The following principles are without exception lifted from Dr. Ida Rolf’s Practitioners’ Course, although the organization (and, in some cases, the general statement of a principle) is my own. The principles seem to me impressively generals I think that EACH ONE applies to each stroke_ a rolfer makes, to what a roller does in the course of an entire series of sessions. (Or at least each gives a guideline he should follow in each stroke, each session, and each series of sessions.)

But the principles seem to me even more general than that. I think that they apply to any intervention, and to any series of interventions, which is aimed at changing any system (at least in ways beneficial to that system).
That means they apply whether one is dealing with a person, a dyadic relationship, a family, a neighborhood gang, a bureaucracy, a nation, or what have you. (If that’s true, they are indeed powerful, and Someone ought to Take Note!)

During the course I took, Dr. Rolf made explicit or implicit use of quite a lot of principles that ought to help someone trying to change a whole system. To make them easier to remember and hence use, I’ve grouped them into four main areas:

I. Know where you’re going.

II. Allow and encourage the system to aid you.

III. Don´t work too locally, but

IV. Once you´ve prepared the way, go where it is.

Let´s look at these one at a time.

I. Know where you’re going. (or you´re unlikely to get anywhere desirable.)

A. Know (and work toward) what “optimal functioning” of system looks like. Otherwise your efforts will just “take the system apart,” leaving it to establish a new equilibrium as bad as the first.

B. Know the major force(s) acting on the system to which it must adapt (e.g. gravity on human beings), and how the system typically maladapts to these forces. (That way, your efforts can aid the system to adapt more effectively: you won’t be pushing chances that would get the system in further trouble.)

C. Know what the major aberration is you’re working on (whether “directly” or “indirectly”: see “C” below). That is, DIAGNOSE. How?

a. Check whether the parts of the system seem to “match.” They should. (If they don’t, there’s a blockage somewhere: energy or information or some other resource isn’t flowing smoothly.)

b. Look for relationship (or lack of same) between the more superficial parts and the deeper (underlying) ones.

c. Ask for movement that would be normal (?) for the system, and note what doesn’t respond to the requirements of the movement (gets “u tight,” bunches, hardens, thickens, becomes rigid.

d. Look for inefficient use of resources in acting, and

e. Look for absense of finely coordinated action. (When some parts of the system which should act independently; are “stuck” or otherwise failing to function, the system will need to heave whole “clumps” of parts around to accomplish anything. Doing so will both waste resources (e.g. energy) and make fine coordination impossible (or extremely costly: other whole areas will have to be “heaved” into action to provide controlling force).

f. If you meet resistance (to what looks like a change which should be beneficial to the system), ask “Why: what’s not near its normal place/pattern?

“But once you know how things “ought to be” and have diagnosed how they’re fouled up, what do you do? First, don’t try to do it all yourself:

II. Allow and encourage the system to aid you. (It’s stronger than you are.) How?

A. Don’t try to impose your own arbitrary structure. Rather (now that you know what optimal functioning would look like) allow the system to move toward its natural balance and mode of functioning How do you do that? Mainly, remove barriers:

a. Free – add length to – what’s too tight or “snarled up.

b. Look for and free areas in which the system’s own internal forces toward structure “spanning” are bound down.

c. If a part’s too loose (“free”), look to some other “antagonistic” part which isn’t exerting the force it should (and free the antagonist so it can bring the too loose hart into line).

(Just think for a minute of what those last three principles tight mean if you applied them to a marriage in trouble. Or a nation!)

B. “Bring it as close to the normal as possible and make it move.” That is, don’t try to correct some malfunction through structural manipulation alone. Balance can only come as a great many parts of the system you can never touch are brought into line by the movement that appropriate structure makes it possible for the system to perform.

(In other words, a new committee structure won’t help a business organization unless it’s used while it’s still appropriately structured: before people o back to the old informal channels. On the other hand, a new structure won’t help unless it makes appropriate movement possible: the new committees must yet the same things done e.g. allow for social contact as the old channels.)

C. Make use of the system’s own tendency to seek a new equilibrium when a change has been introduced: act, then wait (for re-equilibration to take place), then act elsewhere (in an area the new equilibrium has freed somewhat), and finally return to the area you began on (which the re-equilibration will probably have made “regress” somewhat, but which your work elsewhere may have aided).

D. If it doesn’t give, don’t just add pressure (and thereby increase resistance). “If at first you don’t succeed, get the hell out and go somewhere else.”

E. Come in slowly, so that

a. The system will be able to accept your coming and “let you by,” rather than experiencing it as an onslaught and reacting by tightening defensively (becoming more “rigid”).

b. The system’s own resources (e.g. attention, directed energy) can be brought to bear to aid you.

F. Encourage the system’s attention and cooperation directly.

a. Ask for it.

b. Help the system know what’s going on and how it can help you. In particular, help it to anticipate (hence not be frightened by) how loci, intense “pain” will Last (e.g. by counting backward).

c. Show system the benefits of change, and give indices that will demonstrate that change (desirable) is taking place.

III. Don’t work too locally. Realize that, since all parts of the system are related dynamically, there will be compensations all through the system which have adapted to any local “problem” you’ve noticed. Therefore, these other carts all through the system will exert force tending to impede and reverse any local changes you try to make. Therefore,

A. Don’t try to change a whole system (nor) a “local” problem by exerting leverage on just one part of the system (e.g. the back).

B. Start far away from a local “problem,” then move gradually toward it. (Deal first with the compensations.)

C. Start at the periphery, then gently, coaxingly go deeper. (To bruise break superficial structures try to mash through directly to deep layer right away. To avoid “bruising,” move the surface structures out of the way, then go deep.)

(Remember, this applies to each act as well as to any whole series of acts.)

D. Work on areas, not spots. (Even when unsticking” something very localized, relate what you’re doing to change in a whole area. If you can’t, don’t bother with the spot: any change you make there won’t last anyhow.)

E. Don’t make a big change in one area without bringing the rest of the system along (either beforehand, at the same time, or immediately afterward). If you do try to make a change in one area that’s “too big,” relative to the rest of the system, you’ll introduce an imbalance that the system will “experience” (respond to) as tension or “pain.”

F. Work directionally: move things in a direction that will relate them better to surrounding(or very distal) areas of the system. Don’t just “mash” on things. (You may need to go in opposite direction first to free up, then in appropriate direction.)

IV. Once you’ve prepared the way, go where it is. Although you won’t go immediately to the area that seems to be in the most trouble, a time will come when you’ve dealt adequately’ with the compensations. (At this point you can expect things to look worse than they did when you began: without compensations all through the system, any fundamental aberrations will stand out much more starkly.)

A. Don’t use all of your time on preliminaries: you just expend your resources, the system’s resources, and the system’s tolerance for being fiddled with.

B. Use “art of the possible”: change what you can and need to now to make (later) change in whole system’s functioning possible. But realize that

a. You can’t fix every little thins. (If you’ve changed how the overarching system operates, it’ll take care of the dribs and drabs.) Focus on the important “little things.”

b. You can’t change the whole system all at once: some things you’ll have to return to later. Fix the ones now that will make those later efforts more successful.

C. Relate large areas after you’ve balanced and unstuck smaller ones (but keep the large areas in mind as you do the local work).

D. Above all, hang in there: “Don’t weary in well doing.” You’ll find the greatest resistance (and “pain,” other forces which make you wonder whether it’s all worth while) just before a really decisive change, which leads to a major shift in the level of functioning of the (sub) system you’re working on (like the shift when an electron jumps to a different shell). And a system’s generally an elastic medium: to some extent, it will absorb your force without changing at all, then “snap back.” So “once you’ve prepared the way, know where you’re going. Go deep to where the aberration really is. Hang or until you’ve changed it. And then climb out of there.

“Finally, there’s a principle any hopeful system-changer would do well to keep in mind in all his contacts with systems:

V. Don’t promise the moon. And don’t let in expect the moon either. The only thing that equals people’s enthusiasm when they come to you for help is their hostility when you’re unable to do what they’d hoped.

I find it helpful to glance over the above principles (or some of them) before I work with someone. Maybe you will too. If so, I’d like to hear about it. (I’d also like to know if the principles as they’re stated here are too cryptic: if so, I could spell out what they mean in more detail. But that’s extra work: they’re clear enough for me the way they stand.

(*} “normal” as used here means ?what would you be expected if the system were functioning optimally??How to Chance Whole Systems