Thinking and Doing: A Monograph by Moshe Feldenkrais

Description

Thinking and Doing provides us with unique insights into how Moshe Feldenkrais viewed the importance of the unconscious and its hidden abilities to effect health, well-being and action. This small but powerful monograph contains within it the genesis of what will become the Feldenkrais Method. - David Zemach-Bersin, Co-Founder, The Feldenkrais Institute of New York --David Zemach-Bersin, Co-Founder, The Feldenkrais Institute of New York This little gem is a must read for Feldenkrais fans, historians and anyone who wants to learn more about the roots of the Feldenkrais Method. Not only do we learn how much Coué's ideas influenced Moshe, we get an insight into Feldenkrais' early thinking processes. And it's really interesting to see the debt current brain research owes to Coué's, and later, Feldenkrais' ideas of auto suggestion and use of imagery. --Lavinia Plonka, GCFP, Author of, What Are You Afraid Of? and Walking Your Talk As addressed within Coué's work and in Feldenkrais' commentary, one must begin by understanding that fundamentally in matters of self-control and self-direction, imagination trumps will. By locating the self-image as a product of self-imaging, we can bypass notions of the unconscious and discern how Feldenkrais acquired one of the key pillars of his life's work. If, as Moshe Feldenkrais held, the unconscious is not unconscious, how did he get to that position? First, using Coue's work, he immersed himself in a practical course of study on how to use the unconscious to make one's life better. Along the way he realized that the unconscious is not a thing but a process with constraints that are amenable to utilization. As such, what does that mean for notions of the sub-conscious, consciousness itself, and the vast, vague domain of so-called altered states of consciousness? If we view those terms as territorial maps then the maps should correspond to their respective territories. Feldenkrais realized that the terms were less than helpful ad hoc human inventions having little pragmatic value. The processes they would map, viewed from Feldenkrais' perspective of awareness, require a radically different approach. --Dennis Leri, Feldenkrais Trainer