Ways Out of Cerebral Palsy During Infancy and Early Childhood With the Feldenkrais Method: A Study on Cerebral Palsy From the Perspective of Organic Learning in Early Childhood by Paul Doron Doroftei & Moshé Feldenkrais

Author:Paul Doron Doroftei & Moshé Feldenkrais [Doroftei, Paul Doron & Feldenkrais, Moshé]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education & Teaching, Schools & Teaching, Parent Participation, Health; Fitness & Dieting, Alternative Medicine, Teacher Resources, Alternative Therapies
Amazon: B00PFA5L68
Published: 2014-11-08T21:00:00+00:00

After such assistance, the spastic infant will sense the pull of gravity in a less biased manner and will therefore respond to it more appropriately. Gradually, he or she learns to gauge the effect of gravity more correctly, and the corresponding movements become more efficient.

For the handicapped child whose nervous system has been producing uncontrolled and contradicting movements up to now, giving correct support at the right moment provides an important experience: the child learns about the possibility of attaining the same goal with less effort, or attaining it at all. With the correct support at the right moment, the child will start experiencing the pleasure of spontaneously attaining a goal. The child thus discovers hitherto unknown possibilities of movement and experiences internal peace and order resulting from the primary orientation produced by the supportive, nonmanipulative, and meaningful touch of the practitioner’s hands.

Feldenkrais work as such, and in its application to spastic children in particular, consists of an ongoing sensory dialogue with the child by way of the practitioner’s hands. Only hands capable of telling stories that are meaningful to the child’s sensory perception can arouse the attention necessary for such a learning process. I am frequently surprised when some children begin to smile during the Feldenkrais session—even when they are almost asleep. Such reactions in children who are often not more than two years old is for me the best proof of this work’s value.

Another demonstration is that children stop crying or being anxious after at most an hour and then begin to take an interest in what they can experience during a Feldenkrais session. The child’s attention is aroused because he or she does not experience—and therefore does not struggle against—the practitioner’s touch as a developmentally counterproductive invasion into his or her overtaxed and shaky world of sensation and movement. Instead, the child perceives the practitioner’s hands as sympathetic to his or her own sensations and feelings and is aware that under the practitioner’s guidance, he or she can develop a more pleasant form of being, which will be more in tune with the needs of his or her nervous system.

It is not easy to describe in a few sentences the complex learning and transformation that a nervous system impaired by cerebral palsy undergoes during a Feldenkrais session. The constant image in my mind’s eye is of a flower unfolding its petals. What happens under the practitioner’s hands is as natural and miraculous as the flowering of a blossom.

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