Deconstruction of the Runaway "MFR" Thread

[bernard]

The major problem with MFR, as for any "classical" technique is the "straight line paradigm". In fact, it would be more accurate to cite them as "Short Circuit Methods".

[Bas Asselbergs]

Pia, this struck me. "You see only what you want to see and hear only what you want to hear."

This is where science can cut through beliefs. The strongest scientific evidence trumps the weakest - the simplest explanation (Occam's razor) usually holds sway over very complex ones. All here arguing in favour of a more scientific approach have been through a "mind-opening" experience (many more than one!). Your post implies that you think that those opposed to the EXPLANATION of MFR are close-minded and prejudiced.
If you could read the posts of their path to where they are now, you'd see evolution, change and open-mindedness to the point where most will even welcome strong evidence to show that they are on the wrong path - as long as it's strong evidence. It means growth can take place. In my opinion, the worst one can do - as I have in the past - is confuse our enjoyment and admiration for the mysterious with scientific explanations of the mysterious. I can still be in awe of so much in my world - real awe, that brings tears to my eyes with joy - yet I know that that sun does not "come up", the colours in the sky are refractions of light etc etc. Knowing how something works does NOT diminish the fabulous experience of it.

Lastly - "And I will continue my journey towards health for myself and my patients"

I do take a bit of offense to this: it seems you imply that those of different opinion DON't live and practice according to that adage.... WHY do you think so many here delve into research and science? Just for interest's sake? Just to argue with MFR supporters? No, it is to become BETTER at what we do and knowing BETTER how it works, and educate our patients to how they can BETTER themselves....

If I somehow misread your remark - so be it.

[Barrett Dorko]

Sebastian,

Exactly, and said in the kindest possible way.

I should take a lesson.

[Diane]

Tim, I went through the same quandry you did re: the name. After all, we still have to call "it" something, don't we? I didn't have much Barnesian baggage to lose; I'd learned the MFR physical application elsewhere as well as at a Barnes class, along with the name and the perceptual fantasy that goes with it/is implied by it..

When you turn your mind toward deconstructing what's in a name, it turns out that a lot of technique either gets named with the person who "invents" in (systematizes it), like Rolfing, Bowen's, Bennett's, etcetc.. or it has evolved from the ancient past with old baggage, like chiropractic. In either case, invariably the way the practitioners thought their technique "worked" has been eclipsed by neurobiology, and those trained in the technique immediately default to turf defense, as per Dave and Walt.

Additional thought: Barnes makes a target the size of a barn(e), because he's a PT and we expect him not to become the sideshow he has, and also not to use his popularity to spread actual dis/mis information based on mysticism. That's why he gets deconstructed here more than anything/one else, but it's a fine way to get started on all of it.

After deconstructing the perceptual fantasy of MFR I decided to pitch the name too, and switched to "soft tissue manual therapy." Feel free to use that name. I made it up but don't "own" it, and will defend the right of anyone to use it as a description of physical body work that umbrellas itself over nearly everything having to do with sensori-motor or motori-sensor input/output. Nerves are soft tissue too.

I've honed down to considering mostly just nervous system when I treat, and have changed the name of what I do over the last few years to manual "neuromodulation." It's also free and available to anyone who wants to use it to describe treatment through hands-on contact of varying sorts. "Simple contact" is Barrett's term, although I don't know if he has it copyrighted. He means something quite specific by it, i.e., eliciting ideomotion.

I think it all exists on a continum that we dance through in the course of a day. I found that it all composts together just fine once the perceptual fantasies, conceptual hallucinations, and all memes anti- or pseudo scientific have been cleaned out of the compost bin.

PS: Bas, I ditto Barrett re your post.

[Bas Asselbergs]

Barrett, Diane, thanks. I am afraid Pia has left the building....:sad:

[Pia]

Why would I leave the building, Bas? You have not scared me away...I am not in time-out you said. I do have to leave this site to work however…

Bernard, Jon, I guess we share an admiration for good old Albert even though we can seem to all find quotes that fit our view of the world....

Tim and Diane: whatever you call 'it' as far as I am concerned does not matter - if it makes you happy to call 'it' SC or if you are a Diansean and call 'it' "soft tissue manual therapy." it's all the same to me: I call 'it' MFR and I am not ashamed of it or fearful of it.

Bas: "If you could read the posts of their path to where they are now, you'd see evolution, change and open-mindedness to the point where most will even welcome strong evidence to show that they are on the wrong path - as long as it's strong evidence." I am sorry, but which path are you talking about? If it is this path you are talking about in terms of open-mindedness it has eluded me. I am fully aware that I cannot present you with the evidence you are wanting because no-one has done the foot work to get the evidence for MFR although I am still convinced it is there.....

Bas: "In my opinion, the worst one can do - as I have in the past - is confuse our enjoyment and admiration for the mysterious with scientific explanations of the mysterious."
I am glad that you are not infallible - personally I am not enjoying and admiring the mysterious as a matter of fact if you ask my co-workers I think they would describe me a very clinically oriented person . I am saying that there is an intervention that is very helpful (mildly stated) to a lot of people myself included and that I as a PT am confident that by choosing to use MFR techniques with my little pediatric patients I am doing so in their best interest - progress and healing. You see, MFR as you on this site have described it is is not all it is - it is an intervention used by thousand of PTs (even Dianseans who call it soft tissue manual therapy."- which makes them sleep better at night knowing that they stay within their own comfort zone) who also use PROM exercises, PNF, NDT you name it - all of our tools in our tool boxes. I do not think you realize that for many therapists this is 'just' another tool and not some mysterious intervention with crystals and spirits etc. However, there are therapists who have chosen to go into MFR and have embraced much deeper and MORE POWER TO THEM. These are therapists who in my mind are very gifted in being able embrace something that is so helpful to so many people - and NO, I do not think all the reports of progress are illusions and the effects of placebo.

Bas: "I do take a bit of offense to this: it seems you imply that those of different opinion DON't live and practice according to that adage.... WHY do you think so many here delve into research and science? Just for interest's sake? Just to argue with MFR supporters? No, it is to become BETTER at what we do and knowing BETTER how it works, and educate our patients to how they can BETTER themselves...."
No Bas, I do not really believe that you educate yourself just to argue with me and others. And I am sorry if I offended you for implying that you are not trying to become a better therapist. All I am saying is that I just imagine that if I as a patient in desperate need for help or I as a therapist with patients needing my intervention and education had not embraced MFR ,I would not be where I am health wise personally or where I am as a therapist who strive to offer my patients the best of all I can find. I am also a therapist who is involved in research who knows that we have a brain and skin and nerves and who is striving to do the BEST for my patients and my profession but it does NOT exclude MFR or "soft tissue manual therapy." or other therapies that my not have the level of scientific proof that you hold yourselves to.

See you....
Pia

[Jon Newman]

Pia,

You have me confused on what is and what isn't MFR. In various posts I've read it seems very important that one is only practicing MFR if they have taken the real John Barnes MFR. Tim and I have touched on this point also. What makes MFR, MFR? At what point is someone not practicing MFR? I would think that, at a minimum, once someone denied they were releasing fascia that they can no longer be performing MFR regardless of what the manual techniques look like. A different example, one that is not so close to the heart, might be the issue of manipulation. If a PT manipulates someone are they practicing chiropractic? If not, why not?

[Diane]

Pia, I've embraced and adopted the designation, "Dianesian." It feels real special to be the only person I know of who practices as one. As a meaningless label I think it both clarifies and obscures the sort of work I do in equal proportions, like names of real (i.e. guru blessed) techniques, so thanks, even though I think you were actually ad homing, maybe trying to get the jailbird hat.. ? You'll have to bite harder than that to earn the lovely fushia color.

[nari]

Leaving aside the mysticism, clouds and energy facilitation bits, can anyone explain this?

Soft tissue manual therapy is as big an ocean as there could be. The boundaries seem endless. Anyone who leans on, picks up a handful, stretches, petrissages, pinches, kneads, or jumps on the skin and whatever layers there are beneath it, is performing manual therapy.... I think.
I've read dozens of accounts where people do all of these things or a few.

At what point does one method cease to be, say massage, and become MFR?
When does it cease to be MFR and become mobilisation? (After all, joints are present under the skin)..and when does it become something else..Bowen, Rolf, Fred, Bullamakanka?

No wonder some of us are confused. Sounds like a supermarket where there are twenty different labels for almost the same product, only the colours and words are different. I guess people will go for the one that suits their taste buds.



Nari

PS, Diane, I left your method out of this for now. No criticism implied.

PPS: Bullamakanka is not made up, it is another splendid, almost mythical outback pit stop in Oz.

[Diane]

"Soft tissue manual therapy is as big an ocean as there could be"

Exactly Nari. Everything from wafting a hand over (not touching) the body (Matrix Repatterning) to the deepest most uncomfortable massage with the elbow (Rolfing). Lots of different speeds. That's why it's crass IMHO to select one way to pull or push on skin and try to "own" it, sell it.. that's the real "Bullamakanka"...
.. And my type (Dianesian-o-therapy) is perfect for me, but probably wouldn't be comfortable for other sorts of treaters' nervous systems...

Anyone who wants to learn manual therapy, soft tissue or hard, has to go learn from someone who can show them. That's all. And once shown, it's not hard to develop your own "style" once you've got the underlying principles, have worked out how hard you want to work. (Myself? Not hard. Smart.)

Teaching people misleading principles is common though.. I should know, I've been to an awful lot of workshops that introduce perceptual fantasies as if they were fact.

[Tim]

Barrett,
I guess I'm slow, because I'm still not getting the "big picture".
As one of the newer "junior members" here, could you direct me to some of your writings which indicate that fascia cannot be "released", or that it does not adhere to other tissues, or that it does not tighten-down. Or is that not part of the issue?

My understanding of neural "plasticity" is that it is dependent upon the degree of tightness in the connective tissue in and around the nervous tissue. Although ideomotion is a more efficient method of achieving "plasticity", do not other soft tissue manual therapies achieve a degree of "plasticity" by "releasing" the grip of the conncetive tissue restricting it?

If none of this is the issue, but only the "extraneous" components of Barne's MFR theory, then are we not deconstructing the Barne's MFR theory and not MFR in general?

[bernard]

Hi all,

I am fully aware that I cannot present you with the evidence you are wanting because no-one has done the foot work to get the evidence for MFR although I am still convinced it is there.....

It has already happened.

That's all my problem, Pia, you've got the answers but constanly refuse to share them.

[Diane]

Tim,

My understanding of neural "plasticity" is that it is dependent upon the degree of tightness in the connective tissue in and around the nervous tissue.

Here's something on neural plasticity. As you will see, it has only to do with the nervous system's ability to change its firing patterns/"learn", and nothing to do with fascia, tight or not.

The "learning" that the nervous system can do, can be in the realm of motor output as well as the things we usually associate the word "learning" with, like cognitive functions..

Meanwhile, out in the periphery, if the nervous system has poor/dysfunctional motor output/ lack of relaxation, there will be "tightness" around the PNS. "Tightness" means poor oxygenation of the PNS, not enough to damage it but enough to set off the chemoreceptor and mechanoreceptor alarm bells =>nocioception => "pain output".

If the nervous system has enough "plasticity" to "learn" a new motor output (and intact ones certainly do), the "fascia" will "feel" like it has "released".. it hasn't but the muscles to which it attaches will likely have eccentrically lengthened. The PNS will have better oxygenation as a result. Less nocioception=> less pain.. win win.

[nari]

Tim,

As Diane has stated, neural plasticity refers only to the nervous system's status. I use neurodynamic movements a lot, and when the pain recedes during the movement (active movement) the difference in the limb - let's say the arm - is surprising. And rapid. One could say that a lot of tissues are involved in the process, which is quite true, but the same action can be done as a lengthening movement without the neural component..and it is not the same.
I think we are primarily disagreeing with the 'theory' behind MFR, not the result. As I said in my earlier post, manual therapy, under whatever name, can result in positive outcomes. A gentle superficial massage, the kind everyone likes, can result in feeling great, flexible and with reduced pain; but it is not likely to last more than a little while unless there is some participation by the patient, and an education process on the nature of pain.

That's my take.

Nari

[bernard]

The major problem with MFR, as for any "classical" technique is the "straight line paradigm". In fact, it would be more accurate to cite them as "Short Circuit Methods".

I put a simple drawing that shows the major difference between MFR and "us".
It seems important to look at the arrows' direction.

Hope it makes sense?