alexander technique

services

introduction: I have been studying the Alexander Technique since 1996, and believe it provides the perfect solution to most patient managment issues as an osteopath post treatment. I therefore encourage my patients to take a look at what the technique can offer them.

what is the Alexander Technique? People might be forgiven for being rather confused as to what exactly is the Alexander Technique. Is it a therapy? Is it an exercise routine? Is it to do with posture? In my view it is an education process, designed to help people successfully change the way they move and use their bodies.

People visit me as an osteopath with a variety of pains, and usually at some point will ask me what I think was the cause – we want to know the cause in the hope that we can change something to prevent the pains reoccurring. My answer is that in the absence of some obvious trauma or a disease process, the most likely cause of the pain is our ‘unconscious, habitual manner of using ourselves in activity’. We move instinctively, some say automatically, and often not very efficiently. This leads to RSI problems, and strained structures, producing pain.

In response to this problem, the physical therapy world (osteopathy, chiropractic and physiotherapy, etc), has spent a lot of time and effort looking for solutions. There is a huge amount of information out there giving us postural advice, the correct way to sit, stand, lift, drive, operate a computer, etc. We even have a new industry of ergonomic training and equipment in our offices to aid us. You would have thought by now that we would have evolved to such a level of human efficiency that we wouldn’t continue to suffer from tight and painful shoulders and necks, painful backs, etc. So my question is does any of this advice actually work?

research: After being in practice several years, and offering people all the latest advice on posture, etc, I came to the conclusion that it didn’t work. I’d done research which showed that 80% of a control group (with low back pain) could not do the exercises or follow the postural advice well enough to stop them relapsing after three months! The most common reason cited was that although they understood what they had to do, when it came to the critical moment of putting it into practice, they just couldn’t do it. Sound familiar? We all believe that if we are told what to do to correct something we can do it, and if we feel we are doing it, all is well. FM Alexander says, ‘All my experience…goes to shows that this belief is a delusion.’

what’s the problem? Alexander believed that part of the problem lies in our untrustworthy, dominating sensory awareness.

How do we sense our environment or, more specifically, our own bodies? We use our five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch and smell) together with a huge array of sensory nerve endings designed to do very clever things like measure pressure, temperature and even angles of every joint position! These senses cultivate a ‘sense’ of rightness about how we are in relation to the environment. If even one hair is out of place we ‘sense’ it and are tempted to flick it back into place. I believe we have cultivated a ‘use’ of ourselves that ‘feels’ so right, that when we are told to correct it because the expert tells us it is causing us pain, the new position now ‘feels’ so wrong we cannot sustain it – and our sensory guidance system immediately corrects it to…the old habitual way!

The help we need – from the Alexander Teacher – is to learn how to stop trusting our sensory awareness and our old habitual way of doing things, and incorporate a new approach of reasoned conscious control for living. This entire approach involves cultivating a whole new way of THINKING!

If you feel up for the challenge, please get in touch and I will say more about how the Alexander Technique can help you. I also offer more specific osteopathic post-treatment advice to patients – see core stability.

southampton osteopathy - to book online click here; or phone ian on 07792 782056