The trust effect

I am in Italy at present visiting family, especially my mother-in-law, a wonderful person whom I love dearly. She is 93 years old, open-minded and active. She has led a life of unrelenting hard physical labour and by her own admission keeps going through sheer willpower. She also firmly believes that my Alexander ‘massage’ is the only thing to relieve her age-related aches and pains. I am flattered to be the recipient of such absolute trust and we work together a little every day. In this context I have to rely more on my hands than on words and explanations. I too have to trust that the Technique will work on a subtle level for her too despite a body which bears the signs of decades of backbreaking work as a subsistence farmer in rural Calabria.

Belief is a key factor for improvement in any context, from psychotherapy to physio. Body and mind are both players in healing, in fact as we know, they are inseparable. Trust is essential in the practice of AT as well. When we work with the Technique to change our habits, we do so by indirect means forging new neuro-muscular connections in a way that is unfamiliar. Projecting these new directions is a bit like sending an email – you write it, you press send, job done. You trust the message you sent will arrive, you don’t immediately pick up the phone to call and check.

These messages, or directions, may take the form of words, images or numbers. They are no more and no less than thought processes that are effective due to the very nature of our neuro-muscular system. Once a message is sent we trust that something will happen on a subtle and largely unconscious level. With repetition and an increased kinesthetic awareness (improved body sense), we eventually become aware of its manisfestation. Change manifests in many ways; as a difference in the overall muscle tone of the body; as a relief from persistent pain; or as a greater sense of self-efficacy and confidence.

I often use the analogy of an orchestra: Your conscious brain is the conductor of the orchestra. The conductor can ask the 2^nd violins to play a passage more quietly, or the trombones to accent certain notes. The conductor does not step down from the podium to check that the directions are being followed, it is enough to request it from a well-trained orchestra. The conductor can create great variations in the expression of each piece of music without changing the score. The same symphony can express beauty and grace or brusqueness and discomfort. When a person moves like a symphony, body and mind in perfect harmony and balance, it is indeed a beauty to behold.