On a recent radio show, a professor of hand surgery gave some surprising comments on the mind-body connection:
If you sat and watched a film with your partner holding hands, you don’t need to talk about what’s on the film because you know what they’re thinking as they hold hands. It’s extraordinary that you can convey an enormous amount by holding hands, and I think the emotions that come through – you can convey love and fear and caring and protection and anxiety – all of these things can come through, and strength and weakness and supplication too.
Professor Simon Kay, consultant plastic surgeon and professor of hand surgery at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (BBC Sounds podcast, ‘A Show of Hands: Touch’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000xrzc)
As an Alexander Technique teacher, I’m constantly reminded of the unity of body and mind, and how the connection between a client’s emotions and their hands is (quite literally) palpable. Indeed, FM Alexander – not one to mince his words – rather famously put it in the following way:
You translate everything, whether physical, mental or spiritual, into muscular tension.
FM Alexander, Teaching Aphorisms, Articles and Lectures p. 207
Unravelling the physical patterns of tension caused by clients’ mental and emotional states is part of the job description of an Alexander Technique teacher. Hands and fingers, for example, learn to open out, to return to a neutral state.
Crucially, though, as teachers we’re also in the business of helping clients avoid this muscular tension in the first place. The newfound choice and awareness that emerges as part of this process is empowering and liberating. It’s also why the Alexander Technique must be seen as a unique educational process – a skill to be acquired – and not a therapy.