A. Our state of mind or consciousness has a profound effect on the outcome of Rolfing. The more conscious we are, the more we are able to be present with a client without having a preconceived outcome or agenda for his or her process. It gives the client the freedom and support for the work to evoke what is next in his or her life, be it physical, mental or emotional.

Being aware of ourselves and our process, as contrasted to being self-obsessed with ourselves and our process, allows us to have and maintain a witness position. If we do not have a witness position, we have no ability to distinguish between self and another. It is necessary to distinguish between others and one’s self in order to know if what we are doing in a therapeutic intervention serves the client’s needs or our needs. If we cannot witness, we can only react to others; with witnessing we are able to reflect and respond in ways that serve others. In addition to keeping us honest, the witness position provides an opportunity for the client to heal in ways that are not possible if it is absent.

Witnessing allows us to create and maintain a container and provides a clear mirror for the client’s process. If you go to the fun house at an amusement park, you can stand in front of a mirror that makes you look short and fat or one that makes you look tall and thin; both are distortions. You cannot learn how you actually look by standing in front of such mirrors. Only a clear mirror, one that does not distort your image, will enable you to see how you actually look. To the degree that we are able to be a clear mirror for our clients, we provide the opportunity for them to reclaim their projections, the parts of themselves, positive and negative, that they project out onto others. Seeing those parts of themselves reflected back clearly and without judgment creates the possibility of their owning and integrating those aspects. As the practitioner, it is our responsibly to hold a safe space, a container, for this transformative process. It is also our responsibility to seek support (a more experienced Rolfer, a competent therapist) when we need someone to hold and provide a container for our process.

In addition to its importance in the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship, our ability to witness allows us to monitor and regulate our own nervous systems. Why is this important to our clients? Recent research (Allan Schore: affect regulation) shows that infants learn to regulate their nervous systems through resonance with their caregiver (right brain hemisphere to right brain hemisphere). All of this happens pre-verbally. If the caregiver has a disregulated nervous system, the infant will have a disregulated system. It is possible to repair this maladaption by being in proximity to a nervous system that is regulated. It happens non-verbally, right brain to right brain. The practitioner client relationship mimics the parent-infant relationship. To the extent that we are regulated, we provide a reference beam for clients to learn to regulate themselves. The details are beyond the scope of this venue. If you wish to explore this topic more fully, I recommend Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Seigel, M.D. and Mary Hartzell, M.Ed.

So, if consciousness and the ability to witness are so important, what are some ways that we can cultivate that ability? Contemplative practices increase awareness. Meditation, martial arts, flower arranging and dance are all contemplative exercises. They provide the opportunity to work with our minds – to practice noticing the space between our thoughts rather than the thoughts themselves.