Abstract(revised)

PHILIP_JERAIR_YERANO · November 10, 2016, 5:24am

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wmansell · November 10, 2016, 10:20am

Hi Philip, this is looking interesting. I am working closely with a professor of motor rehabilitation and and a roboticist on Max’s PhD which is actually focused on restoring manual control. However, Sarah Tyson had an interest in walking rehabilitation and our plan based on PCT was to improve sensory feedback to the base of the foot to rehabilitate walking after a stroke. Small world eh! I do think we need to think carefully though about how the following fit together: pressure perception; various intermediate perceptual variables in a hierarchy; higher level perceptual goals such as fixating direction of travel, centre of gravity like you mention and velocity of locomotion; the physics of the legs and musculature. Tough one! Any comments from our CSG roboticists?
Warren

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On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 5:24 AM, PHILIP JERAIR YERANOSIAN pyeranos@ucla.edu wrote:

–

Dr Warren Mansell
Reader in Clinical Psychology

School of Health Sciences
2nd Floor Zochonis Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Email: warren.mansell@manchester.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8589

Website: http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/131406

Advanced notice of a new transdiagnostic therapy manual, authored by Carey, Mansell & Tai - Principles-Based Counselling and Psychotherapy: A Method of Levels Approach

Available Now

Check www.pctweb.org for further information on Perceptual Control Theory

PHILIP_JERAIR_YERANO · November 10, 2016, 11:34pm

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Andrew_willett · November 11, 2016, 2:48am

Philip,

How are you? I am very interested in your topic, coming from a Cognitive Science perspective (current senior at Vassar College, working on my thesis that is evaluating the worth of PCT), which emphasizes the importance of embodiment and subjectivity’s inextricable relationship to context (movement certainly plays a role here). The individual is indeed first from my POV. Furthermore, from PCT, the individual is a mix of reorganization (biochemical aspects) and neural hierarchy, among other aspects–coordinating these two models is necessary in your argument, though I am sure you will figure this out. I appreciate Warren’s advice–I think that accessing those perspectives on motor control may support your ideas.

There are benefits to your argument, although it is only an outline currently. From what I know, mainstream/conventional accounts from biology as well as biological anthropology discuss the nature of bipedalism as a possible explanation for lower back pain, just as you mention. Focusing on interpreting this mainstream perspective from the vantage of a less conventional perspective, namely PCT, is quite effective. It can allow you to help a conventional researcher appreciate the nuances of the PCT approach. This then increases the possibility that mainstream researchers will want to understand PCT more. This would thereby advance PCT as an approach, bringing it to mainstream awareness (eventually perhaps).

In spite of the intelligence behind this potential argument, I do not agree with the first statement in your abstract. This first statement on bepedalism and lower back pain is a fundamental statement in your argument. It connects with scientific literature, but I think that scientists do not think much about their embodied experience (á la Mark Johnson, Giovanna Colombetti, or John Dewey [if you want a few references of embodied experience]). My intuition and experience with a different, embodied tradition further suggests that this statement (at a general level), regarding bipedalism linking to lower back pain, is rooted in a faulty phenomenological analysis. The tradition that informs me is the Alexander Technique.

I have had the pleasure of working the past three years with a talented Alexander Technique teacher (Alexander Farkas in Poughkeepsie, New York). In our (body) work, consisting of mainly sitting and walking (also taking classical voice lessons with him, which has been lovely), I have realizing that (in folk psychological/mainstream terms) our habits create a system of tensions, which (over time) add up, leading to skeletal misalignment (necks going back and down, poise damaged). The Alexander Technique is one such technique, which allows the human agent to decide to do something different, to allow the body to change. Over time, the skeleton changes as the muscle tone changes. It is very difficult to fully explain this technique to someone who has not experienced it. What is even more difficult is that there are very few “competent” teachers (this is a different discussion). Nonetheless, I would recommend, if you would like to read up on this book, that you refer to one book (possibly two):

“The Alexander Principle” by Dr. Wilfred Barlow

–a rheumatologist, Barlow describes how patients exhibit Misuse (that lower back pain is connected to this) as well as how they have benefited from learning the Alexander Technique. Barlow then goes on to describe the Technique, having learned from F.M. Alexander, the man who created it. While I think this book is perhaps the most scholarly work on the Alexander Technique, I also should warn you that (given its historical background and the perspective of the author) is endowed with a bit of white privilege/ignorance in certain places (not often, but this is important to mention~unfortunately some things are like this, though I think this book is worth it regardless).

“The Philosopher’s Stone: Diaries of Lessons with F.M. Alexander”

–this provides a qualititative illustration of a number of students’ experiences learning the technique. Since your argument is rooted in a phenomenological assumption, linking back pain to evolutionary design, this might be considered with your question, how back pain related to evolutionary design?, in mind. Perhaps you may find that this statement is true in a certain light or you may choose to change it after reading?

While I think you may understand your statement differently than me, I wanted to share my perspective. I do not believe that our bepedalism is to blame for the lower back pain; after all, I (my family) salvaged a dog who was confined to a cage for the first few years of her life and her skeleton still (7 years later) exhibits a great deal of habitual tension from these years, likely involving lower back pain when she walks (she is quite an anxious dog). If your statement regarding bipedalism’s link to lower back pain is then false, then this may be damaging to your argument in the long term. If it is not, then it is still worth considering the complexity underlying it. Regardless of the relative truth of the fundamental statement on bepedalism, I believe that the perspective afforded by the Alexander Technique may inform your topic, perhaps lending itself to a different understanding of movement and subjective experience.

Kind Regards,

Andrew Willett

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On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 6:34 PM, PHILIP JERAIR YERANOSIAN pyeranos@ucla.edu wrote:

On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 2:20 AM, Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Philip, this is looking interesting. I am working closely with a professor of motor rehabilitation and and a roboticist on Max’s PhD which is actually focused on restoring manual control. However, Sarah Tyson had an interest in walking rehabilitation and our plan based on PCT was to improve sensory feedback to the base of the foot to rehabilitate walking after a stroke. Small world eh! I do think we need to think carefully though about how the following fit together: pressure perception; various intermediate perceptual variables in a hierarchy; higher level perceptual goals such as fixating direction of travel, centre of gravity like you mention and velocity of locomotion; the physics of the legs and musculature. Tough one! Any comments from our CSG roboticists?
Warren