In response to your request for a few words about my work, I will try, in as few words as possible, to give you the picture.

A person’s body and set reflects his emotional past as well as physical trauma that may have happened to him. These factors, combined with the other experiences of living a life, go to make up who and how the person is in the present.

If a person has a particular attitude long enough it will begin to show outwardly as posture. This posture will eventually modify the structure it is imposed upon if it is continued or habitual. Once the structure (body) has accommodated to the attitude it will then determine that attitude. This is a closed circuit at this point. A posture such as the one we are talking about will manifest a limited mobility and inappropriate function relative to the body. In a word, the person is “stuck”.

The same basic idea applies to the person who has suffered a physical injury and the resulting physical trauma and immobility. The actual injury may heal, but in many instances the trauma will remain. The result is that at some levels of function the person is still acting as though the injury were there.
This also involves limitation of movement, and the corresponding feelings and attitudes that go with it.

The Rolf Method is a system of manipulation of the body to release these patterns of tension. The work is not directed at “fixing a body”, but rather toward a better integration within the whole man. This manifests as greater freedom of movement and better balance both in terms of the physical body and (bearing in mind the attitude/posture/structure relationship) the emotions.

There are ten sessions in the cycle of the work, each one works in a particular region of the body, and lasts about an hour. There is some pain, at times, but not out of proportion to the situation or inappropriate.

The process can be done in six weeks, at the rate of two sessions a week. My fee is $25 per session, payable by the session or by arrangement. I hope this answers your questions.

As interest in rolfing spreads, an increasing number of groups are requesting lecture demonstrations about Structural Integration. As some of you may know, one of these gathered a good bit of attention at a meeting of far out psychologists this summer.

Si at AHP convention

On September 1, Bill Schutz presented a rolfing demonstration before 87 people attending the Association of Humanistic Psychology convention at the Peauville Hotel in Clami Beach. The demonstration was followed by a fantasy Gestalt type experience to work through the feelings generated in the group observing the rolfing. Time was problem. The observing group finally had to be run out of the room by the next group scheduled to use the space. The demonstration was one of the first to be given before a convention of professional psychologists. Schutz was assisted at the meeting by a practitioner from the Florida area, Bill Williams.

Another way to find out about the ways movement reflects and determines your way of being and to begin to change those patterns in directions consistent with what Structural Integration tries to accomplish is to attend a movement class given by someone trained in Structural Integration. Here’s a note on one such class.A Rolfer Describes His Work