The Case Study Method: Scientific exploration of Rolfing® SI in the Holistic Paradigm

Author
Translator
Pages: 64-68
Year: 2012
IASI - International Association for Structural Integration

IASI Yearbook 2012

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Pedro Prado, PhD, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Rolf Movement® Practitioner of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is a member of the Advanced and Movement Faculties of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration®. In 1981, he became the first Certified Rolfer™ from Brazil and brought the work to Latin America. He was a founding member of Brazil’s regional Rolfing® association, Associação Brasileira de Rolfing/Brazilian Rolfing Association (ABR). He is a clinical psychologist and a former professor of Somatic Psychology at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. Currently, he is exploring the psychobiological dimension of SI in his practice, teaching, and research. He has developed extensive clinical and teaching protocols to both track and evaluate SI process outcomes, and to enhance awareness of the psychobiological perspective. These protocols include Quality of Life assessments made according to World Health Organization methods. His pioneering research, which correlates SI with improved quality of life, has been published as part of his doctoral dissertation. He created the Ida P. Rolf Library of Structural Integration, a Virtual Library, where one can find complete collections of articles from six SI publications, as well as other academic pieces. Since 1998, he has been a practitioner of Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing (SE) and is now an SE Instructor. He has developed a method called Structural Stretches that draws upon the principles and wisdom of both SI and SE

The Case Study Method: Scientific exploration of Rolfing® SI in the Holistic Paradigm

Introduction
Structural Integration is a broad field, and we now have multiple schools that honor this work with
a common heritage and an individualized inquiry; practitioners from these schools have been working
to legitimize this work, which is derived from Dr. Rolf, in the scientific field. Recent developments in understanding the nature and behavior of fascia have helped us all to deepen our understanding of how and why it is that structural integration works. The following is an article that relates the effort being carried out in Brazil by the ABR. We hope that it can encourage many other schools and fellow practitioners to investigate and write about what their particular approach to structural integration is producing. Not only do our commonalities need to be recorded, but also our special differences deserve highlighting. In the following studies, investigations have been carried out according to the approaches that are specific to the Rolf Institute® and its members in Brazil. I’m sure that as more of us investigate and write, our identity and differences will be perceived more clearly, which will help further the creative spirit that is inherent to the practice of structural integration.

 

[The following article first appeared in Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute®, Vol. 39,
No. 2, December 2011.]

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