By Lina Amy Hack, BSc, BA, Certified Advanced Rolfer™
ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the Rolfing Structural Integration (SI) community in different ways. In this article we interview a number of people for their perspectives: (1) Christina Howe, the Executive Director and Chief Academic Officer of the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute® (DIRI); (2) Pedro Prado, a founding member of Brazilian Rolfing Association and faculty member; (3) Naomi Wynter- Vincent, the European Editor for this journal, who has a Rolfing practice based in London, UK; and (4) Jeanne Vadnais, an Advanced Rolfer based in Seattle, which faced one of the first U.S. COVID-19 outbreaks.
Interview with Christina Howe, DIRI Executive Director/Chief Academic Officer
Lina Amy Hack: How is the fall season going for you and the team at DIRI, now that we all operate in this new COVID-19 era?
Christina Howe: I think there is a strange tension around many things at this time. And ironically, COVID-19 has become a container that, while very scary for all of us, particularly older folks who, like myself, are susceptible; it is also a strange container for mindful reflection and repositioning of our values, deepening of relationships, and reimagining ourselves. I hear from the people around me we are giving ourselves renewed permission to do things like meditation, exercise, cook great meals, play with our kids, watch a movie we wish we had had time for before. So COVID-19 has been a container – despite the fear it brings – that actually brings many blessings as well.
From the Institute’s perspective, during this difficult time, there is a similar tension mixed with hidden blessings. There is a financial piece, where COVID-19 has forced us to be more resourceful and adaptive as an organization. We have had to meet real challenges. We were closed for two months; we laid off the staff and canceled classes.
It has been challenging setting up safety protocols, and for our students to wear masks, maintain social distance, and navigate more online course materials, and in general navigate going to school in a COVID-19 environment. On the other hand, as an organization, we have become more resourceful. For example, we were able to safely and with consistency run three classes during the fall months.
We also made great financial strides, despite the closures and canceled classes. The board leadership successfully renegotiating our lease, cutting it by almost a third. We applied for and received both
a $215,000 PPP loan and a $500,000 US Department of Education, HEERF-Cares grant. Because DIRI is recognized by the US Department of Education and is accredited and licensed as a school by the state of Colorado, we were eligible for a Cares grant. We learned how to work through the challenging grant.gov site, where there are other grants we can apply for in future.
So, despite the many real challenges of COVID-19, we have grown as an organization and pushed ourselves in ways we have not before.
LAH: That is incredible maneuvering that you and your team have done, well done.
CH: Thank you. The staff really is amazing and has worked hard. We continue to network and look for different resources that will support our membership and new students. For example, we are exploring Veterans Administration funding that would help our members who are veterans pay for the Advanced Training and for Rolf Movement® training. We are exploring grants that would support minority students who want to study Rolfing SI. So, we’re having conversations that I don’t think we would have had otherwise because of this odd container we are finding ourselves in.
LAH: There must be a big learning curve for all these new procedures for the whole school?
CH: There has been a big learning curve. One of the biggest ones for our faculty and staff has been how to utilize technology to stay connected and continue learning. Quite naturally, there was a lot of resistance to technology in the past. And I get it, because a computer will never be a replacement for human touch and face-to-face interaction. But technology, while not a replacement, absolutely is a supplement to connection
and communication, especially when face-to-face interaction is limited.
Even without COVID-19, [lack of] proximity has been a problem in our organization for many years. Our faculty, members, board members live all over the world. We rarely see each other face to face. It can feel very isolating and lonely to be a Rolfer in some areas. So, the technology must be leveraged to stay connected, to learn from each other. We all have been overcoming our resistance to learning the new technologies [and] the timing has been good. Over the past three years the Institute built and installed a lot of infrastructure like the Canvas Learning Management platform, where we can design and offer interactive online classes. And our MemberLeap membership database system – on which our website sits, and which allows us to launch webinars, offer things like ConnectMembership, etc.
As a community, we are becoming much more tech savvy. And our faculty rose to the challenge in a beautiful way. Members rose to the challenge in a beautiful way. We finally launched the much overdue audios of Ida Teaches. We now have free webinars up. In a way, COVID-19 was the nudge we needed. These new adaptations are bringing a lot of imagination, excitement, and agility with it.
LAH: What is the response like from students, what is this moment like for them and their Rolfing education?
CH: We had certain students who were already planning on coming and they have for the most part been willing to show up. There is also an interesting new group of students who are enrolling as a result of rethinking their life goals; people have had time at home to readjust their values, to step back from where they are and dream of something else. Many have lost their
jobs and been forced on unemployment. And over time they develop a fresh perspective on who they want to be and are saying, “I don’t think I want to do that old job anymore.” Most of us really want to do meaningful work, transformative work. I don’t think most people want to work remotely all the time. They want to have a career that is rewarding, while also being of service to others. Rolfing SI offers a very meaningful career. So ironically, while COVID-19 is ostensibly driving us apart, it is also highlighting how important touch, closeness, and relationships really are to all of us.
We often talk about fear-based things and these are very real. We have real anxiety about COVID-19. But there are these transformative moments where things are changing all around us, when “the center cannot hold,” as Yeats wrote. And then we readjust where that center is. That seems to be happening for this organization and for individuals who are enrolling. So, out of a bad thing, there is good.
LAH: It must be different around the building.
CH: Thankfully, we are all well. Everyone is following the protocols. We are all being careful. The building is functioning in silos, so the students from one class are not mingling with other classes in the building. Our building design lends itself to that. Everyone is wearing their mask. We are checking temperature every morning. Students are filling out daily health forms and staff is checking them with the help of technology notifications. Overall things feel productive and learning is continuing at a rich level. I’m proud that we have been able to reopen safely at the same time that other institutes of higher education in Colorado have reopened. We are showing up as a professional school and association. And that’s important for us because it gives us immense credibility with students, regulatory agencies, and the marketplace in general.
LAH: Tell us more about the kind of technology DIRI is using.
CH: So, we have become a lot savvier with technology, as I was discussing earlier. We have installed a new membership database, a new accounting system which is accessible to all board members, a
new website platform with a section for members only, an online catalogue, and the Canvas Learning Management system. All of these systems have been linked with APIs and work seamlessly together. When I started at the Institute in 2015, there were nine staff members. We have been able to reduce that number to five, because the technology has allowed us to become so much more efficient. The current staff is highly qualified and experienced in working with developed and customized systems. We are better able to manage things like admissions, registering for classes, processing online payments, keeping track of certifications, etc. The technology has made us more efficient and able to focus more on what matters, like better connecting with members and improving our educational offerings. With the technological efficiencies, we have had more time to work on important projects like ConnectMembership, membership retreats, etc. Next year we hope to support the development of regional membership networks, a video resource library, and other projects that will support membership.
LAH: What do you think the membership is focused on during the pandemic?
CH: I think the membership wants to be reassured that the Institute is going to continue to protect and increase the value of the trademarks – that we won’t risk the value of those marks in any way. When we talk about the value of the trademark, fundamentally we are talking about the meaning the brand evokes when anyone encounters it. Meaning-making for anything is a confluence of many things. For us, it is our history, the quality of our practitioners and our educational program. It is our public presence, which includes our marketing, our journal, and how we show up in the professional world of fascia. The Dr. Ida Rolf Institute is the longest-standing SI organization. We have a long history, which is a narrative that has meaning. Dr. Ida Rolf founded the institute and we bear her name. Our faculty is large, highly qualified, and in the direct lineage of Dr. Rolf. We are one of the few SI schools in the country licensed and accredited; our program is 730 hours
and our graduates are held to high standards of continuing education (CE). We have a membership organization, with standards of practice and a code of ethics. We have a large directory of professional practitioners with strong credentials and experience. The public
learns about who we are and what Rolfing SI is as a brand by discovering us through a well-maintained, beautiful website, or our compelling ads in well-known magazines. They might come across our beautiful, quality journal. Or see one of our members presenting at a conference. So, when we talk about the value of the trademark, we are talking about all those different quality pieces fitting together like a puzzle to develops a meaningful picture of DIRI as an original, dynamic, thought leader in the field of structural integration.
LAH: Tell me about the ConnectMembership online platform.
CH: ConnectMembership has been one of the exciting things we have done this year, and we plan on continuing the program next year. The goal has been to connect with membership around topics that might interest them about the Institute. Some of these are organizational and some are about the work. We recently had a ConnectMembership meeting where we met with about forty-five of our members and our legacy faculty, Michael Salveson, Jan Sultan, and Tessy Brungardt. It was amazing listening to the stories about where we started and how we developed into what we are today. But what really stood out to me was how much of a community we are – there is deep connection, shared history – it felt like a family who all know and share the inside stories. It was also beautiful to see our new graduates soaking it all in. We plan on continuing the ConnectMembership series and will be inviting members to submit topics of interest. One of our goals is to offer substantive content that will support our membership in their work, in addition to meetings where we can all simply show up and connect through meaningful dialogue as a community.
I want to add how helpful it is for me as the Director to hear from members directly about how they feel and think about different topics. This includes both the positives and negative concerns of members. From our side, it is helpful to address any rumors or misinformation that might be floating out there. As we listen and learn more about each other’s perspectives, the hope is to build trust and relationship. Ultimately, together we are creating the culture that defines us as a community. I think ConnectMembership is an important, albeit small part of this process.
LAH: How are CE offerings looking for the coming year?
CH: Because of COVID-19, we are discussing how to leverage the technologies wherever appropriate. We hope to offer new webinars developed by faculty like those offered for free to members. There are also new areas we are discussing. For example, we may offer courses required for licensing such as ethics and diversity training. We will of course ensure that Advanced Training and Intermediate CE is available
LAH: Thank you Christina, connecting has never been more important. Thank you for all your funding efforts and your vision for this moment. It’s really helpful to hear.
CH: Thank you Lina for inviting me.
Christina Howe has been the Executive Director of DIRI since 2015.
Lina Amy Hack is an Advanced Rolfer practicing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of this journal.
Interview with Pedro Prado, PhD, Basic and Advanced Rolfing® Instructor, Rolf Movement® Instructor
Lina Amy Hack: Hello, where am I finding you for this online interview?
Pedro Prado: We are doing quarantine a couple hours away from São Paolo in our country house and we’ve been here for seven months. It’s a lovely place, green gardens and horses.
LAH: And what does your Rolfing work look like these days?
PP: A billion emails everyday . . . It’s been excruciating screen time to adapt to COVID- 19, adapt the trainings to online formats, adapt to changing things, and lots of meetings with everybody . . . It’s been a lot of work, at the same time it’s been creative. Asking questions: What is the work now? What is it now in such complicated times?
LAH: How are DIRI faculty and the Brazilian Rolfing community doing in this pandemic?
PP: We were all surprised with COVID-19, how all of a sudden the whole community
got threatened. We especially were considering what we would do because Rolfers touch people, we are in close one-to-one relationship in our offices, and at the same time we all have to survive. So, there was this alarm happening in the community, and immediately a kind of communitarian sense woke up in me. The Associação Brasileria de Rolfing (ABR) board and faculty organized group meetings immediately. We had the common question of what to do now, and considered the online possibility. We realized we’ve got enough knowledge and tools – touching, physical touch, is not the only possibility. You can touch with words. You can touch with your resonance. You can touch with your input.”
First came the movement approach, of course. This is one of the taxonomies in Rolfing SI that could best serve in this moment. [Editor’s note: All trainings in Brazil are cross-training in structural and movement work, resulting in dual certification.] Also, the psychobiological perspective could be an entryway because people were all afraid – defending themselves from contact, from relating, and, most of all, afraid of being infected, infecting others, or ultimately dying. So, we recognized a lot of meaning layers
What was great in these online encounters was that we could meet as a professional community, and we had massive attendance. We had meetings three times a week with over half of our Brazilian Rolfing community attending. We addressed holding and containing the anxiety, beginning to bridge to adaptability to these new times . . . And we ended up saying: “Well, this can happen.”
Once we decided that online work was a possibility, we talked about how to do that. We had members bringing in their experience, and we organized a kind of supervision in which we could collect information from members about working with clients online, their cases and their doubts. We asked important questions about online sessions: How do we establish the relationship? How do we build safety online? How is this evolving for the client in a process? We found as themes:
relationship between practitioner and client; (2) movement and psychobiological skills that we need to address the needs of the client; (3) enhancing movement with psychobiological perspectives and bridging these themes to structure and In the supervision online people could bring their cases and their doubts to the group, and their achievements!
else, despite the fact that some of us were faculty; the more important fact was that we were all colleagues. We had to acknowledge that we were all living through the same challenges.
LAH: Did you record any of these?
PP: We were very loose . . . We didn’t know what we were doing actually. But now, with the sense that we were collectively creating something or organizing something, we have started to record the encounters. And many more people have started to come. And then more and more Rolfers started doing sessions online, and also started to charge for their online sessions as well as reaching out to their client lists so that more could become connected. And many clients came in to the sessions, they valued the connection.
Common reflections opened up ideas for instructors, so we built small continuing education workshops. There was a workshop on movement, another one on body reading, a discussion for revising the ‘Recipe’ for online work, another one on the psychobiological perspective, a reflection on “How is it that we’re dealing with connection and safety?” Then there was also a workshop on marketing. But all this knowledge was coming from the
that could be addressed by Rolfers, that we could get people feeling more safe in their bodies while working with clients online.
We had faculty and membership together in those online meetings, and the faculty would also meet on their own to reflect on how can we connect and unite the membership and bring forth their abilities to meet this moment, how we could make online work a reality for them. We first made sure that Rolfers could perceive that they had enough tools to work online, that this could be a possibility for work, and that it would be also relevant to clients who were still wanting care. I wanted our community of Rolfers to know that their job was assisting people.
And, one of the things we perceived there, Lina, was that people started enjoying being together. They valued that there was a community thinking together and we found out that we could nourish that. Nourish the fact that we were one, that we were together, that we had common challenges, but also that we had a common knowledge.
LAH: Beautiful, so proactive of all of you to come together.
PP: So, then we started to deepen that reflection. The Zoom meetings would have small group discussions, and we would orchestrate reports to the big group. The faculty would design the encounter. No one had a crystal ball to pass to anyone
members, it was not something that we brought from top down, it was from bottom up.
LAH: So through the creativity of the moment of crisis, and through the support of your professional community, Brazilian Rolfers have transitioned to doing their practices online with a portion of their clients?
PP: Yes, and validating that it’s not something less. What we do as Rolfers, it’s a language. Rolfing SI is knowledge that can take many forms. Even if we end up being an online culture, we still have value to transmit, something unique to share. That understanding started to come into the consciousness of the membership, that this is very valuable. So, it’s interesting,
rather than being cut off [by the pandemic], we perceived that we could be on the edge of something that is contemporary, that is new, and, although uncertain, yet can be part of the future. It bonded us as a group, at a deep level, for the first time. It was different than going to a biannual or annual meeting and listening to a couple of scholars talk and feeling inspired. It went into the core reality of who we are. It was a healthy discussion. Ultimately, we are benefiting from the crisis, to be honest.
LAH: To my surprise, while I connect with our colleagues around the world as well, I see that in all this difficult stress we also have our Rolfing foundations; Rolfers are saying that we have adaptability, resilience to meet this moment. It’s like the model is serving us personally right now.
PP: So, this is a common experience. This is even better.
LAH: Normally I feel like I operate as a single business in my city, and I have the experience of being the only Rolfer in my city. Now we have this connecting technology, I too feel much more connected with Rolfing colleagues, more than ever before.
PP: Yes! The challenge now is how can we incorporate values that we are experiencing into the future, so we can benefit from that. Not just go back to our old style when this nightmare is over. Because, with the crisis, there has been an evolution also of the way of working, of understanding the work.
LAH: How do you prioritize the time you have in your day? What’s the most important thing for you to put your energy towards?
PP: Here, in the country, this is a place I’ve always spent vacations, I thought I would have time, I would study, I would read. But this has not happened at all. I’ve even been working more than before.
It’s a different environment, there has been a lot of demand from all the kind of jobs that I do in terms of the community, in terms of teaching, that has required a lot of adaptation. And this takes a lot of energy. There were many classes that were scheduled before this all started, and they all needed to be transferred to being online. There have been many webinars, many workshops that I have organized and done. So honestly, I’ve not been laid back, I’ve been into a lot of production.
LAH: How do you do self-care then?
PP: I continue to do yoga, ride horseback, walk . . . Fortunately, there’s a very refined yoga instructor right here in the neighborhood. Another element, I’ve been eating and resting very well. This has changed my habits. Before, in the city, I would be standing and eating whatever between clients. Now, I’ve been eating very well with food produced locally here. And I’m in the middle of nature, deep nature. It’s beautiful, mountains and waterfalls.
LAH: You look happy. You’re just a glow actually.
PP: Yes, but not happy for society, with what’s happening in the world, the politics
. . . There is much reflection needed on what role we have as individuals and as a community these days.
LAH: How is our Rolfing community in Brazil specifically?
PP: Well, we’re going through challenges., we’re fighting for survival. But as I told you, we are also growing in a sense of identity and we’ve deepened our bonding. The ABR itself had challenges about what to do with the classes that were planned, so again, a lot of meetings. We’re asking ourselves how we grow, how we can cope, how we can nourish students, and how we postpone into unknown deadlines. This
has not been simple but we’re supporting each other.
LAH: From your position of leadership as faculty, what do all us Rolfers need to focus on in this moment?
PP: Presence. Live the Principles of Intervention, our Rolfing principles. Honor that the body is the house. That it is the safe place that one can live. Honor the ‘Line’. Honor gravity. That principle is with us. And even though we are going so virtual, bridge the polarity between virtual connection and the connection of physical reality. And get ready because as soon as COVID-19 is over, people are going to really benefit from what we know. I want Rolfers to know that our profession might have a leap into service; real service. If we can move through these times, centering ourselves, dealing with our emotions, going into the physical body according to the principles, we won’t get lost or go crazy. And we will have more sturdiness to wait and to move through this. Get ready, there’s lots of work to come!
LAH: Beautiful. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for teaching me so well, the way to embody this work, this wisdom. Thank you and all our Rolfing instructors for what you’ve given us all. We stand in that knowledge now more than ever.
PP: Yes, this is true, thanks to you too.
Pedro Prado Ph.D. was the first Certified Rolfer in Brazil in 1981 and was a founding member of ABR. He is a clinical psychologist, Somatic Experiencing® instructor, and Advanced Rolfing and Rolf Movement Instructor.
Lina Amy Hack is an Advanced Rolfer practicing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of this journal.
Interview with Naomi Wynter- Vincent, PhD, Certified Advanced Rolfer, Rolf Movement® Practitioner, Certified TRE Provider
Lina Amy Hack: How are your mind, body, and soul as a Rolfer, meeting this pandemic moment in London, UK? What would you like your colleagues to know about your experience?
Naomi Wynter-Vincent: Here in the UK, we saw the COVID-19 situation coming at us from some weeks’ distance. We could see what was happening in Italy, in particular. When the entire Lombardy region was locked down, it became clear to me that something big was coming our way. It was always obvious that COVID- 19 would get to us: London has two of the biggest global hub airports in the world, and I knew it had to have passed through Heathrow [international airport].
My first potential brush with COVID-19 came on 2nd of March: a lovely client had opened a work email, literally while walking from the Tube to my office on Tavistock Place, instructing her to take two weeks off work with immediate effect, because a colleague (who worked in another building) had been diagnosed with COVID-19. We stood, at either end of the long corridor in the building where I work, not quite knowing what to do. She was happy to ‘go away’ and forego her session, more for my sake than hers, and I was happy to waive my usual late cancellation. We decided instead to proceed with a careful, shorter session, my client lying prone. Face masks, even at the beginning of March, were nigh-on impossible to buy anywhere online or in the shops, but I had found a hardware store selling builders’ masks that were almost comically unwieldy. My client agreed to wear one, and I will never forget the helpless comedy of our mutual discombobulation as she stood for the body reading.
LAH: Masks are so strange, inventive to go to hardware store for the heavy-duty kind.
NWV: We were officially ‘locked down’ (i.e., required to stay at home unless we were essential workers or going out for food or medicine) on 23rd of March, but much of the country had moved to lock down more informally about a week before. My partner and I made a last, faintly ‘reckless’, trip in to London together on 15th of March, to see the Derek Jarman film, Caravaggio, at the British Film Institute; that was also the first time I wore a mask in public, when it felt very strange to do so.
I saw my last client on the 18th. I locked up my office the next day, laden with as much stuff from my office (books, potted plants) as I could carry. That day there was a rumor building that London was going to be ‘locked down’ that very evening; that the army had been drafted in to enforce a surprise curfew. That didn’t happen, of course, but it’s a good illustration of the general confusion and misinformation that was circulating at the time. I cancelled all my other clients, and went home.
LAH: That sounds like a clean break between working and not working.
NWV: Depending on how people set up their business, people in my position have received a variable amount of government financial assistance. I was one of the very fortunate ones: I had previously paid myself a regular salary, and so was able to access the ‘furlough’ (job retention) scheme, paying 80% of my usual pay for several months. Others were not so lucky. For me, the enforced rest has been beneficial: it’s felt like a necessary correction to my previous work-life imbalance. I used to work five or six days a week, across two locations, and every weekday evening. Commuting into London by train every day, I never got home before half eight in the evening, ate dinner late, and never spent time in the garden over sunset.
Spring 2020 was truly exceptional, gloriously hot and sunny (most likely, as I must always remind myself, for all the wrong reasons – climate change may initially take the edge off our chilly climes).
I did things I hadn’t made time for in a long while: a daily Ashtanga practice, reading novels, baking cakes, growing my nails long. We finally had time to adopt a rescue cat. Every Friday I wrote and printed a local newsletter that my partner and I delivered down our street. I am conscious that I had the luxury of time where many others did not: no childcare responsibilities or endless working-from-home Zoom calls.
If that initial period of lockdown was a kind of limbo, I nevertheless prefer it to what we have now, as we talk here at the end of October. There was a brief, arguably imagined, period of something resembling national unity during the initial lockdown. Keep in mind that this is the country that very narrowly voted for Brexit in 2016: we have been a bitterly divided country in deep political turmoil ever since, families torn apart by confected ‘culture wars’. During lockdown, stepping outside one’s front door to cheer loudly for the National Health Service (NHS), every Thursday at 8 pm, became a national obsession: you could hear the pot-banging and applause for miles around in big towns and cities. We are now in a more muddled situation.
For personal reasons, I decided not to return to work as soon as I might have done, which was from around the beginning of August. I was about to re- start in November, but we have just learned that we are going again into a one-month lockdown. I have masks, and a visor, an air purifier, and gallons of antiviral spray, but I work in a small office and a cold country, where I can’t keep the windows open as we go into winter. I fear not being able to re-find the ease and creativity of touch that is such a part of Rolfing work.
LAH: I identify with that; I’ve had to prolong my leave of absence from my clinical work for personal reasons. And exactly, I think that part of my work is very much eye contact, talking, and my warm facial expressions. I anticipate it’s going to have to shift how I work with a mask on.
NWV: To give an example, at an earlier point, I toyed with the possibility of offering ‘safer’ Rolfing sessions that were more restricted in scope (or ‘off-Recipe’), such as a session dedicated to the feet (similar
to a session two). I could undoubtedly offer a good hour’s work at the feet, and most clients would benefit from it. Client and practitioner would be breathing at a safer one to two meters distance from each other the whole session. But would it be Rolfing SI?
Rolfers are never only working in one place: we make connections between the feet and the back, the back and the head. Our hands are always gesturing to a larger territory beyond the specific area
of intervention. We have a ‘Recipe’, but we don’t do things by rote: we have the client lying, standing, sitting, and walking. I worry that these transitions will flow less smoothly if we are unwrapping an umpteenth sterile change of blankets, or spraying the wall with antiviral solution before the client touches their hands to the wall, if therapeutic touch no longer feels ‘safe’.
A majority of my clients are fairly pragmatic people, and I suspect they’ll have no qualms to receive treatment, but there will be others who are more fastidious or more vulnerable. Added to that there is the question of my nervousness – about infecting someone or becoming infected. I remember an alarming occasion when a client casually told me at the start of a session that he’d just ‘had a touch of flu this week’ (he meant to say, a cold). I jumped out of my skin, as I really didn’t want to catch the flu. When we realised the miscommunication, we laughed it off and I took the risk of treating him. How would I react to him now?!
LAH: Totally, I think about exactly that too, I’m prone to allergic reactions to people’s products. What used to be a simple sneeze has changed. You and I were talking before the interview, and you introduced me to the construct ‘therapeutic stoppage’, can you tell us about the dynamic of therapeutic stoppage?
NWV: During lockdown I’ve been reading Eugene Gendlin’s A Process Model (2018). Gendlin is probably best known within our community for his earlier book, Focusing (1978), and his idea of the ‘felt sense’. If you’ve read Focusing, you might be surprised by A Process Model; it’s by no means an easy read, reflecting the fact that he was, first and foremost, an academic and philosopher (at the universities of Wisconsin and Chicago). But A Process Model repays the effort of leaning into the sometimes dizzying array of terms that he sets up to describe the relationship between an organism and its environment. And his idea of ‘stoppage’ struck me especially forcefully while I myself was ‘stopped’ from going about my usual work and play.
Gendlin defines stoppage as a stopped process implied (a technical term within his
model) by an organism in its interactions with its environment. For some reason, a process stops, possibly because the conditions for achieving the implied next step are no longer available. It made me think of lockdown; it made me think of any number of processes (which we might more humanly think of as strivings, intentions, or simply the implicit intention in our ways of living and being) that are stopped by circumstance, by the environment, and by our own internal obstacles.
The Japanese psychotherapist Yoshihiko Morotomi has developed the therapeutic aspects of stoppage, noting that Gendlin describes the stoppage as arising from a ‘missing experience’ that the person nevertheless continues to try to create in their life. Within the stopped process, he argues, there is the possibility for something new to emerge. Gendlin (1997) himself illustrates the idea of stoppage with the image of a trapped insect:
The insect hits the window pane again and again, beginning to fly out to the light only to hit the glass painfully. But after a while it makes little tries, bzzz, bzzz, bzzz, bzzz, but these are no longer those awful first few hits when the bug smashed into the window pane as its body implied flying out to the sun. Now they are little rhythmic starts, almost continuously, along the window surface, as if exploring, maximizing the chance of finding an opening if there is one. By [doing
this], the organism stays in the field of the stoppage. It remains at the spot, and under the conditions, of the stoppage. It would have spent only a moment there, if the process had not stopped. Now new events might occur from with the environment, which could not have formed before the stoppage (Gendlin 2018, pg. 74).
When a process stops, the organism (unless it dies) doesn’t also stop: the stopped process is rather carried within another process (sincerely, if perhaps ineffectually). In this I am deeply reminded of Rolfing SI. ‘Keep looking at the body as something that has been through a process’, Dr. Rolf tells us, but if that body is not dead, the process is ongoing.
A person’s body, their habitual ways of being, may literally be carrying their own stopped processes, and we might fruitfully ask the question (of ourselves, and our clients): what are the stopped processes that we are carrying? The obstinacy or perseveration that we sometimes encounter in our clients – their tendency to ‘keep going on’ about a particular topic, or ‘keep keeping on’ in persisting in habits, patterns, and activities that we might consider to their detriment – might be more helpfully (and hopefully) reframed as an organism’s attempts to restart the stopped process. For many of us, the experience of 2020 has been like that of the insect that can’t seem to find their way forward; staying close to the infuriating ‘bzzz, bzzz, bzzz’ might yet yield a new solution.
LAH: Yes, I dig where you are going with this. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Naomi Wynter-Vincent is the founder of London Rolfing and is the Europe Editor for this journal. More information about Naomi can be found at londonrolfing.com.
Lina Amy Hack is an Advanced Rolfer practicing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of this journal.
References
Gendlin, E.T. 2018. A Process Model. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
Gendlin, E.T. 1978. Focusing. New York: Bantam Books.
Interview with Jeanne Vadnais, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement® Practitioner
Lina Amy Hack: How are you doing? How is Rolfing SI in Seattle? You probably did shut down for a time back in March.
Jeanne Vadnais: It’s good. Yeah, I personally decided to close my practice on Friday March 13, I’ll never forget Friday the 13th. Every day that week leading up to that Friday, those first known Kirkland
COVID-19 cases were just a ten-minute drive from where I live. Every day I wake up and I’m like, “I don’t know if I should be working today.” I had already started wearing masks when I was working, and I started asking people how they felt. My ‘spidey sense’ on Friday morning, the 13th, was: “This is the last day.”
LAH: Right, the Seattle area had the first big COVID-19 outbreak in North America. You had to think on your feet. I know in Washington state you need a licence to touch, was there guidance?
JV: So, they actually never told us we had to close. They said we could work on urgent medically necessary cases. Even though I do work with health, I don’t think of myself as a health-care worker. That’s not my preferred lens to think of myself or refer to myself. I was part of the crew, like, “let’s not overwhelm the medical system.” People really have to make hard decisions, so I closed.
On May 18th the governor of Washington made a proclamation that applied to non- urgent medical workers, and we were allowed to reopen, but there were criteria. There was a checklist of sort of things you had to do, you have to have personal protection equipment (PPE). Well, nobody could get PPE at that point. I’m not an anxious person at all, [yet at that moment] I had incredible anxiety, and I had no idea I was depressed.
I used to be a project manager in corporate America, so I feel comfortable to rest into process. So I took what felt like an overwhelmingly long period of time to get my process in place. I wrote an entire checklist for all my office processes (see Figures 1 and 2).
JV: This is my office. I have a separate back door. So now people come straight into my office. This is my clean table [JV shows a standard pop up table against one wall]. Kind of like surgery, I’ve created a clean side to my office with this clean table and a dirty side. So, everything is
disinfected before the client shows up. Then, if I take something, like a pillow case that the client has touched, when I take it off the table then I consider it dirty. Dirty objects, it all goes to the other side of my room, that’s my dirty table [JV shows an identical pop up table on the opposite side of the room]. My dirty table has my hand sanitizer, which I use a lot, and then this is what I use for disinfecting – hypochlorous acid. When my session is over and client leaves, after I wash my arms, my hands, up to my armpits, I come back in, and I just start disinfecting the table.
I got rid of all my nice furniture. I have a plastic chair, and a plastic table, and a touchless hand sanitizer. And this was kind of a barrier with my desk. I focused on what makes people be far apart from me. Figuring out all that stuff took time, and then I practiced with my husband. A mock-up. It was like, “Wait no, you can’t put that on the clean table, you just touched that. You have to put it on the dirty table.” Like if I picked up my foot model to show people, I put it on the dirty table, and then I sanitize my hands, and then I work on them. The more that I wrote all of these steps down, and [thought about] what I wanted on my clean table at the beginning of every session, so I don’t have to open any plastic tubs, or do this or that Now it’s so routine I don’t
think about it at all.
LAH: Nice, I would never have thought of that detail, so helpful.
JV: I have a physical checklist. Do you know the author Atul Gawande? The Checklist Manifesto (2011) is a famous book and he talked about how he lowered the incidence of infection in hospital settings. He’s an orthopedic surgeon. People get tired and they forget, it’s the fourth surgery of the day. Just by doing these checklists, this made surgery safer. For me, this was like, “I know I’m going to be anxious.” So, I literally wrote it down.
LAH: This is all so smart. I’ve had to close my practice due to COVID-19
and then I had some personal loss, so I haven’t started again. I’m starting to feel ready but I don’t know how to start. This checklist idea is so helpful.
JV: Yeah, I’m super happy to share these ideas, and you take what works for you.
LAH: Incredibly helpful. And I really identify with this new anxiety feeling. What are you doing for yourself to help ground? How have you adapted?
JV: My anxiety is managed because I know
I have a checklist that I have practiced. It is written down; I can check it as I go along. I had a client take off their mask last week because they had to sneeze. And I thought “What just happened?” You know, so I literally just said, “I need to go wash my hands.” And I stood out there, and then I was like, “Okay, you’re going to go back, and you’re just going to assess where you are, and you need to look at your checklist.”
The second thing, this is very procedural related because my brain works that way. I called 110 clients when I was about to go back to practice and said I updated this on my website, “If we’re going to work together, we have to talk first, and make sure we’re in similar places, how we’re living.” The words I use consistently are, “I’m running a conservative, and very cautious practice, to protect me and my family, but also all of my clients.” Everybody gets to make their own choices. It took eighty hours to actually call and talk to everybody but I haven’t had any problems.
And I say, “I have people with cancer in my practice, and I have people in their eighties. And so you can do what works for you and your family, but we need to be in a similar place.” I ask people, “So tell me about what’s life like in the pandemic?” I talk about traveling explicitly, so I ask people, “Are you flying on planes?” I’ll only see people on day fifteen after travel. It doesn’t mean that I won’t see you, I tell them I’m being cautious, so we’ll all reschedule. The more irritated people are with this conversation, the more my red flags go up. I think to myself, “We’re probably not living in the same life.” I have said to some clients, “I’m just not the right practitioner for you right now.” I’ve turned people away for different things.
LAH: Smart. Calling everybody, that created safety for you. I’m going to borrow from your ideas here, this is just the kind of help I needed as I think about getting back to work.
JV: So glad to help. Think about: (1) the checklist that fits your practice and space,
The next part to think about is, when people come, I start with them in their car [with a phone call]. I explain, the goal is that we talk the least amount in person. We will talk in person, we’ll both wear masks, I’ve got windows open, in and out with air. I have one window open with a fan pulling air in, another window open pushing air out. I have the air purifiers running thirty minutes before they arrive.
LAH: An acquaintance said to me, they want to have their touch work on sheets that get thrown out after the session, which caught me by surprise. But I see they’re thinking about these things that are touching them. I wonder what you think about this?
JV: Well, I have become less worried about surfaces. I still disinfect, but Lina, there seems to be a correlation with the amount of virus that you actually ingest, and how sick you get, and where it can live – on surfaces versus in the air. So, I’m more worried about the air. That’s why I have three air filters, the HEPA filters. Back to your question about sheets, I actually have a [linen] service. I get my stuff delivered every two weeks. And this works great because they know the virus actually survives less time on porous surfaces. I have a storage place that’s outside my physical office. It doesn’t even come into my office until it’s already been sitting there for over a week. People aren’t walking by it or sneezing on it. I have tons of totes where my clean sheets sit away from people.
After my last client leaves, and I disinfect everything, everything is wiped down, everything is clean, back on the clean table, I change my clothes. In Washington state, you don’t have to change, but it’s strongly recommended. So, I bought scrubs, I wear a new pair of scrubs for every client. Once I’m clean, my room is clean, I change my clothes, and I’ve had my air filters on for the thirty minutes between clients, which is new. Then I take out the clean sheets for the next client.
LAH: Gold standard right there. I’m sure I’m not alone in that this COVID-19 pandemic completely knocked me off my feet. Coming back to my practice, I feel more vulnerable. It’s overwhelming to think about teaching myself a whole new set of procedures.
JV: I’m remembering now that you’ve said that, the first week I saw one person a day, so I didn’t feel crunched. And I handpicked the people that I wanted to work with, and I told them, “This might be bumpy, or I might have to stop and look at my checklist.” And they were like, “We love that you have a checklist, we love that you are opening, and being safe.” So, I did one client a day the first week, two clients a day the second week, and then three people a day the third week. I worked up to it. I was more exhausted because I think I was just nervous. Gradual was a nice way to ease into it. If you have one and it goes sideways, you get to nourish yourself and do whatever you need to do for the rest of the day.
LAH: That is exactly the stage I am at, just thinking about how to accomplish that one client in the best way possible for everybody. Does the work on the table feel like the same work even though you have all these conditions? Does it feel like the same job?
JV: I wear an N95 mask under a cloth covering over it, for me it seems less medicalized. And it makes my N95s last longer, so I’m less of a burden to the supply chain. And I change that for every
client too. Now, I don’t even notice the masks. Before I went back, this was the thing I worried about, I’m like “I’m going to be so hot, and I’m going to breathe through my mouth.” And now it’s just normal. I’ve been back for four months and everything now feels normal. I have a new normal. The only thing that is not normal is the Seventh Hour. My intraoral training showed me how to teach the clients to address this work themselves. That instructor said “do the Seventh Hour with your client at their house.” You give them gloves, and talk them through it. I haven’t don’t that yet but I have a couple of clients who are game. We can coach our clients to do self-care stuff.
LAH: I wonder when we get to a post- COVID-19 time . . .
JV: What it will look like?
LAH: Yeah, will we just go right back?
JV: I’m going to keep my disinfecting procedures. I’m making my own hypochlorous acid, I let it sit wet on surfaces for ten minutes. I bought this machine that makes hypochlorous acid, it’s not toxic as long as the pH is right. And it just requires water, two grams of non-iodized salt, and vinegar to get the pH right. Now I have no dependence on the supply chain and there’s no off-gas. People are like, “Wow, it smells so neutral.”
LAH: So good, what a full meal of a conversation we’ve had. Thank you so much for your time and insights. They will be useful to our readers. All the best to you.
Jeanne Vadnais completed her Rolfing SI training in 2013, her Advanced Training in 2016, and her Rolf Movement practitioner education in 2017. She practices in West
Seattle. More info about Jeanne can be found at westseattlerolfing.com.
Lina Amy Hack is an Advanced Rolfer practicing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of this journal.
References
Gawande, A. 2011. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. New York: Picador.
COVID-19 Adjustments in the Rolfing® SI Community[:]
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