Feldenkrais Method®
The Feldenkrais Method® is an approach that is increasingly being used in advanced physical therapy to help improve peoples' ability to learn and function by simulating the learning style that is natural to infants.
At it's core is the overwhelming need for learning in the brain of every person and the equally enormous capacity for learning throughout their life.
The Feldenkrais Method® improves the patients awareness of the movement of the whole body and shows them how that movement can affect areas of pain.
In this way, people can learn new patterns of movement specifically designed to expand body awareness and to enhance the neuromuscular self-image through more efficient and comfortable movement.
Feldenkrais Techniques
The Method accomplishes these goals through two parallel techniques that are applied depending on the patients needs:
Awareness Through Movement® (ATM) This consist of verbally directed movement sequences that are based on developmental movements and functional activities that increase sensitivity and reduces muscular stress so as to improve sensory motor learning and increase efficiency.
Functional Integration® (FI) is a hands-on technique used for individuals requiring more specific attention. The practitioner promotes and communicates changes in a patient/student's body organization, enhancing muscular efficiency, coordination and ease. This is done by touching or moving the patient/student in ways that hint at new functional motor patterns.
The Method can be used by people with all types of clinical disorders that include:
- Elderly Citizens with Motor Limitations
- People with Breathing Disorders
- Cerebral Palsy
- Acute or Chronic back and Other Pain Problems
One of the most striking aspects of the Feldenkrais Method® is that functional limitations are not corrected or treated. In Functional Integration, the therapists' touch is instructive, not corrective.
The Method engages the patient in a learning environment custom-made in each treatment to the particular person at that moment.
Through kinesthetic rapport, the therapist helps the patient experience comfort, pleasure and ease in movement while the patient learns how to reorganize their body in new and more effective ways.
