For some time I’ve had the nagging sense that something is missing from the framework of Structural Integration. Something important. What’s missing is a coherent psychological perspective. If one were recognized, defined and added to the context of our work, it would extend our understanding of the work; help us work more effectively and easily; elicit deeper and even longer lasting changes in clients (including us); and thus make the work even more appealing.

Making a psychological perspective explicit would not append something novel to Rolfing®. To the contrary, it would reaffirm an early component of our work that often has been de-emphasized or even ignored. With clients who have painful, anxiety-provoking symptoms, the primary focus of our work is the physical, and we have learned how complex a web that is. It should be apparent that our species has developed an equally complex web of emotional stimuli for successfully relating to the environment; and that recognizing and addressing it will improve clinical outcomes.

This is not about turning Rolfers into psychotherapists. However much Rolfing and psychotherapy might seem related, they are very different disciplines, each requiring its own specialized training. What’s more, they involve very different contracts with the client. And not every Rolfer® is keenly interested in psychology, in any event. Although I want to identify what I see as a significant deficiency, I propose no specific remedy; my goal is simply to present the question:

A BIT OF BACKGROUND

While Ida Rolf and the first teachers she trained did address the phenomenon that structural work elicits emotional responses1, the treatment of the subject lacked consistency. Any precious class time spent on emotional response was idiosyncratic, guided by the teacher’s experience or preference. It ranged from gestalt work to metaphysics to astrology to pearls of wisdom from Werner Erhard’s EST training. The basic theme was to respect the clients’ need to “vent”; to give them “space”; and to trust that as the physical structure and autonomics achieved finer balance, similar equilibrium would appear on the emotional level. Some teachers-uninterested in psychology or unwilling to divert time from other topics-simply let practitioners fend for themselves. Overall, support for students learning how to deal with their clients’ psychological process was erratic, and the basic advice offered usually left students wanting more.

The confusion-or at least ambivalence – has persisted institutionally. Until very recently, this was one of the FAQs that appeared on the Rolf Institute’s web site:

Q: What about the emotional and psychological effects of Rolfing?

A: It is impossible to touch the physical body without touching the emotional body. … The nature and quality of accessing and resolution of emotionally charged material may be the most profound portion of a client’s Rolfing experience. 2

Juxtapose this acknowledgement of the importance of the psychological effects with the answer’s final sentences: “However, the client should not enter the Rolfing process [anticipating] such a major release but should remember that a Rolfer’s actual expertise is integrating and balancing connective tissue. The emotional component, as attractive or dreaded as it may be, remains an ancillary aspect of the Rolfing process and not its primary intention.”

While Rolfing is not psychotherapy, the presence of this FAQ and the suggestion that the psychological aspect is either “attractive or dreaded” indicates both the importance clients place on their emotional experience, and the ambivalence in our training. From this declaration of the importance of the psychological aspect of Rolfing, a potential client might assume that our training addresses it in some detail. Unfortunately, that perfectly reasonable assumption would be wrong.

The ambivalence and confusion might be part of the legacy of our founder. In her book (Ch. 17: “Many People Refer to This Drama as Pain”), Dr. Rolf says within the space of a few pages:

A negative emotional shock can be severe enough to knock out normal physiological functioning, causing loss of consciousness or even death. 3 … The apparent mechanism of response to psychic shock is often myofascial. 4 … We emphasize … that behavior is usually chemistry, is usually physiology. 5

Though she asserts that behavior is influenced by chemistry, the reader could be forgiven for a certain bewilderment. There’s an old anecdote about Dr. Rolf once snapping, “There’s no such thing as psychology; it’s all perverted physiology!” But another of her former students has reminded me that at other times, she said the exact opposite.

Nonetheless, psychology, in its most levelheaded form, is intrinsic to the work as Ida Rolf developed it. She once noted, “If you really want to understand this process, then every time you work with someone, keep asking yourself, ‘How did this person get to be this way?”‘ This advice compels us to consider how any physical injury, stress pattern or compensation is unavoidably bound up with its emotional reflections, as the physical and emotional are always an aggregate and never discrete elements. We are constantly faced with the living evidence of that fact, and anyone who has hit upon a way to support a client’s resolution of emotional pain knows how powerful it is in evoking deeper physical change. Doesn’t that demand that we pay more attention to the psyche?

WHAT A COHERENT PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OFFERS

If we can formulate a well-balanced psychological viewpoint and reduce the confusion, it will heighten the reputation of our work. And, beyond providing support for us and our clients and enhancing the efficacy of the work, a pragmatic psychological context could even be interesting. I emphasize this because psychology can be deadly dull when presented with an imperious, patronizing tone, as though studying it leaves one somehow more enlightened. (Don’t forget that psychology can be used for self-defense and aggression as well as for healing.) Any grounded and coherent psychology simply helps us wake up to life. I admit to a lifelong fascination with the psyche; and surely I’m not alone going through life wondering, “What the hell is going on here?” and “Who am I, and who are they-really?”

What first got my attention about Rolfing was Dr. Rolf’s clarity and eloquence regarding the interrelationship of mind and body. I was a psychotherapist restless to find a method that was truly effective. Although I’d heard glowing reports of Rolfing having produced all kinds of improvements in physical and emotional well-being, I remained skeptical. But when I heard Dr. Rolf quoted as having said: “The body is the personality exploded into three dimensions”-and even more arresting, “No psychotherapy, no matter how good, will be as deep, as effective nor as lasting unless there is also deep, concomitant physical change”-Rolfing had my attention. I well knew how the travails of childhood endure in the flesh as well as in the emotions, and that they have enormous power to distort our lives and health-so my gut said she was absolutely correct. In 1972, I found the only Rolfer in the Boston area and made an appointment, even if only to prove that this “miraculous” new stuff was nonsense. But after my first hour, everything was very different. I was hooked. I had to meet this Dr. Rolf to find out what else she knew.

Ida Rolf was one of the most impressive people I’ve ever known. Intellectually gifted, educated as a scientist, and a keen observer of Homo sapiens, she also heeded her intuition. At first, that seemed odd, as intuition can’t be pinned down or measured, and certainly can’t be replicated. Perhaps it was, in part, the influence of Einstein, who once wrote, “Intuition is a sacred gift; the rational mind its faithful servant. We have, however, created a society in which we honor the servant and have forgotten the gift.”6 I was intrigued that when she lectured on “levels of knowing,” she drew a sharp contrast between the cause-and-effect models of Descartes and Newton, and the relativity of Einstein. The former, she said, could help us learn how to take bodies apart, but unless we appreciated the relational aspects of the latter, we’d never be able to put those bodies back together at a higher level of organization. Trained as a scientist, she nevertheless recognized that rational, linear thinking, by itself, was not the whole picture her students needed to consider.

I’d like to emphasize that point strongly, because I see it as directly relevant to the potential for the development of our work, or to its possible deterioration. To grow up and be schooled in traditional Western thought is to be deeply affected by its rational, linear tradition. There’s a perfectly valid reason for that: it’s logical and quite effective. Rationalism is the foundation of our sciences and our philosophies; refined to a dazzling extent, it has produced previously unimaginable achievements in science and technology. No wonder it shapes so powerfully how we approach the world of phenomena.

Yet as Dr. Rolf pointed out, it doesn’t cover the ground completely. As Jung wrote in 1955: “Grasping of the whole is obviously the aim of science … but it is a goal that necessarily lies very far off because science, whenever possible, proceeds experimentally and in all cases statistically. Experiment, however, consists in asking a definite question that excludes as far as possible anything disturbing and irrelevant. It makes conditions, imposes them on Nature, and in this way forces her to give an answer to a question devised by man. She is prevented from answering out of the fullness of her possibilities since these possibilities are restricted as far as possible … The workings of Nature in her unrestricted wholeness are completely excluded. If we want to know what these workings are, we need a method of inquiry which imposes the fewest possible conditions, or if possible no conditions at all, and then leaves Nature to answer out of her fullness.”7

As I understood her, Dr. Rolf had no desire to abandon the scientific tradition, but rather hoped to wake us up to the ways we were unquestioning of-one might say, seduced by the power of-rational, linear thinking; and to get us to see where it might be incomplete. Just as the earliest anatomists lost the full awareness of relatedness in the body by discarding the fascia in their eagerness to catalogue the more identifiable parts, linear thinking tends to facilitate the illusion that an object can exist in isolation. It also tends to neglect elements and processes that are not as easily defined because they exist in or as complex relationships. Thanks to Dr. Rolf’s grasp of the total human organism, we have learned that while these features might be absent from the linear model, they are essential to comprehending the whole.

The rationalistic paradigm has conditioned our thinking so thoroughly that most of us tend to be asleep to its limitations unless we work constantly to remind ourselves to wake up to what’s missing. As a passionate physicist friend once wrote, “We’d better understand how science is imprinted in us, because it affects us. Those who insisted that rationality is more important than experience had the unfortunate effect of removing us farther from nature, just as the use of linear, phonetic language restructured our ability to perceive nature. Causality is a convenience, but it’s like a snapshot, it stops time. The irrational [that which is beyond reason] is the ground of emergent phenomena, while logic tends to choke it off. We try to isolate parts of the natural harmony and resonance of the universe and figure them out logically, and all the while, our intuition keeps pointing to the harmonies of nature. People like things clean and orderly, like smooth, unbroken pavement-but life always lurks in the cracks.”8

The logical paradigm keeps popping up, for example, as a quasi-medical, or fix-it aspect in Rolfing. It is too easy to be seduced by symptoms, especially when clients are focused on them. Also, it’s seductive to be treated like a doctor with magical powers. Eventually though, tired of chasing symptoms, we do well to remember two of Ida Rolf’s warnings: “If you work on their symptoms, they will get worse. You must work with the roots of the symptoms,” and, “If you’re interested in pathology, leave here and go to medical school, that’s what they’re interested in. What I’m aiming for is a higher potential for human existence.” She was always quick to point out the larger perspective. More than once in class, knowing that the sciences were hypnotizing us, she would remind us, “What we’re doing here is, we’re trying to learn to see.”

Again, please understand-I’m not discounting the rational, scientific aspect of our work. I simply think the momentum of that paradigm tends to overshadow our awareness of and respect for those aspects that have fewer straight lines, and may therefore seem less real. Rationality can give one a sense of certainty, which is always pleasing to the ego. Non-linear thinking is not black or white; it encourages uncertainty, and that’s an acquired taste. Ambiguities can be uncomfortable; but they’ve plagued humankind for millennia, and show no signs of disappearing.

Toward the end of her life, when asked for the billionth time how Rolfing° works, Ida Rolf replied, “I don’t really know how it works. I just know that if you do it the way I taught you, it works.” How many of us have suddenly been completely uncertain about whether what we just did with our hands elicited that lovely change-or whether it was an emotional response? What if the change happened in relation to a mixture of our moves, the emotions, the music that was playing and the shifting light through the windows?

Potential for positive change is enhanced when we are open to such “illogical” ideas. Beginning with my very first client, whose quite dramatic improvements defied all textbook medical possibilities, I realized I’d learn more if I relaxed my white-knuckled grip on reasonableness. I think it has worked. I know it’s been fascinating-and much more fun.

HOW DOES ALL THIS MATTER?

First, by challenging any assumption that I always know exactly what I’m doing, there’s a better chance I’ll see something new. Seeing amazing yet inexplicable changes through Rolfing forced me to seek other interpretations. My exploration of psychosomatic theories led me to the writings of C.G. Jung, the brilliant founder of Analytical Psychology. Awed by the depth of Jung’s work, I eventually applied and was accepted for training as a psychoanalyst. My work in Rolfing prepared me to appreciate certain parallels in Jung’s work. For example, while Dr. Rolf spoke of Rolfers serving not as therapists but as catalysts within the greater ordering field of gravity, Jung spoke of serving the organizing tendency of the ineffable Self9, the objective psyche. Both characterized the therapeutic process as the application of diligent attention, sensitivity and compassion to help the client release long-frozen stuck places, thereby allowing a greater wholeness to emerge naturally and spontaneously. We all know that to be witness to the sudden expression of that healing moment-in any mode of treatment-is to be awed and deeply moved.

Working in both disciplines has, however, left me even less hopeful of identifying any boundary between psyche and soma. That the person has been semantically cleaved into two elements might seem to simplify and clarify the study of the human being, but it also creates a dilemma: how can the two be reunited? The “psychosomatic” concept has not resolved the dilemma; the term does no more than pay lip service to a cause-and-effect relationship still poorly understood. There remain two supposedly distinct quantities, and further effort to analyze them only exacerbates the dilemma. As Jung said in 1935: “Body and mind are the two aspects of the living being, and that is all we know. Therefore I prefer to say that the two things happen together in a miraculous way, and we had better leave it at that, because we cannot think of them together.”10 Compare Rolf: “…In spite of sophisticated measuring devices, we do not know at what point in the chain of events the physiological process of nerve transmission becomes ‘psychical’,”11 and, “…Any evaluation of a human as a whole requires an understanding of psychophysical response, the rich sensational fabric through which a man perceives his world and the interrelation of psyche and soma.”12 Jung worked the rest of his life to define how the two happen together, and many others have joined in the endeavor, including Dr. Rolf. It’s even possible that in following this work, each of us is walking the same path.

Over the years, I have come to believe that however well we apply the principles Dr. Rolf pioneered, it is ultimately the client’s trust and acceptance that permits the client to open at a very deep level and allow real physical change to happen. If that is true, our efficacy is in large part dependent upon the quality of the Rolfer-client relationship; and any way we can enhance our understanding of that relationship is critical. Here is where psychology is valuable.

ONE PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

First, I must acknowledge my bias. There are many models of psychotherapy, most of them dealing with thoughts, memories and feelings that are consciously available to the client. My own interest and training, however, have concentrated on psychoanalysis, also called depth psychology. This discipline works with the unconscious, which by definition cannot be known directly, but details of which can be inferred from dreams, fantasies, artwork and patterns revealed by active complexes. Learning to discern such information is a challenge not unlike the first step in Rolfing training-learning to see not by staring13, but by allowing information to come to us. It is a bit mysterious, which for me is part of its fascination. Just as quantum physics has provided theoretical validity to some metaphysical ideas14, Jung’s extensive investigations of the unconscious have established firmer footing for some previously dismissed ideas of interpersonal communication, such as telepathy and telekinesis.

Working in two practices, I view both protocols as informing and supporting each other. That is, my Rolfing experience helps me to absorb a wider spectrum of information in analysis; and my analytic experience helps me to see and sense more in Rolfing by providing additional theoretical models and broader perspectives.

This touches on a subject I find endlessly fascinating. Years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing renowned linguist Noam Chomsky. When I spoke of the limits of a linear form of language and the difficulty of finding words to describe my experience of the world, he gently corrected me, “Actually, it works the other way ’round. Once we’ve been taught a language, it’s the language itself which determines our experience of the world.”

Consider the phenomenon of learning a new word or concept, which then seems to appear at every turn. Of course, the word or concept was around all the time, but somehow had not been seen. When English explorer Captain Cook and his crew came ashore on a particular South Pacific island, the inhabitants greeted them with awe. In fact, though they recognized the existence of the landing party and its rowboat because these things were similar to their own bodies and canoes, the inhabitants were, as psychologist Rollo May observes, ‘…unable to see Captain Cook’s ship when it sailed into their harbor because they had no word, no symbol for such a ship. Because of the way in which our unconsciously held beliefs influence our perceptions, it is less accurate to say ‘I believe it when I see it’ than to observe that ‘I’ll see it when I believe it.”15

Several concepts from Jungian work show how a psychological perspective is useful to Structural Integration:

The Container

This begins with a pleasant, quiet room in which to meet with clients. It also includes respect, confidentiality and the highest caliber work we can possibly offer. But of paramount importance is the Rolfer’s° state of mind, which enables the establishment of a relationship adequate to hold all the diverse demands and experiences of a ten-session series so often described as “life-changing”.

Jung used the image of the alchemist’s retort, or vas, as a metaphor for the therapeutic container. As scientific as early alchemy was intended to be, many alchemists were really seeking spiritual attainment. The story about turning lead into gold garnered financial support, but was primarily a cover to avoid condemnation for heresy, which would have been fatal. Selecting alchemy as an analogy emphasizes the importance of consciously relinquishing one’s ego in service of a higher purpose. As esoterically as the work was described in old texts, it was always agreed that a successful outcome demanded that the practitioner recognize his or her limitations of knowledge and control, always remembering that something greater was the determining factor, and that to lose sight of that proportion was to risk real danger.

For Jung, that something greater was the overall organizing archetype of the Self. Ida Rolf made the same point: “Remember, you are not the therapist, you are a catalyst. Gravity is the therapist.” I believe Dr. Rolf knew that in helping our clients so effectively, we would often be treated as great and wonderful healers, and would thereby be at risk of falling into hubris, the exaggerated self pride or self-confidence they saw as challenging the gods, often resulting in deadly retribution. While total surrender of the ego might appear to be an impossible goal, actively reminding ourselves of that ideal does help us to perceive the value of others, to encourage compassion, and to discourage abuses.

The more the work is placed above satisfying personal desires, the more the container is strengthened. Rolfers are much less likely to justify selling a client some really cool product for personal profit, or talking themselves into believing that in the presence of true love, having sex with the client would be just fine. When such boundary violations are shunned not for fear of getting nailed for ethics violations, but instead because they would cause the client pain and confusion and damage the entire fabric of the relationship, that choice for higher ideals is also, in some way, communicated to the client. Obviously, this touches on my assertion that the way the Rolfer® values and holds the total field of the work-theoretical, physical and emotional-determines the quality, depth and lasting effectiveness the client will experience.

Intrinsically linked with the idea of the secure container are the significance and the importance of how emotions, as well as verbal and manipulative information, are transacted in the therapeutic encounter. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the sensitivity of communication-both conscious and subliminal-between Rolfer and client.

Transference and Counter-transference

Generally understood as a form of communication that occurs below the threshold of consciousness in any exchange of words and gestures, these terms come from the early days of psychoanalysis, and refer to unconscious dynamics in the therapeutic relationship. Both transference and counter-transference are considered normal and necessary aspects of psychoanalysis.

Transference is a form of projection, the mechanism by which qualities or feelings one cannot tolerate or accept as being part of one’s personality are projected onto someone else without knowing it, and then are seen as actually belonging to that other. What’s so tricky about projection is that we don’t know that we’re doing it because it is, by definition, unconscious and involuntary. Since it is unwitting and spontaneous, projection explains how we can suddenly feel strong negative emotions toward-or fall in love with-a stranger. For example, in negative projection, one might feel:

-How dare that stupid, selfish driver cut in front of me when I’m the one who’s in a hurry and my appointment must be more important!

-With all humility, I know that my belief is strong, my heart is pure, and my God tells me I must crush my enemy, the Great Satan.

By the same mechanism, positive projection might show up as:

-It’s true, we met only two months ago at that Valentine’s Day concert, but you are what I’ve dreamed of, are so special (perhaps like mother, father or ex-spouse).

-There’s just no doubt about it, Elvis (or Dale Earnhart or JFK, etc.) was the greatest ever, and that’s why he is my hero and I’ve decorated my house like this (being unwilling to risk going all out for my dreams).

Even over-simplified, such samples indicate projection’s constant presence in the fabric of human relationships.

In the therapeutic relationship, transference refers to material the client projects onto the practitioner, and is generally considered not only normal, but also essential in forming a bond strong enough to withstand the challenges the work involves. (This assumes a strong, safe container.) Counter-transference refers to material the practitioner projects onto the client. This, too, is normal, and occurs in two common forms. In its positive aspect, it contributes to the therapeutic bond; and, by offering material detectable in the practitioner’s own feelings (emotionally or physically) that can be brought to consciousness, makes a potent contribution to the healing process. The negative aspect opens the door to abuse of power (typically in manipulating the client’s dependency rather than autonomy, or in acting out sexually) and can damage or destroy the container and with it, any beneficial therapeutic outcome.

I have heard that a Boston University study during the 1970s or 80s16 estimated that in the first ninety seconds of any two people meeting, an average of approximately 7,500 bits of information are exchanged-most of them non-verbal. Whether the number is accurate or not, the point is that whenever two people are together, there’s a hell of a lot more going on at the unconscious level than the conscious level. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for the analyst (and, I submit, for the Rolfer). Tuning in to that communication takes practice and is at least a little mysterious-like learning to see in our work-but with practice, it can be reliable and just as important.

At the first meeting between client and Rolfer®, both are deluged with information, only a fraction of which is registered consciously. This is not a simple meeting, either; both parties have a more charged focus than if they were meeting at, say, the water cooler. The client has heard that 1) most of her clothes must come off, 2) it’s going to hurt and 3) she is going to change; all of this normally induces anxiety. The Rolfer° wants to ease that anxiety and deliver the quality of transformation that caused him to undertake a challenging training in a little-known art. Throw into the mix, whether it registers consciously or not, that something about the Rolfer reminds the client of someone she once loved, or feared or hated -or all three-and the Rolfer has his own ghostly, unconscious impressions, too. The person who knows this is happening and has developed some ability to tune into it is going to have an easier time sorting out the jumble of impressions and meeting the client where the client actually is. Then the ground can be cleared for building a strong container, a space in which the client feels safe, respected and nurtured. This is where the best possible outcome of the series is made possible-or impossible.

Projective Identification

This phenomenon is even more challenging. Have you ever, at some point in a session, had the uncanny sense that though no words were being spoken, a powerful, but faint or subliminal dialogue was going on? This usually feels so insubstantial one is tempted to shrug it off as a flight of imagination.

I have in mind the day I was working with a client in the early sessions of a standard series. Living with generalized pain, she’d been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; and while she was very quiet as we worked, she seemed tight and “prickly.” When, out of simple curiosity, I shifted my focus from her physical structure to what might be happening in her emotional process, I began to feel anger. Surprised, because up to that moment I had been in a very good mood and had no apparent reason to be angry, I let my eyes relax and concentrated on what I was feeling. With that, the emotion rapidly intensified-and with a shock, I realized that I felt as though I wanted to hurt the woman. I looked up and noticed that she was staring intently at the ceiling. Since I had no conscious thought or desire to hurt the client, the sadistic impulse felt quite alien, like an intrusion-and the mechanism of projective identification popped into my mind.

Also called participation mystique (from anthropologist Levy-Bruhl), this phenomenon refers to an emotional defense in which a part of the client’s own personality is projected onto another person-in this case, the Rolfer (me)-and the Rolfer is then experienced by the client as containing that projected quality. (If alert, one may notice and identify the projected content by its emotional character. This a good thing, and can be quite helpful.) In this way, the client identifies with the Rolfer, and actually attains some influence over the Rolfer. The uncanny part is that the Rolfer who is the object of the projection can be dramatically affected both physically and emotionally by that silent, non-physical means. What makes it even more remarkable is that all this is transacted sub rosa, silently and below the surface, where very likely neither participant is aware of what’s happening. Evidently, the notion of someone’s “bad vibes” having a real impact isn’t so outlandish after all.

In the case described, I would speculate that this client experienced in a particular way the need to ease her deep anxiety about being in a passive role in her underwear, with a large man putting his hands on her. In such cases, complexes from our history are triggered even by subtle similarities. It’s possible, for example, that she was physically abused as a child by an angry, punitive male, and associated her survival with being a quiet, passive victim. It’s then possible to see how such a scenario fits with what I experienced: to fit me into her defensive reenactment of surviving a previous trauma, she had to cast me as angry and abusive, literally wanting to cause her pain-and I, blissfully unaware, suddenly found those feelings in me. Imagine, if you will, what might have followed in her series (if actually completed) and her life if I had reacted reflexively from one of my own angry complexes by doing something that caused her even a little pain. Fortunately, I both noticed the phenomenon and had a concept to link with it, and the echoes of her old trauma were eased rather than increased.

Again, Jung: “…It frequently happens that the [Rolfer] offers a hook to the projection, and even lures it out. This is generally the case when the [Rolfer] himself is not conscious of the quality in question: in that way it works directly upon the unconscious of the [client]. For all projections provoke counter-projections when the object [Rolfer] is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject [client], in the same way that a transference is answered by a counter-transference from the [Rolfer] when it [the transference] projects a content of which he is unconscious but which nevertheless exists in him … Like the transference, the counter-transference is compulsive, a forcible tie, because it creates a ‘mystical’ or unconscious identity with the [client] … Thus the transference and counter-transference, if their contents remain unconscious, create abnormal and untenable relationships which aim at their own destruction.”17

Let me apply Jung’s words to the case at hand. Because I, too, have a history that involved pain, rage and feeling victimized by bigger people (are there any among us who haven’t?), there was in me an unconscious “hook” to both evoke and catch her projection. Here you can imagine the iron peg in a horse shoe game catching the shoe with a resounding “Clang!” Activated by her projection, my unresolved anger sought a target to complete the equation, someone on whom I could take revenge-and there she was! It was a horribly perfect fit, and all of this happened in utter silence. This forcible, mystical and unconscious tie can have immense power. A colleague once called me for emotional support regarding his shame and depression following a sexual encounter during a Rolfing® session. What was particularly striking, and at first hard to believe, was his description of having been “taken over by passion-like a possession-and really not realizing what I’d done until it was all over.” Now I can appreciate his description from another angle.

The point is, my own awareness of the projective identification phenomenon gave me a wider range of options. Instead of just suppressing the angry feeling and forging ahead-or, worse yet, responding unconsciously to her projection by actually hurting her-I could use my knowledge to support her process. I chose to respond by trying to start a subliminal dialogue; I formed (and “beamed” at her) the thought that I did not want to hurt her. Over several sessions, she was able to relax into the work and soften, allowing old memories and emotions to surface. Eventually, she allowed a recollection of early sexual abuse. Though I was drawing upon my analytic training, 1 was working entirely within the Rolfing protocol. I was not, for example, asking about dreams or history. However, my analytic training had instilled a keen sense of the value of a secure container, and offered me more ways of detecting and responding to her pain within it.

The hands-on nature of Rolfing has shown me just how powerful it is to both give and receive simple touch. Dr. Rolf used the image of touch being a two-way conversation: “Even seeing is touching at a distance.” One dramatic example of that connection-and vulnerability-was borne out by recently reported research showing that human touch elicits a biochemical response very like that in infants when they are nursing.18 Because touch is so potent and generates such powerful transference and counter-transference, it must never be taken lightly. We must acknowledge that our work involves real intimacy and deal with it openly.

I believe that emphasizing fix-it work in Structural Integration is a tragic leap backward from Dr. Rolf’s gift to us, as though we should retreat from the edge of holism, challenging as it is, and regress to the simple cause-and-effect mechanics found in almost every other treatment model. With that regression, we unwittingly but emphatically accentuate the separation between Rolfer® and client. Perhaps that’s why some prefer the fix-it approach. But we do not have to give up healthy boundaries to allow a sense of being part of a shared field with the client, thereby accessing more effective ways of communicating. Of course, venturing into the realm of the unconscious without recognizing its depth and having some guidance in navigating in it does have real dangers. All of this testifies to the advantage of having a psychological frame of reference.

Once again, I am not suggesting that Rolfers should be recalled to some sort of psychology boot camp, nor am I proposing assembling a catalogue or clipboard checklist of psycho-techniques. I propose that first we find a way to organize the body of psychological information that already exists in the assets of the Rolf Institute® of Structural Integration-its members-and then use what we’ve discovered to guide us in refining its relevance to the work we know already contains it, but often expresses it in primitive, untested or disorganized ways. I contend that this would strengthen our work, not complicate it. By using psychology to inform our current capabilities, we will enhance our ability to recognize and respond to the needs of the moment. The benefits of this approach would flow not from specific ideas, but from fostering a porous state of mind that lets us find ways to address the endlessly changing metaphors of the human psyche. If that sounds a little imprecise, well-you’ve got it right.

Think back to how difficult it was to see what your teacher saw-and how exciting it was when you realized you were beginning to do so! Or to when you began to see how different textbook anatomy was from living, changing, human anatomy. Then consider how studying new methods not only enhanced your abilities, but also opened your eyes to challenging and exciting new worlds. My point? The psyche is an equally essential aspect of our work-and just as exciting.

I must confess that this has been one of the hardest articles I’ve ever written. I kept thinking that each of you has already experienced the phenomenon of the psychological field in your work and has your own sense of how it works. What kept me coming back to the keyboard was remembering how some specific additional training opened new seeing for me that deeply changed my work, and the hope that I could share that potential.

1. It’s fairly well known that Dr. Rolf envisioned the development of three Rolfing schools for research and training: one scientific, one psychological and one metaphysical.

2. Italics are mine.

3. Rolf, I.P., Rolfing: The Integration of Human Structures, p. 277.

4. Ibid, p. 277.

5. Ibid, p. 280.

6. Compare: “Healing is the intuitive art of wooing nature.” -Ida P. Rolf.

7. Jung, C.G., Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, C.W.8, par. 864.

8. Lumley, E., Unpublished papers.

9. For the purposes of this paper, “self” refers to the personal, or individual entity; “Self” refers to Jung’s archetype of the ordering principle of wholeness.

10. Jung, C.G., The Tavistock Lectures, C.W. 18, par. 70.

11. Rolf, op.cit, p. 282.

12. Ibid, p. 283.

13. As in Dr. Rolf’s warning, “Stop staring-you’ll go blind!”

14. One of Dr. Rolf’s hunches: “They may discover some day that what some call metaphysics is what’s occurring at the sub-atomic level.”

15. Quoted in The Alchemy of Healing: Psyche and Soma, Whitmont, E. (1993). North Atlantic Books, p. 42.

16. To date, I have not been able to locate the study.

17. Jung, C.W. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, par. 519. The words “Rolfer” and “client” have been substituted for clarity in this discussion.

18. I regret that I have not yet found a citation for that statement, which was reported to me by my late wife Janie, who for years was a Rolfing Movement’ faculty member. I sure wish I knew where she got it.