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Is Rolfing Pseudoscience?

Writer's picture: John WilsonJohn Wilson

This blog is aimed at addressing questions about Rolfing and alternative health care, it is primarily for the benefit of my clients. This being said, it serves a second purpose, which is to educated the public about what Rolfing is and is not. Of all the blogs here that the public can stumble upon on the internet and read, my article: Is Rolfing Quakery? is among the most read. Probably because the title comes up as a google search topic so often. I wrote this article in response to the openly hostile Wikipedia article on Rolfing, that can not seem to be changed or edited despite anyone's efforts to at least make a more objective article explaining what Rolfing is. The Wikipedia writer who has been given charge of writing about alternative health care simply hates alternative health care, and writes articles that are openly against anything that is not endorsed by the American Medical Association.


This sentiment is reminiscent of the 1980's, when the AMA was trying to stamp out many forms of non-mainstream healthcare by suing them out of practice. In response to this direct attack on alternative approaches to health and wellness, Ida Rolf said that there is not a chiropractor in America worth his salt that has not spent time in a jail cell. Chiropractors were one of the main victims of this campaign against alternative medicine, but they eventually banded together in different states and began to sue back, eventually beating the American Medical Association at their own game. The only reason we even have chiropractors in America to this day is because they stood up for themselves legally and won the right to continue to practice in the U.S.


The Science that Rolfers Use

Rolfing is not the longest education a person has to complete to become a body-worker of sorts, but it it's anatomy and physiology is a bit more rigorous than in the massage schools I went to previous to becoming a rolfer. In addition to completing all of my rolfing training at the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute in Boulder, CO, I have also assisted in teaching classes there over the last few years. During the first phase of classes students will study the most challenging academic aspects of the program, anatomy and physiology. The physiology is the most difficult subject, but there is a lot less of it for our purposes than the anatomy. At the end of the first phase of the program students will take an anatomy-physiology test and need to pass it to move on. This can be stressful to students who are not academically inclined, but most people will pass if they set their mind to studying. Fortunately, there is a lot of great study material available to use inside and outside of class, so lets talk about the study material we use.


The anatomy study material used in the present and the past at the Rolf Institute are the same used in anatomy classes at universities in the U.S. Currently Theime- Atlas of Anatomy is the primary text book, and instructors have license to use their index of images for lecture notes. Also, the classic Netter Alas of Human Anatomy is a recommended supplementary text, having many detailed images of not only bones and muscles, but fascial relationships as well. Another recommended supplementary book is Trail Guide to the Body, which is a palpation guide, a valuable asset for anyone who wants to find areas on the body with there hands and with accuracy. I usually would encourage students to consider getting the flash cards as well, because the sooner they start memorizing bones, and muscles, their actions and attachments, the better. Last but not least, Acland's Video series on human anatomy is an invaluable exploration of dissection that was truly his life's work. Filmed in the 80's, it may still to this day have no rival. We rely on it heavily in our anatomy classes.


So, in addition to these study materials, that would be used in any basic anatomy class, the Instructors at the Rolf Institute, as well as Rolfers as a community, try to stay informed with the trends in modern science and medicine, also including the chiropractic and osteopathic communities. For myself, some of my best informants are my clients, who have come from all realms of medical treatment and have stories to tell about everything they have done. Many clients come in with all sorts of "diagnoses" and a history of trying all sorts of procedures. When a client mentions that they saw a MD, DC, DO, or PT, I am always interested in knowing what they said. That aside, as Rolfers we do not diagnose, which means we keep the question open as we explore posture, movement, and reports of pain and look for strain patterns. I keep any previous diagnosis in mind while working with a client, but I try not to get hung up on it. There is usually more to the story.




All this being said I would like to point out that the creator of Rolfing, also known as Structural Integration, was Dr. Ida Rolf, a scientist with a PhD. in biochemistry. She did her dissertation on collagen, and later worked in an osteopathic college. Rolfing students were originally sent to take anatomy at a college or university as part of their training, and every student had to have a college degree previous to beginning training. Dr. Rolf was very science minded, but that was not her only perspective. She was into yoga and mysticism too, and when Rolfing really took off it was part of the human potential movement of the 60's so there was a lot of vibes in the air that was of a more spiritual nature rather than scientific. She spent some time in the medical community teaching medical doctors her techniques, and this is where most modern forms of "manual therapy" come from, but she stopped because they were simply adding the techniques to the bag of tricks they already knew rather than trying to see the structure and function of a person from the perspective of a Rolfer. She warned against allowing the medical community and the cult of scientism to co-opt Rolfing because they would change it just like they did to the osteopathic schools.


In conclusion I would like to point out that although Rolfers make use of science in their training and practice (our anatomy text books are the same used in any American university anatomy class)- that being said Rolfing is not a science. Studying all the anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology available to you will not teach you what a Rolfer does and sees when assessing a client. In seeing strain patterns that go from the the foot to the neck, both in standing posture and walking, a Rolfer has to use experience and some degree of intuition. When I was a psychology major in college I remember the instructor in our Intro to Psychology class stating that psychology is not a science, it is an art. That still rings true today, with both Rolfing and Psychology.


In the realm of modern psychology there is so much science being done, study after study, but at the end of the day it is the artfulness of the therapist that matters. If you go into the psychology department in any university, you will find individuals from all disciplines of psychology: behaivouralists, cognativists, somatic therapists, all of which may disagree on many things. This is not really true of the biology department where there is more of a collective understanding, with a more scientific basis . So to put things quite simply into perspective, Rolfing is not a science, Rolfers don't believe this or anyone else. Rolfing is an Art which uses science in the training of its practitioners. Criticize it all you want, but how could something that is not pretending to be a science, that is admittedly not a science, be called a pseudoscience? You be the judge for yourself.




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John A. Wilson- Certified Advanced Rolfer

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