Category: Writings

At the first course I ever took on manual care, I was told to remove my watch before handling anyone. I complied, and over twenty years later, I still do. I can’t think of any other instructions from that week that I still follow. A couple of years ago I read Einstein’s Dreams, a novel by Alan Lightman. Each chapter… Read more →

My Father My office is in the cellar of my home, and I am working late. Mother and father are coming to visit for the night. I hear my father’s voice above. Oh, how I love that voice. For all that is broken with fathers and sons and with this father and this son, that voice, it comforts me and… Read more →

The body assembles functions to point beyond itself. Andrea Cartwright, yoga instructor/somatic educator “I must have slept wrong or something, because my neck…” Sound familiar? For anyone out there just beginning practice, you should be warned that this phrase will reverberate throughout your career. Even if you stop actually seeing patients, you will hear it anyway from friends or strangers… Read more →

All you need is a telephone, and an open mind. Dionne Warwick I’ve joined another listserv on the internet. This is a group of people with a common interest that post comments and questions to the whole group via email. This new group refers to themselves as “bodyworkers” and they are composed mainly of massage therapists, students of Reiki, Alexander… Read more →

Instinct: a natural or innate impulse…natural intuitive power…urged or animated by some inner force. Emotion: an affective state of consciousness. Random House College Dictionary Marie has come to my office holding her left cheek as if it were a small, wounded bird. It is Fall 1992 and I last saw her like this in early 1984. “After you treated me… Read more →

When you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will. Abraham Lincoln The onset of pain represents a shift in the often delicate balance between the deforming of our tissues and our tolerance for that. Although inflammatory processes can certainly decrease our tolerance, I think that resolving that is fairly easy compared to what we’re… Read more →

Before I begin any lecture, I notice that I pass through a ritual of movement that has not varied much over the years. I draw myself straight, I expand my shoulders, and I try to fill my face with an expression that is both intelligent and sincere. In short, I strike a pose. The dictionary says I “pretend to be… Read more →

ruminate: to ponder repetitively, to chew over and over I often sit quietly and mull over an idea for a column. Sometimes I waken with something nearly formed in my head and this remains constant as long as I lie quietly. Moving too quickly into my morning routine will disrupt it, and perhaps make it disappear. I read a remarkable… Read more →

The body learns to recognize its own When foreign touch invades familiar space, And weight of stillness echoes down the bone. When fathoming what subtleties of tone, Hands eloquent with caring rest in place, The weight of stillness echoes down the bone. from The Weight of Stillness by Joan Altick I wrote in Part I of this essay about causal modeling… Read more →

When the woodcutter enters the forest, the trees all murmur, “The handle of the ax is one of us. From the poem Apology by Ray Scheele “Who are we going to use for patients?” The therapist asking this question at a workshop is usually quite young. There is something sweetly innocent in their voice and manner. During my first hour’s lecture… Read more →