Working in Movement

Everyday, movement educators (like Feldenkrais practitioners and others) work with people whose nervous systems may not accurately reflect how they are actually using themselves. Unrecognized patterns of tension can cause sore backs, stiff necks, or many other kinds of discomfort. In Feldenkrais lessons, such patterns can often be revealed by keenly observing self-use in nonhabitual movement patterns. Once recognized, these patterns can be let go, and more useful alternatives explored. The person experiencing these alternative ways of self-use often functions much better and may feel relieved.

But this type of "faulty sensory appreciation" is not confined to aches and pains. Sometimes it can be deeply involved in much more serious conditions. In Phnantoms in the Brain, Ramachandran relates stories of amputees whose internal brain images of their body haven't caught up with the real situation. That is, it feels to them like the missing limb isn't really missing. Sensations from these "phantom" limbs can seem real: itching, aching, throbing, almost anything. Ramachandran recognized the problem as one of body image and began using mirror images of the other, nonamputated, intact limb to trick the brain into updating the brain image.

Some stroke victims can experience a type of faulty sensory appreciation connected to their visual field. Namely, they are missing part of their visual field but don't realize it. Treatment: Tricked into Seeing Virtually briefly describes a study that successfully worked with the condition. Instead of using mirrors to trick the compromised nervous systems into a more accurate image, the researchers used virtual reality techniques:

The subjects were shown three balls and asked to grasp the one that lighted up. The stroke patients succeeded whenever the lighted ball was in the middle or on the right, but failed when it was on the left.

Then the program was changed so that the hand on the screen moved to the left, even when the patients were really reaching to the right or to the middle. After four rounds of that, the stroke patients improved their performance, more accurately grasping the lighted ball when it was on the left.

Faulty sensory appreciation can cause all sorts of mischief, some much more serious than others. But by going outside the routines of habit, whether with movement lesson, mirror or virtual reality, the accuracy of sensory information can be improved.