Shattering of Moise Feldenkrais
Moise Feldenkrais would be tending to challenges associated with acceptance of his methods as viable strategies for bringing about and sustaining health. While he would readily be identified as a liberal warrior, there were matters to be attended that didn’t fit well with this group. Multiple studies have been done by independent research teams that tend to report minimal impact of the Feldenkrais procedures on the health of those engaged in treatment. Furthermore, there is a plethora of alternative treatment methods (many of which have “borrowed” from the perspectives and practices of Feldenkrais). The Feldenkrais treatment centers still constitute only a small fraction of the physical and mental therapy market.
Moise Feldenkrais would have to be engaged in extensive marketing and promotion of his approaches to therapy. This probably would not be his strong suit. Furthermore, the two shards that would be most aligned with his practices were occupied by the new-age grandmas and right-wing grandpas. They could benefit from his therapy as they grew older and their bones began to creak. However, their own political views would contrast sharply with those of Feldenkrais. He would have to hold his tongue and cease his socially-critical writing. This would have been hard –and shattering—for Moise Feldenkrais.
There is one other important point. If Feldenkrais was to be successful in expanding his practice, then he would have to do more training. During his own lifetime, training by Moise of Feldenkrais therapists was restricted to two locations (Lone College in San Francisco and Hampshire College in Massachusetts). The shattering of Moise Feldenkrais would probably have taken place in the requirement that he move beyond the comfortable confines of exciting treatment innovation and selective training of highly motivated students.
He would now have to “sell his soul” as a social critique, and would soon be in the much less appealing business of management, marketing and promoting his program. He would be teaching students who would be more interested in diversifying their existing practice and expanding their source of revenues than in learning something new and radical. Like many therapeutic innovators (ranging from Sigmund Freud to Jonas Salk), Moise Feldenkrais would not be a gifted empire builder. He would have to leave this work up to those who embraced his work.
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