Dear Nancy,
Yes, I think this modality may be helpful to you and here’s why. This work is about re-patterning muscles to a new resting length which gently creates more motion and positively impacts every system. Here are some examples: More motion in the ribs, torso means more oxygen intake which has to help every function. More motion in the pectoralis (front of shoulder) and other shoulder girdle muscles equals more lymphatic drainage, flow. More motion in the spine nourishes the bones themselves, the nerves coming from the vertebrae and therefore all the organs served by those nerves. As you engage in this work, part of your learning will be a solo movement practice that you can use daily to take away pain, calm the nervous system and take away the results of stress. That in itself may be helpful for the inflammation. If you are in a flare up stage, your somatic movement can be extra gentle, although it is a very gentle work to start with. Along with nutritional and other approaches, somatics should definitely be included.
If you are in the NYC area, we can work together. If not, I can help you find a practitioner near you.
Call me at 718 350 0637. all the best, Laura Gates, CHSE, CCSE ]]> http://www.fullmovementpotential.com/hanna-somatics-and-lupus/feed/ 3 http://www.fullmovementpotential.com/clinical-somatic-education-a-new-discipline-in-the-field-of-health-care-by-thomas-hanna-phd/ http://www.fullmovementpotential.com/clinical-somatic-education-a-new-discipline-in-the-field-of-health-care-by-thomas-hanna-phd/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:03:59 +0000 Laura Gates http://www.fullmovementpotential.com/?p=164

(this is an excerpt from the article)

The summer of 1990 saw the opening of the first class in Hanna Somatic Education. It is the flowering of a series of developments that have led to a discipline that is as consistently effective as any branch of medical science.

Preface

SOMATIC EDUCATION is the use of sensory-motor learning to gain greater voluntary control of ones physiological process. It is “somatic” in the sense that the learning occurs within the individual as an internalized process.

In its purity, somatic education is self-initiated and self-controlled. However, somatic education has emerged during the twentieth century as a procedure whereby this internalized learning process is initiated by a teacher who stimulates and guides the learner through a sensory-motor process of physiological change.

Prior to the advent of this teacher-learner form of somatic education, the same self-transformatory events have been a commonplace of human history. “Miraculous” cures and healings have always occurred. Extraordinary transformations of the body — supernormal strength, radical changes in physical skills, stigmata appearing on the body — are the common lore of martial, athletic, and religious history.

Before the twentieth century the closest approximation to teacher-learner somatic education was the work of shamans and Asian healers who helped initiate the sensory-motor learning process by means of symbolic manipulations and movements that evoked powerful physiological transformation in their “patients”, healing them in extraordinary ways. Because the mechanisms of such healings are hidden within the internal process of individuals, they have always had the aura of mysteries — a mythology of good and bad spirits or good and bad energies accounted for this hidden process. It is this same hiddenness that causes the work of twentieth-century somatic educators to appear to be “miraculous” in the same mysterious way that the prescientific world viewed shamanistic work.

The results of self-learning should not be understood as “miraculous,” but as somatic.
It is our task to achieve an understanding of the somatic realm in general — and of somatic education in particular — so that the mystery and the mythology will be dispelled. In this way, somatic education can become a discipline available to all humans. The salutary results of self-teaching, self-learning, self-healing, and self-regulation should not be understood as “miraculous,” but as somatic: they are genetically-given capacities intrinsic to all human beings.

HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATION

1. Diagnostic Theory

It is my understanding that perhaps as many as fifty percent of the cases of chronic pain suffered by human beings are caused by sensory-motor amnesia (SMA). This is a condition in which the sensory-motor neurons of the voluntary cortex have lost some portion of their ability to control all or some of the muscles of the body.[1]

Sensory motor amnesia occurs neither as an organic lesion of the brain nor of the musculoskeletal system; it occurs as a functional deficit whereby the ability to contract a muscle group has been surrenedered to subcortical reflexes. These reflexes will chronically contract muscles at a programmed rate — ten percent, thirty percent, sixty percent, or whatever –and the voluntary cortex is powerless to relax these muscles below that programmed rate. It has lost and forgotten the ability to do so.

Muscles held chronically in partial contraction will predictably (1) become sore or painful; (2) become weak with constant exertion; (3) cause clumsiness because of their inability to coordinate synergetically with overall bodily movements; (4) cause a constant energy drain of the body; and (5) create postural distortions and poor weight distribution that will cause secondary pain typically mistaken for arthritis, bursitis, herniated disks, and so on.

Perhaps as many as fifty percent of the cases of chronic pain are caused by sensory-motor amnesia (SMA).
These symptoms of SMA are commonly misdiagnosed by traditional health care practitioners, for they attempt to treat them by intervening mechanically or chemically in the local musculoskeletal areas affected. Such local intervention has no lasting effect upon the symptoms, inasmuch as it treats a functional problem of the brain as if it were a structural problem of the peripheral body. The result is a chronic pathology that cannot be successfully treated by traditional health care: the condition seems medically incurable, leaving no option but the use of analgesic drugs that only mask the symptoms.

Medical researchers are all too aware of this lack of success in the diagnosis and treatment of what they term “regional muscular illness.” Rheumatologist Norton M. Hadler frankly expresses his professional embarrassment that “the primitive nature of our understanding of the pathophysiology of such regional musculoskeletal illnesses as backache, neck pain, or shoulder pain is a reproach to clinical investigation.”[2]

Hadler sees this difficulty compounded by the fact that sufferers of regional muscular illness constitute the dominant health complainants: “In multiple studies, such individuals represent a major portion of the patients seen by family physicians, primary care internists, industrial physicians, rheumatologists, orthopedists, osteopaths, and chiropractors.”[3]

The condition of SMA, so little understood and affecting such a large portion of the population, can be remedied by only one means: a reeducation of the voluntary sensory-motor cortex. The cortex must be reminded sensorially of what it has forgotten so that, once again, it has full motor control of the muscular areas affected. When it does so, the symptoms mentioned above disappear, and the chronic, medically incurable situation is alleviated.

SMA can only be overcome by education, not be treatment. An internal process must occur whereby new sensory information is introduced into the sensory-motor feedback loop, allowing the motor neurons of the voluntary cortex once again to control the musculature fully and to achieve voluntary relaxation.

SMA occurs by three pathological processes: (1) the trauma reflex, (2) the startle reflex, and (3) the Landau response.
This is the general nature of SMA pathology. Specifically, SMA occurs by three pathological processes: (1) the trauma reflex, (2) the startle reflex, and (3) the Landau response4. Minor causes of SMA are atrophy caused by disuse (as with bedridden or wheelchair-bound persons) and habitual misuse of the muscular system (as with “dentist’s hump,” caused by working stooped forward).

The trauma reflex occurs as a protective muscular response to severe injury. It is the reflex of pain avoidance. Cringing, for example, is the overt manifestation of this reflex. When blows occur to one side of the rib cage, the muscles traumatized will go into chronic contraction. After hernia surgery, for example, the abdominal muscles on the herniated side will usually be in constant contraction. If the left leg is broken or the left knee is in long-term pain, the person will avoid the left leg and become noticeably pulled to the right side in scoliosis. These are examples of SMA caused by the trauma reflex.

The startle reflex occurs as a stress response to threatening or worrisome situations — whether actual or imagined. If the threatening situation triggering the startle reflex occurs often enough and strongly enough, the muscular contractions of the reflex become chronically potentiated, resulting in the contractions of permanently raised shoulders, depressed chest, taut thigh adductors and, in severe cases, chronically contracted elbows and knees.

An indirect effect of a chronic startle reflex pattern is shallow breathing, which affects functions of the heart and the central nervous system — the latter creating chronic dominance of the sympathetic nervous state. These are examples of SMA caused by the startle reflex, a subcortical brain mechanism not directly controllable by the volitional pathways of the cortex.

The Laudau response is an arousal response that contracts the posterior muscles, erecting the back in preparation for movement forward. The muscles affected are the central extensors of the spine, the rhomboids, gluteus medius/piriformis, and hamstrings. This response occurs in situations where action is demanded of the person, for example, a knock on the door, the ring of the telephone, a response to a request, and so forth; all unfortunately, are occurrences typical of daily life in urban-industrial societies. The constant repetition of these situations and the Landau response makes these muscular contractions chronic.

The world of business is a world where as much as eighty percent of those over the age of forty have pain and stiffness from spines that are chronically contracted from the pelvis to the neck. These are examples of SMA caused by the Landau response, a subcortical reflex which, once habituated, is beyond the control of the voluntary cortex. It becomes chronic.

It is important to note that the effects of these three chronic reflex patterns are universally mistaken for “the inevitable effects of old age.” aging, however, is not a pathology, nor does longevity have any relation to these symptoms, except in the sense that the longer we live, the more the traumas and stress we have experienced. “Old Age” is a cryptopathology which further invalidates the ability of the medical practitioner to diagnose SMA.

2. General Somatic Theory

There are two distinct ways of perceiving and acting upon physiological processes: first, one can perceive a body and act upon a body; second, one can perceive a soma and act upon a soma. The first instance is a third-person standpoint that sees an objective body “there”, separate from the observer — a body upon which the observer can act, for example, a doctor “treating” the patient. The second instance is a first-person standpoint that sees a subjective soma “here”: namely, oneself. The soma learns to change itself.

A soma, then is a body perceived from within.

The word soma describes the rich and constantly flowing array of sensings and actions that are occurring within the experience of each of us. The somatic viewpoint offers insights and possibilities that are categorically not possible from the bodily viewpoint that is the established perspective of physiological science and medical practice.

What each human experiences is himself — an acting, sensing being. Experience (this is a cognate of the more traditional terms “consciousness” and “awareness”) is a sensory-motor event, in which sensing cannot be separated from moving and moving cannot be separated from sensing — they are the warp and woof of personal reality. This inseparability means that what we do not sense, we cannot move; what we cannot move, we cannot sense.

Our experience is comprised of two layers: the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic. What is given to us phylogenetically are the myriad sensory-motor programs that have evolved through the mammalian, vertebrate lineage back to the earliest life forms. These programs, reflexive and autonomic in nature, are the ancient biological ocean upon which experience floats. I have termed this biological unterlage the Archesoma[5]. It embodies the “unconscious” processes upon which somatic life depends. Its functions are “involuntary”.

The ontogenetic layer is composed of the myriad sensory-motor programs that have been learned since birth. They are elaborated during childhood growth out of the ocean of reflexes beneath them. The ontogenetic layer of experience is, then, the result of learned adaptations. It constitutes that part of our experience which we call “conscious” and that part of our actions which we call “voluntary”.

Our conscious, voluntary experience arises out of — and totally depends upon — our unconscious, involuntary layer of experience. At birth, we are little more than involuntary reflexes and autonomic processes. Only gradually do we learn our way into the realm of conscious, voluntary control. If, however, something occurs to evoke strong involuntary, autonomic reflexes, we can find our sensory-motor realm taken over by unconscious control against which we can do nothing directly; we can only, once again, learn our way out of this loss of volition.

Neurologically, this distinction between phylogenetic and ontogenetic layers is the distinction between subcortical, lower brain structures and cortical, upper brain structures. When sensory-motor amnesia occurs, we can say with certainty that subcortical reflexes have robbed the cortex of its learned controls.

Somatic education is the only pathway we can take in order to overcome SMA and gain greater voluntary control of our physiological processes.

This, briefly, is the theoretical context upon which clinical somatic education rests. The larger outlines of somatic philosophy have been discussed elsewhere [6].

3. Sensory-motor Education

Sensory-motor amnesia is overcome by a sensory-motor process reminding the voluntary cortex of what it has ceased sensing and doing. This can be done in several ways, two of which have already been discussed: (1) by helping the person become sensorily aware of his unconscious, involuntary movement patterns (the “means-whereby”); and (2) by Kinetic Mirroring, which begins a process of relaxation of involuntarily contracted muscles.

A third method of overcoming SMA — and one that is far more effective than the other two — is the Pandicular Response.

Pandiculation is the name given to an action pattern that occurs generally throughout the vertebrate kingdom. It is a sensory-motor action used by animals to arouse the voluntary cortex by making a strong voluntary muscle contraction in order to feed back an equally strong sensory stimulation to the motor neurons. It is a way of “waking up” the sensory-motor cortex.

Pandiculation is a way of “waking up” the sensory-motor cortex.
When you see a dog or cat wake up, it will pandiculate; namely, it will strongly contract the large extensor muscles of the back that are essential for running. Then it may pandiculate in reverse, by contracting the anterior muscles into a flexed posture. Pandiculation prepares the animal for normal sensing and moving, readying its voluntary cortex for efficient functioning.

Birds pandiculate by lifting one wing in a backward direction while also extending the homolateral leg backward. A.F. Frasier, who is the acknowledged authority on this phenomenon, has verified that pandiculation occurs even in the foetal stage. Through fluoroscopic study of lamb foetuses, he has observed this event of cortical programming occur as an occasional extension of the limbs of the foetus 7.

Pandiculation occurs in human beings. Pregnant women report not only “kicking” of their foetus but also slow extension which distends their bellies. The fact that pandiculation occurs generally in vertebrate and mammalian animals, both prenatally and postnatally, indicates the phylogenetic depth of this ancient action pattern.

Upon awakening, human beings also pandiculate: they extend their backs, legs, arms, and jaws in a typical stretch. Young humans stretch their limbs in much the same way as other mammals. In every case, it is directly linked with awakening — it is an ancient sensory-motor pattern of cortical arousal.

The Pandicular Response is the prime sensory-motor method used by practitioners of Hanna Somatic Education. Rather than the practitioner focusing on providing sensory feedback by his own manipulations, the learner is invited to make a strong voluntary contraction of the amnesic muscles, thus creating his own strong sensory feedback and providing a simultaneous sensory reinforcement to the motor neurons while they are continuing their voluntary contractive activity.

The Pandicular Response is the prime sensory-motor method of Hanna Somatic Education® .
The effects of the Pandicular Response are startling. Muscle groups that may have been in continual contraction for forty years or more will not only release but, with minor reinforcement, will also stay in this relaxed state. The sensory-motor change is both immediate and comfortable. The fact that long-term chronic muscular contractions can disappear so quickly is, neurologically, not surprising. If the change is made at the heart of sensory-motor experience, the peripheral musculature has no option but to lower its contractile rate. Muscles are the servants of the brain and have no will of their own.

Looked at closely, we can see how the Pandicular Response operates. If, for example, the afflicted client has lost forty percent of his cortical voluntary control to subcortical reflexes, he still retains sixty percent of his voluntary control; however, he is unable to relax the muscles below the level of forty percent. But the use of the Pandicular Response opens a main avenue for regaining voluntary cortical control: the client cannot relax the muscles below forty percent, but he can voluntarily contract them above that ratio — say, seventy percent. This voluntary contraction, if both strong and prolonged, creates exactly the sensory feedback the cortex is lacking. If this strong contraction is released very slowly, the sensory arousal of the motor neurons is such that, when the muscles are released to the point of their original contractile rate, they continue to release below that rate –to thirty percent, then twenty percent, then ten percent, until the ideal state of zero involuntary stimuli in the muscle is reached.

Learning to teach the client to perform pandiculation in this exact manner is neither obvious nor easy, but, once learned, the practitioner has added a major component to the edifice of clinical somatic education: authentic achievement of voluntary sensory-motor control. Greater cortical control is the attainment of greater freedom and autonomy — the apparent species goal of a race that is endowed with a cerebral cortex of enormous learning capacity.

An authentic clinical somatic educator can predict with accuracy the overcoming of a specific malady.
In summary, clinical somatic education requires a comprehensive understanding of how pathological functions can occur, a general theory of human sensory-motor functioning, and a powerful set of methods of reversing this pathology with predictable efficacy. When all three conditions are fulfilled, we have a new modality in the field of health care: one whose practitioners know what they are doing, know what needs to be corrected, and know how to correct it.

An authentic clinical somatic educator is one who so clearly sees what is the case that he can predict with accuracy the overcoming of a specific malady. The clarity and predictive certainty of Hanna Somatic Education are the qualities needed in a clinical modality in order to stand the test of scientific scrutiny and verification. It is what is necessary if we are to have a clinical modality that will solve widespread problems of human suffering that are clearly not being taken care of through medical and other therapeutic means. It is what is necessary if we are to begin constructing a positive science of human health and autonomy.

NOTES
1. For a discussion of sensory-motor amnesia, vide Thomas Hanna, Somatics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc., 1989), pp 37-92.

2. Nortin M. Hadler (ed.), Clinical Concepts in Regional Musculoskeletal Illness. (Orlando, Florida: Grune & Stratton, Inc., 1987), p. xv.

3. ibid., p. xvi.

4. For a discussion of these reflexes, vide Hanna, Somatics, op. cit., Part Two.

5. Vide Thomas Hanna, The Body of Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1980), pp. 193ff.

6. Vide “What is Somatics?” in Somatics Vol. V., No. 4, and Vol. VI, Nos. 1, 2, 3.

7. A.F. Frasier, “The Phenomenon of Pandiculation in the Kinetic Behaviour of the Sheep Fetus,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 24 (1989), pp. 169-182.

This article first appeared in SOMATICS, Magazine-Journal of the Bodily Arts and Sciences, Volume VIII, No. 1, Autumn/Winter 1990-91

Copyright ©1990 Thomas Hanna

Definition: SOMA: The body experienced from within.
Hanna Somatic Education® is a registered trademark of The Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training

http://www.being-in-movement.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/articles/BIM_somatic_literacy_5500a.pdf

Linden identifies the benefits of integrating somatic education into physical therapy. He also has very good explanations of what somatic education is.

Here are some excerpts:

“Speaking as broadly as possible, somatic education can be defined as the educational field which examines the structure and function of the body as processes of lived experience, perception and consciousness. Somatic education deals with the whole human being, focusing in a practical way on the interactions of posture, movement, emotion, thought, self-concept and cultural values.”

“Most people are not aware of how their bodies operate biomechanically. Through greater awareness of the anatomical basis for powerful yet relaxed movement, people can improve their ability to move in precise, efficient, economical, graceful and strain-free ways. They can improve their comfort and performance at any physical task and prevent injuries. This learning would clearly be useful in areas such as industry, music performance and sports performance.

However, the awareness of postural and movement efficiency must include more than just intellectual understanding of biomechanics and simple physical practice of correct movements. In order for people to change such fundamental aspects of the self as body image and movement style, they must gain a deep somatic experience of the emotional, cultural and spiritual significance of their movement choices. All of these “non-physical” elements of a person’s makeup influence his or her perceptions of what movements are beautiful, socially acceptable, effective and possible, and these elements must be addressed in helping people make new choices about what to be and how to move.”

Please leave comments below if you have any questions or you would like to discuss anything from the article.

A: Many people have enjoyed relief from chronic pain and stiffness caused by stress, repetitive movement, traumas, accidents, surgery, herniated disc, whiplash, frozen shoulder, thoracic outlet syndrome, TMJ syndrome, including the symptoms of Sciatica, Scoliosis, Kyphosis, Lordosis, and Fibromyalgia, to name a few. It calms the nervous system reducing the results of stress, enhances lymphatic health, digestion, cardiovascular system, and increases oxygen intake. It may be helpful to people dealing with degenerative nerve diseases such as MS, ALS, Parkinsons, especially in early stages. It is not recommended for advanced stages of these diseases nor advanced Alzheimer’s.

1 Lay on your back on firm padded surface. Bring knees up so that feet are planted on the floor. Place hands on lower belly.

2. Inhale and send the breath into your hands, as though gently blowing up a small balloon, and allow pelvis to roll a little towards tail bone, arching the low back slightly. On the exhale, let the waist sink down towards the floor, rolling the pelvis towards the head.

3. Gradually increase the rolling pelvis to your full range of motion but within your comfort zone. Keep it slow, smooth, and your effort gentle, never pushing into discomfort or stretch. Gradually increase the rolling motion of the head so that when you inhale/arch the lower back, the chin is gently tucked in. When you exhale and flatten the waist down, rock the chin upwards so the back of neck muscles are engaged. Explore this movement for 5-10 minutes, parallel rolling of pelvis and head.

Stretch the legs out on the floor again, and notice how the low back and neck feels.