This is a segment from Vikings Game Day that talks about how the NFL Minnesota Vikings use Rolfing® Structural Integration to keep their players ready for game day. The coverage is quite thorough, particularly in its presentation of what Rolfing really is.
These are two great videos that explain Structural Integration, aka Rolfing, in Dr. Ida P. Rolf’s own words. There is not much video out there featuring Dr. Rolf hersefl these days so do check these out.
Bioenergetic Analysis works with emotions that are stored in the body and through body work and talking. This therapy strives to open the body to get a pulse to move through body, looking for and resolving the emotional-muscular holding patterns that block that pulse. William Reich, is the founder of this style of therapy.
For a historical context, the Western psycho-somatic “movement” originated with Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) who was a student of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and by extension, a “classmate” of Carl Jung (1875-1961). Where Jung followed the mind only path of Freud, Reich followed the mind-body connection and developed methods to work on the mind through the body. Two of Reich’s students, Alexander Lowen (1910-2008) and Ida Rolf (1896-1979) respectively established Bioenergetic Analysis and Structural Integration.
Video from Lowen:
I’m sitting watching Fox news last night in LA and heard a startling blip that all alternative medicine does not work and that any results are from the placebo effect. Wow. 10 years and $2.5 billion dollars of research have proved once and for all that alternative medicine’s only benefit is if the subject believes themselves better. This is an insulting, dangerous and ridiculous conclusion.
They are looking at this effect all wrong. The placebo effect is a pejorative term for the Natural Healing Response. The human body is designed to default to health and maintaining homeostasis. It simultaneously strives for bipedal balance (and our upright posture is the reason our brains could evolve to such a large and complex volume – but this is another article) and ideal health.
The human body, including the brain, does not reduce itself to separate systems and programs like a computer must, but treats life and functions as more of a complex symphony. There is so much overlap in the brain, which keeps us functioning as efficiently as possible but most parts overlay many tasks. By the way, when you hear someone say, “We only use 10 percent of our brains” you can tell them that that’s nonsense and the other 90% of the brain is being used for proprioception, mechanoreception, nocioception, balance and movement. But I digress, the point I need to make is a monist one. Monism is the idea that the mind and body are one. This includes emotions, ideas of the soul or spirit, consciousness, etc. The human being is all one thing non-reduceable to parts, while the different perspectives and perceptions are just different vantage points experiencing reality. When we see a red blanket that red blanket is every color BUT red – the red is reflected away and our eyes receive this information and the brain creates the image of the red blanket. The world around us is not what we think it is. The opposing, western medicine perspective is attributed by the father of dualism himself – Rene Descartes, whom made the claim that the mind was immaterial while the body was not. I’ve heard a convincing argument that Descartes was a monist and only made this case to appease the church who permitted him to dissect bodies and conduct his research. I digress again.
The mind is not separate from the body – it is of and from the body. The left and right brain are creating the illusion of consciousness which allows us to navigate and survive in this world, any neuroscientist can attest to this. This effect is a sixth sense if you will. Japanese element theory certainly got this correct by adding consciousness to the other 5 elements of water, wood, metal, earth, and fire. What I’m driving at is the placebo effect is one direction of a causal relationship. A fake pill, injection, or sham treatment is substituted unbeknownst to the researcher and patient and a healing effect is observed in the subject. The nocebo effect is when a negative effect or illness can occur in a person when they are given a sugar pill or sham treatment or told they have a disease when they do not. Another important point is the psychosomatic relationship. Psychosomatic means the mind influences the body and again is used to degrade someone’s problem to being “only in their head.” Psychosomatic is a bullshit term – everything is psychosomatic because the mind and body are one thing!
What we need to understand is that ALL healing is from the body/mind itself. Drugs don’t heal. The body always does this healing work, with or without the help of any drug or alternative treatment. Of course drugs and treatments can stimulate this healing response when it’s not working or can’t work but never does it do the healing. This is why alternative medicine is so wonderful – it works with this natural healing response attempting to stimulate it. And most of the time the treatments are natural, non-toxic and safe. Mainstream western medicine’s “drugs” by definition are toxic substances, fully unnatural, and absolutely must have side effects as the term “drug” is a legal term. All drugs are toxic. But you know this because you watch TV and see the Pfizer commercials warning you of their drugs extensive side effects and then you flip through a magazine and see the extra two pages of add that follow any drug promotion listing how dangerous it is. This world has gone crazy and I hope this Fox news clip is the pinnacle of the stupidity of this world.
And I’m not sure what “alternative medicine” the news report was referring to as this can be quite and expansive field of treatments from acupuncture to massage. But this report does reek of the western allopathic application of medicine further pushing their way to monopolize all medicine. And this is the real sham.