01 May 2020 - The Feldenkrais Method
Sue Wright, body-oriented psychotherapist and author, trained in the Feldenkrais Method, Thomas Wiedmer, Feldenkrais student teacher and architect

Starting Young — Feldenkrais and early development

A conversation between Sue Wright and Thomas Wiedmer

This article is an introduction to this podcast.

Our development is influenced by what we do and by what has been done to us, by how we interact with the environment we live in and by the people we meet throughout different stages of our lives. We can perhaps learn from a comparison with architecture; could we see life as a tower, whose stability relies on building blocks, construction and repair methods, timing and orientation? If the lowest, earliest blocks are askew then those ‘faults’ can emerge higher up the tower in later stages of life and especially in situations of stress.
 
Moshe Feldenkrais understood this principle well: “Movement is life — life is a process. Improve the quality of the process and you improve the quality of life itself.”
 
In this conversation you will hear about a project which brings the Feldenkrais Method into a special needs school and how it has a positive impact on the children there, about how important it is to keep learning and continue to be curious in life and about how Feldenkrais movement processes help to balance function and emotion in early and later life.
 


Sue Wright is a body-oriented psychotherapist with a particular specialism in working with complex trauma. For her, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy has brought together her extensive experience, training and professional interests in speech and body therapies, as well as her use of the Feldenkrais Method. She is the author of Dancing Between Hope and Despair: Trauma, Attachment and the Therapeutic Relationship, published by Palgrave in 2016 and The Temporal Dimension in Psychotherapy and Counselling: A Journey in Time, published by Routledge in 2020. Her current research focus concerns the change process and what occurs during the life of a therapeutic journey however long it lasts and however we work that makes a difference.
 
Thomas Wiedmer is a Feldenkrais student teacher with a particular interest in working with children and introducing school classes in Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement.
 

The opinions aired during the discussion are those of the participants based on their experience, training and reading and are not necessarily shared by others.