Category: Writings

I’ve concluded that truly effective care contains moments that are distinctly different from our ordinary life. These moments have a timeless and surprising quality and they provide the ground upon which something can begin to grow. Creating a clinical environment that encourages these moments is possible, but only if we understand the qualities of bodily movement, attitude or sensation that… Read more →

You know, someone said that the world’s a stage, in it you must play a part. Elvis Presley, Are You Lonesome Tonight Michael Meade* suggests that there are three levels of human interaction. The first level contains the simple greetings, common decency and working agreements of polite society. It is dedicated to simple harmony and maintaining the status quo. It’s… Read more →

Part I – Technique Perhaps nothing reveals as much about a therapists’s philosophy of manual care as the way they approach scars. I’ve seen people who ordinarily handle their patients with gentleness and respect suddenly go into some kind of attack mode as the scar looms before them. They seem convinced that only the strongest, most painful pressure will have… Read more →

I have on my office wall a piece of Native American art designed to capture and contain the thoughts we all have while sleeping. I’ve read that this “dream catcher” is supposed to hold the most disturbing aspects of our nightly journey while letting the “good” dreams through. For years I’ve kept a personal journal of my dreams and I… Read more →

If I begin with the presumption that my patients experience pain secondary to a mechanical deforming of certain tissues, it’s reasonable to further assume that some movement would relieve them. In fact, there’s rarely evidence that anything else need be done. While this might sound remarkably basic to many of you, I’ve often found that the protocols of treatment typically… Read more →

The purpose of ritual is to wake up the old mind in us, to put it to work. Without ritual our ancient knowledge is ignored. Z. Budapest I often write of the repressive effect that our culture has on creative and corrective processes through its emphasis on appearance. I remain convinced that our society’s insistence that we physically pose and… Read more →

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Mark Twain I’m willing to admit that I’m not the kind of person that pays much attention to nature in general. I don’t take hikes or gaze at the sky. When it comes to the beauty of the earth, I have a kind of blindness that I’ve never been… Read more →

When dealing manually with problems of nervous irritation, we are challenged to somehow effect structures deep within the body, while our hands remain on the surface.My colleagues in this specialty are often frustrated with this fact, and this frustration typically emerges as a tendency to dig into the skin with the hand’s bony prominences. If the knuckle seems not enough,… Read more →

I understand that in Japan there are 200 seismographic reporting stations continuously monitoring and analyzing the earth’s activity. In January 1995 they told the people of Kobe: “Hey, you guys just had a major earthquake.” And the people of Kobe responded from beneath the rubble: “No kidding?” Often a patient will recount the visit to the doctor that preceded coming… Read more →

I write successfully for publication at least once a week, and often meet people who would dearly love to see even one of their efforts in print. They feel they just don’t have the will to write enough, or well enough. They ask me my “secret.” I tell them, “Write until you cry.” .   .   .   . The annual convention… Read more →