Palmer, Freud and the Postural Unconscious

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Mark S. Chiacchi, DC

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Past-President, American Chiropractic Association's 

Councils on Mental and Behavioral Health

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Reprinted from... Dynamic Chiropractic Magazine... July 2008, Vol. 26, Issue 16.

It should come as no surprise to any doctor of chiropractic in active practice for any amount of time... and one who regularly sees patients that are often plagued by what may be described as subclinical antalgic postures... that active and mind/body pain, stress and anxiety often accompany odd and indefinable 'expressive postures' in association with geographic and positional losses of homeostatic wellbeing, and a compromised level of biopsychosocial 'equilibrium.'

Over time, these become easily recognizable as precursors to acute episodes of subluxation activity that often lead to, or result from, somatic anxieties and their often indefinable and always self-perpetuating psychodynamic events. These repetitive and unconscious activities of mind and body will often resonant with Palmer's metaphysical innate and Freud's metapsychological ego... through an energy postulate that might well be thought of as the... postural unconscious.

We begin our discussion with the definition of the postural unconscious as an energetic neurostructural activity based on an innate predisposition of selected somatic structures.  These structures are able to assume very postural patterns of internalized contractures in response to the level of ego threatening, free-floating, emotional stresses within the patient.  When these emotional stresses reach a level of heightened proportion that can no longer be psychically tolerated, they will 'spill' over into/onto the physical side in the form of myofascial contractions that are repetitive and remain largely unchanged over the years.  They eventually become tied to the formulation of chronic somatic anxieties, both real and imagined, often resulting in mind/body symptomatologies (1).

This is a form of postural patterning; a learned behavior by which the organism has become dependent upon at times when the need for discharging stressful energies is required by an overwhelmed psyche, unable to cope.  This release of excess tension throughout the nervous system, and its surrounding infrastructure, sets the stage for the resorption of this energy by selected postures.  The resulting structural pattern these postures assume is in many cases predictable, and accurate, each and every time (2).  This process is the manner of energetic communication from the unconscious innate mind... to the conscious ego that demonstrates a threshold of activity at the boundary between mind and body that regulates emotional discharge.  In such a scenario, what cannot or should not be verbally expressed is suppressed.  What cannot be acted upon is then often displayed through the expressions of postural dyskinesias and subluxations.

These are learned behaviors whereby the organism retreats from unpleasant situations through a long-axis contraction that draws it back from the negative stimulus, avoiding conflict and turning rage inward upon the self.  These 'expressive postures' are modeled after what are often called state-dependent frames of mind.  These are mindsets that often occur unconsciously when repressed emotions rise dangerously close to the level of preconscious activity; so close that an abrupt means of escape from cognition is necessary and expedited through chronic or latent vertebral subluxation sites.  This energy will then disseminate through postural adaptations or expressions that relieve localized physical energetic distress as well as provide a timely avoidance for the pain, stress and anxiety of an uncensored self-awareness.

In recognizing this activity of the postural unconscious and the expressive posture it faithfully exhibits to the doctor of chiropractic... who will eventually attempt to lower subtle unconscious psychodynamic resistance by releasing any neurostructural inhibitions... the true nature of the patient's issue.  These inhibitions take the form of subluxations that interfere with communication pathways between the mind and body, leading to new, but incorrect neurolearnings.

Further on, one might look to the postural unconscious as the beginning of a 'psychical subluxation' whereby unconscious reflexes within the patient might provoke a particular myofascial pattern to appear.  Over time, this will direct pain, stress and anxiety toward specifically targeted areas, creating a loss of neuromusculoskeletal tone and chronic subluxation.  This will appear to be physical in nature, but may indeed be emotional, resulting from a cyclical neuronal loop that is self-perpetuating, thanks to an excess quantity of dispersible nervous system energy to the subluxation site, which again may result in chronic  and often undiagnosable symptoms (3).

This might explain the repetitive visits by patients during times of difficulty when dealing with death, divorce, or career distresses.  Patients usually do not equate the chronic nature of their unconscious subluxation patterns to everyday events, as they rarely connect their chiropractic care with any particular or simultaneous lifetime trials that may influence their posture as well as their mental health.

If the energetic charge or investment in the pain, stress or anxiety is strong enough to overcome internal or innate resistances, a somatic display of postural contracture will occur.  When this takes place, associated groups of myofascial tissues will engage in a patterned response in the active, but variable, internalized stresses that will create remarkable geographic spasm at the body's surface that are not only specific to its area, but also specific to the particular source of the anxiety provoking it.

So, in our examination of the patterned subluxation response, we might want to look at factors associated with the postural unconscious that might repress awareness.  This often takes place in the case of the occasional, uncommitted patient who will only appear for care after weeks or months of mental pain, stress and anxiety.  These patients in particular, tend to exhibit emotional distress throughout their neuromusculoskeletal frame.  When their infrastructure is sufficiently insulted... toxic myospasms occur... and structural distortions will follow in the form of long term, unrelenting, subluxation syndromes that often mystify both patient and doctor.

Such patients strongly deny any emotional conflicts in relation to the myofascial postural duress they are experiencing.  However, these same patients often state that they had a 'sense' or 'feeling' that they 'knew' this would happen, as it usually did when stressful situations arose.  This reflects on what could be called an episodic somatic anxiety... a reaction that seems far removed from an event, but in reality is already... simply at its end stage.

The doctor must make the patient consciously aware of the fact that the problem of postural distress is an unconscious reaction to an unknown stress (4).  Also, as the problem is not yet understood by the patient, they must work with the doctor in recognizing the recurrent nature and timing of the subluxation and its effects.  This work should continue until the repressed energies associated with the resistance are recognized and depleted by gradual reduction of symptomatic and non symptomatic subluxation sites, improving psychodynamic energy redistribution.

This is an energetic balance between what the mind produces and what the body can use in  it's homeostatic equilibrium.  This is a vital point, as there is no naturally occurring window for the escape of any excess mental energy.  Such energy, importantly enough, might result in the aberrancy of neurotic thoughts and subluxation postures.  In seeing this situation for what it is, the doctor of chiropractic must work to understand the systematized pattern of events that often brings the unconscious to this point in time.  Any chiropractic care at this stage is focused upon the postural stress of the subluxation and the mind/body's reactive distress as seen in its anxious and repetitive neurotic behaviors.

If, as we may suspect, the patient has a definative inkling as to the sequence and consequence of these events, we must still attempt to educate their conciseness into accepting the fact that latent unconscious fears and anxieties eventually may find their way to the fragile threshold of tolerance that separates anxiety based repressed memories and traumas from the more acceptable 'reframed recollections' of a neural nature.  Memories and traumas that do eventually reframe themselves into less threatening mental images often seem to disappear into unconscious oblivion, no longer factors in discordant energy distribution.

Anxiety factors that do not disappear often fuel hyper-excitable mental impulses through myofascial spasms and subluxations that offer an active and convenient kinetic vehicle for the displacement of ego threatening thoughts into somatic discomforts.  This is often seen in angry or sick postures that reveal an active internal conflict that has turned to the somatic side (5).  The idea that spasm and subluxation play an active role in the reduction of both internal and external threats to the psyche is a paradox of sorts, as the variable environment in which the central nervous system works to cope, and survive in. often finds itself as the reluctant foundation for such neurotic behaviors.

The fact that subluxation activity is either the cause or the result of such psychodynamic events is relative only to the resolution of the unconscious postures within which the subluxation is found. This subluxation might be secondary to an ego event that the mind/body is prone to repeat when the same set of circumstances are encountered by the patient.  If, on the other hand, the subluxation is first upon the scene and is given the ultimate ingredient of time... which all chronic disorders rely upon... then stress, tension and fatigue will only weaken an already suspect structure.  The linkage of physical distress and emotional overload and eventual energetic hyper or hypo factors of and in function... might indeed foster an unconscious association with long term physical pain and its mental flip side... chronic anxiety.  

If both Palmer (6) and Freud (7) were correct... that the nervous system is a closed and circuitous route from mind to body and back... with only homeostasis in mind... then we can also assume that the active neurosis and the physical subluxation might go hand in hand relative to one's health and well being... on an energetic level.  The new and novel ideas that Palmer and Freud shared... that energy... by itself... could influence thought and matter... was finally coming into focus here.

Palmer and Freud shared a mirror image of nineteenth century mind/body vitalistic philosophy as well as a neuroenergetic understanding of physical and mental health that such vitalistic principles promoted.  They had developed therapeutic systems that worked to naturally release the tensions of excess energy in both mind and body by allowing for the specific reduction of the vertebral subluxation physically and hysterical neurosis conversationally through free association and/or hypnotically.

However, posture and the way by which it expresses itself during times of pain stress and anxiety, is the key to understanding the unconscious activities within the various ego states and the innate defensive initiatives that protective mechanisms assert during these times.  The analysis and interpretation of latent patient postures and their relationships to ongoing chronic or subclinical structural events offer the doctor of chiropractic a chance to disperse both emotional and structural energies before they can manifest themselves in what might become a full blown traditional diagnostic system of pain, stress and anxiety.

This simple idea that the common, everyday pain, stress and anxiety of everyday life and living could become a chronic physical and mental collection of symptoms is by no means a new thought (8).  It could be argued that the combination of a mind/body approach in analyzing and interpreting what might again be called an 'expressive posture' might be of value to doctors of chiropractic interested in changes in the patient's postural appearance and experience.  This also includes the moods and attitudes that accompany such postures as well as the degree to which they change over time.

Most expressive postures are likely to be present only during difficult sets of adjustment sessions. With this in mind, the doctor might attempt to deconstruct presenting postures by comparing them to those from prior visits... before the patient began to exhibit the present postural distress.  It also could follow that adjustive reductions of expressive postures, built around specific subluxation sites and accompanying specific states-of-mind, may help diminish mind/body pain, stress and anxiety while encouraging a new and gradual psychodynamic withdrawal from chronic, everyday bouts of ego based defensive myofascial contractures.

So, just as the ongoing reinforcement of pain, stress and anxiety results in the accumulation of structural distress and distortion, the measured relief of those same symptoms lowers or lessens the stimulatory energies present within the common pathways at the onset of the next episode, allowing for the gradual release of old neuronal learnings in favor of new learning.  This will raise the threshold for future ego defenses and subluxation postures.

If subluxation and anxiety are defensive reactions or stressful adaptations to pain, or any other energetic mind/body imbalances, must they be immediately corrected, or are they a process that must be gradually reduced allowing for new neurolearnings to take place over time while physical and myofascial tone resets... and mental energies seek rest?

In most cases, such subluxations are reduced by repetitive adjustments that promote a set of gradual and new neurolearnings.  It is therefore important that patients return for their care corrections immediately after the acute episode is resolved, if not only to reinforce the reduction of subluxation residuals, but also to clear out anxious associations with the body part that exhibited the postural expression of pain, stress and anxiety... especially as it relates to the organism's external environments and internal psychodynamic pressures (9),

The adjustment seeks to restore and/or equalize the neural pathways of posture and homeostasis. But the adjustment also must... on a psychodynamic level beyond the simple concept of mind and body... relieve and provide a new and conscious appreciation sf a reduction in anxiety levels. Corrective care, with postural indicators, will be associated with fewer episodes of chronic pain, stress and anxiety even after the acute subluxation is resolved, and conscious pain, stress and anxiety is reduced to a tolerable level.

This issue of neural energy and the need for adaptive postures to disseminate the overabundance of unconscious pain, stress and anxiety is a product of repetitive attempts mentally and physically to keep equilibrium honest within the organism (10). The very slim possibility that patients who fall victim to postural manifestations of unconscious conflicts could successfully fend off energy releasing conversion activity is not likely... and would... in the end... show both patient and doctors the power of the unconscious.  However, with the help of adjustive care, the cyclical circuit that allows for the uninhibited maintenance of the aberrant neuronal loop can be disoriented and very likely deconstructed to a point at which the threshold is too low to fire on a continuous basis.

The pains of the physical and the anxiety of the mental are energetic in nature, so much so that neither can be separated from the other, except for the presenting complaint and the order in which the patient has come to expect relief.  However, the mere presence of pain brings an associated stress and anxiety which cannot be quantified by simply asking the patient if they feel better.  Patients are often poor informative sources.  So we look again to the postural unconscious for help.

If we were to return to the philosophy of Palmer (11) and Stephenson (12) and entertain the safety pin cycle concept of neural travel, we see a simple but effective way to value the case for the reduction of excess mental energies that the mind produces and the possibility that its avenue of transition is... or will be... 'dammed back' over time.  If we were to look again at Freud's theories and postulations that the ego is first and foremost a 'bodily' ego, we might see a surprisingly definitive psychodynamic connect in the neurotic events that contribute to the development of a subluxation in an area of the cranial/brainstem... which may be predisposed to a hysterical conversion in patients where past traumas or injuries are common historical factors.  

If this is the case, then a true separation between mind and body is not only illogical but wholly indefinable as well.  Note also that Freud saw neurotic intensifiers such as past traumas... as byproducts of the nervous system as being 'dammed up' (in contrast to Palmer's 'dammed back' concept) without any alternative release except through a simple form of somatization (13), as chosen by the unconscious for its particular relevance to both anxious and energetic pathways.  This could be defined as the precursor to  cranial/brainstem instabilities and localized tension that may induce situational mind/body symptoms. 

This concept of 'damming up or back' should be likened to a hybrid concept termed as a  'subluxation neurosis' ...whereby patients with repetitive subclinical postures or positions of vague and ill defined pain are noted, charted, and followed closely during specific rounds of adjustive care. Though such adjustive care is sometimes discouraged as psychodynamic or even placebo like in nature... it could fill the vast middle ground of an intangible symptomatic picture that imaging and examination cannot diagnose and multidisciplinary care cannot adequately resolve.  The fact that both mind and body are able to produce and reduce these chronic symptomatic factors through their own innate or unconscious mechanisms shows that energy driven systems are indeed worthy of still more research and even more clinical respect. 

  1. Freud S. The Ego and the Id, The Standard Edition, 1923

  2. Reich W. Character Analysis, 3rd Edition, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1945 

  3. Homewood AE. The Neurodynamics of the Vertebral Subluxation. Chiropractic Publishers, 1981

  4. Lowen A. Depression and the Body, Penguin Press, New York, 1972

  5. Fenichell O. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis, W.W. Norton, New York, 1995

  6. Palmer BJ. The Subluxation Specific, The Adjustment Specific. The Palmer School, 1934

  7. Breuer J. Freud S. Studies in Hysteria. The Standard Edition, 1895

  8. Lowen A. The Betrayal of the Body. MacMIllan Company, New York, 1967

  9. Shafer RC. Basic Principles in Chiropractic Neuroscience. ACA Press. 1990

10. Freud S. A Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. The Standard Edition, 1905

11. Palmer BJ. Palmer's Law of Life. The Palmer School. 1958

12. Stephenson RW. Chiropractic Text Book. The Palmer School. 1927

13. Freud S. The Interpretation of Dreams. The Standard Edition. 1900

'Palmer, Freud and the Postural Unconscious' was first published in Dynamic Chiropractic, in July 2008, Vol 26, Issue 16, and has been reprinted in several additional journals in the USA and overseas since its first publication. This is essentially the same article...reprinted here... with additional edits. 

Introduction to Expressive Postures  

This blog is a brief overview of my Expressive Postures Concept as well as my thirty years of cranial/brainstem care during which I specialized in expressive posture/positional based mind/body tension and psychodynamic pain, stress and anxiety... along with my ten years of observational studies at my private posture lab... as well as my latest concepts on posture relative to the positional aspects of unconscious defensive mind/body adaptations and their expressions. During those forty years I worked to reduce the need for the introduction of dynamic force into postures that were 'expressing' their need to 'defend' the 'self' against both the conscious and unconscious pain, stress and anxiety frequently associated with everyday life and living. What follows is my concept of 'soft' observation where I explored a 'minimalist' approach to structural, behavioral and kinesthetic care for the passive reduction of the expressive posture... in its 'own-time' ...with respect to the internal and external defensive needs of the... 'self' on a biopsychosocial level of care.

I was never a 'traditional' chiropractor... in the 'truest' sense of the word. 

There is an unconscious as well as a phenomenological and anthropical development of posture that is formed by human experience over a lifetime. Such postures honor and reflect the high and low points of one's structure... behavior... and kinesthetic realities relative to chronic mind/body pain, stress, and anxiety as well as the defense of the 'self.' That is to say... posture and its positions are both reactions to... and indicators of... internal and external expressions of unconscious and motorific adaptations to social and environmental stresses that are both learned and refined in an effort to reduce the chronic mind/body pain, stress and anxiety of repetitive exposures to unsettling situational times... people... or places. 

Posture and its positions are often 'soft' observational indicators of internal and external wellbeing. We each exhibit a carefully choreographed pattern of structural, behavioral and kinesthetic ‘movement’ as well as ‘stillness’ which identify us to others from up close and from a distance. We adhere to such postural positions until a negative or adaptive expression to our environment... or the people or situations within it... require a defensive reaction. Such fundamental defensive reactions may take the form of proxemic... haptic... or vocalic adaptations as we react to a formative internal state of mind... and an external bodily presentation... and so we begin to change our posture and position through an accelerated and defensive gait... stance... or gesture that wards off further communication. Thus we protect our space in both mind and body.

What has this to do with mind/body wellbeing and human potential? From a fundamental point of view... ‘expressive postures’ are often combined with... or added to... the chronic postural distresses we treat each and everyday.  They are the ‘postural-overlays’ which embed themselves into the chronic and repetitive postures we often see on certain days with patients.  They are the often vague and ill defined reasons why some patients develop a transient or very temporary postural aberration... for no particular reason... over and above their ‘normal‘ chronicity.  These are the unconscious defenses associated with life and living that we should inquire about during these times... so that we can chart and predict future occurrences of not only the postures common and specific to such stresses... but also the genesis of such repetitive stresses... which allows us to see... posture as a behavioral health influencer on a biopsychosocial level. 

Expressive Postures  Analysis and Interpretation of Posture

The mission of this blog is to introduce my 'observational construct' of the 'expressive posture' to those providers interested in learning how to 'observe' the mind/body aspects of structural, behavioral and kinesthetic factors of chronic stress as well as the unique postural and positional defenses patients often display through sensory and motor reactions to... situational... environmental... and unconscious interpersonal relationships relative to the integrity of their neuromusculoskeletal system on a structural, behavioral and kinesthetic basis.  This blog seeks to assist providers in recognizing and identifying proxemic, haptic and vocalic stresses...  as well as gait, stance and gestural defenses... common to most individuals as demonstrated through abstract adaptations in both postures and positions designed to cope with the immediate stresses of the moment... along with their defensive reactions to those stresses.  The analysis and interpretation of the meanings and intentions of unconscious postural and positional stress, and defense, upon the neuromusculoskeletal system is central to the mind/body aspects of stress reduction and the elimination of chronic defensive postures for the provider.  The expressive posture is... an unconscious energetic response to stress through the use of yet again, unconscious defensive positions... for the protection of the 'self' on a 'mind/body' level... at the expense of one's structural, behavioral and kinesthetic wellbeing

The Optics of Stress... Figurative Art Forms... and Attitudes...

The 'optics' of postural and positional stress are often appreciated in an abstract fashion... almost as a living... and somewhat figurative... form of 'art.'  That is, we tend to see and comprehend posture on different levels of both mind and body... often in an unconscious manner at first... followed then by a reconstruction and real-time conscious appreciation of what we believe we are seeing... or what we have seen.  For instance, we look at the total assemblage of a posture before we look at the individual segments of that same posture.  Thus, it is the assembled posture which we first recognize and identify... but it is the character and attitude of that same posture that gives us its meaning and intention.  And finally... it is the stressful and defensive attitudes of a posture that increases the weight and gravity of the posture itself... both in the observation of such a posture... and the reality of its' depth of meaning. The illustrative and intellectual assumption of weight and gravity within the posture's structure, behavior and kinesthetic activity of a is extended to its position as well as the unconscious and stressful maintenance of that  position... on a defensive level.  The 'expressive posture' then is an exaggeration of one's 'normal' posture as it adapts and seeks a positional equilibrium between what is real to the mind... and necessary for the body.

Defining the Expressive Posture ...understanding the stress within... and without...

The expressive posture is a byproduct of a lifetime of mostly unconscious and choreographed postures that are very often reflexively utilized by one's stress based primitive protective processes to ward off a 'perceived' threat to the 'self,' while also projecting defensive postures in gait, stance and/or gesture designed to protect the organism from any imminent 'real' world threats. The expressive posture is rightly assumed not only in situations that present 'real' threats to the organism... but also in environments where the organism 'perceives' a 'qualifying' threat that may... or may not... be 'real.'  Real and unconsciously perceived threats to a stressed or 'defensive' neuromusculoskeletal system may often be observed in cases where one's interpersonal space is compromised, unwanted touch is felt and/or anticipated, or a threatening intonation in conversation is heard or sensed (e.g., proxemics (space) haptics (touch) and vocalics (tone). In any case, the expressive posture is very often demonstrated and subsequently understood through the 'art' of critical observation.

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The expressive posture is truly dynamic in both its appearance and meaning. It is personified by the individual and owned only by that one individual.  Its biological energy cannot be duplicated or copied by another, as its indigenous integrity is recognized and identified as belonging only to that one posture and that one individual.  It is in some ways... how we identify each other from one another. It is not a 'defined' posture... it is an 'act' of posture. The fact is... the expressive posture is an external manifestation of an internal postural conflict which causally represents the chronic mind/body effects of prolonged and repetitive stress upon the structural, behavioral and kinesthetic aspects of the unconscious 'self.'  Such a stress will, in the course of one's lifetime, produce a vigilant and protective reflexive response to that stress, which over time will adapt to even more chronic episodes of that specific stress and its defensive expressions of, and in posture, which will... in the end... eventually develop into a 'hard-wired' recognizable and identifiable... expressive posture.

The expressive posture is a 'soft' manifestation of a larger posture... and is 'felt' only in a sensory manner of speaking... it is the energy within the presenting posture... it is its 'meaning.' The expressive posture resides within both normal and abnormal postural positions, and expresses itself only when it's expression is necessary to communicate a non-verbal expression of feeling. These inner feelings of an individual are often unconsciously observed by those who occupy the same time and place... and they take note of the posture's meaningful presence... they observe one's 'body-language' if you will. This may of course be felt as the postural expression of stress... or joy, if that be indicated.  Whatever the case, the observer looks upon the observed through an unconscious sensory judgement that recognizes and identifies the posture expressed, and so it is analyzed and interpreted as it is found to be.  Such postures only reflect the silent intention they project... and the meaning they represent. The expressive posture is truly an 'art-form' in and of itself... a posture complete within its own definitive meanings and its many variations and subsequent situational and environmental adaptations.

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If we look to the normal assemblage of 'soft' observational postural expressions offered to us, we often find a routine pattern of postures that make up an individual's overriding postural signature and/or fingerprint. This posture generally goes unnoticed as it is the 'normal' expression of one's everyday existence. It shows no stress, and yet it is recognizable and identifiable as belonging to a particular person, in and of, a particular circumstance.  The expressive posture is not always a 'signal' that an individual is having a stressful moment, but it is, at times, indicative of a 'change' within that individual which is being overtaken relative to mood or attitude that will in time produce a bodily posture commensurate with one's present and/or developing state of mind.

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The Expressive Posture™ ...is the 'external' manifestation... of an 'internal' postural conflict... that suggests an unconscious mind/body stress may sometimes be 'lodged' within a chronic neuromusculoskeletal postural design of weightbearing and gravitational adaptations that interfere with quality of life issues both internal and external to the 'self.'  These postures on the surface may not appear to have any remarkable significance to the casual eye observing them... but repetitive observations of a stressful postural expression will eventually show a posture's stressful and defensive meanings and intentions.  The expressive posture then, is an active postural overlay or exaggeration of one's 'normal' posture as it adapts to a positional equilibrium which is between what is real for the mind... and necessary for the body.

The rationale for an Expressive Posture

A postural response to chronic mind/body pain, stress and anxiety

To truly understand the expressive posture... is to understand its appearance and its unconscious meanings to both the observed and the observer of that same posture.  In realizing the unconscious meaning of an observed posture structurally... behaviorally... and kinesthetically... the observer might then proceed to understand it additionally through its ongoing evolution of adaptive stressful and defensive patterns and positions.

This cannot be done without first coming to understand the 'resting' state of a posture.  In other words... postural structure translates into its intended behavior through its ongoing and developing kinesthetic repertoire... from its neutral or resting state... to its ultimate action each and every time regardless of the posture's unconscious meaning or intention.

The concept of posture I developed over the years is predicated on what is commonly called 'soft' observation, as I rely solely on 'soft' informational assessments such as observation, postural cadence and rhythms rather than 'hard' data or computer models in my evaluations. I depend more upon the postural abstracts of unconscious postural behaviors that are choreographed over a lifetime... which individuals use over and over again each day without being aware of their existence.  These are postural 'cues' or 'reflexes' which are on 'automatic' and will often reveal the vague, ill-defined, and unconscious meanings of a posture.

I will not deny that there is a level of intuitive or subjective processing in my 'soft' observational analysis and interpretation of unconscious posture... but that is what analysis and interpretation is... opinions and observations of information received through the senses... and measured by both direct and indirect means as well as experiential learning.

Postural analysis and interpretation is an 'art.'  One sees and observes a posture and looks within it for its meaning.  It is no different that viewing a painting in a gallery... its meaning either reaches you or it does not.  Analysis and interpretation does in some cases require repetition and it always requires... 'time.'  One cannot analyze and interpret an unconscious postural behavior without first understanding its 'neutral' predisposition when it is 'off.' Thus, the expressive posture is the postural expression of a posture in its most meaningful mode... as it reflects one's internal postural conflicts through the external manifestations of the observed posture in its most stressful or defensive state.

A further note here... one might ask why I entertain the neuromusculoskeletal effects of proxemics, haptics and vocalics of posture (spatial comfort, response to touch, and sensitivity to verbal intonations).  The reason for this is really quite simple... I believe that posture by itself, is the absolute moderator of one's expression... be it from the inside, or outside, of an individual and it will, alter the unconscious activity of the neuromusculoskeletal system, and this includes sensations of chronic mind/body pain, stress and anxiety... as well as the multiplicity of defensive postures generated on a daily basis.  The spatial distance between individuals can unconsciously influence one's behavioral health 'equilibrium' to one degree or another... in that moment in time... contributing to stressful neuromusculoskeletal activity and defensive reactivity.  One might also consider the sensation of an unwanted touch... as well as the shrill sound of a loud voice... as factors in unconscious defensive postural expressions and reactions to an immediate environmental or situational issue.

One cannot separate the meaning of a posture from the meanings and intentions of that same posture... therefore all variations of postural structure, behavior and kinesthetics are important to understand. The recognition and identification of one's disposition is just as important as the 'internal' and 'external' defensive positional expressions of posture as in gait, stance and gesture, for the protection of the 'self.'  Therefore, any and all sensory input, that travels to, and from, the neuromusculoskeletal system is relevant to the health and wellbeing of the individual, and that includes the postural expressions and reactions of repetitive stress and its' chronic defenses upon, and within, the individual.

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To truly understand the expressive posture... is to appreciate the idea that what we call a 'normal' posture... is made up of all the adaptive forms of one's 'normal' appearance.  This simply means that all posture is in a state of constant flux.  All normal postures hold on to postural 'states' that are in transition, therefore all postural anomalies are not negative, but may be on their way to an expressive state due to an expressive mindset that takes these postures onto the next level of their expression. In other words, the approach to postural assessment and the designation of what a posture is, or is not, should not be considered as to what the resting posture is, or is not, but what one can derive from previously documented postural activities, and what those activities have produced in the past. The rationale for an expressive posture is the acceptance that that same posture will 'disappear' and yet 'reappear' when the 'self' is faced with the same and specific mind/body stresses that manufactured it in the first place.

Gait, stance and gesture as 'defensive' signs...

Use of unconscious protective positioning... as a postural maneuver  within the 'self.'

  

By simple design I have limited my expressive postures analysis and interpretation to the capturing of repetitive schemes of the unconscious postures of stress in both mind and body.  I believe that all defensive mind/body disturbances carry with them a recognizable and identifiable posture that links that posture to a specific unconscious behavior, and that unconscious behavior to past stresses.  In my opinion, a stress from out of the past, in a postural sense, is stimulated on a mind/body level when coupled with the 'feelings' and 'sensations' of situations and environments that provoke a 'motor' response to a stressful engram in a 'real-time' fashion.

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The postural 'pattern' of an unconscious stress is the most important aspect of the expressive posture.  Though each expressive pattern of defense is 'different' in its own way, it is, once again, 'similar' in its structure, behavior and kinesthetic properties in practically every posture in gait, stance and gesture that one shows in both good and bad times.  So the expressive posture is simply the external manifestation of an internal postural conflict which presupposes latent postural distortions along its vertical and horizontal plane lines... which in reality is once again, a simple exaggeration of 'normal' postural activity expressed 'defensively' through stressful 'soft' observational postural traits.

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With this concept in mind, I analyze and interpret what these unconscious movements are and what they might mean to the individual.  Each posture in its gait, stance and gesture has a meaning that the individual unconsciously understands and has become comfortable with.  The unconscious mind is constantly processing one's inner and outer worlds.  It's equilibrium can be altered by a negative thought as well as a positive one.  As such, the 'balance' between internal postural conflicts and their external manifestations may be abstract, but are meaningful in their own way.  One must simply learn to understand what a posture 'means,' and what it 'intends.'

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If we continue on with this pathway of thinking... we can understand how certain postures in their gait, stances and gestures may reflect the inner thought process of an individual... and how the mind/body aspects of a posture might alternately influence the production of unconscious defensive postural expressions during stressful times. If for instance a particular posture is present in an individual... would it not follow that a specific form of behavior would then be expected to show itself?  Individuals who have, over time, been exposed to stresses that are life altering or changing may also demonstrate such postures during stressful times that may be reminiscent of such stresses, which are defensive in nature, and designed to disperse accumulative and excessive biological energy from that individual.

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Analyzing and interpreting the expressive posture's postural pattern as a defensive stress reaction to life and living is essential to any postural assessment.  Situations and environments of stress provoke internal and external defensive reactions that can be observed in one's postures which exhibit gait, stance and gesture each and every day.  Thus one's structure, behavior and/or kinesthetics will very often reveal its internal unconscious defensive stresses through its latent postures... while our external and internal 'conscious' attempts to stay in what might rightly be called... a 'neutral' posture... are often unsuccessful due to chronic neuromusculoskeletal reflexes and stresses associated with defensive postural expressions.

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The key to understanding posture through gait stance and gesture is... time and observation. There can be no understanding of a posture or position without knowing the how and why of an individual's mannerisms and habits... and that can only be acquired though repetitive viewing of the posture and person in question.  In observing a patient in the clinical setting, the best way to observe and note his or her postural or positional patterns is to watch for any posture or position that induces or requires an accompanying stance or gesture. Certain postures precede certain gestures... certain gaits precede certain stances. One of the underlying factors in deciding what it is you may be observing is the knowledge of an individuals state-of-mind and body.  By this I mean, that posture in its gait, stance and gesture can be stressful, defensive or simply part of an individual's unconscious choreography and/or repertoire.  It is the... time spent in observation... that will show the observer what it is the observed is showing and telling.  It is not about 'knowing' the individual that is important here... it is about understanding the typical anthropometric reactions to situational and/or environmental stresses that alter mind/body movements or motions through stressful and defensive adaptations in one's posture and its gait, stance or gestures.

Proxemics, haptics and vocalics as 'expressive' signs...

Understanding non-verbal cues... interpersonal space, touch and tonality.

I focus only on the analysis and interpretation of recognizable and identifiable unconscious postures. I am constantly analyzing and interpreting the abstract signs of one's disposition and postural-state-of-mind in individuals who have been dealing with the internal and external postures of chronic and unrelenting stress within the neuromusculoskeletal system.  My analysis and interpretation of unconscious posture is in direct proportion to its recognizable and identifiable stress reactions... which are largely responsible for the unconscious postural behaviors established through the salient defensive postures of one's disposition... and postural states-of-mind... which often reflect common degrees of chronic stress associated with the neuromusculoskeletal system.

From the start, we should understand that posture, in its most abstract form, is a product not only of the structure within, but also its outward behavior and kinesthetic activities which give it... its 'life.' As such... the stressful, defensive activities of an individual's inner life or feelings are very often outwardly displayed in somewhat 'open' but 'inhibited' ways through one's chronic protective posturing... for better or worse.

The essence of one's disposition is unconsciously demonstrated for all to see through an individuals developing postural state-of-mind.  This postural state-of-mind is the expression of posture in its most meaningful mode of communication... as it relates to the non-verbal meaning and intention of a posture... and one's unconscious and expressive feelings within it. One's disposition in the vernacular sense, is a combination of inner feelings that seek to express themselves outwardly through verbal expressions in tone and speech, as well as on a non-verbal level.  Both verbal and non-verbal postural behaviors are supported by complimentary postural associations of both time and place, and are, once again, mutually supportive.

Proxemics, haptics and vocalics (distance, touch and tonality) support postural attempts at verbal and non-verbal communication between individuals in personal, business and social settings. Distance, touch and tonality define personal preferences between individuals everywhere. For instance, closer proximity encourages interpersonal levels of touch which are consistent with moderated tonality in private conversation.  Levels of intimacy between individuals can be assessed via approximations of time and space as well.  Time, an interesting aspect of posture, reflects the level of interest and staying power one individual has for another both verbally and non-verbally. In a postural sense, a posture of comported interest is well able to sustain itself over time through a level of interest, that will, to onlookers, repel advances toward, and to, those individuals.  Therefore time, in a postural sense, reflects the intensity of interest that one party has for another... just as space, in a postural sense, is relative to those in close and intimate proximity. And so in a 'protected' conversation... proxemics, haptics and vocalics are indirect aspects of a posture that is on the one hand structural, behavioral and kinesthetic... but also universally understood by observers on an unconscious and indisputable level.

So where do one's defensive postures come into play in the broader sense? Once again, my postural concept is 'observational' in nature. Experiential learning is... as posture is.... subject to interpretation.  Learning the anthropometric aspects of postures in humans is akin to analyzing and interpreting the unconscious mechanisms that promote the posture in the first place.  They are unmistakable on an unconscious level... and revealing on a conscious level.  However, as we tend to 'intellectualize' all of our thinking today... we try to formulate definitive patterns of structure, behavior and kinesthetics in an effort to define in absolutes... the postures we observe. The postures of the couple in the example in the paragraph above are initially unconscious and gradually more conscious as time goes on. The 'territorial' aspect of a posture is the unspoken, but unconsciously obvious geographical positioning of individuals or groups that by their distance, touch and tone, tend to discourage any direct or indirect interactions from uninvited observers or 'non-members' of the immediate group.

In keeping with our present conversation... 'soft' observational assessments of posture (again like the couple in conversation as previously examined) tend to avoid the 'hard' outcome observers viewpoint regarding absolutes in postural assessments.  The expressive posture then expresses the need and intention of the observed posture, in that it reflects internal conflicts (good stress or bad stress) and manifests them externally.  A corresponding postural state-of-mind is even more 'internal,' with less expression 'externally' than the outwardly overt and defined by time, 'expressive posture.' Such postures 'live' well and deep within the expressive posture...waiting to be 'observed.'  These postures are small, not always readily observed, and not always analyzed and interpreted correctly... or in a timely fashion.

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An important part of my expressive postures analysis and interpretation of unconscious posture is the proxemic, haptic and vocalic postural states of mind that determine the relative stress within the neuromusculoskeletal system and its relationship to, and with, timely mind/body responses. Interpersonal space, touch and sound are the key to understanding intrusive stimuli which might impel the neuromusculoskeletal system to initiate its  unconscious (warding off) postures. These are the silent or latent issues that 'design' a posture into a representation or expression that affects both mind and body long after a stressful situation or environmental influence has passed. These postural expressions of stress are the fundamentally small and almost indefinable neuromusculoskeletal designs that unconsciously excite mind/body reflexes associated with chronic stress, depleting energy reserves and allowing for nervous system incoordinations of messaging and direction within the mind/body and body/mind circuit and their respective cycles. The relevance to positional change here is obvious... as these subtle, but ongoing and repetitive drains upon one's energy systems demonstrate the conflict between the inner and outer layers of postures associated with a chronically stressed neuromusculoskeletal  system.

Think of posture as a hypersensitive stress response...

The drama of the neuromusculoskeletal system is played out by way of its reaction to the world around it... and within it. The expressive posture is the always variable barometer by which that world is observed and measured. To understand the abundance of proxemic, haptic and vocalic stresses in the world for some individuals is to understand the swift and unconscious response of that patient to situational and environmental stresses that other people and/or places bring forward to that individual.

Thus the proxemic, haptic and vocalic hypersensitivities of an individual can produce and encourage a very low threshold or trigger for stressful and defensive reactions against the world. However small and insignificant you or I might think a stimulus is...  to a person of a hypersensitive state-of-mind... those same innocuous stimuli are dramatic... and worthy of taking notice of... and being protected from... so we must regard and respect the neuromusculoskeletal systems reaction as appropriate for the stimulation encountered... regardless of the opinions of onlookers... who are not trained as 'observers.'

Such stimulations provoke a level of internal and external stress which may often be observed in a postural and positional manner.  The common postural and positional design found in individuals may be energized over and above its 'normal' levels of asymmetry and chronicity by an external stress being internally defended.  This over exaggeration of the 'normal' is the main indicator that an acute, but temporary reaction within the neuromuscular system is responding to an individuals situational and/or environmental stress... and either of those could be persons and/or places.  The hypersensitivity of one's innate make-up may drive the individual to 'overreact' as an observer might conclude... to the normal everyday occurrences of interpersonal relationships.... but for individuals who might be hypersensitive to people and their surroundings... a postural and positional adaptation to the event or issue might take on more of a stressful and defensive production of disorganized energy than the resting neuromusculoskeletal system can absorb, distribute and efficiently dissipate

Considering asymmetries of  Expressive Postures 

Looking at asymmetry as a stressful and defensive response to life and living

If we were to observe postural asymmetry categorically we would find random positional and/or postural contractions to be found on a regular basis which very often defy settled gravitational and weightbearing physics. And such postural randomness... for the lack of a better term... is most likely unconscious, and in an involutional state of being due to idiosyncratic contractions that frequently reflect unconscious incoordinations within the 'self' which mark the irregular 'soft' observationa of stressed based defensive asymmetry... which must be analyzed and interpreted within the state (mind and body) in which it is found.  Such an unconscious and involutional state of defensive posturing is very often indicative of a structural, behavioral and/or kinesthetic set of chronic mind/body imbalances and adaptations that may be unconsciously necessary, and significant, to the individual at that stressful and particular moment in time.  As such they may represent the ongoing external manifestations of an internal postural conflict through real-time postural asymmetries, which may have to be released or reduced depending upon their expansionist or self-limiting properties. 

These asymmetries may appear to be random in nature, but are in reality, unconscious postural 'story-tellers,' in which their present positional state, may express a need or a want to the observer which might over time become consciously apparent... but in the world of the observed... and the often parallel world of the observer... the posture in observance will have already moved on to a more conscious ready... state of mind... and new and subsequent posturings... that will in the end, reveal and release the true and objective nature of the posture's being... from its formulation in the observed's unconscious... to the observer's consciousness.

All of this randomness and asymmetry lends itself to a new level of postural importance in the fundamental findings of neuromusculoskeletal distress relative to the 'soft' observations in postures which express stressful and defensive feelings that may drive an internal posture to its eventual external manifestation. The conflict within is expressed outwardly for the benefit of obtaining relief from the stress of the postural and positional design and the additional stress of the chronic mind/body conflict within.  It is the conflicts of both mind and body, played out upon the field of posture that make these conflicts so necessary to understand.

This ‘external manifestation of the internal conflict’ is the theoretical and representational key to understanding why such a posture is necessary for such an individual and why such a posture should only be clinically considered during certain ‘times’ during which the mind/body influences of one's state-of-mind... or the needs of the posture... are fully understood and appreciated for what they are.  So whether or not a posture is the product of the primary subjects we have already discussed, such as proxemic, haptic and vocalic sensory defenses, or posture, gait, stance and gesture motor defenses... the posture ‘speaks’ to us quietly, but dynamically, through repetitive stresses in a specific and dependent manner which reflects life issues and instances as influenced by certain situational and environmental stresses in which the individual finds him or herself... very often... and not by choice.  

As for the investigator in search of the unconscious 'meaning' of a posture... such analyses, interpretations and their potential interventions should only be undertaken with the full knowledge of the projected effect upon both internal and external postural defenses as utilized by the organism for its overall defense against both its internal and external worlds, and not before.  As those reading this often provide care that is often posturally driven... the provider should indeed weigh the risks and benefits of addressing a patient's posture relative to its immediate 'time and place' and the real time necessity of reducing such a posture in the first place.

Expressive Postures as a Self-Limiting Phenomena...

Stress specific... Defense initiated... Time-sensitive... Self-resolving

The expressive posture is an immediate reaction to a situational or environmental stress which cannot be avoided.  This means that the situation or environment in which the individual finds him/herself is one that requires his or her immediate interaction with other individuals... which he or she would prefer not to have to share that moment with.  This of course is a common event in everyone's life... but for some... who might be somewhat more hypersensitive than others... it can be a difficult time.

In assuming a posture or position unconsciously designed to 'cope' with unexpected events, places or people, a hypersensitive personality might let a 'normal' occurrence blossom into a full blown crisis if one cannot deflect or disperse the energy associated with the event through the 'normal' channels of stress release.  In such cases a posture is assumed that will 'absorb' the excess energy of the moment... taking on a position that is slightly more of an exaggeration of one's normal posture... but one with a positional 'edge' if you will.  Such a posture is a 'soft' observational expression of stress and an exhibitor of defense.  In one case the posture demonstrates a stressful reaction to a moment in time... in the immediacy of the moment one might observe a defensive reaction which is subtle to a degree... but unmistakable to those who often frequent the company of the individual... bringing questions such as... 'are you alright?'

The expressive posture is designed to take in and 'store' the excess energy of stress and its defense. If an individual cannot confront the person, situation or environment that is the stressor he or she must adapt him or herself to the moment by unconsciously defining a reaction that will, for the moment, release a small amount of stress to areas of the neuromusculoskeletal system that can absorb the energy... alter both posture and position... and keep one 'on-balance' for the moment.

However... after a stressful moment has come and gone there is a residual reservoir of energy that remains 'locked-up' and unused by the individual.  This remaining energy must be depleted over a period of time that will allow for the neuromusculoskeletal system's dispersal.  This usually and normally occurs when excess energy can be 'used-up' during normal energy releasing tasks such as one's occupation, recreational activities, social interactions with others, and simple daily tasks that require energetic motion and thinking. All of this takes time... hours... days... or weeks... but time is essential to the dispersal of this disorganized and multi-directed energy.

Hypersensitive individuals may arrive at your office complaining of vague and ill-defined 'mind/body' annoyances... which are hard to pin down.  This is where the art of history taking might reveal to you an incident of some days or weeks ago when a stressful event occurred that seemed like nothing to your patient at the time... but for you in the present... it could be the link to a posture or positional issue that might be associated with a seemingly unrelated mind/body issue for which your patient is applying for help.

Once a stressful moment and defensive reaction to that moment have passed... the energy dispersal for that stress and defense may take days or weeks depending upon the impact that stress and defense had upon the individual.  If the observer can muster up enough self-discipline to advise his or her patient to let the posture play out within the position it is now assuming... there will probably be less of a chance that a new neuromusculoskeletal complaint will emerge from that stressful moment. Though this kind of thinking might be counter-intuitive for most observers... it may be the best course of action for your patient.  Identifying and recognizing a tendency for a hypersensitive reaction to a stress might be advantageous as well... as these patients might be induced to raise their

Think of the Expressive Posture as a postural overlay...

Think of the expressive posture as a postural overlay.  It is 'attached' to an already asymmetric and suspect posture which is chronically under managed by both mind and body.  It is a cloak upon the posture... which when the threat of a stress is gone... and the defense of the individual is rendered unnecessary... the expression of stress and defense in that posture... is gone... returning to its 'normal' state of chronic asymmetry.  The expressive posture is an abstraction of a reality... it is real only insofar as it is necessary.

Thus the expressive posture is an 'event' posture... it is reactive and temporary. When the stressful stimuli is absented... there will no longer be the need for the protective and adaptive defensive posture.  After a time... and all patients vary in this area... the defensive postures will dissipate and return the individual to his or her 'normal' state of postural and/or positional asymmetry.  As such... expressive postures are only 'expressive' during the time of the 'stress' or threat... and 'defensive' postures are only 'expressive' during the temporary and protective aftermath or that particular threat.   Postures remaining after that... are not expressive in nature.  This defines my concept of a 'self-limiting' posture as a simple expression of a temporary or passing mind/body stress.

Observing the Observed... 

Observational Postural and Positional Assessments

This blog has covered subjects not usually considered simply postural or positional in nature. The idea that a provider in observation would concern him or herself with the unconscious and sensory aspects of proxemics, haptics and vocalics... and their motor counterparts of gait, stance and gesture... is to say... in the very least... somewhat unorthodox... but could be considered part of a new... broader... or 'applied' postural or positional paradigm... or an innovative concept of thinking about structure, behavior and kinesthetics. With that said.. if we were to look to the patient's neuromusculoskeletal system... and its individualized and very often peculiar hypersensitivities... and how those hypersensitivities react and relate to a patient's world both within... and without... we can begin to see a need to entertain the presence of these often subtle... but important... postural and positional adaptations in both time and space... and in considering these adaptations one might see the need for a vision beyond what is, or was, traditional considered... good care. These sensory and motor responses to situational and environmental stresses often evolve into the observable defensive structures, behaviors and kinesthetics that over time become habitual... and chronically set into postural and positional patterns that are difficult to 'break,' as they unconsciously form into a newly learned 'plastic' repertoire of stress reactions and respondent defensive choreographies designed to minimize our chronic mind/body responses to life and living.

Actively and passively observing the unconscious aspects of posture and position is a part of my expressive postures concept of the analysis and interpretation of unconscious posture... as are the variable conditions associated with such postures and positions. The key is how to... 'observe the observed.' Thus one must come to understand a posture and its position as an... 'art-form'...within a living and breathing being who in all of his or her actions in structure, behavior and kinesthetics... is expressing their present... state of mind/body wellbeing... within the constant adaptations of one's ever changing situations and environments. The traditional 'concrete' barriers and boundaries of posture must be 'liquid' in the analysis and interpretation of an expressive posture... for if we seek to place a posture in the constraints of arbitrary borders... then it cannot be recognized and identified as to its true meaning and intention... in that moment in time... and in the space that it occupies.   

Such a progression is better understood when a patient understands the true nature of both active and passive observation... as a means to an end.  That is... to observe a posture and understand it consciously... as well as unconsciously... as it will make the meaning and intention of its terminal position much clearer to the observer... affording that individual the opportunity to understand and reason... in real time... the unconscious need for that posture in both the inner and outer worlds of the patient.

Relative to the very interesting... and often unanswerable question... of the 'apparent' reduction of such postural expressions during active and passive observational assessments... there will be times when a postural expression may be found to be 'somewhat' reduced simply by taking it through active and passive observational assessments designed only to define the true nature of a postures 'self' expression through the position it seeks... in an effort to maintain its always adapting defenses. This... in and of itself... is an inadvertent... but gratifying outcome from an observational standpoint and demonstrates the fundamental meaning and intention of the expressive posture as the external manifestation of an internal postural conflict... which is subject to reorganization even under transient... but favorable conditions.  The fact that a posture may appear to be reduced or minimized during or after such an active and passive observational assessment... is something that must be left for the patient to decide for him or herself... from an intuitive mind/body perspective.

In any event... my observational concept concentrates on the practical and philosophical aspects of posture and position as a phenomenon to be explored and appreciated for a better understanding of chronic mind/body stress... and the variable circumstances by which we can come to understand repetitive stress practices... as well as the defensive reactions that may serve to protect... or further stress... the individual as he or she copes with the everyday stresses of life and living through adaptive and defensive postural expressions.  So the key here is to understand the nature of chronic mind/body stress... how it 'lives' within one's structure... how it tends to 'control' one's behavior... and how it 'acts-out' kinesthetically.  The observation of stressful postures... and the reduction of the defensive positions of those postures... are what constitute my mission for the analysis and interpretation of the... 'expressive posture.'

Postural Interventions... are they always necessary?

Postures in the midst of an active 'expression' should be allowed to be... 'expressed' 

Once again... my 'expressive postures' concept is an... 'observational construct' ...only.  It is about analyzing a posture... and interpreting its position.  It is about recognizing and identifying structural, behavioral and kinesthetic factors associated with chronic mind/body stress... and helping to analyze and interpret negative and threatening postural influences on behavioral health associated with real-time situational and environmental adaptations within the 'self' that affect one's ongoing quality of life.  It is not a 'technique.' It is not about 'correcting' a posture. It is simply about 'observing the observed' while creating a new... and ongoing... sense of postural 'self-awareness' through passive and active analytic interventions designed to compliment the embodiment one's present neuromusculoskeletal postural expressions and their positional mind/body meanings.

Postural interventions are not about 'straightening' structure...

In practice... I often have... 'influenced' postures and their positions... but I did not 'intrude' upon... nor did I 'interfere' with... the 'will' of a patient's 'expressive posture.' Instead I performed active and passive postural interventions designed to take the chronic postural asymmetry 'beneath' such 'expressions' to the neutral resting position it ultimately seeks through a staged weightbearing and gravitational leveraging of both the posture and its current position... all of which were designed to reduce the stressful and defensive activities associated with the chronic and repetitive patterns of the 'presenting' neuromusculoskeletal asymmetry and its accompanying chronic mind/body stresses... and so my care was not about 'straightening' structure... but allowing for a fluid sense of 'equilibrium' and/or 'balance.'

As you might expect, I recommend the least invasive methods of active and passive postural interventions that may be undertaken, so as to allow for the more natural weightbearing and gravitational appreciation of the target postural asymmetry being observed and addressed... and they not need not be 'dynamic' in nature.  This is most important on a 'mind/body' level.  If for instance, one were to arbitrarily 'decide' how and when a dynamic intervention should take place, then the patient's innate and/or inherent sense of posture and its expression within the neuromusculoskeletal system would be lost, and not adequately factored into the intervention plan... disrupting the meaning and intention of the posture at hand.  Thus the case can be made for a minimal or 'guided' approach to any intervention which might be delivered in the guise of an active or passive form of a very limited patient based 'self-directed' movement or motion... as guided by the prevailing needs of the unconscious defensive or stressful postures or positions associated with the individual as well as any immediate or particular mind/body needs.

This may seem to be a deliberate and somewhat minimalist approach to a posture or its position... but it does allow for an understanding of how and when a posture might be addressed with respect to the existing mind/body components of the posture's internal and external meanings... as well as its intentionality.  In other words, if we find that we eventually have to initiate a postural or positional intervention during the time of a posture's expressive peak, we should then make such an intervention with due consideration of the expressive 'will' of the mind/body, and the needs of the patient in his or her current 'expressive' state.  However, if we can reduce such a posture through interventions designed to free up and create a new balance of, and in, one's latent weightbearing and gravitational integrity... within the posture's immediate position of choice... then such a conservative path might be mutually advantageous for both provider and patient.

With this in mind..., one might very well look at interventions that would allow for the continued self-expression of a posture or its position in its present mind/body state, considering any adaptational or expressive needs, during, and as, the intervention proceeds always within... or even less than... the 'normal' range-of-motion associated with the targeted posture in its present state. So if a patient exhibits neuromusculoskeletal adaptations in response to present situations and/or environments that require a postural or positional change... then the approach to that posture should be, from my point of view, undertaken through a posture that will gradually destabilize poor and unbalanced postural positions as they relate to, and associate with, their current and chronic stresses... while encouraging new weightbearing and gravitational habits which might promote a more solid structural, behavioral and kinesthetic mind/body framework that will better be able to resist new and future stresses while reducing the need for the development of any new or additional defensive postures.

So in this case... an active or passive postural intervention serves as a minimal form of stimulation to a postural expression that is found to be in need of a simple and timely reorganization that will, in the end, afford the stressed patient relief from the mind/body aspects of a chronic and/or protracted defensive posture.  There is no 'key' element for such a posture, or its reduction.  It is simply analyzed and interpreted by the observer and understood for what it is... an 'exaggeration' or 'overlay' of one's normal posture from which chronically stressful sensations may escape and develop into a more active stage of stress for both mind and body... which will exaggerate sensory proxemic, haptic and vocalic stresses, as well as motor based gait, stance and gesture based defensiveness as well.

The analysis and interpretation of internal and external... inward and outward... unconscious and defensive body postures and/or reactive positions is dependent upon the often minuscule 'soft' observations in variation from a normal or resting posture... and its adaptive exaggerations during times of stress which make up the expressive posture.  It is the internal postural conflicts that are externally manifested that allow for the recognition and identification of the expressive posture, and further allow for its passive and prudent reduction.  Thus the expressive posture is change or 'adaptation' within a posture or position that is a variation of the 'normal' asymmetrics of such a posture or position, in accordance with an increased influx of internal and external mind/body stresses upon, or within, the patient, as well as his or her structural, behavioral and kinesthetic properties in real-time. 

As for the enduring relevance of such postural and positional stresses, the answer is apparent. A patient's mind and body can absorb and hold only so much negative and stressful energy before it must find alternative ways to adapt or release such stresses.  Vague and ill-defined bodily complaints as well as mindful feelings of stress can of course lead a provider off the true course of what is really happening within the patient. In looking at a posture analytically and interpretively, one is more apt to see the correct approach to areas in need of immediate relief through distressed postural positioning. In understanding this road map, patients themselves may eventually gain insight into their postural asymmetries... and what they might mean.. which may open up new pathways to the 'self,' on an unconscious level... for a more healthier and successful outcome relative to one's posture based mind/body stresses and their defensive effects upon everyday life and living.

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Remember... the expressive posture is an 'event' posture... it is a reactive and temporary postural exaggeration... an 'overlay' if you will.  When the stressful stimuli is absented... there will no longer be the need for this protective and adaptive defensive posture.  After a time... and all patients vary in this area... the defensive postures will dissipate and return the individual to his or her 'normal' state of postural or positional asymmetry. As such... expressive postures are only 'expressive' during the time of the stress or threat, and 'defensive' postures are only present during the temporary and protective aftermath of that threat. In any event... expressive postures... as I have defined them... are self-resolving within their own 'time-line.' 

Unconscious drives for equilibrium...

Observations on the resolution and intuitive reframing of postural expressions

In the course of an expressive posture's self-resolution, there is a reframing and reinterpretation of sorts that enables the overlay of the posture to recede, and resolve, back into the historical presentation of the chronic and unrelenting posture and position of the commonly observed infrastructure beneath.  This posture and position is the foundational premise for any and all postural expressions that will provide for the 'outgrowth' of 'postural expression' in collaboration with the stress defenses associated with the developing posture.

Understanding that all of the expressions of such postures are innate and/or intuitive... we must acknowledge the inherent desire of the neuromusculoskeletal system to preserve a level of structural, behavioral and kinesthetic equilibrium necessary to maintain its most homeostatic and unconscious symmetry during the time in which a defensive expression is required.  What does this mean? Simply that the reactive phase of a posture... and the position it seeks... is dependent upon the need of the organism as it obtains a new level of what we might call... a 'transitional' balance... between the development of the posture in need... and the position which it seeks.  In other words... it is a cycle up and a corresponding cycle down.  The 'up' side of the cycle is of course much more rapid and distressing than the much slower cycle down.

The unconscious activity of such postures and their corresponding positions are dependent upon the intensity of the proxemic, haptic or vocalic stresses that accompany the stress of the event.  Since all stresses are variable... time and intensity may be altered to maintain the essence of the reactive moment... as well as the resolution of one's expression toward such events.  Therefore, one should assume that a conscious effort... designed to control the unconscious needs of the moment... will not produce the desired effect of relaxation... if the cycle of neuromusculoskeletal stress is still climbing upward to its apex.  Thus, in the end, the cyclical reframing or reinterpretation of the posture will be governed only by the unconscious needs of the moment... and cannot be influenced by an artificial attempt by one's conscious mind/body efforts to dissipate the positional constructs of the developing postural expression.

The expressive posture then is 'learned' and 'reflexive' by its own nature.  The neuromusculoskeletal system undertakes an unconscious need to protect and separate the individual from a threat that is either 'real and/or imagined.'  Regardless of the legitimacy of the threat... the neuromusculoskeletal system reacts as if it is real.  Thus, we respond... and assume... a posture and position that will protect and ameliorate the threat unconsciously... while we understand consciously... the sensory and motor effects of the stress on a mind/body level.

So in the resolution of the posture we allow the unconscious aspects of the mind/body to assiduously work through the reframing and reinterpretation of the posture while leaving the 'position' of the posture behind in an effort to cycle down to the usual and chronic postural fixations of the infrastructure beneath... so as to return the positional phase of the posture to its long and unchanging level of a 'soft' and 'generalized' observational instability.  Meaning, that in time... the unconscious layover of the expressive posture will 'self-resolve' over the infrastructure beneath, which in turn gives such a transient posture the long term foundation for its growth.  This growth is dependent upon the instability of the infrastructure beneath... but is not dependent upon the cooperation of such infrastructure in the development of the intended or unintended growth of the eventual expression into which it will grow. The growth of the expression is from both within and beyond the control of such infrastructures regardless of their positional gravitational and weightbearing issues.

This gives us the key to the resolution of the postural expression itself.  If it is truly an unconscious and 'soft' observational response to the world or environment in which the individual is exposed... then removal or distancing from that environment will immediately begin the downward cycle to one's 'normal' level of neuromusculoskeletal distress... which will... most of the time... go unnoticed or remains in the background of chronic neuromusculoskeletal 'noise' associated with one's everyday life.  So in the end... the unconscious appraisal of a stressful situation is necessary for any external attempts to 'challenge' any posture before the stressful event is resolved.  This means that the intuitive or innate responses to a posture and its position... while in an active stress response... will not change the underlying infrastructure... but may in the end... alter and distress... the expressive nature of the outgrowing posture... leading to a new and chronic strain of neuromusculoskeletal adaptation which will have to be considered in future reframing and reinterpretations of the affected area.

This is the unconscious drive for an adaptable equilibrium.  It is not linear... and not clearly understood by all observers... but is... in its most unconscious sense... a process that must move along its path in an unobstructed way.  Now, most stress reactions are momentary... brief... and confined to the time and environment in which they occur.  Rarely do these incidents prove to last hours or days. The removal of the individual from the stressor... or the stressor from the individuals proximity... is sufficient to start the downward cycle from stress to relaxation.  The patience of both the provider and patient...  secure in the knowledge that the unconscious monitoring of the event will supersede the conscious appreciation of that same event... and will bring about a postural resolution to the positional distress as observed.  The need to do little more than exhibit the patience of observing and protecting the posture as it works its way through its innate choreography... is what is necessary.  The intuitive and unconscious aspects of such learned and reflexive postures need only to be allowed to recede... and transition themselves back into the long term and chronic postural positions that are part and parcel to the mind/body makeup that represents the stress and discomfort of the moment in time.

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So in the end... the expressive posture is... by its very definition... a concept... a concept of 'observing the observed.' It is an abstract and figurative observation of the neuromusculoskeletal system in stress and defense.  It is an anthropometric... 'art-form.'  It is no more 'real' than any other postural or positional design... except that it reflects a substratal 'state-of-mind' which is unconsciously grown and exhibited throughout its embodiment.  It is a torsional deviation like any other adaptation... a temporary exaggeration of the 'norm' ... a postural 'overlay' if you will.  It carries with it a meaning and intention dynamically associated with its location and specific time of appearance. Its meaning reflects the internal acknowledgment of a situation or environment... Its intention is the manifestation of an external defense against any perceived... or imagined threat that might seek to endanger the 'self.' Again... whether the threat be real or imagined.. is of no consequence to the stimulation of either the stress response... or the defensive boundaries erected.  It does create... and allows for... a non-verbal assessment of one's feelings that might hurt or harm the 'self.'  It is unconscious... though it can be appreciated on a conscious level.  It can be recognized and identified... analyzed and interpreted.. and can be felt or experienced in a weightbearing and gravitational sense.  The expressive posture once again is a... concept... a way of observing... a rationale for an event and its effect upon the mind/body.  It is a way to understand the structural, behavioral and kinesthetic response to the common, everyday stresses of life and living.

Behavioral Considerations... 

Hypnotic... Neurolinguistic... Neuroplastic and Psychodynamic  Concepts/Theories... 

We analyze and interpret negative postural positioning which will in time drain the human energy system of its constructive and positive attributes, and bring upon... and within an individual... a growing level of internalized stress and unconscious mind/body defeatism which will take on a life of its own... breeding even more stress upon one's external weightbearing and gravitational systems... inhibiting the human condition through both... real and imagined... unconscious actions... upon both mind and body.  It will after a time become a fixture in how one views oneself and the world.  

With this in mind... we seek to remain upright and energetically engage in the life issues that matter to us in an effort to live and achieve our life goals, but sometimes, without our knowing it, we become unable to hold up our own weight against gravity... not only on a structural and kinesthetic level, but on a behavioral level as well.  Some of these behaviors I classify as 'nearo' behaviors.. as I tend to separate simple everyday 'behavior' from the more learned and established 'neurobehaviors' that are unconscious and defensive... which propagate the eventual expressive posture which is eventually 'solidified' over a lifetime.  

We often feel the weightbearing and gravitational drag of the pain, stress and anxiety of daily life and living, and we soon take on that load in our failing postures... which in time... will overtake us... and weaken our resolve to carry on and succeed on a mind/body level. It is the residual and chronic mind/body stresses of the day that make us indecisive and weak in the face of the everyday challenges of life and living. These factors are always underestimated when it comes to the additional weight they place on one's mind... as well as one's body.

And so it is incumbent upon us as providers to consider advanced behavioral modification as a legitimate adjunct in our care... just as the common physiological adjuncts we use each and everyday. Such 'conversational interventions' are no more time consuming than the usual 'talking points' associated with a typical visit.  A provider might suggest new ways to visualize or conceptualize a patient's problem. That is... looking at the body's response to a stressor as an outlet for the mind... like a kind of pressure release... that is often cyclical in nature and appearance. Reassessing a mindful conflict can often minimize the body's response to it if one is adequately educated in his or her own resources.  This can be accomplished by a provider who is ready to investigate 'suggestive' interventions of care designed to assist the patient in a positive 'self-talk' through the use of hypnotic ... neurolinguistic... neuroplastic... and psychodynamic concepts and theories... which can be introduced to a patient if he or she should show such an interest.  In 'coaching' a patient's conscious and unconscious mind/body faculties as such... a patient will be able to unitize new and effective modes of self-awareness and self-communication.  New learnings such as these can help to alter 'old' thinking patterns on a behavioral level which are by definition over and above the simple everyday behaviors I have associated with both structure and kinetics

As well... one might advance such conversational approaches so as to offer up positive goal seeking neurobehaviors relative to treatment aims... and are very often useful in aligning the patient with desired outcomes. And finally... a provider might bring to the forefront a common and unconscious concept of 'repetition' or the 'repetition compulsion'...in chronic issues associated with the question of... 'why does this area always bother me... at this time, or at this place... or with this person?' This approach will help you to recognize a patient's dilemma as it occurs... while recognizing that... time and place specificity... is often the real antagonist in these situations.  This form of adjunctive care influences brain centers that are receptive to 'change'...thus a truly behavioral approach may in time assist one in achieving a meaningful adaptation that might allow a patient to 'reframe' or 'let go of' the mind/body pain, stress and anxiety of a particular situation. 

So in educating patients on a posture one is currently experiencing... as not simply an exacerbation of a preexisting condition... but rather a 'soft' but observable postural or positional 'overlay' of one's typical and chronic neuromusculoskeletal distress... most likely brought on by a mind/body conflict centered upon and already weak and suspect area of one's self will sound logical to most patients. So when such a patient asks why a bodily conflict is not directly addressed...  you can confidently tell them that this is a self-limiting issue and when the mindful conflict is resolved, this problem too will be resolved... and they themselves... after being properly educated... can actively engage in a course of self-directed neuromusculoskeletal relaxation exercises... along with an active reframing and/or reinterpretation of a problem to a more favorable resolution...  rather than remaining a helpless victim to a negative and unconscious thought process.  In other words... you as a provider can stimulate correct thinking with a positive suggestion of fact and encouragement to a patient who is ready to listen... and ready to act upon and for themselves. 

Such information can assist a patient in mobilizing his or her own innate reserves toward the resolution of such distresses.  Continually addressing an area... over and over again... will not alleviate or resolve the external and specific stresses being absorbed by the patient.  In fact such care might serve to create yet another region of care chronicity... that will in the end... only serve to stimulate the same kind of mind/body stress you continually seek to alleviate.    

So in changing stressful postural expressions and their habitual and often rigid expressive postures, one can learn to minimize the unconscious hypersensitivities associated with protective or defensive postures, especially in the areas of proxemic, haptic and vocalic stresses... which often tend to compromise social skill sets at inopportune times. One can also learn to adapt one's postures, gait, stances and gestures in more positive ways, to help get one's message or point across to others... without provoking the unconscious cues that often set off defensive alarms in the listener's neuromusculoskeletal system. 

In keeping with this line of thinking... postural expressions of chronic mind/body stress are an ongoing and evolutionary process within us all.  We project and defend our feelings through movements and adaptations in and of weightbearing and gravitational positions that ultimately form new and sometimes less functional postures which over time may come to hurt us in both mind and body. It is because of this reality that the investigation of postural expressions and their effect upon the human condition is so important, and why I continue to observe posture most particularly in stressful situational and environmental circumstances where both the mind and body are asked to confront the external manifestations of internal postural conflicts within us all as individuals.

Addenda...

Supplemental Biographics...

In addition to my biography at the beginning of this blog, there are other educational certifications that can be listed here... as well as my many years of dual state chiropractic licensure in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire. From the University of the State of New York I received my undergraduate degree (BS) with concentrations in neuroscience and psychology... and from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Iowa, my doctorate (DC).  Also from Palmer College of Chiropractic I received a certificate of superior clinical proficiency... while serving as a clinical intern in radiology... as well as an additional certificate of proficiency in radiological theory, practice, imagery analysis and interpretation. From New York Chiropractic College I also received an advanced post-graduate certificate for a broad range of adjunctive physiological therapeutics and clinical nutrition. I also hold diplomate status, and board certification, through the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners... and was cited by the National Institute of Chiropractic Research in their chronology for my contributions to... mental health and chiropractic.

                                                                                          ---

As well... I am a certified hypnotherapist through the National Guild of Hypnosis... and have taught self-hypnosis to patients at my chiropractic office for better than twenty-five years for the reduction of chronic mind/body pain, stress and anxiety. I was also a member of the conference faculty lecturing on hypnotic postures and various issues in chronic pain, and have received tw0 certificates for outstanding lectures by a faculty member two years running, 2023 and 2024.  I have also completed a one year, continuing education certificate program, sponsored by the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis in Livingston, New Jersey on today's applied psychoanalytic concepts and theories... studying the maturational process and early developmental failures, analytical listening and communication, impulse and obsessive disorders and transference and countertransference... and have utilized applied psychoanalytic concepts and theories... in my care of chronic expressive postures associated with psychodynamic pain, stress and anxiety... which is often associated with unconscious repetitions of auto-suggestive destructive drives.  I have also studied psychoanalytic clinical psychopathology as an ongoing part of my continuing education. 

 

So in a very real sense... I became 'a psychoanalytically oriented chiropractor.' I am also a certified Neurolinguistic Programmer... teaching patients how to reframe or rethink their self-talk relative to chronic mind/body pain, stress and anxiety.  I hold memberships with the American Chiropractic Association, the National Guild of Hypnosis, the National Federation of Neurolinguistic Programmers and the World Association of Photobiomodulation Therapy. Since retiring from my public, everyday practice, I continue to investigate the metaphysical and metapsychological neurosciences commonly associated with... chiropractic, hypnosis, neurolinguistics, neuroplasticity, photobiomodulation (laser) and applied psychoanalytic concepts and theories... while still developing my observational... Expressive Postures Concept™.  I saw my final chiropractic patient in December 2007.

Professional History... 1977-2007: 

Practice:

Cranial/Brainstem Interventions

Headache Pain, Stress and Anxiety

Tension/Psychodynamics and Headache 

 

During my thirty years of public, posture-based, chiropractic practice, on Main Street in Stoneham (from which I retired in 2007) I gradually developed a special interest in the 'abstract' concept of postural mind/body tension/psychodynamic headache pain, stress and anxiety (headaches of a vague, ill-defined and non-diagnostic nature very often due to the reactive and situational positional aspects of transient unconscious defensive expressions resulting from the metaphysical and metapsychological pain, stress and anxiety of everyday life and living). With that developing concept... I decided to specialize in my cranial/brainstem methodology... and limited all of my 'new' patient intakes to those that came in under the umbrella of... chronic mind/body, posture based, headache pain, stress and anxiety associated with biopsychosocial factors.

My newly revised, and limited chiropractic care consisted of... very specific radiological imaging of the cranial/brainstem area... localized cranial/brainstem heat differentials... myofascial release and motion palpation methods... as well as very precise low-intensity pulsed ultrasonics... frequency specific microcurrent surface electromyography... and soft-manual and/or soft-instrumental interventions in an effort to 'stimulate' and/or 'influence' the structural, behavioral and kinesthetic status of the sensitive cranial/brainstem area in a effort to reduce the incidence of associated mind/body posture and positional based pain, stress and anxiety.

In addition... a gentle neuromusculoskeletal course of care was applied through soft-manual range-of-motion based interventions designed to reduce the unconscious and defensive structural, behavioral and kinesthetic postures, positions and 'expressions' often associated with mind/body pain, stress and anxiety.  My chiropractic expressive postures tension/psychodynamic headache concept also included 'passive' behavior modification  through the use of hypnotic, neurolinguistic neuroplastic and applied psychoanalytic concepts and theories. 

I also employed a soft-observation of one's unconscious and habitual 'defensive' aspects of gait, stance and gesture... as well as the collaborative 'defensive' usages of one's proxemic, haptic and vocalic mannerisms... and how they 'fit' into the larger picture of my developing concept of the expressive posture.  My specialized posture based mind/body care was also accompanied by an appreciation for both the conscious and unconscious factors associated with obscure mind/body pain, stress and anxiety... such as... why now? ...relative to specific times, people and places... and of course... why this particular kind of complaint? ...as the selected mind/body vehicle for the expressions of pain, stress and anxiety.  All of this relates to the negative and almost always present... auto-suggestive destructive drives... associated with 'repetitive' and 'expressive' postural mind/body  tension/psychodynamic headache pain, stress and anxiety.

One last comment on tension/psychodynamic headaches.  Allan Hobson, late of Harvard University, defines the term psychodynamic as... 'a psychological process that has no known neurological basis,' (e.g., as in metapsychological and/or metaphysical forces) which brings us back to the concept of auto-suggestion and its sometimes unconscious destructive drives that are quite possibly resulting from quantum, cranial/brainstem misalignments or micro-pressures... that might compromise nervous system 'energetics' causing or creating an increase in unconscious psychodynamic 'excitement' that may initiate a simple tension headache... or other central nervous system 'imbalances.' 

Posture Studio 2008-2017:

Soft-Observational Investigations of the Expressive Posture

After retiring from my public... patient based... chiropractic practice at the end of 2007, after 30 years... I focused my attention upon the analysis and interpretation of posture at my Expressive Postures Studio at Cummings Park in Woburn... where I privately investigated active and passive images of structural, behavioral and kinesthetic postures... commonplace gaits, stances and gestures... as well as the proxemics, haptics and vocalics associated with chronic and repetitive mind/body pain, stress and anxiety... exclusively... and in a soft-observational manner which included, but was not limited to... flat and degree inclined treadmill analysis...  and retrograde inversion assessments ...all through web-enabled, time-lapsed, closed circuit television (CCTV), variable motion studies and still imagery/computer/visual evaluations... while relating those findings to my posture based methodologies... so as to define and explain the activity of defensive postural expressions... and to also understand how such defensive postures might develop from the unconscious factors associated with the development of 'randomized' and/or 'positional' chronic mind/body pain, stress and anxiety.  It was during this time period when I developed and wrote my expressive postures theoretical concepts... partially based on my article... 'Palmer, Freud and the Postural Unconscious' published in Dynamic Chiropractic, July 2008, Vol 26, Issue 16, and reprinted in several additional  journals.

And so... the soft-observational studies at my Expressive Postures Studio became the essence of my work.  I came to believe that a physical addressing of a defensive body area could be replaced by a mindful addressing of that defensive posture with regard to its present mind/body pain, stress and anxiety. Though my studio functioned on a soft-observation, theoretical, and hypothetical, non-patient basis in my studies... there was, nevertheless, a good deal of irrefutable evidence relative to old and new breakthroughs in brain science in... hypnosis as well as... neurolinguistics, neuroplasticity and applied psychoanalytic theory that supported the idea that a conscious structural, behavioral and kinesthetic effort... in times of metaphysical and metapsychological 'mind/body' pain, stress and anxiety could... and would... have long standing effects upon repetitive and unconscious chronic mind/body postural and positional expressions and... auto-suggestive destructive drives. 

Expressive Postures Concepts™ 

Analysis and Interpretation of Posture

Postural/Positional Mind/Body Conflicts

Observations of the... 'Unconscious' Posture

Today... I continue to develop my 'soft' observational concept of the... postural and positional mind/body conflicts of pain, stress and anxiety... and their resultant expressive postures... on a phenomenological basis... in a totally theoretical and abstract environment... in which I freely share in this informational blog on how I 'observe the observed.'  Though expressive postures is not a 'technique' as chiropractors are accustomed to learning... it is in it's own way... a 'philosophy of observation' put into practice... but more than that... it is a theoretical look... an abstract or esoteric way of appreciating human structure, behavior and kinesthetics... as well as what is real and undeniable... but it is still at times... conceptually difficult to put into absolutes and any well established definitions of 'being.' 

However we choose to view posture, position and of course the 'expressive posture' as influencers and indicators of one's present state-of-mind relative to the wellbeing of the 'self.'  How to observe and understand what one is seeing metaphysically... and understanding it metapsychologically... is the key to this knowledge. Too often we examine a patient in a 'controlled' set of circumstances... and we lose sight of the structural, behavioral and kinesthetic aspects of the patient's postural and positional mind/body conflicts... not to mention any unconscious motivations for any particular defensive postures and positions that we might 'miss' in those situations.  In any case... the focus here is the presenting phenomenological observation and it's 'analysis and interpretation' of those very observations... by both doctor and patient... that allow for the necessary understanding of what the concept of a postural expression means to the overall picture of an individual's health over the long term.

My expressive postures concept is simply an ongoing theoretical exercise in the soft-observation and phenomenological appreciation of what is seen on a repetitive basis.  It is the observation of one's innate or auto-suggestive destructive drives played out... as well as one's unconscious compulsion to repeat them... in accordance with specific circumstances and situations that tend to precede the postural mind/body conflicts of pain, stress and anxiety of the defensive moment.

In understanding this we take our chiropractic work and sometimes support it with hypnotic, and neurolinguistic programming and neuroplastic methods as well as applied psychoanalytic concepts and theories... often associated with metaphysical and metapsychological concepts and theories that seamlessly blend into a patient's postural and positional expressions ...that may lead us to an understanding of a patient's current state-of-mind and/or one's state of being in the moment...  especially during the defensive activities of both mind and body... in dealing with the transitory and temporary presence of the... expressive posture... in real time.

Just a passing note on postural and positional mind/body conflicts associated with psychodynamic symptoms.  As I discuss mind/body conflicts in association with cranial and brainstem postures and positions... it is worth noting here that like any other postural or positional expressive posture... postures and positions in this area are always defensive...  and situationally and environmentally most important to our work with the expressive posture and its current position. The fact that metaphysical and metapsychological factors are inherent in almost all mind/body conflicts... along with the 'active' expressive posture both situationally and environmentally... we cannot rely solely upon the standard anatomical findings common to such conflicts... but we must look at the 'intangibles' that contribute to the conflict itself.  These intangibles may be discussed in patient 'pre-talks' where the doctor might 'tap-into' unconscious and conscious factors that can influence the conflict process.  This might be done alternately through the mindful utilization of direct 'suggestion' or self-directed 'auto-suggestion' as used by Palmer (auto-suggestion) and Carver (suggestion) some years ago... as well as self-hypnotic, neurolinguistic, neuroplastic and applied psychoanalytic theories and concepts that can and will help a patient recognize his or her repetitive situational and environmental patterns as well as exposures to those who might predispose one to his or her postural and positional mind/body conflicts.

The stark anatomical findings found in expressive postural and positional psychodynamic symptoms and their associated mind/body conflicts are only a 'piece' of the puzzle... and very often may be reduced through a self-directed, self-hypnotic, range-of-motion exercise by the patient. The intangibles of self-hypnotic, neurolinguistic, neuroplastic and applied psychoanalytic factors should be explored in patient-centered conversations of 'why-such a conflict' and 'why-now' in all 'pre-talk' and 'post-talks.'  The timing... location... environmental... and situational factors... including the 'human' factors of proximity, haptics and vocalics... as well as the observable modifications in gait, stance and gestures... are what differentiate the postural and positional aspects of a mind/body conflict from the purely neuroanatomical event we often speak of. Showing a patient how to look into themselves... as well as all contributing factors during one's bouts of episodic mind/body conflicts of pain, stress and anxiety may serve to lessen the immediate event... and other episodes of vague and/or ill-defined attacks upon the 'self' on a biopsychosocial level.

Photobiomodulation (laser) Information

A note here on localized Photobiomodulation or Laser for those interested in both Chiropractic and Hypnosis protocols in laser therapies.  In addition to what has already been discussed in these blogs... laser applications can be applied routinely to tension/psychodynamic headaches and their associated ‘expressive postures’ of pain, stress and anxiety, as well as in the improvement of neurolinguistic and neuroplastic activities within the brain. 

As well, transcranial laser may also be applied in cases of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers and/or other dementias.  Research shows the benefits of both red and infrared laser on the cerebrum... benefits that promote improved cellular function and central nervous system equilibrium. As well, photobiomodulation has also been found to be beneficial in the ongoing process of neurogenesis and the inherent neuroprotection activities of both mind and body.

Recognizing Expressive Postures 

It is necessary to note here that the focus of my expressive postures is on...

structure, behavior and kinetics during the observations of the initial phase of  

 the treatment  session along with its 'cues' in client/patient receptivity which are

often validated in their unconscious proxemic, haptic and vocal expressions.

During Observation
● Initial stance and transformative in gait approaching a chair, recliner or bench ●

● How a client/patient places himself/herself upon furniture (open or tentative) ●

● The initial seated or recumbent postures of additional postural settling in ●

● The initial sessions beginnings and/or 'positional' resettlement ●

During Visualization Sessions 

● Initial defensive unconscious mid-session positional and postural expressions ●

● Appearance of repetitive gestures... expressing new stressful learning changes ●

● Additional need to 'resettle' attitudinal head-tilts and new 'breath patterns' ●

● Conscious awareness of both active/inactive observations of kinetics ●

During Guided-Imagery Sessions

● Structural release of tense, tight or rigid postural expressions ●

● Behavioral adaptations in mid-session in head-tilt and breath releases ●

● The lower extremities in unconscious structural, behavioral and kinetic thought ●

● Resettlement of positional and postural attitudes at the close of the session ●

Post-Session Exit

● Rising from the chair, recliner or bench in both attitude and definiteness  ●

● Immediate stance and gestures taken in upright position relative to the provider ● 

● Observation of immediate proxemic, haptic and vocalics in exit conversations ●

● Gait and cadence... in leaving the treatment area/room (casual or speedy) ●  

For more information... contact Dr. Chiacchi at... drchiacchi@gmail.com

                                     

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