Talk:Somatics

Merger proposal

It is proposed that the content of Hanna Somatic Education and Sensory-Motor Amnesia be merged here. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 05:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree definitely only one article in content. - - MrBill3 (talk) 11:55, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree with merger of Hanna Somatic Education. (1) I think that this merger might give Hanna Somatic Education (HSE) undue weight in the Somatics article, which states that the term applies not only to HSE, but also to other techniques like applied kinesiology. The latter seems to receive much more attention from reliable sources than HSE. (2) The current content of the HSE article relies completely on primary sources, making it inappropriate content for Wikipedia. I am not sure that this problem can be fixed. I searched Google News, PubMed and Google Scholar for HSE and found very little to indicate that reliable secondary sources exist. I think that instead of merging, the HSE should be tagged for its use of primary sources. If the problem is not fixed, we could later nominate the article for deletion. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 07:02, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Post merge, any weighting issues could be addressed. The HSE stuff would seem to be poorly sourced and so in line for a very substantial reduction. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I think merging the three with appropriate editing per Alexbrn is the best way to go. I'd like to hear what JTSchrieber thinks of this approach. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:38, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with the idea of addressing the weight issue after a merge. The Somatics article may well be giving HSE undue weight already, so the only ways of addressing weight post-merge would be to delete all of the merged content or to split the merged content back out again. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• So JTSchreiber, does any objection stand? Or is it merge time?

I still object to the merger with HSE. -- JTSchreiber (talk)

• Disagree with merger - similar reasoning to JTSchreiber: Hanna coined the term Somatics but it's usage has expanded broadly since that time (into performance, leadership development, communication, and trauma management approaches). All three articles are of poor quality but this would be exacerbated by merging them. I am, however, in favor of merging Hanna Somatic Education and Sensory-Motor Amnesia.SympatheticResonance (talk) 02:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• As objections persist I suggest AfD (or perhaps speedy) for Sensory-Motor Amnesia and Hanna Somatic Education. I think a single article on the subject suffices. Without a merge per se the Somatics article could be edited to include anything of importance from these other two. I don't know if this an improper suggestion, in other words a merge without calling it a merge over objections. I also don't know how much if any content of value exists on the other two articles, they seem basically content fork with non notable additions. No wish to circumvent consensus, process shop or go off topic just a suggestion. The SMA and HSE articles are very poor and do not stand up. - - MrBill3 (talk) 07:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I would be OK with using AfD on the HSE article. However, I would probably object to merging any content from that article into Somatics, which is a much broader topic than HSE as stated bySympatheticResonance above and by the current article. As far as I can tell, merging any HSE content into Somatics would go against WP:WEIGHT and WP:PRIMARY. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:54, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but why is somatics much broader as a topic than HSE; isn't everything in this space Hanna's "brand" and business ? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:02, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• While Hanna created the term Somatics, that does not necessarily mean that everything covered by the term is his. According the the Somatics article, the term applies not only to Hanna's HSE, but also to other techniques like applied kinesiology. Do you disagree with this? Are you suggesting that the whole field of applied kinesiology is included in Hanna's work? The applied kinesiology article doesn't even mention Hanna. Also, SympatheticResonance stated above that the term Somatics has been "expanded broadly since that time (into performance, leadership development, communication, and trauma management approaches)." For these reasons, I think the term is a lot broader than Hanna's brand and business . -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:37, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

there being no sourced content to merge, therefore no valid claim of notability, i have redirected. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:40, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

• Disagree. Suggest links between and/or among, but no Merger. What's the case for having fewer articles on Wikipedia?? -From Peter {a.k.a. Vid2vid (talk | contribs)} 19:52, 19 July 2021 (UTC).

IDEA Fitness Journal

I agree it's an unreliable medical source, but it's okay for sourcing the statement that TH developed a trademarked therapy, isn't it? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 06:04, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with using it for that in particular since it states "percieved problem". I was just going through the sources on an article about a medical subject. - - MrBill3 (talk) 06:08, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

It's a bit alarming that there seems to be no independent evidence around this topic (which is why I took it to AfD before, resulting in a soft-delete and subsequent restoration). I'll keep looking for sources but I'm half inclined to merge in the (equally poor) offshoot articles and then re-propose deletion for the whole shebang. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 06:12, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I suspect the lack of attention from modern sources, including evidence, is because perhaps this modality has already peaked in popularity a couple decades ago. It is useful to have the article as an aspect of the historical development of ideas about movement; Hanna was a notable figure in that world. --Karinpower (talk) 03:42, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

MEDRS, FRINGE, promotion

Recent edits have been problematic, they have been reverted and moved here for discussion.

Recently edited version

'Somatics is a term coined by Thomas Hanna (1928–1990) to describe his movement repatterning work. The term is derived from the word "Somatic" (Greek "somatikos", soma: "living, aware, bodily person") which means, pertaining to the body, experienced and regulated from within. Hanna's ideas were based on those of Hans Selye and Moshé Feldenkrais (Hanna, 1988, Somatics: Reawakening the mind’s control of movement, flexibility, and health, p xii). He proposed that most people were afflicted by a phenomenon he called "Sensory-Motor Amnesia" in which the body's muscles had “forgotten how to move freely” (Hanna, 1988, Somatics: Reawakening the mind’s control of movement, flexibility, and health, p xiii). In the 1970s Hanna developed a trademarked therapy, "Hanna Somatic Education" to address this perceived problem by reprogramming “the sensory-motor system” (ibid).

The term Somatics is used mainly for Hanna’s work, but in lower-case form, somatics, commonly refers to other approaches and the field at large. According to Hanna (1986), "somatics is the field which studies the soma: namely the body as perceived from within by first-person perception" (Somatics, Part I: Spring/Summer 1986, pp 4-8). His definition was inspired by the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, who investigated "the relationships between knowledge derived from direct bodily experience and scientific studies of the body" (Johnson, D.H., ed. (1997). Groundworks: Narratives of Embodiment. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, p 10). In a similar vein, Shusterman (2008) distinguishes soma from body by describing it as “the living, feeling, sentient, purposive body rather than a mere physical corpus of flesh and bones” (Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.xii). Many of the approaches in the field of somatics address the body-mind split endemic in Western culture (Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.) To accomplish this, most methods involve the detailed study and understanding of anatomy and physiological processes in movement, including the processes of mind. Specifically, practitioners invite clients to develop a conscious awareness of tissue re-organization and neuro-muscular repatterning to facilitate changes at the deepest levels of experience. The larger field of somatics includes such therapeutic modalities as Rolfing, Sensory Awareness (Charlotte Selver), Alexander Technique, and BodyMind Centering (Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen) (Johnson, D.H. (1995). Bone, Breath and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books).

Somatic theories are applied in somatic psychology, somatic movement education and therapy, somatic body work, and somatic dance.

Somatic Movement Education and Therapy is recognized by the Federation of Therapeutic Massage, Bodywork, and Somatic Practice Organizations (www.federationmbs.org) as a viable and important profession. The Federation is a forum composed of professional member organizations working together to promote appropriate regulation and professional integrity among the professions who participate in this group. The International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (www.ismeta.org) is a member of the Federation.

Discussion

First, the formatting was broken bolding the entire first paragraph. Second, the references given are not formatted as established in the article (see WP:CITEVAR) and several are not complete, what are the first two by Hanna, books, pamphlets, magazines; who published them, where and when? Although acceptable references for the subject as they may be the only ones addressing the subject they need to be balanced by evaluation that reflects the mainstream scientific consensus. Third, as this article addresses a form of treatment and has biomedical content WP:MEDRS applies. Any discussion of treatments or biomedical content must reflect the most accurate, current and accepted (by mainstream medical community) information. Fourth, he whole subject is WP:FRINGE and WP:DUE applies to any coverage in WP. Finally the last paragraph is nothing but promotion with EL's in the text. If any of these treatments, organizations etc. have substantial discussion in WP:RS they might then warrant mention with a careful eye toward WP:MEDRS. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposing a new direction for this article... "somatic education"

Given the concerns mentioned in the Merge discussion above, I agree that this page has issues. I think that while Hanna perhaps deserves his own page for being a notable person, this page would be better titled "somatic education," with a comprehensive history tracking the influence of important contributors (such as Mabel Elsworth Todd, Eric Franklin, Moshe Feldenkrais, etc, etc) on the development of the understanding of how we move, and how our sensory awareness affects our movement. It seems that each individual has a page about them but I don't see a central page about the field of "somatic education" which is the term that is presently in use rather than "somatics" - probably because "somatics" is vague while "somatic education" means a process by which the person learns to move differently, based on their sensory awareness of movement. Thoughts?--Karinpower (talk) 05:59, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm working on a major overhaul in my sandbox. It's not remotely publishable yet, but please take a look and tell me what you think. FourViolas (talk) 16:50, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Looks like it will be a big improvement. I hope to have some time over the coming month to take a deeper read, perhaps do some research, and provide some detailed feedback. Would you like me to discuss with you on your talk page, here, or elsewise? --Karinpower (talk) 20:14, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! How about discussing on my sandbox talk page? That would be convenient for other collaborators and for moving material to the eventual actual talk page. FourViolas (talk) 21:12, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk page from FourViolas' sandbox

User:Karinpower has been giving me great feedback on my rewrite of this article. Below is a copy of the discussion from my sandbox's talk page, for others' reference. FourViolas (talk) 04:36, 15 December 2014 (UTC) Hello FourViolas,

Nice work thus far. A few suggestions.

In "Somatics": "Physical therapy" is a very specific term for a profession with specific licensure. I think what you mean to say here is "bodywork" which is the most general term. Or perhaps you'd like to go even more general than that, and say something like "healing arts" or "therapeutic practices" since that's the term you use in the section heading later. As a side note, the PT field is not known for being progressive-minded around somatics; they tend to use mechanical thinking though of course there are exceptions.

In "history": interesting that you mention Dewey and Steiner. I don't see how Dewey relates; if you can find a source that ties his ideas about experiential education to movement, that would be helpful. With Steiner, gosh, he was all over the place. I'm not sure that his general ideas about education relate here, but certainly eurythmy does. Marie Steiner-von Sivers likely deserves at least as much of the credit for it as Steiner; it was common in the day for the husband to receive credit for a collaboration such as this. Alexander pre-dated eurythmy (began as early as 1911 according to the eurythmy article, while Alexander was 1890).

Other important people were:

Elsa Gindler - called her work Arbeit am Menschen (work on the human being), emphasised self-observation. This article mentions other important people as well.

Charlotte Selver - sensory awareness

Mabel Elsworth Todd - ideokinesis founder; visual imagery

Eric Franklin - inspired by ideokinesis, created a new approach that is well-known

I appreciate that you've put Hanna in the appropriate context here, as the coiner of the term, rather than the whole article being about his work.

In "therapeutic practices": It's great that you want to differentiate F & A. The F article says Moshe was influenced by A. I think of them as being quite similar in attitudes but a bit different in practice (and I'm no expert). Seems to me that A focuses on some very specific actions, like rising from a chair, or singing/talking, with an extreme focus on the initiation of the actin. I think F focuses more on finding a way to move with ease; if a joint is painful, is there a way that joint can be moved without pain? Hope someone else who knows more can help... perhaps post messages on their article talk pages?

I don't think of Pilates as being a key somatic discipline on the level of these others. Certainly less than yoga. Thoughts?

Category:Mind–body_interventions and Mind–body interventions have lists of practices that might be fertile ground (weirdly, these two lists each have different items missing). I wasn't familiar with Kinetic Awareness or Strozzi Institute before getting involved with these topics on WP which makes me think they are perhaps less notable than others but have inserted themselves effectively on WP. Are you familiar enough to be able to give context for these? I did skim their articles.

I hope some of this is helpful!--Karinpower (talk) 23:59, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your excellent feedback!

Good point about PT. "Bodywork" is good.

The history section is basically a redox of Martha Eddy's paper, including the claim that the somatics movement was a synthesis of Steiner/Dewey's individualism and Laban/Fuller's dance radicalism. I'll add "Movement scholar Martha Eddy says...". Note on her paper, since I cite it heavily: I usually wouldn't consider it very reliable, since it was published in her own journal in the first issue, but it's frequently cited since, and I keep seeing references to Eddy as a prominent scholar in the field.

i agree, those people seem to be important to mention. I won't have much time to edit over the next few days, but if you want to work them in feel free to add directly to my sandbox. If you're busy, I can do it myself next week. And yes, the current article verges on WP:PROMO for Hanna and his school.

I put Pilates in prominently because it's popular and (at least originally) somatics-based. I agree it's not really in the mainstream of the bodywork world, though. Maybe it can have a sentence in "Other therapeutic"?

I'm actually not an alternative-medicine expert at all; I'm a modern dancer, and I have a sense of how the term is used in the dance world as well as a little experience of Feldenkrais and Rolfing, but everything else is new to me. I think it would be reasonable to get hints on notability from Mind-body interventions and similar WP resources, although of course I prefer the real-life academic ones I've found for the reason you mention.

Thanks for your help! I think pretty soon it will be ready to WP:BOLDly move the draft the actual Somatics page, where other people can drop by and contribute. FourViolas (talk) 00:27, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Sure, glad you found my comments interesting! I've been editing (and researching for) the Rolfing article and some other alt-med articles so I have consulted sources for that which *might* provide useful sources here.

I don't know about the roots of Pilates, but I think modern Pilates is often done with a gym-rat mentality, cranking out the reps rather than attending to the internal sensations of movement. I wouldn't have included it in this article, but the source you cite that discusses it as a somatic practice does support that concept.

Your background as a dancer is great for this, I think. I took a dance class for a couple of years in high school, taught by a lady who made a point of giving us the history of dance (as well as teaching competent units on ballet, jazz, modern, African, tap, Hindu dance, etc - she was amazing). So I recall a bit of that but am not fresh on it and I'm not familiar with Martha Eddy (or even know much about the list of people I provided above - just that they were names that came up as influences on Dr. Rolf's ideas about movement).

What do you think about proposing a name change to "Somatic Education"? I really think this is the proper term for what we are building here. Also, I'm pleased that you have been working on this because I dreaded the idea of trying to create it from scratch! I would rather peck at your writing and add things here and there.

Regarding Hanna, I'm wondering if he is notable enough to be mentioned with any more detail in the History section, beyond just getting credit for coining the term. I really don't know; hopefully sources will tell us.

I'm very busy for the next week, and also not sure how those notable individuals fit together. When I do have time I will probably focus on using the print sources that I've got on hand and seeing what they have to add. Nice collaborating with you. --Karinpower (talk) 07:02, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

About the sections. Therapeutic makes sense, but "Traditional" isn't really parallel with Therapeutic. I would call those Movement Disciplines. And I would put Dance under Movement. I imagine that you are inclined to put Dance as one of the three major sections because of being a dancer :) but this is what I think.

On an different note, I've never heard of Skinner Releasing Technique. Are you familiar with it?

Also, I noticed the Contact Improv article has a list of movement disciplines that might be helpful to you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karinpower (talk • contribs) 05:41, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

All right, I've incorporated most of your comments and I think it's ready to go to mainspace. Any objections? Of course it will continue to evolve once it gets there.

Thanks for your support! FourViolas (talk) 04:16, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

quick review

i care mostly about health stuff and health claIms. i took a quick look at this rewrite at the invitation of 4violas, and my initial impression is that the content elegantly threads the needle, in terms of describing aims and not making concrete claims that somatics actually improves health. it is those kinds of claims that can lead to really fierce battles here, since actual claims of efficacy require very strong sourcing per WP:MEDRS, and few alternative practices can make claims that can be supported by MEDRS-compliant sources... and the result of those battles is generally that description of the actual practices gets mangled and ultimately lost. Like I said, this seems to walk the fine line to avoid all that. I will look more later. Jytdog (talk) 14:11, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Am taking the liberty of pinging a couple of editors with whom I was discussing things like this - WhatamIdoing and Sunrise Jytdog (talk) 14:14, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi! Some thoughts about the article, as requested. :-)

• I agree that the medical statements are made with the appropriate amount of circumspectness, e.g. through attribution to their sources. I think this is done well.
• It's still not really clear to me what somatics is. The first sentence, which should be the definition, seems especially vague. It's also possible that this is a single name for several related concepts (somatics, somatic education, etc), in which case the article would be improved if those distinctions were made. Likewise, it might also be useful to distinguish the subject from the usual definition of the word "somatic" since that might also cause some confusion.
• Statements such as yoga, Pilates, etc being types of somatics need to be sourced, even if they seem to "obviously" fit the definition. I've looked through some of the sources, but they don't seem to connect them to the topic of this article. Without such sources, describing them here is original research.
• The majority of the sources seem to be about somatics in the context of dancing. Per WP:WEIGHT, that means that (as a first-order approximation) the majority of the article should be about dancing. Or alternatively, more sources should be found!

Hope that helps, Sunrise (talk) 02:49, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Additional comment @FourViolas: I wanted to add that in my experience, Wikipedia editors often tend to be overly critical of newer users, which can be offputting to those who haven't yet gotten used to it (and I'm no exception, though I try). As such, after thinking over my comment, I just wanted to make sure that I thank you for your work and encourage you to continue contributing here! :-) Sunrise (talk) 05:40, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you both for your advice and encouragement! Karinpower (already watching, yes?) deserves plenty of credit.

• It's tricky to pin down the definition, because so many people are using it at cross purposes: it can be a field, a movement characteristic, a trademark, plus everything at Somatic. I'll try to clarify different usages, with refs.
• Good point; OR is bad. I'll see what I can do to reliably source "yoga is somatic" etc., and remove what I can't source.
• It's nice to hear that I'm not POV-pushing the importance of dance enough! ;) I can certainly expand the dance section, eg with a section on education.

FourViolas (talk) 15:31, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with what others have said, FourViolas, you've done a very nice job. Your writing is quite good as well as your critical thinking skills (so essential for WP editing). Thanks for giving me some credit :) - it's been fun to give my two cents, and a nice contrast to the contention that I've experienced on other alt-med related pages.

I interpreted Sunrise's comment differently. *If* somatics is mostly about dance, the majority of the article should be about dance. But, it isn't. I'd say somatics is primarily about a type of experience, and that experience is explored in *movement* of all types, not just dance. I think the current structure of the article works well for how somatics is best described, and I interpret Sunrise's comment as a need for more sources to support all the non-dance applications.

In my research for the Feldenkrais, Hakomi, Rolfing, and other alt med articles, I have found some sources that can support this. I will add them over the coming weeks as I have time. I will poke around to try to find something to support those martial arts as somatic practice; I'm sure it exists. --Karinpower (talk) 23:22, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Karinpower in my view you are pushing the article off the fine line I described above. If you want to start making claims that somatic approaches actually treat anything, you are going to have to bring MEDRS sources to back that up. Let's not go there. Jytdog (talk) 00:48, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog, kindly assume good faith. (It's better for everyone's blood pressure.) As I mentioned in my edit summary, my entire purpose was to clarify that somatics is not about mind-body connection, it's about the internal experience of sensation. Any discipline that is somatic in nature is emphasizing that as a priority for accomplishing whatever goals they are working toward. My intention was not to make any statement about whether they are successful in meeting such goals, simply to characterize the somatic lens. Good call on your part that the introductory sentence was not needed though; somatics has already been adequately defined earlier in the article and by inclusion on the list, each modality is clearly following a somatic approach.

As to the heading title change, does pilates still fit under alternative medicine? I question whether pilates is somatic-based enough to warrant inclusion at all, but if so, I think it would be better grouped with other movement/exercise training. Alexander and Feldenkrais are very similar, both aim toward retraining movement but are on the borderline of being medicine (because they are sometimes used to address health problems but their fundamental goals are holistic and non-medical in nature). Do these two deserve a separate section from other modalities? And what other alt med modalities are somatic in nature?

it is not about good faith, it is about the words on the page. agree with moving pilates Jytdog (talk) 04:09, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you were quick to jump to "we cannot agree [on that line]" (this is a quote from your edit summary) when in fact we were not in disagreement. Sometimes words are tricky, it takes a few iterations to get all the aspects in place correctly; that's why we work as a team. I appreciated your input. I still think that my language didn't violate MEDRS (stating that a modality says something is important for its attempt at a therapeutic intervention says nothing about whether it will be effective). But I have no problem with negotiating on wording until everyone is happy.

Re: pilates, based on the current text, it sounds like there's a difference between the original pilates (somatic) and how it is currently often taught (not so somatic). Is it worth including in the article for the historic aspect? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karinpower (talk • contribs) 04:33, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

...Oh boy. I was enjoying the peaceful collaboration. That's okay, who's to say it stopped? Smiles, deep breaths, sun salutations, and WP:AAGFAAGF all around.

• I agree, Karinpower, that dance probably isn't really the primary usage. More sources would certainly help. On the other hand, the depth of sources we've been coming up with suggest that each section has plenty of room to expand, and it's not time to worry about trimming excess verbiage yet.

• Knaster's book seems like a great resource, and it definitely deserves to be used. It is, however, debatable whether it is truly a secondary source. Knaster's personal experience as a practitioner opens the book to the suggestion that Knaster is prejudiced to find positive evidence. I think we should use it lightly: e.g to assert that disciples i, j, and k are considered somatic (if directly supported), but not to assert that they can cure or treat a particular pathology.

• I'm trying to come up with an alternative lead-in for the alt-med/mvmt therapy section. (btw, this extremely respectable source groups AT, Feldenkrais, Pilates, & Trager Psychophysical Integration as "movement therapies.") I'm looking through books, web etc with terms like "alternative medicine" proprioception, leading the witness without much success.

Thanks for keeping the WP:MASTODONs at bay! FourViolas (talk) 04:47, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Mainstream OT textbook says "...proprioceptive training...is an absolutely vital part of any successful rehabilitation program." FourViolas (talk) 04:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Karinpower, the illustrated encyclopedia and Brodie/Lobel talk about martial arts. I'm sure many others do, too. Thanks for your work, and for your peaceable tone above ("no problem with negotiating," etc). FourViolas (talk) 05:54, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for all the great comments. Sorry to have been absent for a while; real life got busy. Great that you found some other sources for the martial arts stuff.

About Knaster, the page you linked to didn't seem to say anything about her being a health practitioner, only that she has done some yoga over the years. I googled her and found this page [1]. Looks like she is a writer by profession, along with some editing and teaching a college level. So she does not seem to have a professional bias, luckily.

Regarding book like hers that summarize various treatment methods, they can't be used to endorse health benefits; only meta-studies can do that. But they are valid sources for descriptive information about the various methods, including whether the focus is somatic in nature. Karinpower (talk) 05:57, 25 April 2015 (UTC)--Karinpower (talk) 05:44, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Spirituality sources

• Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives (book) Full of chapters by authorities in the field, great material
• Spirituality in the Flesh (book) Religion and bodily experiences, solid secondary source most of the time
• Somatic Practices and Dance: Global Influences (journal article) Has some good extended review of the study of somatics, although not actually much on spirituality

Thanks for your recent improvements, Karin! FourViolas (talk) 02:50, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

My pleasure, thanks for the thanks :). These sources look interesting; thanks for your tireless work to improve this awesome page. I have found a variety of pages around WP that needed to be linked here so your work is being put to use.

I think the Spirituality Section will challenge us to really consider what counts as "somatic" and what doesn't. At this point I don't have a pre-conceived idea of what all might be included in this section; I look forward to seeing what evolves and I trust that your sources will help us figure out what to consider including. --Karinpower (talk) 05:37, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Amann's reliability

TheRedPenOfDoom recently removed the following sentence and source about somatics and spirituality with the comment "unreliable source":

Sensory experiences, from meditative dancing to childbirth, can be interpreted as having profound spiritual meaning.

The source is currently hosted at a commercial site, and the doc doesn't say where it was published, but I believe it is reliable nonetheless. It was published in Proceedings of the fifth international conference on transformative learning, and has been cited 34 times in just over a decade, including in reasonably solid sources like [2] [3] [4]. Perhaps "profound" was the problem; I agree that's a bit puffy, despite being well within the scope of the source, and we could remove that. FourViolas (talk) 13:56, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

If the document doesnt say where it was published, how do you know where it was published? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:17, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Good question. I'm inferring that it's the same "Creating space for somatic ways of knowing within transformative learning theory, T. Amann, 2003" referenced in the above sources, which assert that it was published in C. A. Wiessner, S. R. Meyer, N. L. Pfhal, & P. G. Neaman (Eds.). Proceedings of the fifth international conference on transformative learning, on pp. 26-32, by Teachers College Columbia University.

I apologize and take full responsibility for putting it up with less than this much information, and you were fully justified in taking it down given the sourcing you could see. Is this more-complete information satisfactory? FourViolas (talk) 18:50, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Asia and dualism

TheRedPenOfDoom recently removed the following sentence as "unsourced":

Movement practices in Asia, little affected by Cartesian mind-body dualism, have included somatic components such as embodied cognition and physical mindfulness for many centuries.

The supporting source, Eddy 2009 (at the end of the paragraph), reads in part:

The transmigration of people and ideas from the east to the western part of the globe also shaped the development of somatic practices, by fostering exposure to the philosophies and practices of mind-body practices such as the eastern martial arts and yoga. For instance, during this era Joseph Pilates developed a system of exercise (‘Contrology’) with focus on the coor- dination of breath that was derived from yoga (India), and George Gurdjieff developed movement activities for greater spiritual development grounded in Eastern philosophy (Allison 1999). Among the somatic pioneers, Ida Rolf cites yoga as an influence (Johnson 1995), Irmgard Bartenieff studied Chi Kung, and Moshe Feldenkrais was a black belt in Judo (Eddy 2002b).

That establishes that Asian mind-body practices are relevant to a discussion of the history of somatics. If I added sources such as Kasulis/Aimes 1993 ("The Japanese…having been spared the assumption that Descartes was right"), would the material be adequately sourced, or do we need to go into more sophisticated detail? FourViolas (talk) 14:18, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Above I warned you to stay away from making claims about reality like this. You are heading directly into pseudoscience territory which is governed by discretionary sanctions established by Arbcom. If you want to bring all that crap down on your head, then by all means keep pushing in this direction. I (again) strongly suggest that you stay away from content about the underpinnings and just deal with the practices and how they are used. Jytdog (talk) 16:13, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your comment. You seem to think I am trying to make claims about the real-life efficacy of any somatic practice as a treatment. That's not remotely my intention. All I'm trying to do is to note that the field called "somatics" in the West draws on traditional (not necessarily effective) movement practices from the East, and I have a reliable source for that information.

I don't see how it is pseudoscientific to observe that some traditional Asian practices are not mind-body-dualist; that's a simple and well-documented fact. (eg Yuasa 1987: "there is a strong tendency in the Eastern theories of the body to grasp the mind and the body as an inseparable unity")

Also, in the above discussion you never expressed an objection to my edits. FourViolas (talk) 17:37, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Where does this source discuss "cartesian dualities" and even if it does, how is that relevant to the subject of this article? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:09, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Eddy mentions the leaders of the original European somatics movement as "reintroducing non-Cartesian models", although she doesn't apply that label specifically to the Eastern traditions they derived ideas from. I was trying to make the point I quoted Kasulis & Aimes as making: the Western dualistic tradition owes a lot to Descartes, and Descartes was not part of the Eastern mind-body-problem dialogue for a long time.

However, that's a minor explanatory point, which as you say is not essential to understanding the fact that Asian movement practices are sometimes non-dualist, so to avoid controversy I'd be happy to leave out that mention of "Cartesian dualism". FourViolas (talk) 19:00, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Big picture, denigrating "cartesian mind/body dualism" and elevating "asian holistic traditional practices" is orientalist and more importantly, is the general leading edge of pseudoscientific "critiques" of science in the alt-med world, where "cartesian mind/body dualism" = "science". You can "go there" if you want but I continue to advise you against it. Jytdog (talk) 19:34, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh dear. Thank you for the warning. My experience here is as a dance student, not an alternative-medicine specialist, so I had no idea Descartes was still a figurehead/lightning rod for evidence-based medicine, or that the debate was so pointed that "Cartesianism discouraged the idea of embodied cognition" could be considered a denigrating partisan claim.

I take it you're talking about Orientalism in this sense, not the usual art-critical one.

It sounds like removing the Cartesian clause would resolve this concern. It is relevant and correct that Eastern movement practices often invoke these mind-body unity ideas, regardless of whether they do any good to anyone: [5] [6]. FourViolas (talk) 20:56, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Are "somatic" concepts used within mainstream psychology? Or only by alt-med practitioners?

There was a recent edit to remove the psychology section and instead place that material within Alternative Medicine. This is potentially confusing since most Alt-med practitioners wouldn't be allowed to practice psychology under whatever license (or lack thereof) that they hold. The main question seems to be whether mainstream psychology includes some uses of somatics - or if those practices are in fact a subset of alternative medicine and not under the purview of the mainstream. Currently only one source is cited so some additional research would be helpful, though I'm not sure what sort of sources to seek to determine the answer to this question. Any ideas? --Karinpower (talk) 15:54, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand your point. somatics in psychology is alt med. some say most of the entire field of psych is alt med. Jytdog (talk) 19:56, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There are plenty of scholarly books and articles on the intersection of somatics and philosophy, and we have an article on it, Somatic psychology, which needs improvement. This page of a alt-med-ish 2010 book gives context: "There are many who whould say that the contemporary impediment to the continued success of bodymind therapies is the lack of solid data justifying them as an effective and evidence-based mode of treatment." (The author goes on to argue that, to the contrary, trying to fit these therapies into such a "positivist" framework would be a bad idea.) This suggests that most "bodymind therapies" are not evidence-based.

However, this 2006 paper on "body psychotherapy" writes that "mainstream psychotherapy is now addressing the issue of the body in psychotherapy", citing a 2004 conference of the respectable United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy entitled "About a body: Working with the embodied mind in psychotherapy", which turned into this Routlede-published book. The paper was published by a body psychotherapist (score one for "not generally accepted") in a Routledge-published journal called "Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy" (score one for "in the mainstream discussion"). That journal is indexed by PsycINFO and ProQuest's Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, but not the Journal Citation Reports.

I can't find much on quackwatch, certainly nothing adequate to determine mainstream scientific consensus on body psychotherapy/somatic psychology. Even less on the APA's website, just a few (noncritical) mentions in the newsletters of the "Psychotherapy and the Arts" subdivision.

This field does get itself into mainstream journals: for example, here's an article published in Psychotherapy research (JCR-indexed, #30 out of 113 in Psychology, Clinical) which begins "The principle of this article is that psychotherapy is an inherently embodied process."

So, it seems to me like it's not a standard part of the mainstream, but also that it's not hostile to or disapproved of by it, just a minor stream of more or less legitimate clinical practice. I would say WP:FRINGE does not apply, but we should be careful to follow MEDRS as usual, using recent review papers from journals not dedicated exclusively to a somatic approach. Pinging Jytdog, who's offered input here before and knows MEDRS inside out. FourViolas (talk) 20:31, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Jytdog, there's not going to be a consensus that clinical psychology is a fringe endeavor. What do you think of the question of whether somatics is a fringe concept within clinical psychology, given the above information? FourViolas (talk) 20:31, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't claiming that clinical pysch is a fringe endeavor - I said 'some say" and I meant that - the whole notion of testing interventions in RCTs to see if they work or not is pretty new in clin psych and not that widespread yet. And there is a broad and fuzzy "rim" (i won't say fringe) of what is acceptable to clin psych people to offer. i think your description of relationship between clin psych and somatics was pretty nicely grey instead of black or white; seems pretty accurate. here is something even broader on classic "alt med" in clin psych from APA. Jytdog (talk) 20:56, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Makes sense, sorry for misunderstanding. Thanks for the source; the sections on massage, yoga, and especially movement therapy could be good for general evaluations to introduce subsections. Might be effective if done by somebody with proper training but needs further research kind of thing. FourViolas (talk) 21:09, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

which is true for almost every thing under the sun and not worth saying. Jytdog (talk) 21:20, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Suggested sources

193.154.57.203 (talk · contribs) suggests the "Traditional practices" section be updated with the scholarship of Mark Singleton or Paul Unschuld. These seem like plausible suggestions; the section's current sources range from excellent (a yoga history book from the Cambridge University Press) to less so. But I don't have time, so I'm just bringing this to the talk page's attention. FourViolas (talk) 00:15, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

"Kouk sun do"

This content that i removed here is unacceptable. I just spent a half hour looking for anything even approaching a mainstream source discussing "kouk sun do" or "kok sun do" "Kuk Sun Do" and variations of the spelling and I found none (the search on "Kuk Sun Do" gave the most, btw, and turned up this very questionable page here in WP -- Kuk Sool Won. I did find some sources shilling this as "an ancient korean practice". To introduce this into WP we will need some decent mainstream sources on this as an "ancient korean practice" per se. Bringing primary sources with woo-pushing titles is not OK. The narrative review just cited the few primary sources and said nothing about them in particular, so it is not helpful. Jytdog (talk) 15:45, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, it was better than what I was replacing, and I didn't claim it was "ancient". The narrative review discussed the sources as part of several larger categories, but did point out some specific study limitations in tables 6 & 7.

Did you try searching "국선도", the Korean name for the practice? There are lots of papers on it (many mentioned on p. 240 of Lee 2013, which has some discussion of KSD's historical development in the last half-century), including this one cited in the Physiology & Behavior research article you deleted. I won't claim to be able to confidently assess the RS status of the Korean Journal of Physical Education, though, and the most promising source Idiot Jerry added, Kim 2017, cites this WP page rather heavily. Any of those do it for you? FourViolas (talk) 22:09, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

BioFeedback omission + Brand or corporate term??

First paragraph of intro, not mentioned, biofeedback which I believe is a science whereas somatics is not, or not truly, or isn't fully. Does this article need mention there and/or further down in the article of biofeedback as a similar study? Similar concept. Thanks. -From Peter {a.k.a. Vid2vid (talk | contribs)} 19:47, 19 July 2021 (UTC). -From Peter {a.k.a. Vid2vid (talk | contribs)} 19:50, 19 July 2021 (UTC). Edit. P.s. {Random note of interest, Android phones with Google auto-correct from the cloud and crowd sourcing is underlining in red by default the word somatics as non existent and therefore a misspelling!} Isn't that bizarre? -From Peter {a.k.a. Vid2vid (talk | contribs)} 20:04, 19 July 2021 (UTC).