Excerpts from The Principles of Pragmatism - H. Heath Bawden

[Luke Rickards]

The processes of adaptation and adjustment involve the reciprocal interaction of stimulus and response. Stimulation is not, as is often supposed, the merely passive reception of impulses from without: it involves a selective process on the part of the sense organs. A mere shock may be an excitant, but it is not properly called a stimulus, which is always of such a nature as to call out a definite reaction. This factor of the active selection of the stimulus is seen in the accommodation of the optical apparatus in looking, in the turning of the head and tension of the ear-muscles in listening, sniffing when we smell, smacking when we taste, and in the active exploring movements of the fingers in touch. Likewise the response is not a mere random movement: it is determined with reference to the stimulus. If the organism is active in the selection of the stimulus, it is equally true that, with reference to the setting up of a response, it is passive to the leadings of the stimulus. Stimulas and response, in other words, have existence only within the organic circuit or coordination. This may involve adaptation to an environment outside or adjustment within the organism itself, but in either case these two functions of stimulating and responding fall within the life-process; they do not mean the active response of a living organism to an external stimulus which is inert and dead. All experience is sensory in one aspect and motor in another aspect, according as the emphasis is placed upon one or other of these phases.

The tactile-kinaesthetic sensations furnish the fundamental imagery of meaning because they are genetically prior and functionally most important in maintaining and perpetuating the life-process. All other types of imagery are translated into terms of touch and movement. This is the sensational basis of pragmatism. We learn by doing; practice makes perfect, conduct is the test of the truth of ideas; and conduct comes to consciousness primarily in terms of the tactile-kinæsthetic sense. All sensations and images are ideomotor.

The only difference between the tactile-kinaesthetic and the other forms of imagery is in the directness with which they lead to action. The tactile and kinæsthetic images arise out of and lead directly to movement of some sort. Auditory, visual, olfactory, and gustatory forms of imagery must first be translated into these terms. With the advance of civilization and culture the tactile and kinaesthetic seem to have been brought into subservience to the visual and auditory imagery, largely because of the predominance of verbal symbols; but this is only apparent, since it requires only a little introspective analysis to disclose the motor-cues operating perhaps all the more effectively because subconsciously beneath the threshold. Where this subordination has not taken place, as in the instance of Helen Keller, the tactile-kinaesthetic imagery retains its original function, and becomes not only the fundamental, but the only imagery of meaning in a way that is not conceivable in the case of the visual and auditory alone.

Consciousness thus is coming to be stated dynamically as a mode of activity, instead of being regarded as a mysterious occult accompaniment of brain-process or as the manifestation of some spiritual substance called the soul. All consciousness, in this sense, is motor. Feeling and thought are types of transformation of energy, modes of adaptation and adjustment. A feeling or a thought is an incipient movement. An image is a nascent act -- a motor-cue. This is the key to the problem of psychogenesis which has so baffled the comparative psychologist. Consciousness is to be regarded as a kind of behavior which may be treated objectively like any other phenomenon in nature. The only difference lies in the complexity of the dynamic interactions involved. As the end or purpose of an act becomes more remote from the means for achieving it, the motor cues become swamped in the idea of the end. As the functions of the ear and the eye arise, the more primitive tactile and kinæsthetic images no longer stand out distinctly as mo tor-cues (which still they are), but are vaguely included in the auditory and visual idea of the end. The problem of the evolution of consciousness is therefore the problem of unraveling the strands by which the original ideomotor action has been complicated by successive graftings upon it of similar motor-cues, until the relation to the originally active phase of coördination is lost in the preponderance of the derivative imagery.

The image or idea in human consciousness is the chief instrument of the reconstruction of experience, since man, unlike the lower animals, has an elaborate system of verbal symbols by which he is able to manage the transitions of his life without resorting directly to the cruder materials of sense. We employ an image when a habit breaks down. When I try to puzzle out the hidden figure in a picture-card, or to guess a conundrum, innumerable images flit before my mind. This means that previously subconscious tendencies come into internal conflict, and, according to the degree and relevancy of the tension and their ideomotor force, emerge before the footlights of consciousness as images. The searching around for a key to the puzzle is really a struggle between conflicting habits, represented by nascent innervations in the muscles.

[nari]

Luke

This is remarkable, given that it was written a long time ago, if my knowledge of Bawden's time period is right.

What surprises me is the work done by James, Bawden, et al has fallen down a crevasse over the last century. I'm still trying to find a pattern in thoughts here.

Nari

[Barrett Dorko]

Luke,

More help than I deserve, really. Thanks for all your work.

The problem is getting this across to others. If you (or anyone else here) were hearing all of this for the first time, how might it be most effectively presented so that it will stick? How can we make this new meme of thought and consequent movement more compelling?

[nari]

Just a bit of a rider.

Iring Koch of Max Planck Institute, has done quite a lot of work on ideomotion in relation to task-oriented activity. I have read a few abstracts, but there is a lot of hits.

For those interested, google Iring Koch;ideomotion.
Nari

[Diane]

The problem is getting this across to others. If you (or anyone else here) were hearing all of this for the first time, how might it be most effectively presented so that it will stick? How can we make this new meme of thought and consequent movement more compelling? It must be frustrating. When I teach this to patients I frame it as 'moving from the inside out'. I don't have any ideas on how to teach therapists, how to teach it in such a way that would tip therapists over into stopping getting in the way of what they are supposed to be doing, i.e. helping patients return to a state where they can exist comfortably in a body at every level and move outward through it back into life. So much so-called therapy gets in the way of itself/gets in its own way. It's like driving a car but never having learned to use a rear view mirror, always plowing forward and never being able to back up.

[Jon Newman]

I'd start by listing what others do to add stickiness to their memes.

--Series of courses leading to certification requiring significant financial and
time investment. This will almost certainly secure an emotional
attachment
--Skill set premised on complex evaluative procedures
--Appeal to quick results and easy techniques without getting bogged down
in why you're doing what you're doing (but also that it can only be done
by PTs)
--Start a cult
--Make outrageous claims of effectiveness

Things you should downplay

--Inability to delegate work to someone else
--May be difficult in the volume for profit clinic

I remember one wildly popular course titled "When the foot hit the ground, everything changes". Maybe you could title your course, "When creativity hits the ground, the mesoderm changes." It's not as catchy but I like it for a first draft.

[Luke Rickards]

Thanks Nari,
Yes I have read many of Koch's papers. In fact, in the last few weeks I've scanned through over 150 books and around 70 journal articles with ideomotor in the content. There is some great stuff out there but, unfortunately, since somewhere near the turn of last century, and certainly lately, most of the attention on ideomotion has been directed towards the goal-oriented manipulation of external objects (including Koch's work). I wonder why the researchers are no longer interested in emotive and kinaesthetic ideomotor expression.


Barrett,
Maybe a series of published, peer-reviewed SSRDs would be a good place to start.;)


Did anyone notice the similarity between Bawden's ideas and the neuromatrix theory of pain? Obviously he was well before his time.

Luke

[nari]

I sensed the latent matrix theory, and that surprised me; a philosopher's reference to something that nobody else figured out until some years ago....

I was going to suggest that SSRDs would make people more accepting, but thought that was for Luke to say.....:)

Nothing like a waterproof study, or several, to drive nails, hopefully, into much of the balloon stuff PTs spend time on now.


Nari

[Barrett Dorko]

Luke,

I'm looking forward to your SSRDs, of course. Could you briefly explain that work to others here?

But in all seriousness, I'm rarely asked for such things. My students are primarily concerned with the cultural implications of the method. They worry about what their patients will think, what their boss will do when they tell them they want to spend more than five minutes with each of these patients and they want that at every visit. They say to me, "Patients want me to do stuff to them. How am I going to explain this?" When I tell them how their eyes glaze over.

In every class several students go through some amazing changes in range and openly express increasing comfort. If results are what students want they are right there in front of them, but I have no sense that this impresses anybody to the degree you'd expect. Given that, what would an SSRD do for them?

I think Jon's right, I've got to come up with a "hook" of some sort to get their attention and inspire some confidence.

I was thinking maybe a cape.

[nari]

Barrett

White or black cape? Zorro or that fellow from the Addams Family?
Sure would make an impression.....

Nari

[Luke Rickards]

Unfortunately Jon is probably right.

Just remember though, most of the other successful gurus skip the cape and go straight for the magical powers.:teeth:

Luke

[Diane]

I was struck by this sentence:
>Auditory, visual, olfactory, and gustatory forms of imagery must first be translated into these terms. With the advance of civilization and culture the tactile and kinaesthetic seem to have been brought into subservience to the visual and auditory imagery, largely because of the predominance of verbal symbols

If this was written a hundred years ago, and beFORE radio, TV, computers, billboards; with all the visual domination/distraction/domination that goes on now, we're behind way further now than we were then.

I woke up thinking about posture. (Hey, it's a theme here in the group mind just now.) Anyway, I thought about how absolutely everything about posture is behavior. About how ordinary asymmetries are not defects, just bits that are behaving in a slightly less antigravity fashion. About what nerve going to which part might need feeding. About how clear differences appear after (at least to my eyes.) How bodies appear to fluff out and up when nerves are unloaded, how the antigravity suit (also a function of the nervous system, the outgoing function) behaves when it no longer experiences impediment. How ideomotor movement can oxygenate all these little multidimensional highways and byways and tunnels everywhere. It was a good way to wake up.. but back to the grindstone, studying in depth my new book on entrapments.. it has a few examples of that, shoulder contours etc. to look for upon which to extrapolate which nerve is dinged how.. (I love the intricacy in this book but not the description of PT ..eee-yew.)

[EricM]

Luke, a couple of years ago, when I was still trying to wrap my brain around this concept of ideomotion I started a thread called Induction (http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1381&highlight=induction). Looking back, it's nice to see how far I've come! There are a few links to some interesting papers there (hope they still work) but as you have already pointed out, many have studied ideomotion from a different perspective. I remember even writing to Wolfgang Prinz, one of the authors, and pointing this out. He actually replied stating that he agreed with me, and indicated that a study of ideomotion as it relates to pain would be interesting. I wonder if he's gone anywhere with that?

eric

[BB]

Eric,
Thanks for the link! Another past gem that I hadn't read. This thread, the induction thread, and the article that Bernard posted the other day have helped in my understanding of ideomotion.

Jon,
Love the Liger! It's like my favorite animal.

Barrett,
I obviously have nothing to tell you about teaching, but I can tell you what has helped me move from mesodermic thinking to a state that is ready to hear about ideomotion.
I think it's a case of you don't know what you don't know. When all you know is mechanics and mesoderm, everything you learn is compared against and placed within that context. A link must be made. Something that can be seen from the other side, but causes you to look over the fence.
This missing link for me was motor control.

Motor control is not necessarily the link to pain, but it is at least a link to the nervous system. Motor control is something that I think most PTs at least acknowledge, and most are quite aware of. It was and is a long ways from where you are, but it is a step from A in the direction of Z, I feel.

I did have a bit of an exposure to Feldenkrais in PT school, and that has been a big help as well. Feldenkrais was, of course, a genious in motor control and lucky for us, the nervous system in general. I think that this maybe helped me to see how experimental, effortless, playful motion was positive. And honestly, the more of his stuff I read, the more your stuff makes sense.
Next up is pain physiology. I think most of us come out with the gate control theory, and that's about it. Had to grow from there.

Of course, by far the biggest factor for me has been this site, dragging me kicking and screaming along.

Maybe that helps, maybe it doesn't, but as Jason said in the posture thread, there you go.

Or....in keeping with Jon's new theme picture, you could wear a Liger T-shirt and bring everybody a delicious bass!

Cory

[Luke Rickards]

I'm looking forward to your SSRDs, of course. Could you briefly explain that work to others here?

For those who are unaware of this, I am conducting a series of single system research studies with two collegues here in Australia. For more on what an SSRD is and its uses read the article attached.

We are going to treat 3-4 patients using Simple Contact. This will be the first formal outcome study of Barrett's approach and will be published in the International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine.

I would have liked to have subitted the paper to the journal by now but there have been a number of time consuming personal factors for all 3 of us involved. In addition, after completing treatment of the first patient (which was extremely successful) we decided to add 2-3 more patients to the one paper. Because a SSRD is not always ethical for acute pain research (because of the initial 3-4 week baseline measurement period) I am also considering inclusion of a few case studies of actue pain patients.

I am hoping we'll be finished by Sept/Oct and it will be published by the end of the year.

I'd like to thank Jon Newman for all of his help in finding related material for the background and allowing me to bounce ideas around with him.

Luke

[Randy Dixon]

If Barrett is serious about ideas to get people to accept his ideas then I would suggest A. Be nicer (that ain't gonna happen) or perhaps friendlier is a better term. You already provide everything you teach for free and will answer anybody's questions, that's pretty nice. B. I think Cory has a good point. You need to link your ideas things people already know and understand. I came to be here because of my interest in athletics. I was, and am, much more interested in improving athletic performance than reducing pain, but it became clear to me that the way to do that was to understand neurological influences. I am still amazed how many people don't connect performing a movement with activity in the nervous system. So for me motor control, patterning was a bridge that helped me to understand, or at least remain interested, in the topic discussed here. It's like fencing and chess. If I have a bunch of fencers and they see someone playing chess, they look on, yawn, and get back to having fun. If I can show them how learning to implement strategy helps their fencing, then all the sudden they have an interest in chess. C. Drop the word "meme", every time I read it or hear it I cringe. It has become associated with the pseudopsychology crowd that are busy finding themselves.

[Randy Dixon]

I wouldn't hold out too much hope though. It's been noticed before but there are a few periods of time when research on these things were popular, followed by long periods of silence.

[nari]

Luke,

Thanks for that link and the information you posted. I think it is a very promising start to what one would hope would be a shift away from mesodermal thinking.

Randy,

You made a valid point about linking strategies within what seem to be quite unrelated activities. I reckon this can apply to many activities in the functional and dysfunctional person. You are right about the risk of something falling into an abyss after research, but that is a risk all genuine researchers take as par for the course.

Cory,

Understanding of motor control for me arose in the neurorehab process with which I have been involved for many years. At the time, I also thought: Why doesn't this flow into orthopaedic work? Why do folk think the brain acts differently (or not at all) if someone has a motor control problem that is 'orthopaedic' compared with a stroke? Nothing has changed except the nature of the event; the brain still attempts to rectify the dysfunction, with greatly varying success in the case of the latter condition.

I don't know that we dragged you along kicking and screaming...and if we did, inadvertently, you seemed to enjoy the trip! ;) :) It's been a few years now and your input has been always useful and worthwhile.


Nari

[Barrett Dorko]

Randy and Cory,

I appreciate the advice and the fact that you step lightly around my personality.

What you don't know is that I talk about the fact that these patients don't have orthopedic problems but, rather, neurologic ones. I begin the second hour with a Feldenkrais exercise that everybody does and changes with, I have someone read aloud from The Bobaths at the beginning of the section I wrote in that book and I read from Sacks' A Leg to Stand On about his discovery that his leg injury had developed into a problem in his brain.

Think that's enough emphasis on motor control?

I am nice. I'm just not charming. Another thing you wouldn't know unless you taught the crowds I do is how hostile therapists can be when confronted with facts about their practice they'd prefer were kept quiet. When they themselves suffer every day and are doing nothing for it (a common occurance) they'd rather not talk about that. Too bad.

[Jon Newman]

Luke,

It's been my pleasure.

On the topic of pragmatism and memes, I like the use of the word meme. In the following abstract some speech therapists conjure up the term and use it quite appropriately I think.

Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2004 Apr;35(2):105-11

A meme's eye view of speech-language pathology.

Kamhi AG.

In this article, the reason why certain terms, labels, and ideas prevail, whereas others fail to gain acceptance, will be considered. Borrowing the concept of "meme" from the study of evolution of ideas, it will be clear why language-based and phonological disorders have less widespread appeal than, for example, auditory processing and sensory integration disorders. Discussion will also center on why most speech-language pathologists refer to themselves as speech therapists or speech pathologists, and why it is more desirable to have dyslexia than to have a reading disability. In a meme's eye view, science and logic do not always win out because selection favors ideas (memes) that are easy to understand, remember, and copy. An unfortunate consequence of these selection forces is that successful memes typically provide superficially plausible answers for complex questions.

Does this ring true for our profession too or just those kooky SLPs?

[Barrett Dorko]

Randy,

You say to drop the word "meme" because "It has become associated with the pseudopsychology crowd that are busy finding themselves."

You've got a problem with self-discovery? With introspection?

How can you train anybody to do anything (which, begins and ends with motor control) without becoming more aware of themselves?

Perhaps this isn't what you meant. If not, what did you mean?

[Diane]

Luke, I'm awfully excited for what you are managing to accomplish on behalf of reason and sanity, and for you. Lots of effort, hard work, I'm sure we don't know half of what it takes to get something like this rolling, then completed. I appreciate you.

Randy,
Drop the word "meme", every time I read it or hear it I cringe. It has become associated with the pseudopsychology crowd that are busy finding themselves. Just because a dubious group of people are in love with the word does not mean that the word itself doesn't have meaning or value.

Reclaim the word.

I had the same problem with the word neuromodulation, after some guy in Oregon decided to use it as part of a "technique" he wanted to sell that consisted of all the discredited "healing" traditions under the sun.

I reclaimed the word, which only means what it means.

I found something that might be useful (if I can figure out how it works) that explains English useage (http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/521183/?sc=dwhn) to those who are learning it, or whoever is interested in word contexts:
Variation in English Words and Phrases (http://view.byu.edu/)

[BB]

Barrett,

A quote from my post above:
It was and is a long ways from where you are, but it is a step from A in the direction of Z, I feel.


Oops! Didn't sound that way coming out. Insert "My understanding of motor control" for the word "It" at the beginning of the sentence, and insert "the subtleties of working with the nervous system as in your practice" for "where you are" and this will sound as I intended.

Moving on..

I was thinking on this some more today. I was thinking, what could you do to show me 2 years ago, in 20 minutes or less, what ideomotion is, and convince me that it is worthwhile to understand it better? This is what I came up with.

Disclaimer: this is not advice on how to teach, only an example that I think would have gotten me going.

2 years ago I knew how to look at posture, and I could identify patterns in movment. Example: scapula stays depressed during lots of movements in this person, that is their motor pattern, and seems to be a movement that correlates with their pain. My explanation would have been, the scapular depressors are dominant, and I would have stopped there.

Insert a demonstration of a feldenkrais movement that improves incorporation of scapular elevation, without ever utilizing that motion in the movement.

My understanding of Feldenkrais teachings is that his basic premise was: given the awareness of its options, the nervous system will choose to move in the most efficient way. If this is true, isn't ideomotion the mechanism by which the choice of movement is made?

In the above example of the shoulder, you could explain to me that my nervous system continuously made the choice to move the shoulder using depression because it wasn't aware of any other options. The feldenkrais movement simply made it aware of other options, and it automatically chose the more efficient method.

I imagine a visual representation here of a person with a balloon and only 2 ideas in it, both pretty similar looking, and another person with 20 unique ideas in it. Which has the better chance of making adaptable choices?

Next, I picture a task in which I must try to complete it in the same exact manner as the person before me. Then do it again any way I want. Explanation is made of how this also limits options and is similar to a coreographed exercise.

Then maybe a demo of simple contact....

When I was thinking about this today, I thought, boy, if simple contact works without having to do anything to expand the awareness of options of the nervous system first...this says a lot about the ability of the nervous system to find a way out of pain. It can do it even with limited options. Pretty cool.

Cory

PS: Nari, it has been fun. I think the kicking and screaming was my internal conflict of restructuring!

[Barrett Dorko]

Cory,

I appreciate your work here, but when you say ideomotion is a "mechanism" I get lost. Ideomotion is an instinctive movement. By definition it is always the most authentic way to both express the body and move it in a fashion that reduces mechanical deformation. In a sense, it is "the truth" spoken in a world mainly encouraging something aside from that. This is why I use the poker player as the perfect example of its suppression.

There's something to be said for moving "automatically" or without conscious intent. Athletes seek this and drivers use it the vast majority of the time. I watched Feldenkrais himself elicit this in many people after an hour or so of intricate and seemingly unrelated precise movement, but I struggle to connect this use of learned/automatic maneuvering to the remarkably surprising, warming and relaxing thing I see when Simple Contact is employed for the first time.

I let people move like that for a while and then I show everyone how to augment the learning with a Feldenkrais exercise. To me, this sounds like a good way to go about teaching it, but, as yet, there's no real evidence that it's making a difference in anyone's consequent practice.

Today, I don't think that the problem is the teaching or the learning. I think it's the practice they return to.

[Jon Newman]

A common phrase I hear in the clinic is "...but not like this". I usually hear it after I ask a patient if they've ever had back, shoulder, knee pain before. They give me some vague details and end with those four words. I think about my own practice of PT and where I started. I've learned about posture, strength training, modalities, balance, pathologies, etc. and felt I had a pretty good grasp on what it is I do and need to do for a living as well as why...until I started paying a bit more attention to pain physiology and the reality of an unconscious as it pertains to movement (I'm talking to you miss mini-van and you in the back row (as well as me)).

I understood PT before...but not like this.
And like my patients, I had to (and continue to have to) implement that which I learn and relearn.

[nari]

jon,

In a meme's eye view, science and logic do not always win out because selection favors ideas (memes) that are easy to understand and copy. An unfortunate consequence of these selection forces is that successful memes typically provide superficially plausible answers for complex questions.
I think this is admirably adaptable to PTs. In a nutshell, it is what Blackmore has been writing about. Although the word 'meme' can be metamorphosed into anything that suits the individual person or group's purpose to the detriment of others, the concept of memes does explain a lot of behaviour variances.

Manipulation, because it has been around for so long, is one example of a meme that has happily reproduced "because it works so well." There are probably countless others relevant to therapy, without any reference to the rest of civilisation.

If a theme or notion is strong enough, it will survive. Legends, horoscopes and urban myths attest to that. Some will have a grain of 'truth' in them, some are flights of fancy.

If we can somehow tell people that the nonconscious is the essential part of any encounter with any person at any time....then ideomotion may be easier to accept as a 'truth'. Assuming, of course that we all know the meaning of that devious word 'truth', which many scientists concede does not exist.

Nari

[BB]

I'm hoping for some clarity in my thoughts here. I'm going to number these thoughts so that they can be referred to easily.

1) Ideomotion's broad description is the expression of the unconscious drive to move.
2) Our motion is mostly unconscious driven (from bypassing the will), but can be consciously inhibited.

If 1 and 2 are on target, is all motion ideomotoric to some degree. Some motions are more inhibited than others, but all contain ideomotor expression?

Is the difference between the automatic movements that result from Feldenkais lessons, and the movement that results from Simple Contact,
3) not the fact that one is ideomotor and the other is not
4) but one (Feld.) is placed in a movement context (eg rotation of the spine) and therefore still somewhat coersive and therefore adding a bit of inhibition to the ideomotion
5) and the other (SC) is completely uncoersive, therefore allowing pure uninhibited movement?

Am I correct in stating,
6) Feldenkrais movements are aimed at organic/efficient movement not necessarily mechanical deformation (although these happen together quite often).
7) Simple Contact does not care specifically about the efficiency of the movement as much as the satisfaction of the need state for pain through movement, requiring complete un-inhibition to be expressed fully.

Cory

[Barrett Dorko]

Cory,

This all sounds pretty good to me. Very good.

[nari]

Cory

Great clarity of thought!
Could be listed as a precis for others to note, and then to move on to greater depth (eg Barrett's essays)

Nari