. As a Diamond Approach more restricted than the multidimensional have passed now. Coincidentally, I was teacher, she works with private students both and varied shaping that would come from able to attend Emmett Hutchins’s memorial in person in Seattle and by Skype and offers roaming through the forest picking berries on Kauai, and when I go back to Kauai I’ll classes and workshops. Her websites are or searching for game. Even our physical attend the memorial for a Hawaiian woman www.WholeBodyIntegration.com for bodywork culture of how people exercise has become that I worked with closely for a number of and www.InnerWorkForOurTimes.com for very shaped: the linearity of a treadmill or years, probably close to thirty years, who Diamond Approach work. just passed.

44 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

felt like a very long time before she spoke: Do We Choose a Path, “Why are you asking me that question? . . . To do so implies that I can answer it but you cannot . . . And my answer might be or Does It Choose Us? perfect for me, but disastrous for you. What I suggest you do is to get up off your bottom Considering Consciousness, Ida Rolf, and Rolfing® SI and begin to work out the clearest answer you can come up with. Do your best to think By Nicholas French, PhD, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ through the issues you face and you may learn something important.” (General sigh When I first heard of Rolfing® Structural When I left that session I felt extraordinarily of relief in the group.) Integration (SI) I was not impressed. I was different: excited, lighter, and more relaxed. always skeptical, and it sounded like just one I suddenly felt as though I’d been living in a Halfway through the class I spent a more ‘new-age’ trip. I was a psychotherapist suit of armor or a straitjacket, but now could weekend visiting a friend in Aspen, and at a well-regarded institute in Concord, move more freely and breathe deeper, and when I left he gave me a couple of loaves Massachusetts, focused on more serious I felt more energetic. I wanted more of this of a local bread that he knew Dr. Rolf was matters. But its devotees were enraptured amazing work. very fond of. Back in Boulder I stopped and rather emphatic, so I couldn’t help at the house where she was staying and By the time I completed the Ten Series I hearing Dr. Rolf quoted. handed them to the woman who opened was even more astounded by what I was the door, planning to leave quickly so I The first of her statements I recall was, “The experiencing, and much more curious to wouldn’t have to face an intensive pop body is the personality exploded into three know who Dr. Rolf was and what else she quiz by Herself, but I could hear Ida asking dimensions.” Hmmm . . . . knew. Eventually I found out there was a “Who is it?” and then saying she wanted me Rolf Institute® and wrote for information on to come in and talk with her. So while she The next one I heard was more striking: “No the work and training. ate lunch (and griped about the food) we psychotherapy, no matter how good, will be talked about the class, Rolfing SI in general, as deep, as effective, nor as lasting unless there When I told my Rolfer friends that I was and the relative merits of mesomorphs is also deep, concomitant physical change.” about to apply for training, the first thing and endomorphs as Rolfers. (She said That one really got my attention. they all told me was to avoid being placed in she believed that endomorphs were more one of Dr. Rolf’s classes. What? Why? My training had been primarily Freudian capable at the work than the mesomorphs.) with various modern ideas added, but I “Because there are only two ways to be in Then we both fell silent for a while, until had already begun to feel that perhaps a class with Dr. Rolf: you’ll either be scared suddenly she asked what was on my my schooling and preparation weren’t as to death of her all the time, or furious with mind. I don’t know how to explain this, excellent as I’d been led to believe. If they her all the time.” And they were clearly but something had changed and I knew I were, wouldn’t my patients be making more quite serious. needed to speak frankly. rapid progress? But . . . but she’s the wellspring, the “Well, you’re getting pretty old,” I said. I began to ask about Dr. Rolf’s background, genius behind this work! “Hey, it’s your which did sound impressive. The woman neck, and we’re just telling you — you’ve “Yes, I am,” she replied. was a scientist with a PhD. So even though been warned.” it might be a waste of time and money, I’d I paused. “You aren’t going to live much try one session of Rolfing SI if only so I could Experiencing Ida Rolf longer,” I said. prove that it was just another silly idea. I Perhaps she had changed, because I never “I think you’re right,” she said. located the one Rolfer in Boston in 1972 and knew that scary Ida Rolf. It was clear that “Well,” I ventured, “there are stories that booked a session a month off. she was there to offer her best information you know people with unusual capabilities, to us, and she had no patience at all with Two weeks later I was called in to Harvard and you must know that there are a lot of any goofing off: to do so was dangerous. Health for my annual physical exam, and us who’d be willing to donate a year of our To do it a second time was to risk being after all the tests and poking and prodding lives to give to you so you can live longer thrown out of class permanently. She was I was pronounced to be “In perfect shape, and teach us more.” healthy as a horse.” Obviously that poor brilliant, tough, and demanding, but also Rolfer was in for a surprise, having to work compassionate and respectful. She had a She smiled. “I know, but I don’t want them. on someone as perfect as I was. great sense of humor. And she could be as I’ve worked hard for a lot of years. I’m tired calm and direct as a Zen master. and I’m looking forward to a long rest.” Of course I was the one who was surprised. My body had recorded various sports One day, following her lecture, during the We talked a while longer, and when I got injuries, cycling crashes, fights, falls, and time for us to ask questions about anatomy up to leave I simply wished her whatever other mishaps, but while some of his work or process, a student suddenly asked her the she wanted for however long she wanted was painful (though not nearly as much as kind of question one might ask one’s guru, it. She replied, “Thank you, kind sir,” and people had warned), I could feel my body a mushy question about how to handle a though seated did a great imitation of a respond to his pressure by relaxing and sensitive, uncomfortable, personal issue. formal curtsy. That’s probably why after letting go of long-term pain and stiffness. We got very quiet as Dr. Rolf sat and looked that I always tended to associate Dr. Rolf down at the student in silence for what with Victorian royalty.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 45 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Dr. Rolf frequently spoke from a slightly deeper, because “the roadmap is not the backed away and looked at me strangely elevated platform so she could see her territory.” His face was flushed, but he and said that I was “crazy,” it wasn’t funny students more clearly, and I liked to watch took the rebuke bravely. Weeks later, on any more; it apparently was dangerous — her eyes, which were large, luminous, deep, the last day of that class, she asked Marten or evil. I worked hard to stop it, to shut and very expressive. I didn’t see her angry to stand again. Reminding us of the first down the inner voice. It took a while, but often, but when that happened it was quite day’s exchange, she thanked him for letting eventually it fell silent. impressive. More often, though, I saw light her use him to make an important point for But suddenly here it was again: I was and humor in her eyes, and kindness, too. the rest of us. It was suddenly obvious that hearing what Ida was saying, but also what she’d chosen someone she knew was logical One day I received a very important, but she was going to say next. That’s confusing, and well-grounded, strong enough to use very painful, advanced session from two like hearing dual soundtracks. And it was as a lightning rod to make that point, and advanced Rolfers whom she used as her unnerving. I didn’t know what to do about somehow knew he wouldn’t be wounded hands (saving her energy to work with it and was frightened — I wondered if I by her words. (For those who are curious children) as she directed them to work on were really cracking up. about the combined Basic and Advanced me. Afterward, as everyone else was getting class, we met together in the mornings Suddenly Ida stopped in mid-sentence, tea or coffee, I pulled my clothes on and, for Dr. Rolf’s lectures and demos, then turned all the way around in her chair feeling deep fatigue, sank into a chair with our basic group went to another building so she could look straight into my eyes, my notebook, ready for her lecture. She for the afternoon of work with Peter and asked “Now what’s on your mind?” I looked down at me and said, “Why don’t Melchior while Dr. Rolf worked with the felt I’d been caught eavesdropping. I was you go over to those mats and lie down?” advanced group.) lost, disoriented, and had no idea what to Being a guy, I said, of course, that I was say — “Uh . . . well, uh . . . uh . . .” But she fine. She leaned forward for emphasis, And though she would occasionally just grinned and waved her hand at me. pointed to the pile of mats, and raising her complain that she didn’t have any psychic “Don’t worry, it’s just a quantum leap in voice said, “Go over there and lie down.” I gifts like some of her friends, students your spiritual development. Nothing to be went, and in a few seconds was out like a who’d been paying attention would often afraid of — you’ll be fine!” And smiling, she light. Later, my friend Marten told me that smile. We smiled because frequently, while turned back, picked up her lecture in mid- a couple of times I snored a bit, and Ida working with one student, she would call sentence, and went right on with it. stopped and looked around to locate the to another student that he was missing the sound. Seeing it was me, she nodded and most important place to focus on in his Now I was really dazed and confused, said, “He worked really hard – he deserves session and would offer the solution — certain I was losing it — it was an a rest,” and then went on with her lecture. when she was in fact totally blocked from hallucination, obviously — what was I to She could be fierce, but after all, she was seeing him, his client, and his hands. do? Finally the break came. I stumbled also a mom and a grandma. outside and began trying to clear the During one of the last days of our class, any cobwebs from my mind. Then some of skepticism I’d had about Dr. Rolf having Unique Capacities my classmates came up and asked, “What paranormal gifts evaporated. That morning of Consciousness the hell was that?” Huh? Stalling for time, I was feeling very strange — mostly I asked what they meant and they went I also began to notice the way she seemed mentally. I’d received some very powerful through the event word for word, just as I’d to have uncanny awareness of what work, so did feel a bit strange physically, heard it. It hadn’t been a bad dream after her students were thinking. She would but was also working on one of the most all. Not that I could figure out what had sometimes come down the hill to class powerful dreams I’d ever had, and the fact happened, but I seemed to be back on firm late, and her assistant, Charles Siemers, was that I just plain felt weird — peculiar, ground again. Whew, what a day! Another would have gotten us busy discussing some alone in some new space. I chose to sit well mind-blowing experience with the amazing aspect of the work. When she arrived we off to her right side, going on the theory that Ida Pauline Rolf . . . . sat quietly as she made herself comfortable, if she couldn’t see me, she wouldn’t call on and then she’d pick up on the subject where me. In fact, when she came in and took her At the end of the final day of the class, we’d stopped and build her lecture on that seat I quietly pushed my chair backward a alone for a few minutes with Dr. Rolf and point. But how? No one had told her what bit at a time until I was behind her line of wanting to thank her for what she’d given we’d been talking about. sight. As she began her lecture — always us, I had to admit I was unable to find the On the first day of our combined Basic and oral, never written — I tried to focus on way to express my gratitude adequately, Advanced class, Dr. Rolf asked us to define taking notes. just couldn’t come up with the right words. She looked in my eyes, smiled, and said, ‘energy’. Many tried, and I thought some But soon I began to experience a “Then go out there and get to work.” of the ideas put forth were rather brilliant, phenomenon that had begun when I was but Ida just kept shaking her head, and twelve: I could hear what a person was A few years later, I had the feeling that Ida’s eventually said that we obviously didn’t saying, but also — at the same time — what life was finally coming to an end, so I wrote know what we were talking about. She he or she was going to say next. (Years later a letter to thank her again and let her know chose to address her words to the last I found out that such strange phenomena how much I was enjoying sharing the work student who’d spoken (Marten Gygax, are not uncommon during early puberty.) she’d given us, how busy I was, and how now Marten Gabriel), a very bright friend. As a pubescent kid, when I got used to that, happy my clients were. A week or two later, She really seemed to be chewing him out, it was kind of funny, like a new skill. But as a client was changing in the bathroom to telling him he needed to look farther, think when I told some friends about it, and they get ready for a session, Executive Director

46 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Richard Stenstadvold called from the Rolf aware of thoughts that are unfamiliar, more adults to take out their personal frustrations Institute to let me know that Ida had just challenging than usual. I may also feel or anger on defenseless children, which died, and asked me to pass the word to more alone or independent, not the person often encourages them (us) to be little the other Texas Rolfers. As I hung up, my I’m used to being aware of, so I feel free to automatons who try to act nice or cute to client came out into the Rolfing room, saw consider other possibilities in my world. At fit in, and thus avoid punishment, scorn, or my face, and could tell there was bad news. the same time, I generally have the sense abandonment. No wonder autocrats and When I told him, he was very sympathetic that I am more aware of others who are politicians make speeches from platforms and offered to reschedule. That’s all it took nearby, and the ways in which they and I above audience level. I think at such times to wake me up. “Are you kidding? She’d are both similar and different. there’s a natural tendency to surrender our kick my butt. Let’s do what we’re here to independent awareness. It’s a simple way It’s like engaging some strange new do.” We both agreed that it was a really for politicians to infantilize their listeners, to sensitivity. Fragments I could remember good session. reduce their maturity in age or experience her mentioning, but were so new to me and encourage childlike dependence. Open Consciousness before that I couldn’t retain them, came and and Continued Learning went, while some stuck. What if I could I Rolfing Work recall still more, and learn things I’d missed and Consciousness If you’ve read Remembering Ida Rolf (1996, all those years ago? Rolf Institute / North Atlantic Books) – In psychoanalytic practice, one of the the wonderful little book of students’ After a lot of time working with the top of most fascinating and sensitive aspects of remembrances that Rosemary Feitis the head up, I began to notice that more analytic work is to listen for and detect and Louis Schultz put together for her and more images of my life were appearing patterns of thoughts and vulnerability that centennial year in 1996 “. . . to give people that were not like dreams, but rather events are present in the background, though who never met Ida Rolf a feeling for from my life that are familiar, like snapshots the analysand is often quite unaware of who she was and what she meant to her and bits of home movies. They are not them. Patience is absolutely essential, students” – you probably have a good always pleasant, but seem quite real, as because these are usually very sensitive sense of that remarkable woman. However, though I am being offered information that connections to childhood events that over the years I had begun to wonder if can help me to learn about myself and the have been suppressed due to frightening, my memories of her were accurate. Could world in new and different ways. It requires painful, or traumatic content. Ideally, she really have been that exceptional? focus and can often be uncomfortable, but with adequate time it’s possible to learn Or had I simply begun to exaggerate my something tells me it’s important — and enough about the person and develop memories of her? But reading Remembering useful. (And you can try it for yourself.) a working partnership that allows us to Ida Rolf reassured me, because most of my On the other hand, letting the front of my gradually, cautiously raise past traumas colleagues’ stories are just as astounding. cranium float up higher than the top offers to awareness so we can explore them in ways that are emotionally acceptable, and And lately, as I read them, new thoughts very different sensations and results. It therefore healing. popped up. Some included questions tends to happen easily when I’m with she had asked me or others in class, or friends or in a group, and then I notice that While a Rolfing Ten Series is vastly different during our private conversations, and my thoughts and feelings blend more easily from normal psychoanalytic work, if suggestions she’d offered. Now the familiar with theirs. It’s even more obvious if I’m communication with clients is sufficiently ideas seemed more complex — yet also listening to a speech or watching a film or honest and open, it is possible to learn more open. Clearly, different kinds of play, probably because usually that’s the enough about their pasts to help some understanding are possible, and many normal posture in a theatre or auditorium, of them develop a connection that may questions have come to mind. where the presentation or speaker is above support them, too, in opening up to deal audience members’ eye level. And what better with the imprints of past traumas, How should we understand the importance suddenly struck me at the end of a Rolfing wounds and fears. [Please note: it is essential of Ida’s continuous emphasis on finding session, as I was helping a client to find not to minimize the complexity and power of the top of the head and letting it ‘float’? the top of his head and let it float, was that deep, early trauma. Caution is important. I (Not always as easy as it sounds.) I’ve been it seems so easy and normal for us to lift can testify that seven to ten years of analysis, working with that idea/feeling for forty- the front of the cranium, but often quite continual study, and intensive training provide two years, and it still feels mostly like a challenging, even uncomfortable, to find only a beginning platform for analysts. We thought-provoking experiment. But as a the top and come up through it. Why should quickly discover that we’ve just begun to psychoanalyst who’s been studying and that be the case? scratch the surface, and that what might at first working for a lot of years to find ways to appear simple is actually extremely complex, uncover thoughts, feelings, and experiences That’s when it occurred to me: that’s the unpredictable and even, possibly, dangerous. in clients’ unconscious psyches, it suddenly natural reaction of a small child responding Lots of time and attention are required to know struck me that when I let the top of my to an adult — looking upward to see what how to deal with helping a client confront such head come up, I experience a very different the big person’s face indicates: warmth or potential shocks.] quality of thoughts and awareness than amusement, or perhaps anger and coldness, when I let the front of my head alone float life-supporting inclusion, or frightening When I first stumbled onto (or was found higher. When the top of the head leads, I detachment. In other words, normal animal by) Rolfing SI all those years ago, it was experience a heightened sense of internal watchfulness to decide whether to hug the still common to speak of body and mind presence — quieter, calmer — yet I’m also big person or run like hell. At first it seemed as though they were separate and discrete funny, but not for long. It’s too easy for

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 47 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS forms of life. There’s an ecclesiastical down on my table, I took a deep breath and that deals with the first principles of argument many centuries old in which began the first session. things, including concepts such as being, the Christian church makes quite clear its knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, He really liked how he felt from the session, position that to focus on, or even talk about, and space. (Metaphysics is also concerned so scheduled the next one. I began with most aspects of the physical body was to with whether what exists is inevitable or the left leg to get a feel for his ‘normal’ invite the worst kinds of perilous thoughts driven by chance, but as interesting as it is to one, and then did my best for the right and temptations, thus opening the door to ponder that question, it’s rare to find clients leg and foot. When we were done he got “ . . . carnal lust, sexual peril and Satan’s who want to spend much time with it.) up to walk around and suddenly looked hideous punishments.” shocked. As calmly as I could, I asked what In my years on the faculty, while it was Some things have changed over the was happening. He looked at me and then clear that most of us were focused on what centuries, but that viewpoint still strikes at that right leg. “That’s the first time in ten we’d learned from Dr. Rolf, it also became fear in our nation. Frankly, I’m not sure years that I’ve felt carpet under my right obvious that some members were restless that any of us are entirely free of it yet. foot.” What? (I was stunned, too.) with following her ‘Recipe’ and wanted Though we may think of ourselves as to experiment with their favorite different By the time we completed the ten sessions, modern, well-educated Rolfers who are ideas. A few years after I left the faculty to the right leg looked like its mate: it was happily dedicated to serving our clients, bury myself in psychoanalytic training, I warm and pink, approaching normal size it’s important to remember that we also was told that they had abandoned Ida’s and support, and he had increasing control are creatures of the psyche, and as much Ten Series and taught other principles, of subtle movement and balance. Some as we might be aware of some layers of but after a year or two had decided to medical friends said that was “impossible — positive and negative issues in our lives, return to her concepts after all. Clearly, it’s it couldn’t have been completely severed.” there are always elements we’re not aware normal for a faculty of bright people to seek But it had been, James sure remembered of that can activate us in ways that we might ways to change and grow, and then share that: it rode separate from him in the not expect, nor approve of. Recalling Ida’s them. Perhaps the challenge is to share ambulance. And not only was his back a statement, “The body is the personality and expand on the strongest ideas while lot better now, he smiled much more often. exploded into three dimensions,” doesn’t pruning the ones that, over time, have not Over the years he came in for sessions it make sense that those elements would proved essential. when in the area, and not only was the be expressed in the physical body as well? right leg always more normal, he was a Rolfing SI has always seemed to attract Once I was a Rolfer, I withdrew from my much happier, healthier man. What a gift people who are different from the norm. I psychotherapy practice to focus on Rolfing for both us! think that’s partly because we are amazed SI, and soon realized that I had also been at how much the work improved our Over the past forty-two years as a Rolfer strongly influenced in other ways by my own lives, but also because something in I have encountered so many other teachers, Dr. Rolf and Peter Melchior in us wants to help others as we have been ‘impossible’ positive changes in my particular, and also Emmett Hutchins, all of helped. It’s not surprising that Rolfers also clients, in my students’ models in class, whom were very bright and had their own like to experiment with the work. I think and in colleagues’ reports that I tend to views of how to best integrate mind and that’s also a natural part of what attracted assume that’s simply what Rolfing SI does: body. While training was focused primarily us. If you’ve read Betsy Sise’s excellent miracles. Oh sure, I know that Rolfing SI is on anatomy, physiology, and how to free book, The Rolfing Experience: Integration in demanding physical and cerebral work, too. the body to move and balance around the Gravity Field (2005, Hohm Press), with I just haven’t figured out how to understand the ’Line’, there were also comments on her interviews of Peter Melchior, Jan Sultan, if the transformations are affected more psychic activity, astrology, metaphysics, and Emmett Hutchins, it’s clear that each of through physical contact, the Rolfer’s shamanism, native American traditions, etc. them were soon following their own ways intention, the client’s hopes and dreams, All very interesting, though I was focused of building on the effectiveness of what Ida or some combination of those ideas — and on the ten sessions. taught them. Investigating and expanding more that is unimaginable. on what we’ve been taught by people we A few days after I got home from training Oddly enough, I just remembered that respect seems only natural. And because in Boulder, my very first client appeared. many years ago I learned that Dr. Rolf the effects of the Rolfing work with our James said he had terrible back pain, and intended that one day there would be clients can be so amazing, how can we not watching his severe limp, I wasn’t surprised. three Rolfing schools. As I recall, there was keep experimenting? But when he undressed to begin the session, to be a scientific/anatomical school on the I was stunned to see the source of the limp. Finally, I’d like to offer something many of East Coast, a psychological school on the Ten years before, he’d been in a fight and you may not have seen before: an image West Coast, and a metaphysical school was knocked through a plate-glass window, (Figure 1) with some words that was in Boulder. I liked the idea because it the upper part of which came down like a shown on one of the opening pages of the emphasized that our brilliant founder knew guillotine blade and took his right lower leg initial edition of Dr. Rolf’s book, Rolfing: that for our work to be most effective we off at the knee. Doctors were able to rejoin The Integration of Human Structures (1977, had to learn to include and balance 1) a clear the blood vessels, tendons, etc., but told him Dennis Landman Publishers), which she’d and active knowledge of human anatomy; the nerves couldn’t be connected, so he’d been working on for years. Clearly, it 2) an understanding of the most important have to live with a ‘dead’ leg. The leg wasn’t was important to Dr. Rolf, who chose to principles of psychology; and 3) a clear actually necrotic, but it was shrunken, gray, offer it to us. The picture shows a smiling grasp of the most controversial domain, and cold, as though lifeless. Oh boy. He lay Buddha flanked by two smaller figures, and metaphysics — the branch of philosophy

48 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS overlaid on the image, under the heading “Admonition for 1977,” is this quote from the Buddha: Do not believe in anything merely because it is said, nor in traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity: nor in rumors as such: nor in writings by sages because sages wrote them: nor in fancies that we may suspect to have been inspired in us by a deva: nor in inferences drawn from some haphazard assumption we may have made: nor in what seems to be an analogical necessity: nor in the mere authority of our teachers and masters. Believe when the writing, doctrine, or saying is corroborated by reason and consciousness. Gautama Buddha [I’ve never found out why the title of Ida’s magnum opus was changed when the publisher changed, from the direct Rolfing: The Integration of Human Structures to the odd Reestablishing the Natural Alignment and Structural Integration of the Human Body for Vitality and Well-Being, nor why Dr. Rolf’s carefully chosen “Admonition for 1977” was removed.] Because of my experience with Dr. Rolf, and my sense of how much she hoped we would continually work to expand our knowledge of what she gave us and of what it is worth to the world, I would like to offer another quote I still carry with me, in case it might serve you, too. This is from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke: Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to Figure 1: ‘Admonition’ from the first edition of Dr. Rolf’s book. love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers that cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them and the In Memoriam point is to live everything. Live Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® notes the passing of the the questions now. Perhaps you following members of our community: will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into Vivian Jaye, ® the answer. Rolf Movement Instructor, Rolfer™ Emeritus Nicholas French has been a Certified Rolfer Ron McComb, since 1976 and a Certified Advanced Rolfer Certified Advanced Rolfer since 1979. He was a Rolfing instructor for ten years in the US, Europe, South America, and Solse Mara Sheran (aka Diane Sullivan), Australia until he left the faculty to spend seven Certified Advanced Rolfer and a half years in psychoanalytic training at Don Van Vleet, the Jung Institute. He now enjoys his Rolfing Certified Advanced Rolfer and psychoanalytic practices in Dallas, Texas.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 49 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

laughingly that the Basic Training was like Reclaiming ‘Pudeur’: “Weight Watchers times ten” (that business used to trade heavily on the motivating factor of having to ‘weigh in’ – literally A Counterpoint to – every week in front of a group of one’s peers). I trained in Rolfing SI in a modular ® course, and I have never been so motivated Rolfing Culture to step up the exercise and lose weight. I By Naomi Wynter-Vincent, PhD, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ remember the tall and lanky male student who offered unhelpfully that I might want I start with the strange word, ‘pudeur’. It pudeur in leaving out what the BBC to do some crunches to tone my abdomen; is, in truth, more a French word than an adaptation had made (frankly enjoyably) I remember the many, many visits to the English one, and it is difficult to define. explicit: that even in the early nineteenth beauty salon on the day before class, the Nevertheless, and for personal reasons, I like century, people were naked beneath their waxing, shaving, the purchasing of ‘Rolfing it, and keep coming back to it. The Oxford clothes. I don’t know how I replied, but I underpants’. (It cannot just be me who English Dictionary gives the definition: didn’t get in (that year). has so many clients who talk about their “a sense of shame or embarrassment; special Rolfing-day underpants!) There is Nowadays I am still nervous of water and bashfulness, modesty, or reticence.” a rich seam of what I believe it would be only a little more enthusiastic about being ungenerous to describe only as ‘neurotic’ I encountered the word for the first time seen in a bikini or other swimsuit or my behavior among our Rolfing clients, and when I applied to university: it was a big underwear. This difficulty has put me among many Rolfers. But we run counter, deal to get an interview, but I really had on a collision course with some Rolfing by and large, to a prevailing discourse no idea what university was, or how to Structural Integration (SI) instructors on within our community that takes for prepare. A male professor asked me about more than one occasion, and was a major granted the normalcy of ‘casually being Jane Austen (we had studied Pride and source of hesitation in applying to do the seen in one’s underwear’. Prejudice in high school), and then asked Basic Training. I simply wasn’t sure that me, pop-culturally, what I’d thought of the I could put myself through the exposure, There is, of course, a practical dimension to recent BBC adaptation that (infamously) the feelings of discomfort and shame, the this: we do need to see our clients’ physical featured a scene (https://tinyurl.com/ dissociative horror of being looked at in my structure, and we do (in a training context) LakeScene) where the then little-known underwear, simultaneously over-exposed learn from seeing the diversity of bodies British actor, Colin Firth, as Darcy, arriving and socially vanishing: all the conceits and movement without the distractions back at his estate manfully sweaty after a of my social self (competent, attractive, of clothing and shoes; it is generally easier horse ride, dives fully clothed into a lake stylish) undermined by my physical reality. to work on bare skin than on clothed. Yet to cool himself down. As he emerges, One member of Rolfing faculty told me there is also a cultural, historical, and glistening, he locks eyes with Elizabeth, unpleasantly that if I was going to keep even a political dimension to the free- who previously turned down his offer of being this way, I shouldn’t train to be a and-easy minimally clothed hegemon marriage. The sexual tension is palpable. Rolfer. Then, as now, I thought he was of our community. Rolfing SI grew up wrong, and for the same reasons I gave as an established body of work and as “What did I think of this rendition of Jane to him squarely on that occasion: if you a profession in the context of the 1960s Austen’s world?”, the professor asked. systematically exclude people who are California counterculture, in a land of sea Pretty good, I thought: I was seventeen less comfortable with body exposure from and sunshine that my cloud-bruised British years old and frankly besotted with Darcy the training, you do Rolfing SI – and its eyes can barely imagine, with strong (and and Elizabeth both. “But do you think it potential clients – a disservice. Rolfing SI positive) values around the natural body respects the pudeur of Jane Austen’s world?” can be life-changing for every body, and it and the countering of sexual repression The word danced in my brain: I thought can offer something very special to people advocated by Reich; around the cultures of I understood it (it sounds a little bit like who don’t always ‘feel good in their skin’, yoga, dance, and outdoorsy exercise; and prudish, after all), but really, I did not. There or who are less used to physical exposure. around notions of ‘freedom’ stamped first was a further strand to the conversation, a Knowing what that feels like helps me to with an American tinge, and later (in the yet more personal one. I had been asked be a better Rolfer. establishment of some of the major training about my other achievements, hobbies, institutes outside the US) with German challenges. Gamefully, and honestly, I There are some things I’ve observed and Brazilian accents: all three places, I’d disclosed that I had been taking adult around this topic. Firstly: gender (and the argue, with strong cultures of naturism and swimming lessons, which was challenging way that race intersects with gender), and body exposure. for two reasons: I was as terrified of being the pressure that falls disproportionately seen in a swimsuit as I was of the water. on women to present as unchangingly As Rolfing SI grows in global public Professor Tony Tanner wondered whether slim and nubile across the lifespan and to awareness, I argue that we may need to my pudeur – modesty, discomfort (and minimize the cosmetic effects of pregnancy, give more thought to what we, as Rolfers, unwillingness to be sexually rated: it was childbirth, and menopause. I should add can take for granted as the result of the known that the male lifeguards at the pool that I do not deny the reality of different prevailing discourse in our training culture. rated women’s bodies on a scale from one bodily expectations placed on men, and There are as many different reasons as there to ten) – bore some relation to Jane Austen’s especially young men. I used to say are people to feel challenged by bodily

50 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS exposure, and I’m keen to stress that not So far, so individual a problem: perhaps. add: their beauty – hesitating only out of the all of these reasons are pathological. What There is a place for discussion here of recognition that beauty is so laden with the I like in the word pudeur is the way that the broader societal effects of specifically baggage of ‘good looks’. It is a cliché to say it retains these multiple and intertwined gendered beauty norms as well as a ‘lookist’ that beauty is more than skin (or fascia!) senses in which preferring to keep one’s culture that affects both men and women deep, but it is true: one of the gifts that clothes on – or feeling discomfited in (and those who identify as neither) and Rolfers can give to their clients is a sense of contexts of greater exposure – partake which predates our selfie-obsessed times their beauty, properly understood. both of aspects that one might rightly seek by several hundred years (or several I want to end with the recognition that to address (questions of shame, questions thousand). Trans people – and we might these issues are not unknown to Rolfers, of inadequacy), alongside aspects such as argue (I intend this non-glibly) that all and that I’ve met (and learned from) a personal, political, or cultural preference Rolfing bodies are bodies in transition – many sensitive and skillful practitioners for modesty that is not necessarily to be might be more likely to find this question who have discovered their own ways to wished away. resonant, as indeed might many other meet their clients in their ‘embarrassment, people who have experienced their bodies In my case I took up a strategy – but only bashfulness, modesty, or reticence’ around as sites of difference, pain, objectification, or after receiving my initial certification and bodily exposure, be that for personal, judgement: among them differently abled gaining access to my chosen profession – societal, or cultural reasons. These include people, survivors of trauma, and people of describing myself as body dysmorphic, Rolfers who work primarily with clients who have lost or gained significant weight. but recognising that this tended to the wearing thin layers, or who recognize the further pathologization of something I also wonder about cultures where value of blankets and sheets beyond the that is more complex, more cultural, ‘modesty’ is hegemonic (encouraged, need to stay warm; they recognize also more chosen – and actually more hopeful sometimes mandated), sometimes for the role that may be played by lighting, than the quasi-medical term of ‘body religious reasons, and where having men window coverings, and the presence or dysmophia’ conveys. The UK National and women undressing together would absence of large mirrors in the treatment Health Service defines body dysmorphia create an absolute bar to training. These room. We might re-describe all of these as as “a mental health condition where a are not niche concerns: one can imagine ways in which we respect and work with person spends a lot of time worrying large sections of the African continent, of the client’s nervous system to establish an about flaws in their appearance. These the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle environment of physical and emotional flaws are often unnoticeable to others. . . . East being affected by this. I remember an safety. In the busyness of the training Having [body dysmorphia] does not occasion in my childhood where my aunt practicum, I’ve found that we sometimes mean you are vain or self-obsessed. It (who was born and grew up in colonial neglect these ‘niceties’, and this is, in part, can be very upsetting and have a big India) rushed to stop me seeing her in an appeal for these questions to be taken impact on your life” (www.nhs.uk/ the nanga-punga (a Hindu colloquialism more seriously, handled more sensitively, conditions/body-dysmorphia/). for being naked), even while being (to in the training context. As Rolfers, we aim to contemporary eyes) fairly decently clothed work transformatively with clients’ habitual I have found ‘body dysmorphia’ a in a petticoat. ways of being – and feeling safe – in their convenient shorthand to communicate world. While we may disagree with what something to my colleagues. It says, in I live in a town with a large Muslim we consider to be their limiting self-beliefs, part: “Please take seriously that this is not population, and occasionally have female or lament the social contexts that lead to just me ‘being difficult’; this is something clients who wear hijab and other forms of discomfort with body image or exposure, lifelong; this is something managed.” It also modest dress. I can imagine that they choose being just plain ‘irritated’ by clients who says: “This is not something that I haven’t to see me over my local male colleague for don’t gladly strip down to their underwear reflected on in depth or sought help with.” reasons of modesty, and I send information is not a productive strategy toward building Using a label allows me a degree of modesty to all my clients in advance about what they client trust and encouraging new ways of too in the moment of self-disclosure, a can expect in their first Rolfing session, being. Over the years I have tentatively reserve or pudeur that is not only a token of including the traditional body reading. made friends with my pudeur, maintaining my Britishness: the implication that there’s I have no doubt that many clients find (as I told my interphase interviewers) that more to say, but I don’t have to tell you the first occasion of changing down to while I’d like to feel more comfortable in everything right now. The phrase has been their underwear and standing in front of my body, I am unlikely to be converted to met, on occasion, with incomprehension me a challenging one, and I invite clients naturism any time soon. or even the admonishment that I should to let me know if they find it stressful. I be done with my ‘personal issues’ and believe that the intimacy and exposure Naomi Wynter-Vincent is a Certified not bring them to class. I tried to explain of the Rolfing experience can be deeply Advanced Rolfer and holds a PhD in that this was precisely what I was trying valuable, reassuring, and healing, and that psychoanalysis and literature. Her to do: that I was desperately keen to avoid we can offer our clients containment and first book, Wilfred Bion and Literary situations where my ‘issues’ – my pudeur – information not only through our touch, Criticism, is forthcoming from Routledge. made class difficult for me or others around but in our looking and seeing the body Her websites are www.londonrolfing.com me. “Don’t pick me for the walking-in- from the modern Rolfing perspective of the and www.naomiwyntervincent.com. underwear exercise,” I explain; “I’ll show client’s resources, strengths, and objective up for the arm-work practicum or even the ‘normality’ (how many clients fear that nose work.” they are not ‘normal’?). To that I might

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 51 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

approach and enough hours to practice, the Balancing Traditional psychotherapist will always be distracted checking his or her interventions and wondering if s/he is doing the right thing. and Spiritual Experience The same applies to Rolfing work. If a practitioner is not sufficiently practiced States of Consciousness and the Logical Container and is not grounded in basic technique, By Linda Grace, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement® Practitioner and then when something unusual happens, Janet Castellini, LCSW, LCADC, NCPsyA when a different state of consciousness is experienced, that practitioner might get Introduction distracted or even lost from the opportunity by Linda Grace for structural change that is available. Some random reflections have come to Janet Our Northeast region’s second meeting and to me since the group meeting. about spiritual experiences and our Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) work was Dialogue attended by twenty-one Rolfers and one person currently in the Rolf Institute® (RISI) Janet Castellini: I’m struck by the idea training program. We met at the home of that touching the client creates a way to enter Joy Belluzzi and Alan Demmerle in Chevy another state of consciousness. After the Chase, Maryland, on March 11, 2018. meeting, I started thinking about what state of consciousness exists in the experience After the morning review of RISI business, of merger, that is, loosening boundaries including Board and Faculty reports, and between people. Is it the same as working a discussion of the Ethics Committee, we in a different state of consciousness without had lunch, and then reconvened for the Linda Grace touching? Freud called it the “oceanic afternoon session with Janet Castellini, a feeling” of being at one with someone else. psychoanalyst, as our program presenter. In modern analysis, it would be thought of She brought her rich experience of as being able to feel/experience what your modern psychoanalytic training and patient feels/experiences and then return practice as well as her pursuit of spiritual to yourself with the purpose of having experience and healing through work with that experience inform the emotional states of consciousness and being taught communication the analyst makes to and trained by two Native American elders. the patient. The outline of the meeting included her Linda Grace: Yes, and that was in the talk about the container of her work, some context you created, the idea that someone foundational discipline, as well as a basic (the therapist) is in charge of the whole speaking of some skills. These included interaction, the discipline of the work how to ask a question that doesn’t poke, itself, both for psychoanalysts and Rolfers. how to assess from moment to moment, We Rolfers were already attuned to the and how to identify and connect with the idea of ethical practice, our therapeutic emotional thread the client presents. Janet Castellini responsibility, from the meeting discussion We began with an exercise of placing we had before lunch. That was part of what drove several questions about overtly using ourselves on a spiritual continuum, and Rolfers – and psychoanalysts – have when spiritual matters in our practices. continued with Janet’s introduction to some working. The word container was used of her work as a Modern Psychoanalyst, to signify the framework within which JC: Yes, the idea that someone is in charge and how she draws on her personal a practitioner works or the perspective in a session is important. In my line of work, resources from her work with Native the practitioner brings to the work. A it is the analyst’s job to be in charge. It’s American indigenous healers. The container provides somewhere to plant ironic because the patient leads the way, discussion was lively, and revealed that your feet so no matter what else is going but the analyst is right there if there is any (at least in our group) attention is paid to on, there is something to return to. So, for problem with emotions, resistances, and the spirit and consciousness in our work. example, musicians needs to know scales talking itself. It’s the patient’s job to say Individual differences seemed to have and arpeggios and master the technique everything that comes to mind, and it’s a similar thread. I was reminded of a client’s of their instrument. If these basics are not the analyst’s job to figure out what’s going remark that “Once you have seen the light, mastered, they cannot let go into the music on and provide the appropriate emotional you have seen all of the light.” because they will always be distracted feeding at the right time and in the right by making sure they do something right. To open, the presentation focused on the amount. So, too with psychotherapy in general: need for a ‘container’ in order to make if a person does not have a foundational LG: Another thought that has come up for sense of the myriad experiences that me since the meeting was the reiteration

52 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS by one of our members about Dr. Rolf’s the ‘right’ talking, not the ‘right’ techniques that the (skilled) Rolfer is looking at and commitment to our work with children, of manual therapy or touching. Hoping to engaging the whole character – although and the idea that we are creating a better hit the right notes, in the first session it may how that’s related to states of consciousness, human being through our work. To me, take longer than an hour to establish how I can’t quite articulate. Maybe ‘states of there seemed a religiosity to the repeated the client will assist in the goals set up. And consciousness’ might refer to ways of comments along this line. I’ve long since the countertransference! I’m usually not seeing/perceiving. given up on the idea of creating a better thinking of that much, except as an adult LG: In ways of seeing/perceiving, it was human being. I suppose at most I could to adult with goals in mind, unless I am brought out at the meeting that one thing hope for a better, more secure attachment blindsided by a certain countertransference, some people use is getting into a meditative, (in the manner of Diane Poole Heller) so my nemesis – the idea that this is a hopeless sort of hypnotic or prayer-like state, to that the Golden Rule might have a better situation, that I will not be able to have any get past the ego state of wanting to ‘fix’ foundation. The secure attachment of client effect whatsoever! Certainly one factor in someone and to perceive more fully. and therapist is a reminder of remedial this is the caretaking of my parents, who, working of the initial attachment of our like most parents, ultimately died. JC: I remember my supervisor saying to lives, and seems a grounding place for our me that the idea is to be able to keep my My most uncomfortable countertransference work to be sought. analytic brain going no matter what is state is a resounding gong when the client happening between the patient and me. JC: A modern analyst would agree with does not have any feedback for me of any In developing this skill of keeping the you about giving up the idea of creating positive change. In my best therapeutic analytic brain going, the idea of supervision a better human being. If the analyst is not fit with a client, the client is in a state of and the importance of having somewhere okay with the person as the person is, then being able to agree with some things and to talk over one’s experiences and think that person will not be able to relax enough disagree with some things, a telling of about them with others are crucial to us. to work on the defenses that keep [her/him] the good, the bad, and the indifferent. If In psychoanalysis, supervision also helps stuck in unhealthy patterns. If the analyst is there is all resistance and disagreement, with the problem of catching the patient’s not okay with the person, the analyst is, in a constant telling of what is wrong and problems and taking them home. Which effect, like the original adult who also was sliding back into the experiences that loops back to the question of merger and not okay with the person. Then the pattern produced the wrongness, a return to the separation. just repeats. The idea of modern analysis movements, stances, and speaking of events is to create or improve inner strength, to that produced the wrongness, that is where LG: Yes, and I immediately went to two strengthen a person’s foundation so that I must be attentive, must say to myself, “I Rolfers (Audrey McCann and Rebecca even with human foibles, [s/he] can be well am in charge of this therapeutic event, what Carli-Mills) right after the program and and maybe even happy. can happen in a positive sense?” I must received some supervision on a sticky be able to picture the better outcome, not question I had about a client from the week The interaction is very complex, an idea be overwhelmed with the current client before. They opened up my consciousness, that was brought out in the meeting. I state. Sometimes I am better at that than which was stuck! (A quote: “Linda always thought about the powerful transference other times. thinks she has a hammer, but she doesn’t.”) in my own experience of Rolfing work. So thanks for that supervision idea. We When my body was more painful and less JC: Me too. Sometimes I’m better at work alone so much of the time, and we reliable, when I needed to see you, I felt so allowing my countertransference to exist often don’t have much opportunity to share needy. There was a sort of desperation to as information about my patient, and and parse our work with others. Thanks for have where I hurt be touched and mended. sometimes I just get caught up in it. In my coming to our event and sharing your skill I think of that as a very primal experience training we spend a lot of time learning and knowledge and fine collegial presence – a wordless need that someone else can to deal with countertransference. We also with us, and with me. fix. (Change my diaper. Feed me.) That learn to differentiate between our own transference is not as present now because countertransference and feelings we might Linda Grace has been practicing Rolfing work my body is more reliable and I have come to pick up from the patient. So that when we in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since she was terms with the idea that I might have to be meet a patient or are in a session, we have first certified in 1984 by the Rolf Institute. in pain sometimes. Transference is certainly some barometer of what’s going on. She continues to use Ida P. Rolf’s conceptual a powerful state of consciousness. It has all organization of the body, including the goals of LG: The pickup of feelings and even pain the weight of history – both stored emotions the Basic Ten Series conception, as well as the from the client is important in our work and repetition. But I don’t know what Advanced Series, with attention to movement as well. Some of us have become more brainwave state that would be. I wonder if work in each session. These working containers skilled at discerning states of consciousness we’re talking about states of consciousness may include attention to details in the cranial, that are perhaps not even thoughts, more that are more subtle. After all, states of nerve, and visceral systems in creating the existent in the physiology, the blood consciousness are not discrete entities. client’s desired changes. pressure, the chemical state, and the LG: And then there’s the stages of relational attachment senses, and so on. Janet Castellini, LCSW, LCADC, NCPsyA, is transference, each with its own power, the I was interested in your exposition of the a Modern Psychoanalyst in private practice. development of relationship. One aspect of brainwave states and have done a bit of She also teaches and supervises at the this might be how some clients just won’t looking around at that. Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis. She holds change for a particular Rolfer, through certifications in trauma, group psychotherapy, JC: In addition, there is my initial thought transference development perhaps – not and supervision. She worked in the field of from a member’s contribution: the idea

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 53 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS energy and environmental education for twenty- education. She received her bachelor’s degree experience, she met two Native American seven years before becoming a Licensed Clinical from The George Washington University medicine people (called doctors) from California Social Worker. She served on the boards of in Washington, DC and her masters degree and has been taught and trained by them for the the Energy Coordinating Agency and Green from Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of past twenty-five years. She continues to work Woods Charter School, both in Philadelphia, Social Work and Social Research. Through her on the integration of unconventional methods and published a number of articles on energy interest in states of consciousness and spiritual into traditional containers.

but were men who had used their criminal The Sensing of Ethics skills to manipulate their way there, to avoid the less pleasant prisons. His classic Our Inner Knowledge of Good and Evil book Inside the Criminal Mind (1984) has contributed greatly to today’s established By Karl E. Humiston, MD, Certified Rolfer™ methods of offender treatment and is well worth anyone’s reading. In chapter 13, “To The Hindu culture discovered many Definition Change a Criminal,” he describes a slow thousands of years ago that if you and arduous process of communicating got a relatively good body, you had a We think in the language in which we speak, patterns of ethical thinking from someone reasonable, mild man. So the way a so we think more clearly when we are clear who has them to someone who does not – reasonably good body behaved became about the grammar of that language and which we’ll see has a parallel in the transfer for them the touchstone for morality. the precise meanings of its words. Let’s we do with a Rolfing client. see what Webster’s dictionary (the 1979 When morals are built from the body’s Samenow (1984, 177) quotes an inmate as behavior you get moral structure and big book) says about the precise meaning of the word ‘ethics’: “ethics – the system or saying, “If rape were made legal, I’d do behavior which respects the rights and something else,” barely touching on his privileges of other individuals. code of morals of a particular philosopher, religion, group, profession, etc.” Morals! profound observation, the full import of Ida Rolf (1978, 71) It’s about morals. The dictionary further which he did not understand. He enlarged says: “morals – principles and practice in on this in a workshop I attended, when he Introduction and Definition regard to right, wrong, and duty; ethics; said that it was typical of the criminal inmates that they preferred lying to telling the truth It was June 1971, in a rented house on the general conduct or behavior, especially in (even when it gained them nothing), stealing cliffs above the ocean north of Big Sur, sexual matters.” So morals are about right to honest work (even when it paid less), California. I was in my first (‘auditing’) and wrong. For the adjective, it says: “moral adultery to having sex with their wives, etc. half of my training with Ida Rolf. About – 1. relating to, dealing with, or capable of To me, this was an exciting observation, as to follow the other students out for lunch making the distinction between, right and it gives us a way of accounting for rapists, break, I noticed that Ida was talking with a wrong. 2. relating to, serving to teach, or etc. In my understanding, when people are young man who had shown up to request in accordance with, the principles of right so closed off, so disconnected from their that she admit him to her training. They and wrong. 3. good or right in conduct or bodies, so unable to feel everyday feelings, had talked only five or ten minutes when I character; often, specifically, virtuous in they are so empty they can hardly stand heard her say, “I will not admit you to my sexual conduct; opposed to immoral.” their inward nothingness. But aha! There is training. You are an angry young man, and We see, then, that ethics and morals involve one feeling that can always break through I will not turn an angry person loose on being “capable of making the distinction the disconnectedness: the gut sense of doing people’s bodies.” With a noticeable tone of between right and wrong” in one’s conduct something wrong. Never mind how yucky irritation, he asked, “What makes you think or behavior. How we do that will be the it feels – it can be pretty exciting. Most I’m angry?” Quietly and simply, she said, main focus of this paper, which will explore of us can recall, perhaps from childhood “I can see.” With that, the interview ended. it in various directions, in depth. Our when we stole something from a store, Notice that he framed the issue in terms of experience of what is written on paper, that feeling – and most of us found it too thinking, while she responded in terms of as in the professional Code of Ethics of yucky to want to feel it again. Dr. Samenow seeing. They spoke in two fundamentally the Rolf Institute®, may be different from told us that these men became bored and different languages, one based in physical our experience of those ethics written in depressed when there was no ‘action’ – reality and one not so based. Here is a lesson our bodies. conning, stealing, raping, or scheming to on what I propose is a most important quality do so. Although he was a psychologist The Most Unethical People of ethics: fundamentally ethics is physical who excelled at observing the workings of rather than mental knowledge, sensory We can learn much from studying criminals: a criminal mentality, he could not connect rather than intellectual or psychological. It the most unethical of people. Stanton with my observation that, under all that, is most clearly experienced in our bodies, Samenow, PhD (born 1941) is a clinical is those criminals’ lack of physical sensing as are the principles of Rolfing® Structural psychologist who studied criminals who of the ethical knowledge that lives within Integration (SI). Our professional Code of were locked up in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, everyone’s body. Ethics is, more accurately, a set of rules for an immense federal psychiatric facility in Let me share the report of my Rolfing work good behavior, based on the deeper truths Washington, DC. His first conclusion was a decade and a half ago, with a child I’ll call that I am calling ethics. that these criminals were not mentally ill 54 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

“Joe” and his mother: When they came in robber’s single 45mm bullet. This prisoner, to us as their lack of conscience is, more together to see me in the out-of-state office under police guard in the hospital, did accurately, their lack of sensing, noticing, or where I was working, I was struck by the pushups to keep in shape for his next escape consciously connecting with that knowledge of unsocial manner of this eleven-year-old attempt in spite of his several chest wounds good and evil that lives deep within everyone’s boy, who gazed sullenly at the floor and (much too painful for a normal person to physical body. responded to all my questions with “I don’t do). When Bonnie tended the drainage A sense of ethics simply comes with being know.” His mother told me that, when tubes in his chest, she was astonished at the grounded in one’s senses. It is opposite unobserved, he sometimes snuck out of the lifeless stony hardness of his whole body; from delusions, which come from lacking house and vandalized the neighbors’ homes he was literally a hardened criminal. such a ground. (seriously, like cutting their wires) and sexually molested and probably tortured Ethics Is In Your Body I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest other children. The question flashed in Because it has been challenged in court that the Rolfing process contributes to a my mind, “If he’s like this at eleven, what innumerable times, from every conceivable person’s sense of ethics. My view is that will he be like when he’s eighteen – if he’s perspective, and survived, the polygraph a basic Ten Series of Rolfing SI connects still alive?” (so-called ‘lie detector’) is an important the client with his own inner blueprint of perfection, which includes not only our I said to him, calmly and firmly from the source of information regarding the nature creator’s design for how we are to live with center of my being, “Joe, people who are of the ethical function in human beings. gravity, but also for how we are to live with connected to their bodies don’t do things When I was born in 1930, the polygraph each other – our sense of ethics. like that. You need to get your body back.” instrument and its current manner of use were taking shape in the hands of Leonarde He looked straight at me and said, “How do Learning, Healing, and Keeler, a psychologist and friend of my I get my body back?” “It’s called Rolfing” the Language of Agency [SI]. “I’ll show you.” And I did three of the parents. I clearly recall the day in the mid- Ten Series of sessions on him that week. 1930s when I was taken to the Chicago My remarkable mentor, James Warrick Those sessions were technically ordinary, Police Crime Lab to become the first child (www.takeflightcoaching.org), used to say, but after each one I felt beaten up, as if I had ever tested on it, as Dr. Keeler wanted to “Reality is a person.” In my belief, truth had a wrestle with the devil. It was not clear know whether it worked on children as it (especially ethical truth) comes to us not until later what had been accomplished, did on adults. It did. Using the challenge just through our senses, but through our when after a month, I called to inquire about still in use today, I was told to select a card, senses from a person. I see our built-in ethical “Joe.” The receptionist said, “Oh, he doesn’t remember it, return it to the deck, and by sense as coming from the one who created do those things any more. He always used no means reveal to my mother which card (or built) us – God. But a sense of ethics is to sit in the waiting room staring at the it was. When she asked me, one card at also transmitted to us, ideally, through our floor, wouldn’t look at anyone, and there a time, “Is this your card?,” I was to say parents, who – from the child’s perspective was a black cloud around him. Now he “No” in every case, being careful not to – are like gods. ‘Mother love’ is not taught smiles at people and I can see white light give it away by facial expression, etc. I in a college class, yet it is something we all around him!” was sure I could fool her, but the machine recognize – its presence or the lack thereof. went wild with my bodily reaction to lying: Individuals who were severely abused Within the year, I finished all ten of sweating, holding my breath, increased as children sometimes spend their lives his Rolfing sessions, and several of his blood pressure. in kind service to others, exceptionally mother’s. It was a pleasure to watch “Joe” This body-based approach to detecting devoted to providing to their own children and his mother on the waiting-room floor and others what their parents did not. peacefully playing together, like two happy lies is not novel in the recorded history of children. She did not finish her sessions; I people of various cultures. An example Sex Offenders believe she could not handle the energetic from ancient India depended on the same Two decades ago, I pursued a rare change of completing her series because of autonomic nervous system response, but opportunity, gaining permission from the damage done by her having lived in focused on the drying up of saliva that the local Probation and Parole office to an intergenerational satanic ritual abuse accompanies sweating. They had all of the offer a weekly class to some seriously family. After several years, I received the accused chew dry rice and then spit it out. unethical men, a story I wrote up as report that “Joe” was locked up in juvenile “While this was a simple task for the honest, “Internal Correlates of Relapse Prevention: detention for his involvement with a group those who were deceiving had difficulty in Some Principles of Ida Rolf’s Work Used of youth stealing cars. I was sad to hear this, accomplishing it and were then judged to in Healing of Convicted Sex Offenders” but considered it far better than where he be guilty and punished accordingly. This (Humiston 2004). I used verbal instructions had been when I first met him. practice recognized that fear slows the digestive processes, including salivation” based on my Rolfing skills to reach into One further observation on the criminal (Abrams 1977, 11). their bodies and reconnect them with their body. In the early 1970s my wife Bonnie, innate sense of ethics. As in regular Rolfing working as a psychiatric nurse, had as a My reason for including these bits of lie- SI, I communicated something I had in my patient in her locked ward a cold-blooded detection history is that they demonstrate body to the bodies of men who did not killer whose latest victim was a mom-and- that, for everyone, there’s a basic bodily- have it. In over two years of that work, I pop shopkeeper who had traded fire with function element to our ethical sense of saw perhaps twenty men, but only those six him during an armed robbery. The old right and wrong. Even severe sociopaths who chose to continue with me for a year or man’s .22 caliber pistol was no match for the can be validly tested by these bodily more were ‘healed’. methods. My thesis is that what appears www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 55 ROLFING SI, PSYCHE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Let me now point out a significant parallel for which the Method was created X. It is unethical to disparage other between Rolfing SI and that work I did with and all other purposes must remain practitioners, professions, or sex offenders – something that is basic to the secondary to it. methods. The Method stands on its own merits, and each practitioner nature of ethics: it is those who choose to II. A practitioner must be should do likewise. finish the work that receive the full results. straightforward in clearly informing Those sex offenders, it is true, had been a client as to fees and conditions of The Language of Agency ordered by a judge to obtain treatment in the work, expected duration and the community from a professional who results, etc. To be misleading, or Ethics seen as rules of required behavior may was approved by Probation and Parole. even unclear, in this area may be be hard to promulgate, in the sense that they And seeing me cost less than seeing any of grounds for a complaint. are seen as demands upon us for self-denial. the others. Yet only about a third of the men Ethics seen as rules of chosen behavior, III. The Method should never be which are guides for our self-fulfillment, who started with me chose to continue for misrepresented as something that it are, however, generally harder to promote, the year or more that it took to fully restore is not. Practitioners should clearly for a little-understood reason: they are their personal ethical sense. For the others, inform clients as to when they are the energy that the work opened up was doing (this method’s) work and based on different mental grammars, or too much for them. And, as we know, there when something else is being done. mental languages. The distinctive words are Rolfing clients who swear they want the “I don’t want” reflect what we are born IV. Practitioners should set aside whole Ten Series but never come back after with, the default language. It is the source sufficient time and money to the first few sessions; in my view, some of everyone’s first impulse to avoid pain continue the pursuit of their own should be recognized as clients who should and seek comfort, and supports living at a progression and growth. It is low level of intensity (and ethics). Using it not finish Rolfing work, as they are not dishonest to represent that one can requires no special skill and burdens one ready for the full opening of their energies. assist a client’s growth when one is not doing so oneself. with no particular responsibility. In a sense, The Most Basic Written the default language is required; it comes Source I Could Find V. The name of (the founder) and his with being born, with living; you can’t get Method should be honored and In 1986 I was asked to prepare a code of away from it. its integrity protected so that the ethics for another professional group. public may respect it as standing for Those things that mean living at a higher Although its board did not choose to professional excellence and ethical level of intensity – receiving greater light adopt my proposed code, my experience practitioners. and knowledge, experiencing interpersonal in preparing it was personally very intimacy and love, achieving things that are VI. First, do no harm. A practitioner is meaningful. At first I studied existing difficult, and truly living ethically – require codes of professional organizations like to keep silent regarding a client’s confidential information, and is the language of ‘agency’ to accomplish. the American Medical Association, but to refrain from any actions that They require, and are the result of, desiring, found their official statements to be the could be foreseen to be to a client’s choosing, seeking and asking – which is philosophies of academic men, a mass of physical, mental, financial, or other what I am referring to as the language of confusion that did not satisfy my hunger detriment. agency. As a Rolfer, I know that I do my for real, simple, clear truth; I wanted to best work when I consciously move into VII. Sexual involvement of any kind spit them out. On a Sunday afternoon I deep longing within my own body for the with a client is unethical, either walked from our New York apartment desired changes in my client’s body. I’m during the professional relationship to sit on a bench in Riverside Park, with sure that the language of asking is acquired blank paper on a clipboard, to ponder or after it is terminated. Because focus on anything sexual always by infants and children when their parents what might be a more basic source of diverts energy and attention from (and others nearby) are likewise wishing ethical principles. When I reviewed the other areas, it necessarily destroys and desiring good things for those children. familiar Ten Commandments (which I had the balance that is essential to the This is high intensity and doesn’t happen memorized), I found that they felt right and Method. To pretend otherwise is by default, but only from being sought translated them. Some were easy and some dishonest and exploitative, and it and chosen. were hard, but when I was done my body is the duty of every practitioner to was filled with energy like electricity that scrupulously maintain a non-sexual In For Freedom Destined, Franz Winkler lasted for almost a week. Although no one focus of attention with clients. finds that these issues are central to the else said they noticed it, for a couple of days themes of Wagner’s Ring cycle and Parsifal VIII. It is unethical to accept payment for I had the distinct feeling that my face was music dramas. For the desires of the gods any services that are not necessary, shining with a bright light from the truth of Germanic myth to be fulfilled, humans appropriate, or clearly in the client’s must take some difficult ethical actions by of that work. best interests. their own choice, not compelled by the gods. Here is how that ancient source translated IX. Practitioners must be honest in all Seeing that such choosing requires a high into a proposed modern code of ethics: their dealings, professionally and level of conscious awareness (lost when I. As in any dignified profession, otherwise. Immorality, dishonesty, the hero Siegfried is drugged), “Wagner the welfare and needs of the client or unethical behavior in any aspect rediscovers here the long-lost key to a must be foremost and above all of one’s life casts doubt on one’s deeper understanding of evil. Evil in its other considerations in the practice ethics as a practitioner. darkest form does not depend on wicked of the Method. This is the purpose deeds, nor even on bad intentions. For

56 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES actions and aims can be corrected, atoned ® for, or at least repented. But when man Rolfing SI and Recognition permits his awareness to grow dim, when he takes a step backward on his path of Keeping the Trust Amidst Skepticism moral evolution, he commits a sin against the meaning of existence, the sin against the By Noel L. Poff, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ Holy Ghost. Such failures bring suffering to the world, suffering far greater than any A Call to Action are a bad idea, and what will have a beneficial caused by intentional evil” (Winkler 1974, impact.] When I later heard faculty members 68). Again drawing a parallel to Rolfing SI, It wasn’t long ago that I was in the middle of addressed about this issue, their responses I believe that the crucial awareness here is a twenty-two-week long training program were either dismissive of Wikipedia’s more in the body, where our sense of right where I had the first inkling to do a web credibility or unconcerned. (I believe that and wrong lives, than in the mind. search on the very thing I was spending faculty and RISI staff found other things so much time learning how to do. Before more important – such as maintaining the Conclusion I thought to type “Rolfing” into a search operations of the organization and ensuring engine, I was getting my information about Ethics is a part of the larger issue of how that would-be Rolfers were doing good the practice directly from Rolfers and the any human being can best make room work.) So, I shrugged my shoulders and website of the Rolf Institute® (RISI) . I hadn’t for self and other at the same time. This is went back to having Rolfing SI validated by thought before to do a more generalized dealt with voluminously in the writings of the people directly affected by it, including search and see what the greater public existential philosophers and psychologists, myself. I took it for granted that the results understood about this widely unknown which is beyond the scope of this article. of the many sessions I observed were system of bodywork. It is dealt with concisely as the second undeniable based on what I saw and on commandment: “Thou shalt love thy I cringed upon reading the rather what the clients reported. I went on to finish neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39), which dismissive review on Wikipedia. Though my training and open my own practice near to me means that we, ourselves and others, Wikipedia has its own notoriety for being my hometown in South Carolina. all count equally. a questionable source of information, it is A Basis of Trust often the first site listed when doing a search Karl Humiston was for twelve years (2004- on anything from carrots to Henry VIII. I As I wrote this, I was in the middle of yet 2016) the Chairman of the Rolf Institute’s use it myself to look up quick facts about another Rolfing program, the Advanced Ethics and Business Practices Committee. He things I forgot from school. Immediately I Training. I didn’t have to move to do the is still actively practicing Rolfing SI in San felt both angered and nauseated by fact that training, but I still had to put twenty hours Diego, California. if anyone did a general query on Rolfing a month into just getting to and from the Bibliography Structural Integration (SI) through the weekend classes in Charles Town, West web, the first thing found would include Virginia. Again my debt accumulated, since Abrams, S. 1977. A Polygraph Handbook for its description as ‘quackery’. I was spending for tuition, gas, room, and Attorneys. Lexington Books. board. And of course being out of office for By this time I was already $20,000 deep in so many days. Humiston, K.E. 2004 Dec. “Internal loans and other costs associated with my Correlates of Relapse Prevention: Some training. I moved myself across the country Yet I remain committed to the work, and Principles of Ida Rolf’s Work Used in in order to attend the only available classes I find I’m able to make up the missed Healing of Convicted Sex Offenders.” at RISI in Boulder, Colorado. Each semester appointments because even in the Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf took place over the course of a couple of conservative south I have just as much ® Institute 32(4):14-16. months with classes eight hours a day, interest in my practice from people new to Rolf, I.P. 1978. Ida Rolf Talks About four to five days a week, and no amount of Rolfing SI as from people already familiar Rolfing and Physical Reality. R. Feitis, ed. work I could do in the off time would earn with it. Additionally, as I get more skills and Boulder, Colorado: Rolf Institute®. [Later me enough to balance out my attenuating experience from trainings, the effectiveness republished as Rolfing and Physical Reality by resources. I brought these burdens on to of my sessions improves and being more Healing Arts Press (Rochester, Vermont).] myself because I believed in Ida Rolf’s successful in helping clients with their method and its effectiveness in creating ailments almost always improves business. Samenow, S. 1984. Inside the Criminal Mind. positive changes. Suddenly, I realized my Even during the Basic Training, when New York: Times Books. sentiments about Rolfing SI weren’t shared my clientele was for massage, my clients and there was, and still is, a great divide Winkler, F. 1974. For Freedom Destined: noticed a clear difference between my between traditionally corrective forms of Mysteries of Man’s Evolution in Wagner’s Ring work before and after I started Rolfing medicine and more holistic approaches. Cycle Operas and Parsifal. Great Barrington, training. Those who wanted a relaxing Massachusetts: The Myrin Institute. I thought of editing the Wikipedia article massage started going to other massage myself but I figured my efforts would be in therapists, while those who wanted deep vain, seeing as there was already a strong and specific work requested me. Something academic bias lumping it into the broad was indeed different about my massages, category of pseudoscience. [Editor’s note: see sold as Integrative Massages where I the box on page 57 to learn why such edit attempts was employed, because they weren’t

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 57 PERSPECTIVES just massage – they were ‘on-the-way- did. I trusted Ida Rolf’s ‘Recipe’ and the that something was actually changing for to-Rolfing-SI’ as my hands were already Principles of Intervention laid out during the better. learning to affect fascia as a Rolfer does. I my Basic Training. With an accompanying didn’t say anything about Rolfing SI, and faith everything worked out well most of Something’s often began and ended the sessions with the time. My clients were usually happy. Happening Here a little more fluff and charm that gave They were happier than when I did a more I’m the first to admit that I’m not a skeptic the sessions a Swedish-massage shine. traditional massage. Still I had my doubts. at heart. My willingness to be part of Oftentimes both clients and I saw noticeable The word ‘quackery’ still burrowed in the something bigger than myself makes me differences in form and movement. recesses of my brain. I wasn’t sure if the prone to give most of my energy and majesty of Rolfing SI somehow charmed I couldn’t really explain in great detail how resources as an act of devotion without my clients, as well as myself, into thinking or why things worked the way that they hesitation. RISI possessed a religious air.

A Note from the Rolf Institute®

About Wikipedia

The “Rolfing” article on Wikipedia has been a source of consternation for many years. While it is to be hoped that the article will be improved in the future, it is important to understand how Wikipedia works and what will be necessary to see the kinds of changes that Rolfers™ would like. Although, in theory, anyone can edit articles on Wikipedia, the reality is that Wikipedia has its own culture around editing, and a complex set of rules – even more so around health-related topics that are considered controversial. Every edit must be supported by quality sources, as well as by arguments crafted with Wikipedia policy in mind. For this reason, please don’t make edits to the “Rolfing” article. The fact is that even well-meaning edits will draw criticism from editors who are skeptical of alternative medicine and holistic modalities. They will most likely immediately revert the edits, and Wikipedia policy supports their view. Because of this, efforts to make constructive change to the article must be well-considered, and are best attempted through the efforts discussed below, rather than attempts to edit the Wikipedia article itself.

As an encyclopedia of established knowledge, Wikipedia does not give credence to what Rolfers and their clients say about Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI). What counts are sources that are considered objective and/or evidence-based. For this reason, the two primary ways to improve the Rolfing article are:

1. Support research on SI (see below).

2. Ensure that printed sources have correct information about Rolfing SI, as printed sources (from parties that are considered objective) are the raw ingredients for Wikipedia articles. We have a project to locate errors in printed sources and send emails or letters to authors and publishers, requesting corrections in future reprints. Already two major sources, Gale Medical Encyclopedia and Segen’s Medical Dictionary, have promised to make corrections based on our feedback. If you have writing skills and several hours of time to donate, please contact [email protected].

How to Support SI Research

●● Write a case report every year. A sufficient volume of case reports can direct future research in areas that have shown a high level of preliminary success with standardized methodology. Case reports can be submitted to the following journals: Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies; Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine; Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute®; and IASI’s Yearbook of Structural Integration.

●● Improve your science research literacy by reading scientific articles and imagining how SI could be studied in a similar way.

●● Discuss SI with anyone you know who is involved in research, like graduate students, university professors, and statisticians. You never know when someone will be looking for an interesting research project.

For more information, or to take the online Research Fundamentals course, visit https://rolfresearchfoundation.org. Donations to the Ida P. Rolf Research Foundation can also be made at this site.

58 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES

Every room had a portrait or some image dogmatic view of health. They are instead I still can’t help but wonder what I as a solo of Dr. Rolf. Didactic sketches of lines and encouraged to explore their own relationship Rolfer can do in support of giving Rolfing SI figures look like hieroglyphics. There were with their bodies in relation to gravity. a better public profile. also an increasing number of coincidences. Though gravity may be a limiting concept, It says a lot if Dr. Rolf’s ideas found their I became a John Denver fan before moving it is nonetheless a universal physical law that way through the unrestrained environment to Boulder and learning that he had all people experience the moment they begin of the human potential movement into the experienced Rolfing SI. Dr. Rolf and I were moving towards their verticality. form of RISI, which students can now receive born on the same day. By pure coincidence federal funding to attend. Being somewhat I rented a room in house on a street that Bumps on the green to it, most of what I’ve learned about shared my ex’s last name, and equally Road to Recognition Rolfing SI’s gestation has come from the coincidence, other rooms were rented by In bodywork our labs are a bit different anecdotes of instructors and Dr. Rolf’s the two other Rolfers from Charleston, from other health fields. In turn sagacious writings. The primary validation South Carolina who had introduced me the research is a bit different, and the of the work so far is experience from to the work. I felt, and still feel, a certain measurements of progress are mostly the years of field-research performed by cosmological connection to it all. qualitative. Since scientific research is a Dr. Rolf and her first generation of Rolfers. This Training at RISI helped me break through factor used to distinguishing science from data supported the publication of Dr. Rolf’s personal barriers and the chains of past ‘pseudoscience’, it’s challenging to validate book and the formation of RISI. There traumas. I attributed a lot of its effectiveness Rolfing SI – and other holistic modalities was a good enough public profile to lay a to the unpredictably radical class structure. – when double-blind research studies are foundation at a time when the status quo in One would find students and teachers the basis for public determination of sound healthcare was even less receptive to non- gathered together holding hands, breathing practice. RISI doesn’t ignore the value of traditional approaches. While there are a silently, energetically holding space. Or scientific research, and its website does number of different reasons and people to walk into a room of adults rolling on the list a few studies in support of the benefits thank for Rolfing SI’s longevity, I think it floor on top of each other moaning from Rolfing SI has – for people suffering from receives a more positive public view now their most primal forms of being. And then chronic low back pain, children affected by because it continues to meet the needs there was the class where each of eight cerebral palsy, and females experiencing of clients wanting relief and is moving practitioners put a pinky finger up his symptoms of fibromyalgia – in order to toward providing data to the critics who practice partner’s nose. I chuckled a little demonstrate its effectiveness in relieving want evidence-based research. This should bit to myself at how this would appear symptoms of these types of conditions. RISI continue: as more people become interested to the uninformed observer. In Boulder, a also serves as a gateway to the growing in Rolfing SI and receiving the work, it quirky town where RISI is one of the most amount of information presented at the should get easier to conduct measurable unique and precious gems, a local would Fascia Research Congress highlighting the studies that meet the requirements of probably understand. Yet this all clashed benefits SI has for conditions associated traditional scientific research. with prior experiences studying traditional with the fascial system. What Can I Do? health sciences. In those classrooms I had The challenge of validating an entire system felt connected to symptoms; at RISI I felt of bodywork through peer-reviewed What that all says to me as a Rolfer wanting connected to people. research studies and analyses seem nearly to validate Rolfing SI is that I need to It’s not all play and ‘experimentals’ at insurmountable. Yet if questions about the consider myself a researcher working with RISI, though. There are intelligent reasons validity of Rolfing SI are due to lack of a thousands of others. With this mindset for all of the activities, and they enhance certain form of research, then more research I automatically think of the word ‘data’, our capacity to be human beings seeing, should be done with that form in mind. because collecting data is the bulk of listening, and feeling in the present moment. There are other challenges, however. A lot the scientific method. It also makes me As Rolfers we highly value detailed of Rolfers seem to operate independently, think about the language in which data knowledge of the territory we cover – and I understand why. Between getting is presented, and whether the method of primarily fascia. The Rolfer’s journey to a business started, meeting the needs of collecting the data is repeatable by others. know it becomes a lifelong endeavor. I’ve clients, and tending to my personal life, This inspires me to take more detailed notes learned more anatomy and physiology there’s little time left to donate strictly to in the hopes of sharing them with other in one day with Rolfers than I have in providing additional proof that what I Rolfers who may also aspire to make similar any college course. I think I could safely do actually works. It’s also difficult as an conclusions about what benefits Rolfing SI say that the people who teach Rolfing SI independent practitioner to gather enough may have for people with specific needs. are ever so intrigued by the human body data about a specific group for a certain In regards to ‘quackery’, quacks in the that they’re almost always operating with amount of interventions – the way research healthcare world behave in such a way that a beginner’s mind. In my experience, they is typically done – when a typical Rolfing their words and actions are not genuine nor often seem eager to discover something new practice instead tends to see a wide range do they accurately reflect the experiences in the people they contact. of clients and issues. I’m thankful to read of their patients and clients. They’ll often about the findings of others who make One of the reasons I believe the wisdom of assume their methods are faultless and can time for such endeavors, and appreciate cure many illnesses. They pretend to have Rolfing SI is so profound is how quickly that we have practitioners in or connected people can adapt it to their own experience. a knowledge about things of which they to educational institutions, which is often know very little. Labeling as a quack is not They aren’t having a dialogue with a the required setup to conduct research. So

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 59 PERSPECTIVES reserved to professions that lack scientific positive changes. The benefits of Rolfing Claims and promises on either extreme studies and meta-analyses; anyone with any SI relayed to the public are then informed ironically make me skeptical about the degree can be ‘quacky’ if they don’t have primarily by field research. Our entire field, motivations and knowledge of the people humility about things of which they are aimed at promoting an overall state of behind them: they’re not doing the one unfamiliar or uninformed. They can also physical well-being, shouldn’t be ruled out thing I first felt as a child, studied as a be quacky if they guarantee their therapies due to lack of traditional scientific research, philosophy student, and am refining will cure certain illnesses and dysfunctions. particularly when that’s also vulnerable as a Rolfer – they’re not assuming their In other words, it is my belief that quackery to personal bias and interest. Perhaps own ignorance. Without that there’s no relates to the individual practitioner, not the we should think outside of tradition, capacity to see what’s presently in front mode of practice. Rolfing SI should not be broadening our scope, in order to recognize of them because it’s then painted over considered quackery anymore than other other types of research that would serve in beliefs about what’s right and wrong. health-promoting activities such as eating as validation. This is not to suggest that In my ignorance I’m less swayed by the well and exercising. It’s only quackery if traditional research misses the point or histories, secrecies, and exclusivities of the practitioner makes illogical claims and is asking the wrong questions: as hinted different belief systems. In this particular false promises. towards earlier, there are a great number case, I’m referring to the exclusivities of of people doing evidence-based research different health modalities. With the void As a Rolfer I don’t promise people anything demonstrating parallels between SI and its of expectations I’m able to maintain my other than that I’m going to do the best I can positive effects on health. curious fascination with the person in front to help based on my professional training, of me wanting to feel better. skills, and experience. I haven’t yet met a As data accumulates in support of what Rolfer who behaves as if his promises were Rolfers do, they continue to earn praise Noel L. Poff, Certified Advanced Rolfer, much different than my own. We do often from clients – regardless of the quantity LMT, CPT is a licensed bodyworker at highlight the benefits Rolfing SI is thought of studies able to survive a gauntlet of Charleston, South Carolina. To learn to have based on what clients reported to demands from skeptics. I myself am finding more about Noel’s practice, please visit us, but these claims aren’t false. They’re it easier to ignore the negative labels and www.lowcountryrolfing.com. the testimonies of people who experienced associations, as well as the positive ones.

“Sometimes I Feel the Dance of the Fingers” Peter Legård Nielsen’s Body of Work as Writer and Rolfer™

By Naomi Wynter-Vincent PhD, Certified Advanced Rolfer

Rolfers have a peculiar and particular way of of poetry and eight novels, numerous short insulting each other, when we’re so minded stories and critical essays, as well as editor to do so: you’re so cortical, goes the refrain; of a number of anthologies (some of these you’re too much ‘in your head’. Given that are pictured in Figure 1). He was Chairman Peter Legård Nielsen Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) has a of the Danish Association of Fiction Writers profound and progressive commitment over several years, and has received to holism, there’s something inescapably a number of prestigious grants along ironic if we reinstate mind-body dualism with recognition by the Danish Ministry by privileging body over mind. For Peter of Culture. Legård Nielsen, Certified Advanced Rolfer, I ask him how he first heard of Rolfing Rolf Movement® Practitioner, and critically SI. “I was around seventeen when I read acclaimed poet and novelist, the dichotomy about it in a book, and it made me very rings especially false: for over a decade, he’s curious.” It would be another twenty-eight worked two successful careers in parallel years before he actually tried it. He recalls and in concert, sustaining an embodied a memorable Fourth Hour when it felt that practice alongside a life of the mind. I a layer of plastic wrap had been released met Peter in Copenhagen in 2017 to talk from his spine. Later he was referred to about how his dual careers support a fully Martine Longum and was amazed “that integrated life. she knew so much more about my body Peter’s writing career is extensive and than I did.” It made him so curious that he Naomi Wynter-Vincent impressive: he is the author of two volumes 60 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES

once observed by an elderly woman in a swimming pool: “The essence of her charm, independent of time, revealed itself for a second in that gesture and dazzled me,” Kundera writes; “I was strangely moved.” It is an example drawn from literature, but it could just as easily be from Rolfing SI. If it seems improbable that a job as demanding as Rolfing SI should offer such an effective complement to his writing career, it’s worth taking a detailed look at how Peter manages his time. “I work as a Rolfer from a clinic in Copenhagen Mondays to Wednesdays, from half nine to 8 pm,” he explains, matched by three (even longer) writing days (9 am to 9 pm) writing from home. Aside from financial considerations, Peter finds that Rolfing SI supports the work of writing: “We are blessed that we have a hard job: Rolfing [SI] is both physically and emotionally hard.” I ask whether the rhythms and pressures of writing ever conflict with his work as a Rolfer, evoking the romantic cliché of the writer struck by untimely inspiration, writing into the small hours, fuelled by coffee and alcohol. Peter laughs, and offers a very different picture of the writing life in which discipline plays a more consistent role than inspiration. “You always get a full writing session in a day,” he comments wryly. Peter concedes that the pressures of the publishing industry have sometimes been hard to manage: “But I have never canceled on clients, or canceled my writing, either.” His last book, De fremmede (which translates as ‘the strangers’), is the fruit of this careful time management. It took fifteen years to write, he says, but was greatly improved by its extended maturation. Set in the sixteenth century, Figure 1: Some of Peter Legård Nielsen’s literary output. it tells the story of the Spanish conquest of Peru through the eyes of an unknown decided to undertake the training, and it Here, finally, was an environment in which cavallerist from his deathbed, and can be was also a good excuse to step away from his sensitivity was regarded as an asset, not read as an allegory of immigration, power, his political work. a liability, and where precision, sensitivity, and religion. and observational acuity could be In 2007, Peter trained as a Rolfer in Munich, Peter’s careful working arrangements usefully cultivated. under Christoph Sommer, Peter Schwind, evince his commitment to sustain both and Frances Hatt-Arnold. Coming to the Peter and I share an experience of being careers over the long term. “I became a training was a revelatory experience. struck by Rolfing SI’s rich use of language writer eighteen years before I became a Recalling his childhood in a small village in and ideas, of the dotted lines that connect Rolfer, but now they go hand in hand. Denmark, Peter described an environment the practice of Rolfing SI with the world It will continue for a long time.” Might where “everyone knew everyone,” and of the imagination and the mind, with the physical demands of Rolfing SI bring where his natural sensitivities – to tone, character and gesture. I reminded Peter his therapeutic career to a close earlier emotion, people, and language – were of the scene in Milan Kundera’s novel, than his writing? He is not scared of actively discouraged and suppressed. Immortality, where the narrator-author physical decline, he says, imagining that In Rolfing SI, by contrast, he found a describes candidly how a new character he will grow into a more subtle and precise community in which the blunting effects of is born of a single gesture that he had practitioner as the years go by, exerting less a small-town childhood could be undone. physical strain. “I see myself being both a

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 61 PERSPECTIVES

Rolfer and a writer when I am eighty, unless Do you ever use your experiences with kind of thing that should be well-known, I run out of books to write.” your clients as a direct resource for your if that would entail a watering-down of writing? No, Peter replies, “Never.” But: our work. There’s a serendipity to finding Peter’s forthcoming book will bear the “Rolfing [SI] has taught me to build up a Rolfing [SI] at a certain moment in one’s life. marks of his experiences as a Rolfer characterization at a very deep level. My And it’s a participative process on the part more directly, and includes some characters have become more complex,” of the client. I’m in the fortunate position autobiographical elements. Titled De based on concise, closely-observed bodily where the clients who are willing to wait kendte in Danish (literally translated as descriptions. It’s a style that’s reflected in that long are the ones who are seeking to ‘the famous ones’), Peter and I try out the writers he admires, such as Nabokov, experience Rolfing [SI] transformationally. different possible translations of his title Faulkner, and Dinesen: a use of language The people who only want their knee fixed into English in order to draw out the word’s that is spare, rigorous; an orchestration will go elsewhere, and that’s fine.” more negative connotations, settling for of language that ‘plays the rests’ as much ‘celebs’, which works (in British English at He’s right, of course. Rolfing SI has always as the music. They are also each in their least) to evoke modern-day celebrity in its been more than the sum of its parts, different ways markedly sensual writers. more superficial and self-obsessed aspects. sustained more by its ideas than, narrowly, We return to the theme of ‘corticality’, [Author’s note: Peter shares with us an extract its techniques, which we have always and to our shared frustration that a love from that novel in “The Art of Seeing,” below.] shared with (and made available to) other of words is sometimes misrecognized and Peter’s instincts are against fame: he grew disciplines. The world of “words, words, misrepresented in the Rolfing community. up in a small village where the balance words” (as Shakespeare’s Danish prince Language is also, after all, a profoundly between privacy and recognition was won reminds us) is home both to the Rolfer and bodied experience, whether vocally or in by careful negotiation. He is becoming less the writer. writing. Certainly, I’m reminded of this interested in publication, he feels; is seeking every time I struggle to articulate the sounds Peter Legård Nielsen completed his Rolfing less external validation over time. When and rhythms of a second language, along training in 2007 in Munich, taught by Pierpaola his first book became a Danish bestseller, with the aches and pains that accompany Volpones and Peter Schwind in Phase 1, Frances Peter cultivated discretion over celebrity. long periods of writing. “Sometimes I Hatt-Arnold and Christoph Sommer in Phase 2, Later on, as Chairman of the Danish feel the dance of the fingers,” Peter says, and Dorit Schatz and Gerhard Hesse in Phase Association of Fiction Writers, he lamented evoking the physicality of writing, the way 3. In 2012 he took the Advanced Training with the way that public and administrative that language arrives through the body: Peter Schwind and Christoph Sommer. He has duties encroached on time devoted to his fingers and hands, lips and tongue. a clinic in the center of Copenhagen, Denmark writing practice. (www.rolfer.dk www.peterlegaardnielsen.dk). Rolfing SI is not especially well-known in Are his clients aware of his alter ego? “I Denmark, where there are at present only Naomi Wynter-Vincent is a Certified never talk to clients about my writing fifteen Rolfers in a population of nearly six Advanced Rolfer and holds a PhD in projects; I keep the two worlds very million. For Peter, this is not a concern, not psychoanalysis and literature. Her divided,” although he has talked about least as he has a waiting list of four years first book, Wilfred Bion and Literary Rolfing SI to some of his writing friends and to see new clients. A little incredulously, I Criticism, is forthcoming from Routledge. colleagues, and encountered both curiosity ask whether they wait that long. Peter is Her websites are www.londonrolfing.com and scepticism among them. sanguine. “Rolfing [SI] is not necessarily the and www.naomiwyntervincent.com.

The Art of Seeing An Extract from the Novel De kendte (‘Celebs’)

By Peter Legård Nielsen, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement® Practitioner

Translated from the Danish by Peter Legård Nielsen

The light fell through the window. Though His first client of the day was on the table. the sheet like a wing. Her blue eyes were east-facing, the sun came in throughout He turned away from the window and sat closed. the day. Actually the room was a little too on a stool. For a moment he sat there letting his small, but he had chosen it as the location Taking hold of her cranium, he lifted it with impressions deepen. He was tired, having was central. On top of that he liked the both hands, one under the back of her head slept so little, but he hadn’t wanted to take stucco of angels’ faces and the room’s high while the other held her forehead, letting his the day off after the funeral, though both ceiling. The park where Alexander had been index finger hover over her nose without Sean and Therese had suggested it. There knocked down was just next door. He could touching. were too many clients waiting to see him, see it through the sunlit window panes. The and it would be unmanageable to cancel uncomfortable experience of that morning She lay relaxed, covered by a thick, off- any, as he wouldn’t have known how to remained with him. white plaid. Her blonde hair fanned across fit them into an already crowded calendar.

62 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES

He could see dreams circling the woman’s He sensed that his client felt seen. He had He had seen it already, when she stood in head, both those of her previous night and never felt that his clients came to him with front of him in her underwear, before laying those on the way towards her, which she symptoms that were not real, for all that down on the table. would dream during the following days there seemed to be enough practitioners It was nothing dangerous. The theory was and weeks. As always, one dream from standing ready to tell them that they were that when the sperm penetrated the egg in the night just passed was stronger than the hypochondriacs. It created great trust a natural way, it did so through the midline. others, located just above the top of her between him and his clients. That didn’t happen during an artificial head. He gathered his attention around it. A momentary sense of sorrow rose within insemination. It was arbitrary where the He could still feel how the fear and the him. An image of his father’s coffin, sliding sperm was injected by the pipette. But the alertness from the visit at the hospital into the ground, came to his vision. Then midline could be recreated. were present in him. The red scarf kept he turned his attention back to the woman – Is that why I always lose my way?, she reappearing in front of him, like the cloth on the table. asked. used by the bullfighter to taunt the bull. He often felt that empathy was the strongest Once again he sensed that she felt seen, and It seemed to him that the commingling guideline. For a moment it was as if a strong probably had done so, since she stood in of predator and prey was an unavoidable pillar of light, almost a lighthouse beam, front of him on the floor. and uncanny characteristic of man. He shone from his chest. often wondered about it, sitting here in his – It’s very possible, he answered. But there Through his hands he could feel tension, a office with his hands at work on a client’s could be other reasons. slight torsion of the neck, where his client’s body, looking at the stucco of the angels’ whiplash had locked it. It continued up into In his mind he moved to the brain: listening faces. As predators, we could hunt and the skull, from the back of the head toward for, observing tension in or around it. kill in the most bestial ways. As prey, we the sinus and the eye on the same side. He could communicate, make sense of where – It will become clear when we have followed it the other way, down through the we were, and keep an eye out for danger recreated your midline, he said. We don’t body. All the while he registered a parallel not yet manifested, reporting it to each have to guess. tension going into the heart, allowing the other without words or signs. It happened first to draw him to an area in the pelvis, on other levels, through the senses. It was There was tension in the left hemisphere of close to the sit bone, where it attached, and the flock keeping watch and exchanging her skull. In his mind, Peter extended the from here farther into the leg, under the knowledge through invisible signals. He reach of his hand, moved in to loosen it. knee, through the lower leg to the ankle sensed the field created by the human and foot, to a point that held between the The woman began to weep, silently. animal as a web that might give or contract big toe and the second toe. He held the line to his touch. He held this web in his hands. He returned to the feeling of nerve tension of his client’s tension until slowly it started that ran along the spine and entered the Over time his hands had gone from being to let go, finally released. The woman heart. He followed it. She started to sob. tools for grabbing to being tools for sensing. breathed deeply. He sensed her heart had contracted in pain. He had not known or heard that such a Beneath the whiplash there was a further His hands perceived it as a shell, encircling thing was possible. Quite often he dropped tension that seemed to him to originate a hard tension. At last he held it all between things by accident, partly, probably, fetally. Peter sensed it as a discrepancy his hands. The heart shivered, trying to because their function had found a new with her mother. When a client had had open and close, to release, but couldn’t, not location in the brain. It was as though they an accident or traumatic experience, he daring to let go. sometimes had forgotten what they were often found that something had happened originally intended to do. Peter searches. He feels there is more in before at that same place, as if it had become the heart, something not yet manifested, To his surprise there were no limits to how weaker or less protected by the body. as the body is afraid to show it to the subtly he could train their sensing. This It seemed as if something had happened woman, perhaps because her everyday discovery had come as a shock to him. during the pregnancy. The dream pulled consciousness can’t bear it. Talking to colleagues, he would say that this him in that direction. He checked for the sensitivity could undoubtedly be explained He senses that the tension is very old. It echo of her birthing cry. It was nestled by neurotransmitters, mirror neurons, feels fibrous, almost like rotten wood, moss- close to the heart, a sign that her birth had and the plasticity of the brain, but in this green inside the heart. progressed as it should. As always he was moment he didn’t care, focused on the client moved, almost in tears when he felt it. He waits. Something in the darkness as he was. None of those he had spoken to between the chambers in the unknown had recognized it. It gave him that weird – Were you conceived by artificial seems to shiver, drifting, like clouds across feeling of being odd, like being back home insemination?, he asked. the sky. It feels as though a tension like wool with his father and Ida. The woman opened her eyes and looked or cotton scuds lightly into his hands. It was He sensed that an eroticization of his visual at him. not there before. He senses a connection: nerve had taken place. A deepening of from the heart to the diaphragm, through – Yes, why? sensing and perspective, it was as if colors the stomach to the navel. themselves were clearer, vibrating. – It seems that you don’t have a midline, As he brings his finger to the vagus he said. Peter breathed almost imperceptibly. nerve, through the skin at the neck and the diaphragm, the woman takes a deep

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 63 REVIEWS breath, bringing him with her, down under He can sense the woman as an infant a small, white object emerges in its deepest the surface of the sea. He glides down and her anxiety of something that seems part. He sees a snake or a dragon, a creature through muddied, brown water, all the unlimited, and that she is trying to control. that is, perhaps, her mother’s embryonic time downwards. He’s aware that they But what she is feeling may in reality be her resistance to the embryo, her body as yet are in her subconscious, surrounded by a parents’ fear of her unboundedness and her unused to containing the shining little vast sea. The smaller sea of the woman’s ability to penetrate the surroundings. being. Suddenly the tension lets go, runs subconscious is shielded by mountains that fast as lightening through her arteries, into He imagines that the growing egg even rise from beneath the water, that connect the placenta, through the navel and up into within its first weeks seeks the mother from through several valleys. He can sense that the woman’s heart, that also lets go. the inside, in an infinite love for her, hard to she feels an old fear. He sinks further down, endure, precisely because it has no limits. She makes a jerking movement. mindful of her capacity to bear this. In front of him is a long rope that might be a steel After a moment he senses that they are far – Oh!, she exclaims. wire. He moves along it. Touches it. The back in time; she is lying in her mother’s Tears are streaming down her cheeks. twisted fibers or strings of steel. At the end womb as a fetus. The body remembers He feels how the suffering disappears. It of the rope is an anchor buried deep within the details exactly. He feels her heart, the spreads to his own body. His nerves vibrate sand. He tries to lift it, but it is stuck. After connection to the navel. From here the as tendons with hers. Her hurt feelings considering it he slowly, carefully pushes umbilical cord grows as a rolling twine that reverberate through him like an echo, and it further into the sand, through a rusty curves into the placenta and attaches itself to he lets it go. metal ring. From here, he can collapse it her mother’s blood vessels. It pulls him into and pull it out. Like a lure on a fishing her imaginary body. In this moment it is real, A deep relaxation spreads within her. line it races in front of him up through the felt, for all that it is such a long time ago. Both She looks up at him. water. As they reach the surface, he shifts he and the woman have to perceive it like his point of view; sees it glide from below, this, or the body won’t respond. He glides – You saw it too, didn’t you? through her diaphragm, close to her solar through the arteries. She senses it. They are plexus. It is the releasing of the vagus in the same dreamlike state. – Yes. nerve. The woman lets out a weak gasp, as They reach the mother’s heart. A connection Shortly after, he gets up, and moves to work the anchor moves from unconsciousness arises through time, through the woman. on her lower legs. into consciousness. It was ready, or else he He holds the attachment or the tension until would not have been allowed to free it and bring it up.

Gravity in Inner Space; Gravity in Outer Space A Review of Two Books

Reviewed by Szaja Charles Gottlieb, Certified Advanced Rolfer™

Gravity and the Creation of Self: An development and explores how children Exploration of Self Representations project their emotional states in drawings Using Spatial Concepts by Elizabeth and in other shape-creating activities such Burford (Jessica Kingsley Publishers as sandbox play, in effect revealing their 1998) emotional landscape. (In my article on page 9 in this issue, “The Earthbound Metaphysic,” Artificial Gravity edited by Giles I discuss the relevancy of Burford’s ideas Clement and Angie Bukley (Microcosm in relation to the transformative potential Press 2007) of Rolfing® SI.) Artificial Gravity, on the These two books are not directly related to other hand, is a technical book, a collection the practice of structural integration (SI), but of scientific papers by experts analyzing they are about the subject of gravity, and problems associated with space travel due to they approach the subject from two different the lack of the normal gravitational force of perspectives, which might be referred to as 1g that we enjoy on the planet. No one will the phenomenological and the empirical. doubt the importance of our evolutionary Elizabeth Burford, a British psychotherapist, inheritance, our adaptation to 1g gravity, discusses in her book Gravity and the Creation after reading these books, particularly of Self the role gravity plays in childhood Artificial Gravity.

64 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org REVIEWS Inner Space Gravity and the Creation of Self seems to be a isolation or the constant bombardment of book largely ignored since its publication, cosmic rays. One can safely say that the Gravity and space are treated by Burford yet for me it was a revelation, speaking trip to Mars, which will be over 900 days, as psychological phenomena. In line with directly to me as a structural integrator. I will be vastly different than Columbus’s Piaget, one of the founders of the field of view it as a minor classic and think that any voyage – Other World rather than New childhood psychology, Burford posits that practitioner – particularly those who work World in its challenges. The only solution to mechanical forces imprint the external with children and/or are interested in the these problems, according to the editors of and internal patterning of the individual, perceptual aspects of our work – would the book, is the creation of artificial gravity particularly in the first seven years of life immensely benefit from the experience by rotation of the spacecraft sufficient to when cortical functions are not yet highly of following the therapeutic process as produce 1g gravity force, or at the very developed. First and foremost, according achieved by Burford in her work with least a short-arm human centrifuge device to Burford, is the upright position, an children. That experience will certainly spill aboard the spacecraft or planet to maintain assertion by the child in relation to gravity. over to working with adults as well. physiologic conditioning. This spatial assertion is not simply physical but emotional and psychological as well. Unfortunately, my excitement with the book As I mentioned previously, Artificial Gravity Using the techniques commonly known became tempered when, after contacting is not about SI, but it is about how the body in the field of art therapy, Burford reveals the publisher, I was informed that Burford acts in the gravitational field, and that the emotional content hidden within the had died in 2013. Up to that point I had makes the excursion through this book drawings of her young clients. The analysis stockpiled a considerable number questions full of interesting observations that do examines spatial placement of objects but in relation to what would occur if, in relate to our field. Just how dependent on also natural settings, such as mountains or cooperation with a psychotherapist, one normal gravity our physiology is becomes valleys, holes or protuberances, tunnels, could track how a child’s spatial relation painfully obvious in chapter after chapter etc. The psychological narrative Burford and emotional landscape would be affected detailing how almost every level of human musters from these drawings opens the by the SI process. Alas, it will remain a functioning is affected. For example, it is symbolic dimension of space more familiar question, for now, that hangs in the air well known that when astronauts return to to the artist, dancer, or sculptor but actually without answer. earth after a stay in space, their stability is ever-present in daily life. affected. The postural responses described Outer Space in the subchapter “The Role of Gravity” are That space and gravity are perceptual The problem of microgravity during space enlightening in terms of SI: “. . . all returning and have emotional content may not travel was first taken up in the 1950s. In 1952 crewmembers have observable behavioral be a convenient truth for practitioners Collier’s Magazine (no longer in existence) changes. Most adopt a wide stance and gait who want to practice the Ten Series as a published a visual conceptualization by with their feet farther apart than normal. . . . physical process and disregard the client’s then-famous scientist Werner von Braun Many minimize head movements and psychosomatic processes. The perceptions of a spinning space station designed to some move their head-trunk segments en of the client, however, in regards to his own counteract the effects of microgravity. bloc, presumably to avoid disorientation, body and the space around him play a large The full extent of the problems the human instability, and motion sickness.” part in whether the SI process is successful. structure undergoes when gravitational This is probably what Dr. Rolf meant The central nervous system and the related force disappears was not completely when she said, “There comes a time in the vestibular systems, note the writers, are apparent, however, until human space course of Rolfing [SI], when you see that inextricably related to the presence of flight began in 1961 and the much longer your Rolfee is able to align himself, but he gravity. sojourns in space were experienced on the doesn’t want to do it. He just doesn’t want space station in the late twentieth century. I must say that after reading Artificial Gravity to do it. There is always a physical factor In short, the human structure, a product of I was totally in awe of just how much every in him which doesn’t want to do it; there millions of years of evolution in 1g gravity, one of our systems is dependent on 1g is often a psychological factor involved as does not do well when this practically gravity to function efficiently. While it is no well” (Rolf 1978, 85). That Rolf was familiar unnoticeable constant of our daily life on proof to the efficacy of SI, it sure made me with the phenomenological aspects of space earth is missing. feel as if we, as SI practitioners, are playing and gravity is obvious from her discussion in the right ballpark. of Gaston Bachelard’s epistemological The full range of problems is massive. profile (Rolf 1978, 45). (Bachelard is the Beginning with constant deterioration Bibliography French philosopher and phenomenologist of bone and muscle, at an approximate Rolf, I.P. 1978. Rolfing and Physical Reality. who wrote The Poetics of Space, in which rate of 1% per month, moving on to R. Feitis, ed. Rochester, Vermont: Healing he discusses the psychological import of cardiovascular deconditioning as bodily Arts Press. familiar spatial entities such as house, nests, fluids do not descend to the lower body; corners, and shells.) Similarly, Burford the interruption of sensorimotor skills as discusses the psychological import of space well as the vestibular senses; physiological and even spatial language – words such deconditioning; and breakdowns in the as ascent, descent, buoyancy, sink, swim, body’s homeostatic regulatory mechanisms, hanging on, lifting up, lying down are all such as electrolyte balance, hormone based on the all-important up/down axis. synthesis, etc. The aforesaid issues do not include psychological problems from

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / July 2018 65 CONTACTS

OFFICERS & THE ROLF INSTITUTE ® AUSTRALIAN GROUP BOARD OF DIRECTORS 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 The Rolf Institute Boulder, CO 80301 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 Richard Ennis (At-large/Chairperson) (303) 449-5903 Boulder, CO 80301 [email protected] (303) 449-5978 fax USA www.rolf.org (303) 449-5903 Nicole Black-Gonthier (At-large/Secretary) [email protected] (303) 449-5978 fax [email protected] www.rolfing.org.au Hubert Ritter (Europe/Treasurer) [email protected] [email protected] ROLF INSTITUTE STAFF [email protected] Christina Howe, Executive Director/ Libby Eason (Faculty) Chief Academic Officer [email protected] Stephanie Bradley, Executive Assistant BRAZILIAN ROLFING ® Les Kertay (Central USA) for Education ASSOCIATION [email protected] Emily Jarvis, Office Manager Dayane Paschoal, Administrator Jeannine Lee, Clinic Coordinator R. Cel. Arthur de Godoy, 83 Larry Koliha (Faculty) Colette Cole, Director of Membership Vila Mariana [email protected] & Placement Services 04018-050-São Paulo-SP Mary Contreras, Director of Admissions Cosper Scafidi (Eastern USA) Brazil & Recruitment [email protected] +55-11-5574-5827 Pat Heckmann, Director of Education Services +55-11-5539-8075 fax Keiji Takada (International/CID) Samantha Sherwin, Director of Financial Aid www.rolfing.com.br [email protected] Susan Winter, Director of Communications [email protected] & Education Systems

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE EUROPEAN ROLFING ® Richard Ennis ASSOCIATION E.V. Nicole Black-Gonthier Sabine Klausner Hubert Ritter Saarstrasse 5 80797 Munchen Germany EDUCATION EXECUTIVE +49-89 54 37 09 40 COMMITTEE +49-89 54 37 09 42 fax Russell Stolzoff, Chair www.rolfing.org Carol Agneessens [email protected] Tessy Brungardt Larry Koliha Meg Mauer JAPANESE ROLFING ® Kevin McCoy ASSOCIATION Yukiko Koakutsu, Foreign Liaison Omotesando Plaza 5th Floor 5-17-2 Minami Aoyama Minato-ku Tokyo, 107-0062 Japan www.rolfing.or.jp [email protected]

ROLFING ® ASSOCIATION OF CANADA Beatrice Hollinshead Suite 289, 17008 - 90 Ave Edmonton, AB T5T 1L6 Canada (416) 804-5973 (905) 648-3743 fax www.rolfingcanada.org [email protected]

66 Structural Integration / July 2018 www.rolf.org

5055 Chaparral Court, Suite 103, Boulder, CO 80301 303-449-5903 • [email protected] • www.rolf.org