Revision of Wikipedia Feldenkrais Method Article[i] written 2020

Posted on Author bbachracWP

Revision of Wikipedia Feldenkrais Method Article[i] written 2020

[i]  I have personally benefitted from learning and working with Feldenkrais Method Teacher and Practitioner Stephen Rosenholtz as well as benefitting from Physical Therapy with back related issues before and after surgery. With free time during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the fall of 2020, I undertook to revise the Wikipedia articles relating to the Feldenkrais Method and Moishe Feldenkrais. I learned first-hand the difficulty dealing with Wikipedia troll editors who zealously guard certain articles. Wikipedia is not actually what it purports to be in its various Tag Line and many articles contain guarded mis-information and dis-information as well as be in some cases defamatory.

Wikipedia has a Series Alternative Medicine which is a major example of mis-classification and about which no revision seems possible.  The Feldenkrais Method makes no claim to being an Alternative Medicine and practitioners assess whether students should be referred to their physicians or to physical therapists.

I am posting the revision on my blog since I don’t have time to confront the Wikipedia Trolls.

Revision of Wikipedia Feldenkrais Method Article[1] written 2020

Contents

Revision of Wikipedia Feldenkrais Method Article written 2020 1

1. Description 1

2. History 1

3. Influences 2

4. Teaching Cases 3

5. Systematic Evaluations to Date 3

6. Criticisms and Discussions. 3

1) Original References 3

7. END Notes 3

Maryana Iskander, CEO

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

1 Montgomery Street Suite 1600, San Francisco, California 94104

and Editors of Wikipedia

Feldenkrais Method[SM] is a registered service mark of the Feldenkrais Guild of North America.

The Wikimedia Foundation raises money from its Wikipedia service and therefore receives financial gain and has to respect registered Service Marks

The Wikimedia Foundation by maintaining an article that mis-represents The Feldenkrais MethodSM causes damage to Feldenkrais Methods Guilds, Feldenkrais Method Practioners, Feldenkrais Method Students, and the Academic Communities that seeks to perform studies of the effectiveness of the Somatic educational methods.

Wikipedia is supposed to be an information resource and Wikipedia itself should not abuse Service Marks or be a source of mis and dis information or a repository of defamatory and derogatory statements. Wikipedia should not mis-categorize Service Marks that do not conform to the definitions of the registered owner.

I and others who have no conflict of interest with respect to the Feldenkrais MethodSM have sought to update the article to reflect to current literature and understanding in the Rehabilitation Health Community. The defects in the Wikipedia editing and escalation process make it impossible to revise or update the article and it should be removed from Wikipedia or Wikimedia Foundation must establish some other mechanism for editing such articles.

.

Description

The Feldenkrais Method is a Guild[2] regulated teaching practice based on the writings[3], lectures[4], and teachings[5] of Moshe Feldenkrais (1904–1984) during the mid-20th century. The Feldenkrais Method[6]

The Feldenkrais Method is not an Alternative Medical practice and Feldenkrais Method teachers do not diagnose disease. Feldenkrais Method is not an “Exercise Therapy” [7] but some of the methods are comparable to those in other practices.[8] Feldenkrais Method is widely adopted as well by registered physiatrists and physical therapy practitioners who are certified.[9]

Effectiveness and reception[edit]

In his 2015 book, The Brain’s Way of Healing[10], Norman Doidge[11], M.D. devotes two chapters to the Feldenkrais Method which provides a good overview. As an MD, he provides a useful list of 11 Core Principles of the Method as he understands it from Feldenkrais’ writings. Doidge writes, “most conventional treatments assume the function is wholly dependent on the ‘underlying’ bodily structure and its limitations” (Doidge, 2015. p. 177). The field of neuroplasticity is now under active investigation and development.[12]

A Feldenkrais Method Teacher practice engages students of any age who seek or are referred for undertaking training in the Feldenkrais Method. Through it an individual can learn to improve body mechanical function for personal development, or for help with neurologic difficulties, chronic pain, or as part of continuing rehabilitation following injury or surgery subsequent to physical therapy. Feldenkrais Method uses a somatic education model of learning to become aware of movement and find new means of body action. Body movement is controlled by the Somatic Nervous System[13].and is studied extensively as is Human Biomechanics.[14]

Feldenkrais Method teachers are expected to operate their practice consistent with regulated medical practice and physical therapy; and other health science, subject to the Guild Standards of Practice[15].

Feldenkrais Method utilizes two types of teacher-student engagement[16]: Awareness Through Movement group classes and individual sessions known as Functional Integration lessons.

Moshe Feldenkrais was both a physicist and an athlete. His teachings in the Feldenkrais Method combine an intuitive understanding of human biomechanics, muscular control and coordination by the somatic nervous system.[17]

History

Further information on Moshé Feldenkrais

Similar to some other somatic methods, such as those started by F. Matthias Alexander, Elsa Gindler, and Gerda Alexander, the Feldenkrais Method originated in the efforts of its founder to work with his own bodily problem.[14] In the case of Moshé Feldenkrais, it was a chronically injured knee.[citation needed]

Feldenkrais first injured his knee while playing soccer in British-controlled Palestine in the 1920s.[15]: 82  He reinjured it while negotiating the slippery decks of submarines while working as a scientist at the British Naval station at Fairlie, Scotland during the Second World War.[16]

By that time Feldenkrais was a judo teacher and had mostly completed the work toward a D.Sc. under the guidance of Nobel laureate Frédéric Joliot-Curie.[15]: 208  Facing the prospect of a surgery that could leave him with a life-long limp, Feldenkrais decided to apply the knowledge gained from his study of physics, engineering, and martial arts to an intensive self-study of his own movement habits. When his work provided him with relief, allowing him to avoid the knee surgery, he began exploring the methods he developed on himself with a small group of people at Fairlie, including scientific colleague John Desmond Bernal and John Boyd-Orr, Nobel laureate and first president of the World Academy of Art and Science.[17]

After serving as head of electronic engineering for the Israeli Army in newly formed Israel from 1951 to 1953, Feldenkrais devoted the rest of his life, from age 50 onward, to developing and teaching self-awareness through movement lessons.[18][19]

From the 1950s till his death in 1984, he taught continuously in his home city of Tel Aviv. Feldenkrais gained recognition in part through media accounts of his work with prominent individuals, including Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.[20][21] Beginning in the late 1950s, Feldenkrais made trips to teach in Europe and America. Several hundred people became certified Feldenkrais practitioners through trainings he held in San Francisco from 1975 to 1978 and in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 1980 to 1984.[22] Anticipating the need for an institutional structure to carry on his teaching, he helped found the Feldenkrais Guild of North America in 1977.[23]

Feldenkrais developed the conceptual framework of his method in part through the publication of six books, beginning with Body and Mature Behavior (1949) and ending with the posthumously published The Potent Self (1985).[24]

Since Feldenkrais’ death, the international Feldenkrais community has used a guild structure to regulate its activity, with training accreditation boards in the Americas, Europe, and Australasia overseeing guilds and associations in eighteen member countries.[25] The Feldenkrais Journal, the annual publication of the Feldenkrais Guild of North America, serves as a forum for the Feldenkrais community to discuss the method and its applications.[26]

Influences

The development of the Feldenkrais Method was influenced by Moshe Feldenkrais’s involvement in the martial arts.[27][15]: 71  After meeting Kano Jigoro, the founder of Judo, while living in Paris in the 1930s, Feldenkrais transitioned to that practice.[citation needed] One of the main influences of judo on the Feldenkrais Method is the differentiation between rote exercise and attentive movement: “the methods of physical exercise in vogue … exert only the muscles without any other goal, and one needs much will to bind oneself unfailingly to one of these methods”, wrote Feldenkrais in 1952. “Judo is very different, each movement has a specific goal which is reached after a precise and supple execution.”[28] Before he focused on the creation of his own method, Feldenkrais influenced the teaching of martial arts in Western Europe through the publication of five books on jiujitsu and judo, as well as teaching at practice centers in France and Great Britain.[15]: 211–212 

Feldenkrais was born into an Hasidic family and community, and he acknowledged the influence of Hasidic Judaism on his method.[15]: 7  In David Kaetz’s biography, Making Connections: Roots and Resonance in the Life of Moshe Feldenkrais (2007), he argues many lines of influence can be found between the Judaism of Feldenkrais’s upbringing and the Feldenkrais Method – for instance, the use of paradox as a pedagogical tool.[29] Feldenkrais also acknowledged the influence of the Russian spiritualist George Gurdjieff on his work, in particular Gurdjieff’s teachings on automatism and freedom in embodiment.[15]: 430–444 

Feldenkrais earned his doctorate in a program at the Sorbonne intended to bridge theoretical physics and industrial engineering.[15]: 128–129  Mark Reese, another biographer of the teacher, says that Feldenkrais brought this emphasis on practical scientific inquiry to the understanding of embodiment expressed through his method:[15]: 117 

Feldenkrais was critical of the appropriation of the term ‘energy’ to express immeasurable phenomena or to label experiences that people had trouble describing … He was impatient when someone invoked energy in pseudoscientific ‘explanations’ that masked a lack of understanding. In such cases he urged skepticism and scientific discourse. He encouraged empirical and phenomenological narratives that could lead to insights.

Feldenkrais incorporated the views of other scientists into his teaching; for instance, he asked questions of both the neurosurgeon Karl H. Pribram and the cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster at trainings in San Francisco in the mid-1970s.[30][15]: 329–330  Cybernetics, also known as dynamic systems theory, continued to influence the Feldenkrais Method in the 1990s through the work of human development researcher Esther Thelen.[31]:1535

Teaching Cases and Evaluations

NYT 2017 Jane Brody Trying the Feldenkrais Method for Chronic Pain

Systematic Evaluations to Date

Systematic evaluation of physical therapies and adjunct practices is difficult. In 2015 Hiller and Worley concluded in[18] The Effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method: A Systematic Review of the Evidence
“There is further promising evidence that the FM may be effective for a varied population interested in improving functions such as balance. Careful monitoring of individual impact is required given the varied evidence at a group level and the relatively poor quality of studies to date.”

In 2020, Stevens and Hillier published[19] ‘Evidence for the effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method’, and found

In 2015, the Australian Government’s Department of Health published a review of alternative therapies that sought to determine if any should be covered by health insurance; the Feldenkrais Method was one of 17 “therapies” evaluated [2]. The FM section is 65-72 of the “2015 Review of the Australian Government Rebate on Natural Therapies for Private Health Insurance”.[20] The 2015 Review states its report on FM is based on limited systematic review of published studies. Health outcomes in people with any clinical condition is uncertain and more research is needed. They launched a 2019–20 Natural Therapies Review . “Since our last review in 2014–15, additional evidence on the clinical effectiveness of these therapies has been identified. This review will assess the clinical effectiveness of those therapies by looking at additional evidence since our last review. [21]

Criticisms and Discussions in the Wikimedia Article

The Feldenkrais Method is promoted with anecdotal claims it can help children with autism and other developmental disorders, but such claims are not backed by reputable supporting evidence.[11]

There is limited evidence that workplace-based use of the Feldenkrais Method may help aid rehabilitation of people with upper limb complaints.[12]

Previously Wikipedia cited David Gorski, an Oncologist, wrote in his blog that the Method bears similarities to faith healing, is like “glorified yoga”, and that it “borders on quackery”.[4] Quackwatch places the Feldenkrais Method on its list of “Unnaturalistic methods”.[13]. The screed was an aside in a complaint about the

Original References[22]

END Notes



  1. I have personally benefitted from learning and working with Feldenkrais Method Teacher and Practitioner Stephen Rosenholtz as well as benefitting from Physical Therapy with back related issues before and after surgery. With free time during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the fall of 2020, I undertook to revise the Wikipedia articles relating to the Feldenkrais method and Moishe Feldenkrais. I learned first-hand the difficulty dealing with Wikipedia troll editors who zealously guard certain articles. Wikipedia is not actually what it purports to be in its various Tag Line and many articles contain guarded mis-information and dis-information as well as be in some cases defamatory.



    Wikipedia has a Series Alternative Medicine which is a major example of mis-classification and about which no revision seems possible. The Feldenkrais Method makes no claim to being an Alternative Medicine and practitioners assess whether students should be referred to their physicians or to physical therapists.



    I am posting the revision on my blog since I don’t have time to confront the Wikipedia Trolls. ↑




  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild


    Feldenkrais Method Teachers are certified by the Guild following training by Guild certified Trainers and Guild adopted resources ↑




  3. Writings ↑




  4. Lectures



    1981 Moshe Feldenkrais Conférence au CERN https://youtu.be/6_znSh_h2v8 and https://cds.cern.ch/record/2316931 ↑




  5. Teaching ↑




  6. Balali Sofia January 2019 State University of New York Empire College Thesis “Feldenkrais Method and Chronic Pain”


    “The Feldenkrais Method is an educational motor learning approach that aims to change dysfunctional motor patterns, by enhancing proprioception and kinaesthetic awareness. According to literature it can be applied in a broad number of cases ranging from neurological, orthopaedic, psychological or resulting from mild or severe injury.” ↑




  7. Exercise Therapy notes ↑




  8. Related techniques



    Alexander Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Technique


    Frederick Matthias Alexander 1869 -1955 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Matthias_Alexander



    Exercise Therapy notes ↑







  9. Physiatry ; Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_medicine_and_rehabilitation



    Physical Therapists



    Susan Schmitt, M.D., Integrative Spine and Body Medicine, PC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_medicine_and_rehabilitation ↑




  10. Doidge writes, “most conventional treatments assume the function is wholly dependent on the ‘underlying’ bodily structure and its limitations” (Doidge, 2015. p. 177).


    1. The mind programs the functioning of the brain.



    Feldenkrais wrote, “The mind gradually develops and begins to program the functioning of the brain. My way of looking at the mind and body involves a subtle method of ‘rewiring’ the structure of the whole human being to be functionally well integrated, which means being able to do what the individual wants. Each individual has the choice to wire himself in a special way” (Feldenkrais cited in Doidge, 2015, p. 159)


    2. A brain cannot think without motor function.



    Doidge writes, “People may believe they can have a pure thought, but in a deeply relaxed state, Feldenkrais pointed out, they will observe every thought leads to a change in their muscles” (Doidge, 2015, p. 170)


    3. Awareness of movement is the key to improving movement.



    Doidge writes, “The sensory system, [as] Feldenkrais pointed out, is intimately related to the movement system, not separate from it. Sensation’s purpose is to orient, guide, help, control, coordinate, and assess the success of a movement.” Improvement in our action does not always have to be conscious – in fact much of the learning in Feldenkrais lessons is not. However, experience with the Feldenkrais Method, now backed up by research into neuroplasticity, shows “that long-term neuroplastic change occurs most readily when a person or an animal pays close attention while learning” (Doidge, 2015, 170).


    4. Differentiation – making the smallest possible sensory distinctions between movements – builds brain maps.



    Doidge writes, “By making finely tuned – differentiated – movements of these parts and paying close attention while doing so, people experience them subjectively as becoming larger; they take up more of their mental maps, and that can lead to more refined brain maps”. (Doidge, 2015, 171).


    5. Differentiation is easiest when the stimulus is the smallest.



    Doidge notes, “Many movement problems arise because areas of the body are not well represented in the brain maps”. (Doidge, 2015, 172).


    6. Slowness of movement is the key to awareness, and awareness is the key to learning.



    Awareness is a key to learning: “slower movement leads to more subtle observation and map differentiation, so that more change is possible”. (Doidge, 2015, 173).


    7. Reduce the effort whenever possible.  The use of force is the opposite of awareness; learning does not take place when we are straining. (Doidge, 2015, 173).


    8. Errors are essential, and there is no right way to move, only better ways. 


    9. Random movements provide variation that leads to developmental breakthroughs.



    Children learn to roll over, crawl, sit and walk through experimentation. Learning to stand and walk are momentous breakthroughs that infants make without training. They learn by trial and error, when they are ready .


    10. Even the smallest movement in one part of the body involves the entire body.



    In a person who is capable of effective, graceful, efficient movement, the entire body organizes itself, as a whole, to do the movement, no matter how small. Feldenkrais learned from Kano the founder of Judo that “in the correct act there is no muscle of the body which is contracted with greater intensity than the rest…The sensation is of effortless action”


    11. Many movement problems, and the pain that goes with them, are caused by learned habit, not be abnormal structure. ↑




  11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Doidge ↑




  12. Huberman Lab and other references ↑




  13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_nervous_system ↑




  14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomechanics ↑




  15. https://feldenkrais-method.org/iff/standards-of-practice/ ; https://www.feldenkraisguild.com/professional-policies ; https://www.feldenkraisguild.com/standards-of-practice ; https://www.feldenkraisguild.com/Files/download/resources/CO5SOP2007.pdf ↑




  16. Awareness Through Movement



    The teacher verbally guides students through a sequence of movements, encouraging them to move with gentle attention within a comfortable range. Through the many different lessons. we can develop awareness of how we move and to improve, through our attention, the details and components of particular movement patterns. The goal of the classes is to discover how to better organize our movement.


    Functional Integration



    Feldenkrais® individual sessions are known as Functional Integration® lessons. In Functional Integration lesson, the teacher guides an individual student in movement lessons using gentle, non-invasive touch as the primary means of communication.



    In a Functional Integration lesson, the Feldenkrais teacher’s touch reflects to the student how they currently organize their body and actions. They suggest, through gentle touch and movement, expanded possibilities for new movement patterns which are more comfortable, efficient, and useful. ↑




  17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_coordination ↑




  18. The Effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method: A Systematic Review of the Evidence

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4408630/ ↑




  19. Stephens, J & Hillier, S 2020, ‘Evidence for the effectiveness of the feldenkrais method’, Kinesiology Review, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 228-235. .The PDF is available here.


    Susan Hillier Dean of Research UniSA Allied Health & Human Performance ↑




  20. https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20191107151136/https:/www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/phi-natural-therapies).



    Commentary: The Australian government review of natural therapies for private health insurance rebates: What does it say and what does it mean? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958816300416 ↑




  21. (https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/private-health-insurance/private-health-insurance-reforms/natural-therapies-review-2019-20



    To date no reports have been identified evaluating the Feldenkrais Method which is consistent with it not being a therapy.



    The 2015 report states: “Due to the paucity of studies the review was unable to locate any evidence for the use of Feldenkrais in the treatment of any condition and was therefore unable to reach any conclusion regarding the effectiveness, safety, quality or cost-effectiveness of Feldenkrais.” ↑




  22. References from Original Wikipedia Article




    ↑


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