Structure, Function, Integration – December 2024 / Vol. 52, No. 2

ABSTRACT Delve into the nature of pain through the lens of Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Rolf Movement® Practitioner Alan Richardson. In this article, Richardson distinguishes between acute pain and chronic pain, and highlights how modern understandings of pain have evolved from a purely biomedical model to a biopsychosocial perspective. The role of Rolfing Structural Integration with clients who are experiencing chronic pain include: validation and safety, pain education, body map refinement, graded exposure, and counterirritation. By leveraging the body’s natural capacity for neuroplastic change, Rolfers and structural integration practitioners can enhance recovery from chronic pain.

ABSTRACT In this interview, Lina Amy Hack interviews Marilyn Beech about the history and early development of the International Association of Structural Integrators (IASI). Beech delves into the challenges and achievements surrounding creating structural integration as an internationally recognized professional category. Once formed, the IASI volunteers developed the Certification Exam for Structural Integration (CESI) to standardize entry-level professional competencies and promote distinctiveness in the f ield. Hack and Beech reflect on the first IASI symposium in 2005, and Beech offers some future thoughts about the profession.

ABSTRACT This conversation with Rolfer™ and photographer David Kirk-Campbell shares insight into his iconic images of Dr. Ida P. Rolf in the 1970s. The discussion covers the context and motivation behind the three distinctive photos available to members of the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute®, Kirk-Campbell’s memories of Rolf’s teaching, insights from receiving three private sessions from Rolf, and building a practice in four different European cities in the 1980s. Key details include Kirk-Campbell’s relationship with Rolf and other influential figures in the Rolfing® community, and the necessity of crediting the photographer by inserting close to the Dr. Rolf image – Photo credit: David Kirk-Campbell.

ABSTRACT In this interview by SFI Journal editor and Rolfer Jeffrey Kinnunen, New York Rolfer™ David George Delaney discusses the release of his book Intrinsic Singing (2024). Although the book primarily aims at singers and actors, Rolfers and all somatically-minded people will benefit from its message of authentic self-expression. Delaney draws from his decades of experience delivering Rolfing sessions to professional singers and actors, as well as his training with his singing vocal instructor Margaret Laughlin Riddleberger (1924-2009), among other modalities. Delaney reflects on the impact Rolfing® Structural Integration had on his own voice and body.

ABSTRACT Rolfer™ and author Briah Anson interviews Helen “Jimmer” James about her life story as a Rolfer. From her early life in Pennsylvania, United States, on the family farm, to going through high school during World War II, James’ life path has several exceptional accomplishments. She was an avid athlete, playing basketball and f ield hockey while going to college for health sciences. She joined the United States Air Force in 1952 and served as a radio operator. Her dream to become a physical therapist for the Air Force was cut short when President Eisenhower discriminated against LGBTQIA+ people in the 1950s with legislation setting off the ‘Lavender Scare’. She overcame this hardship by completing her physical therapy education on her own, becoming a Rolfer, a successful practitioner, and anatomy instructor. James has elevated structural integration work by publishing peer-reviewed studies of fasciabased research and by working with Olympians who have made Rolfing® Structural Integration a part of their high-performance success.

Burch for advice on managing clients who present with cervical stenosis. One of Vickowski’s clients has anonymously shared an MRI and neurosurgical consultation report detailing long-term neck pain and related symptoms. Burch’s recommendations include emphasizing the importance of medical imaging, understanding the nature of stenosis, the value of individual assessment for locating the primary cause of pain symptoms, and surgical considerations that the client may need to consider with their physicians.

ABSTRACT To launch The Philosophical Touch column, Rolfer™ Andrew Rosenstock shares his passion – the philosophy of somatic therapies – inspired by Advanced Rolfing® Instructor Jeffrey Maitland, PhD (1943-2023). Rosenstock spotlights Austrian Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), offering some context of Wittgenstein’s life story and his links between the cognition of language with the physical interactions we have with the world.

ABSTRACT Meet My Rolfer is a column where Rolfers interview their Rolfers. In this edition, Mandy Cheek interviews Patrick Clough about his fifty-plus-year career as a Rolfer.