Simple Contact... Pacific Northwest

[christophb]

Ok, So I tried this once for Nanaimo and only the regulars posted, but since I am a slow learner, I'll try it again. I would like to start a safe thread for all of the Seattle SC attendees (Or any previous attendee for that matter) to post SC experiences upon their return to the clinic. Being in the presence of others who do simple contact helped me stick with it (even though the work speaks for itself, the culture is a powerful force and change is always hard). So I hope we'll see some new posters, otherwise I'll just sit here listening to the crickets and looking like an idiot in my Cuyahoga falls hat.

Chris

[Diane]

How was it second time through Chris? Did more of it gel?

[EricM]

While I wasn't at the recent Seattle course, I did go to a course in Seattle, so I guess I qualify.
Every experience with SC is different. In one instance last week, I was working with rather unfortunate lady who had recently undergone, major surgery to remove a tumour from her kidneys, which had spread to involve several areas of her lumbar spine as well, who in the past had had a mastectomy, hysterectomy and so on. Her lumbar spine is now internally fixated from L2 to S1 and she still has a large open wound. In spite of all this, she is remarkably cheerful, quite a resiliant lady. She describes horrible pain extending from her back down the side of her leg to her ankle. In this session, as we had already been working on other problems such as gross muscle weakness and gait retraining, she was lying supine on a plinth for a rest when I placed one hand lightly on the outside of her knee and the other on the outside of her hip. Without any instructions from me, she proceeded to externally rotate her leg and reported that her pain had almost completely gone and that she was feeling something 'new' contralateraly in her lower back. I remarked that this was interesting and suggested that if she was ready we could move on to the stairs...
The whole SC thing lasted all of maybe 20 seconds yet in that time she had learned how to make herself more comfortable and I think she will continue to do so on her own. This of course is just one example of SC in practice. With others I have spent up to 30 minutes doing more of the same.

Chris, have you tried wearing the hat backwards, or maybe off to one side? You might be able to identify yourself with the more 'hip' crowd that way.

Eric

[EricM]

I guess the point I was trying to make in that last post was, once you realise how there is really nothing to it, it is quite easy to incorporate into practice alongside of other contempory therapy. I suppose in the past, the same problem might have been treated with 20 minutes of interferential, or stretching, or ??? So it has also allowed me to discard alot of other 'tools' from the toolbox that I was getting tired of lugging around.

eric

[christophb]

Diane

I thought it did gel more for me.. plus I knew all the answers to his questions;) The underlying theory and mechanisms I think are absolutely fascinating... plus it makes so much sense. The teaching was the same but I think the learning was deeper.

Eric

It's funny that something so easy to do is so hard to practice. At least from my personal experience the initial struggle was that it worked so well and I did so little, I almost felt guilty... more later.

Chris

[nari]

Chris

Another poster (can't recall who, sorry) mentioned that going to the SC course seemed to make a lot of what he was taught in school redundant.

Is that a bad thing? Admittedly, it could mean a very large razor, Occam-style....

Nari

[Diane]

Occam's Chainsaw.

[nari]

....and although the sound of hacking through deadwood is scary, it's OK.
Though one would have to be careful not to hack everything and leave something of a desert. The selection of deadwood might be crucial...hey Chris?

Nari

[Diane]

I don't think deserts could possibly happen here on the wet coast...

[christophb]

I think deserts are created if you walk away from a course and assume everything the instructor says is true without examining how he came to that conclusion. It seems with an SC course Barrett gives you a map and plenty of references and asks "is it sensible" It's up to the participant to then own that information. I think Barrett does a good job of not telling you how practice (keep the foundational information and insert your own flavor). There was a prefect example of this at the end of the course on Friday.


It's as my tai chi instructor always says, I can tell you the secrets, but if you don't practice and examine them, they are still my secrets. So as the SC participant gets used to wielding the razor there may be a few cuts (this may discourage people early). But, you do get used to recognizing and chopping away the useless bits...

Chris

[clancytone]

I attended the course in Seattle and have been pre-occupied with the information ever since. Why do so many of the things that I do do work despite addressing them and reducing them even though Barrett describes them as defenses. Ie. structural alignment/postural exercises etc.
I look forward to implementing SC into my practice to see its effectiveness but also wonder about the power of ideomotor movements versus volitional exercise on its impact on the nervous system.
Do you know of any specific studies based on either SC or ideomotor motion in its effectiveness to chronic pain and the nervous system?

[Diane]

Hi clancytone, welcome to SS.
I attended the Nanaimo workshop last year.
There aren't any studies that relate SC or ideomotor motion in effectiveness to chronic pain and the nervous system... yet.

SC is more a mental tool than a physical technique. Why so many of the other things we've been taught to do work at all, is more a reflection of the power of someone's brain to take what it needs from whatever interaction it is allowed with another's nervous system/point of view, and use that extraction to help itself, than it is a reflection of the inherent worth of a technique. SC as an approach strips away all treatment superfluity/window dressing/confabulation/confusion about what tissue is doing what, when, how, and with what sort of jiggle or poke. Ideomotor movement is presented as the essential quality ingredient, produced by the patient's own brain, hiding inside all technique interaction.. (Well, maybe Barrett didn't present it quite that way, but that's what I got from it..)

[Barrett Dorko]

Perfectly well said Diane.

I think clancy is a bit confused. I say that the isometric activity we see in our patients suffering from an abnormal neurodynamic when understood as a defense with ultimate reasoning should be allowed to grow to an isotonic in its own time and sequence.

It is perfectly possible to choreograph a motion for the patient that resembles or mimics this movement and thus reduce the mechanical deformation responsible for their pain and I don't suggest otherwise, but it seems to me that using ideomotion to accomplish this would be more efficient. Just return to the verbal model, replace moving with speaking and I think you'll see what I mean.

[clancytone]

I just wonder how you know it is more valuable without putting it up next to volitional movement patterns such as postural stabilization in a study to determine if ideomotion is more valuable. Is this currently being formally studied and if not, why not?
Also after pondering the ideas that Barrett presented around the areas of creativity and pain, I understand the value of that coming from an Occupational Therapy background and the importance of purposeful movement and the use of crafts and Art in rehabilitation. This is used less and less in rehab (if at all) but was created by the pioneers in our field who I think understood this link to the brain.

[nari]

Clancy

Another way of looking at which is more valuable / efficient is this, perhaps:

The traditional method looks at conscious movements initiated and guided by the therapist according to what the therapist's brain sees and knows
As we know only too well, this has large variations and is dependent on perfect intra- and inter-therapist understanding.

SC/permission for ideomotion to occur excludes the therapist's notion of what is best for conscious movement, and the patient's brain can then perform the movements required for correction.

Which one sounds more valuable / efficient? (Assuming that we are talking about an abnormal neurodynamic, and not TBI. etc)

I may get shouted down for my interpretation, but that's OK.

Nari

[Barrett Dorko]

Prolonged discussions regarding the problems inherent to outcome studies regarding movement therapy are archived in "Barrett's Bullypit." I'm thinking especially of "When Thoughtfulness Dies" and "Ceteris Paribus."

Doing what you suggest is extremely difficult, which is no excuse for abandoning the effort, but to simply do it is, well, not for the faint of heart.

Luke in Australia is planning something. Perhaps he can say something about this here.

I want also to say that comparing ideomotion for an abnormal dynamic to postural stabalization for, I guess, weakness that is supposed to hurt lends itself to a discussion about why you're doing the latter in any case. For "backache"? A nominal diagnosis like that isn't going to contribute much of anything to our understanding of why we're doing anything to begin with.

[Diane]

I just wonder how you know it is more valuable without putting it up next to volitional movement patterns such as postural stabilization in a study to determine if ideomotion is more valuable. Is this currently being formally studied and if not, why not? clancytone, maybe this is something you'd like to do someday? I agree the world could use a few of these studies, if only to eliminate all the clutter our profession (and lots of other ones!) drag around..

[Luke Rickards]

Barrett,

You are correct. Conducting large scale RCTs is extremely resource intensive and can't be done by the average clinician. Although ultimately this kind of research should be undertaken, there are other ways of investigating causal relationships between treatment and outcome.

One way of doing this is the Single System Research Design. This is a prospective, quasi-experimental investigation of a single patient that can be used to provide data to validate theories and help stimulate new ones. There is also a view that an SSRD can provide evidence that is more validly compared to a private clinical setting than evidence from an RCT, though this is contended.

I am currently conducting an SSRD of Simple Contact with two collegues. The baseline period and half of the treatment period are complete. It will be published in the July edition (hopefully) of the International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine.

If several positive SSRDs can be published this should start to generate interest by those who have resources to conduct larger studies. It is a slow process, but it has at least been commenced.

Luke

[Diane]

My hat is off to you Luke!

[clancytone]

I am trying to understand how Mr. Dorko came to his conclusions that, it is in fact, ideomotion that the nervous system needs and how we know it is this versus other stimulation.
How do we know that we cannot affect the nervous system through manual stimulation such as Craniosacral or Bowenwork and watch the system respond through softening, changes in blood flow, distal response and then with that change, let the body respond through volitional movement patterns such as exercise or function.
I am in agreement with the neurophysiology behind your theory, but I think it could then be applied to other techniques as mentioned above.

[Barrett Dorko]

Please call me Barrett. If you used your name I'd be glad to call you by that as well.

Bowen and Craniosacral theory require a leap of faith if not simply a belief system entrenched in the therapist/believer. Both methods contain a construct that is both biologically implausible and physically impossible. This has been discussed by the members of this group over and over. Accepting their premise gets us nowhere when it comes to subsequent study or the respect of the medical community. See the "Validity" thread for more on this.

If you think either of these methods deserves the respect I suspect you have for them, please tell us why. One rule: unsubstantiated claims of success cannot be part of the argument - not if you want to be taken seriously here.

[Diane]

clancytone,
I am trying to understand how Mr. Dorko came to his conclusions that, it is in fact, ideomotion that the nervous system needs and how we know it is this versus other stimulation. Maybe he'll offer this info.

How do we know that we cannot affect the nervous system through manual stimulation such as Craniosacral or Bowenwork and watch the system respond through softening, changes in blood flow, distal response and then with that change, let the body respond through volitional movement patterns such as exercise or function. Well, we do affect the nervous system and elicit ideomotion using other means, don't we?

Ideomotion is already there, but no one (except Barrett) focuses on that, most educators in PT only draw your attention to the part they're providing, i.e., the technique and try to frame it as the big deal, and sell/promote/quantify the jiggles and pokes they've invented that elicit some effect (which is ideomotion, sometimes a lot, sometimes in dribs and drabs).

The big leap forward with SC is that understanding the presence of ideomotion means that you don't need to be a technique collector anymore (Occam's razor applied to manual therapies). By just waiting longer (interacting) with your hands on someone (on their skin), their brain will produce corrective movement throughout the body that will be way more sophisticated than any technique no matter how brilliant, could ever hope to produce.

The next step is, you can help them become more aware of it, and ask the patient to let it move their body, move them, so there is three-way interaction, sort of; your minimal input, the patient's brain, and the patient's awareness of their brain moving them. Once they've felt it, experienced it and produced it, they theoretically won't need you anymore.
I am in agreement with the neurophysiology behind your theory, but I think it could then be applied to other techniques as mentioned above. Bingo. As soon as you have got that piece, you can analyze all the techniques you've collected in light of that information. Then you can stop "collecting" more techniques, because you don't need to "do" anything technical, you can just ask/allow the patient to move from the deep part of the brain, and when they do, the pain goes away from the deep brain out, as per Patrick Wall's "consummatory act."

[Barrett Dorko]

Ideomotion is the term that science has decided to use when describing self-correction to reduce mechanical deformation. I found it while searching continuously to explain the movement I and others saw. Rather than simply invent a term, to say nothing of an entire cosmology and then describe a universe physicists make clear has not ever existed, I went with the research literature.

If I sound frustrated with the endurance of Bowen's theory, Craniosacral theory and myofascial release theory it is because I am. We can do much better, and until we do we will be justifiably looked at with the paternal, patronizing attitudes the medical profession often offers us - especially if we represent another revenue stream for them.

[Diane]

What Barrett? You mean we don't have to "believe in," "buy/teach" or ever be reduced to spinning microtubular 20,000 times the speed of light, fascial memory hypotheses? :D

You mean we don't have to go to school forever trying to catch up to all the latest ways to do Balnibarian-type "research"?

You mean, we don't have to endlessly fritter our lives away comparing one "technique" to another, to establish "clinical prediction rules" or find out the best way to appease insurers, ways to save them money by spending our precious lives figuring/measuring ways to chop our 'treatment' sessions shorter by a minute here and a second there?

Are you saying that PT treatment culture itself needs/must be revolutionized? That such a revolution begins with thinking about treatment results in a radically different way? :D By thinking about improvements as coming from within patients rather than from us? That by thinking in such a way that is congruent with science but in opposition to treatment culture, the political yokes and harnesses would have to fall away? Ooh.. sounds dangerous!! :D

[nari]

Diane, you have just brought forth your 'dangerous idea' , a concept which jon was looking for some weeks ago....

"Clinical prediction rules" is something that has cropped up fairly recently. It seems a perfect way to harness one's thinking into narrow slits so we don't get distracted by things such as patient and therapist attributes, zebras, etc etc.

What I see as a problem is if one has a diagnosis (made up, working or otherwise) then therapists will make the features fit that diagnosis. That is, to me, one of the dangers of current clinical practice, with respect to PTs. Especially with a patient who is not 'in the mould'....

Ah, I have also forgotten what Balnibarian means....:embarasse


nari

[Diane]

Ah, I have also forgotten what Balnibarian means It's a fictitious country in Gulliver's Travels (http://www.nextext.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=books.resource&target=gulliver&file=gulliver_lsn_06.cfm&type=student) where endless and futile research projects are conducted, like trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. Here's another reference (http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Gulliver.html).
After requesting to leave the island, Gulliver is lowered to the continent of Balnibari and enters its metropolis, Lagado, where the crops are poorly managed, people wear ragged clothing, and the houses are in bad condition–except for the house of the governor of Lagado. He tells Gulliver that 40 years before, some Lagado residents visited Laputa and came away with a smattering of mathematics that caused them to undertake bold scientific projects and other heady enterprises. They even built an academy in which to carry out their projects. Now every town in Balnibari has an academy, and the people spend most of their time conducting experiments. For example, at the Academy of Lagado, scientists are attempting to do the following: extract sunbeams from cucumbers, turn human feces back into food, erect buildings from the roof down, plow farmland with pigs, make marbles soft enough to stuff pillows and pincushions, breed sheep whose entire bodies are bald, and have students learn mathematics by swallowing wafers on which formulas are written.
.......So absorbed in these enterprises are the inhabitants that they avoid taking part in almost all other activities.


It's Barrett's dangerous idea, I think. No one else ever saw the brain the way he has, .. except for Feldenkrais.

[nari]

Thanks for that, Diane. I did read G's Travels but don't remember anything beyond Brobdingnag (??)and Lilliput...

I do remember your reference to sunbeams and cucumbers, now.

Love the idea of sheep with bald bodies. I can see Swift was talking about aspects of physiotherapy when he wrote about the Academy!!;)

Nari

[clancytone]

is proposed in relation to this concept, despite Barrett using the lack of evidence against the technique of MFR. I am not trying to knock Barrett's ideas in any way, in fact I find them quite intriguing and am willing and interested in using them with my patients. I am just trying to get my mind around the concepts and to understand where they have come from and how best to incorporate them. Thanks for all of your feedback and patience with me:angel:

[Jon Newman]

CT,

I can understand the misperception that we are defensive about EBM but I think it is just that, a misperception. I don't know how much you've participated in various discussion boards but this topic has been discussed and defensive wouldn't be as accurate of a description as much as critical, cautious or skeptical. I'll steal from Socrates here and suggest that an RCT unexamined is not worth employing.

You may be interested in the following article.

A philosophical analysis of evidenced based medicine (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/3/14)

[Diane]

Myself, I can think of nothing less useful to me than a study comparing... ultra sound to TNS, for example, since I don't use either and haven't for years.

I don't think anyone here is antiscience, it's just that a lot of PT "science", especially if the nervous system is left out, is quite useless IMO. I very much look forward to, for example, Luke's research, that he mentioned in post #18. To me, that won't be sunbeam-from-cucumber type research.

[BB]

Hello,
I live in the Pac northwest, but unfortunately, did not take in Barrett's course. I will have to some day for sure. However, as Barrett has often referred to the simplicity of the technique, I thought I might give it a whirl today with a patient, sans formal education of SC. The gal has neck and shoulder pain especially at night. I started with my hands at the base of the neck, she began by moving her head. I gradually moved out to the lateral trunk/scapula with my hands, and by this time her movement had blossomed into head movement combined with both shoulders, scapulas, arms, without me telling her anything. Afterwards I asked her about why this happened and she said that her other side began to cramp. She figured out on her own to take care of this with more movement. I'm not sure how well it did for her pain resolution yet since her pain is mostly at night.

So, I have questions ( I know, big surprise).
Barrett, I could not resist the urge to try to cause some kind of inhibition (feel "melting" of the tissue etc.) before I invited her to move. I wanted some indication that the brain was listening before we began. It didn't happen (any specific response), that I could notice. You say that the tone of the area decreases by facilitated muscle action vs. inhibition. I also remember a thread when you likened your treatment with Diane's. My understanding is that a lot of what Diane does, is inhibition followed by facilitation. At least a lot of her descriptions are about turning off/down certain "angry" areas and so on. Am I wrong (it definately would not be a first!). Sorry to Diane if I am off base here! (My jaw has never bothered me again since you worked on me at the shacklock course by the way! Thanks again)
Oh yeah...questions.
Do you look for some kind of sign that the brain is alerted to your presence before you begin? She felt none of the warming, etc. that you have written about in your essays before during or after.
Am I making a mistake in thinking that a mucle that feels as though it is melting is being inhibited? Maybe it is just preparing for action?
I had some conversation with her during her movements. My thought was that this could occupy her and maybe make the motions even more spontaneous. Do you support this, or do you want maximal spontanaeity AND awareness?

I must say that if nothing else, it was pretty cool to see some of the movements this lady came up with.

Thanks
Cory

[clancytone]

If you are going to use the argument that their is no emperical data to support these other techniques and they are therefore not valid, then how can you say that an ideomotor focus is superior over volitional movement just because Barrett says so. Is it because this has been repeatedly seen in the clinic? Well then, if so, shouldn't this be written up and tried to be replicated and further written up by other therapists and taken on a larger scale;) ?
Its funny John that you bring up that reference to philosophical limits in evidence based medicine, as my husband has written extensively on this matter and is sited in reference £13 in his paper! Its not that I don't agree with that concept, it is just that your arguments against other forms of therapy seems inconsistent.

[Jon Newman]

If you are going to use the argument that their is no emperical data to support these other techniques and they are therefore not valid

CT,

Where was this argument made?

[Barrett Dorko]

I will echo Jon's question. Who ever said that "emperical data doesn't support the other techniques"? What we've said repeatedly is that their theory is invalid. As far as I know, this is the only part of the whole thing that relates to validity.

I don't recall ever saying as I taught that my method was more effective than anything else. I simply present my case for its reasonableness, demonstrate and offer evidence for the theory.

[Luke Rickards]

Clancy,

Jon is right. No one has suggested that other methods of care are lacking validity because of insufficient outcomes evidence.

Further, I don't think Barrett has ever suggested his method is superior. Only that it make more sense. These two statements are very different.

[Luke Rickards]

Barrett, you beat me to it.

[nari]

CT

Is there something about the way some (or all) of us write that seems vague or confusing? We truly have not said that these other techniques don't work, there are no grounds for saying that. I simply do not know if they work or not, as I haven't experienced them first hand. But that is not the point.

It is the premise, the hypothesis, the theory on which these 'other' methods are based...that is what counts. If the theory does not stand up with current knowledge of neurophysiology or contravenes basic tenets of physiology; then it has to be considered with considerable skepticism.

One could argue that a premise is appropriate, but the clinical application has poor results...then the premise has to be wrong in the first place, or unable to be applied clinically with effectiveness.


Hi Cory...I will leave your questions for someone else to answer; not because I wouldn't like to answer, but my experience of SC in practice is much much less than others' ; I'm not at work currently.


Nari

PS Wow...I've just passed 2000 posts.

[christophb]

One thing that really stood out for me at the course was having an understanding of the materials you are handling. This phrase keeps echoing in my brain. If the main material we are influencing is the brain and the nervous system, how does it benefit the patients for us to take ownership of the correction? This could be choreographing exercise, problem solving, or manipulative techniques. Sure they may work, but how does this advance the profession or empower our patients? And I wonder, If people truly understood the nature of the material they work with, why all the thousands of techniques and "styles." Shouldn't the number of things we do with people decrease as our understanding increases? Is it different to have a knowledge of technique or a knowledge of what that technique is affecting?

Chris

[Luke Rickards]

Cory,

I converse with patients during movement, though not constantly. I don't feel this is detrimental to the process.

Luke

[nari]

Chris

Exactly. Why all the myriad of techniques, indeed. You are touching on one of my peevishly persistent themes - control.
The best outcome is to hand control over to the patient. Once we exert control over what we believe is the right way or ways to function for someone else, then how do we know that this is correct, or as you say, will it really improve our profession? Is more complexity the only way to go with physiotherapy?

The biggest virtue I saw in that SC class was elimination of therapist control - doing nothing - with effectiveness. And.. the realisation that ideomotion is something that should be integral in every PT's "technique" box - if they must have a box.

When we see patients with a TKR, for instance, we follow models which address muscle, ligament and local stiffness. They get better (well, most do). The fact that the CNS is ignored after a doctor has performed highly invasive carpentry on a major joint, seems bizarre in the light of what we know. Patients with "backache" are treated in the light of muscle, disc, ligament, joint and anything else out of Gray's Anatomy...except the CNS. That is changing, I think......

Diane is all in favour of Occam's chainsaw through the physiotherapy curriculum. I have to agree; but until the body is viewed as a whole entity - the blob at the end of the brain -that probably won't happen.
We should be doing less...redefining what the effects of our intervention are and can we be better and simpler at working with origins of dysfunction...?

Nari

[Diane]

I thought I'd bring this Serendip page here, a history of Descartes, subsequent mind-body concerns (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Table.html), and historical attempts to repair the schism. I noticed on page 4 (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/19th.html) a discussion of Carpenter, the first to define ideomotor movement (1874).
Excerpt:"Nothing," Carpenter wrote, "can be more certain, than that the primary form of mental activity, -- Sensational consciousness, -- is excited through physiological instrumentality. A certain Physical impression is made, for example, by the formation of a luminous image upon the Retina of the Eye ... Light excites Nerve-force, and the transmission of this Nerve-force excites the activity of that part of the Brain which is the instrument of our Visual Consciousness. Now in what way the physical change thus excited in the Sensorium is translated (so to speak) into that psychical change which we call seeing the object whose image was formed upon our Retina, we know nothing whatever; but we are equally ignorant of the way in which Light produces Chemical change ... And all we can say is, that there is just as close a succession of sequences -- as intimate a causal relation between antecedent and consequent -- in the one case, as there is in the other."

Conversely, "the like Correlation may be shown to exist between Mental states and the form of Nerve-force which calls forth Motion through the Muscular apparatus ... each kind of Mental activity, -- Sensational, Instinctive, Emotional, Ideational, and Volitional, -- may express itself in Bodily movement ... Just as a perfectly constructed Galvanic battery is inactive while the circuit is "interrupted," but becomes active the instant that the circuit is "closed," so does a Sensation, an Instinctive tendency, an Emotion, an Idea, or a Volition, which attains an intensity adequate to "close" the circuit, liberate the Nerve-force with which a certain part of the Brain ... is always charged" (pp. 12-14).(Carpenter, William Benjamin (1813-1885): Principles of Mental Physiology, with their Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind, and the Study of its Morbid Conditions. By William B. Carpenter ... London, Henry S. King & Co., ... 1874)

A bit further down is a mention of the origin of neutral monism.Excerpt: In The Physical Basis of Mind [10], which forms the third volume of Problems of Life and Mind, Lewes articulated the classic modern formulation of double aspect theory, dual-aspect monism. In presenting his position, Lewes went well beyond the theories of his predecessors, supplementing the double aspect notion with a view that has come to be called neutral monism. Neutral monism involves the claim that there is only one kind of "stuff" and that mind and body differ only in the arrangement of that stuff or in the perspective from which it is apprehended.

Borrowing a metaphor from Fechner, Lewes characterized the relation of mind to body as a curve that maintains its identity as a single line even though characterized at every point by both concavity and convexity. Mental and physical processes, in other words, are simply different aspects of one and the same series of psychophysical events. When seen from the subjective point of view (e.g., when someone is thinking), the psychophysical series is mental; when seen from the objective point of view (e.g., when someone observes what is going on in the thinking person's brain), it is physical. (Excerpt from Serendip based on Lewes, George Henry (1817-1878): The Physical Basis of Mind. With Illustrations. Being the Second Series of Problems of Life and Mind. By George Henry Lewes. London: Trübner & Co., ...1877)

It's what I've been looking for, a succinct description of neutral monism. It just so happened that all this other great stuff is there too.