Introduction

One of the biggest challenges in interpreting Alexander and his contemporaries’ writings is not reading them anachronistically. If one reads these works with a modern lens they will find different meanings than were originally intended. The meanings of terms like science, consciousness and evolution have shifted in the century since Alexander conceptualized his technique, that’s to say nothing of the changes in meaning of AT jargon like ‘Primary Control’ and ‘Use’ in that time. 

A modern reading of Alexander without historical context would give one much more sympathy for the original texts. If it were not for the work of Jeroen Staring, a proper reading of Alexander in historical context might not be possible today. Without reading his biography of F.M. one might not be able to grasp the full extent of the relationship of the Alexander technique and eugenics, for example.

Systematic selective revision of the history and concepts of the AT has resulted in teachers (unconsciously) teaching ‘natural eugenics’ as proposed by Alexander, down to the terminology he used. F.M. was proposing something along the lines of “if you help people change their habits, those habits will be passed down to their children” (a theory of social evolution of conscious control). That perhaps sounds mild with a modern lens but Alexander had a sort of classism and ableism that was extremely racist in mind.

Aside from AT’s questionable origins, the main problem with the current state of AT theory is that its concepts remain difficult to define; therefore it is impossible to know what AT is. AT might have clinical efficacy and value, but to be studied by science (and be validated) it needs to operationalize its hypotheses and test them with (modern) empirical methods. AT must throw away constructs that fail to show that they have value (i.e. Primary control, Use, Etc.) and reduce concepts, as much as possible, to the biological level. The AT could almost be forgiven for some time because of the general lack of refinement in the related fields of Neuroscience, Psychology and Kinesiology. However, it is 2023 and AT teachers are still using conceptions that came directly out of Victorian ideas about eugenics. In short, ‘evolution of the technique’ has not kept pace.

We can give better descriptions of what Alexander was doing than he was able to give. One can describe Alexander as responding to the need to replace the human self-image, which had been made obsolete by social and cultural change; with a new self-image better adapted to the results of those changes. Social and cultural change gradually render large scale descriptions of ourselves and our situations obsolete and create the need for new language to form new descriptions. It is past time for new language and new descriptions for the Alexander Technique.

Changes in AT Concepts 

The first generation teachers adamantly and cultishly tried to preserve the AT as F.M. practiced it while quietly dispersing with the unsavory bits. This haphazard method of reduction left the AT more nonsensical than it was originally conceived. F.M. ‘s original conceptions put plainly were something like, “a certain coordination of the head, neck and back results in a higher plane of consciousness; from which the (previously unconscious, or at best semi-conscious) ability to will/direct (or re-direct in the case of habit) one’s ‘psycho-physical’ behavior (use) becomes possible.” This hypothesis was tied to Magnus and Coghill’s research but was infamously debunked in Quackery Versus Physical Education (1944), which insisted that research cited as supportive did not provide any evidence in support of Alexander. It also referred to Alexander’s ‘followers’ as a ‘head balancing cult’ and put their ‘belief’ down to ‘group hystero-neurosis’ typical of a ‘new faith.’

What is the Alexander Technique, really? 

If one looks at the AT objectively without belief in it, one finds an ’embodied’ folk psychology/theory of mind that offers pseudo-explanation and treatment of various disorders, especially those related to motor functioning. 

This question also presents a problem in that the AT is most often characterized in disingenuous ways as most writings on the subject of AT aim to market it. The most common little white lie is that AT is an education or ‘re-education’ method, likely referring to the use of the AT as a tool for habit changing. What then is re-education? Because AT theory is not falsifiable, essentially re-education means indoctrination (reification of said folk psychological theory). 

Why is the AT a folk psychology?

The AT is an amalgamation of vague truisms based on fuzzy concepts (i.e. use, lengthening, widening, collapsing, direction, downward pull, conscious control etc.). The concepts of AT are common words and phrases described with neologistic definitions which creates double meanings which then can be interpreted as significant. A crude analogy can be drawn between how the Hebrew languages’ numerical value(s) of alphabetic characters leads to the sum values of words potentially gaining religious significance/double meaning. AT concepts have no clear boundaries and can be applied to a situation in varying degrees, depending on the context. Because the concepts in AT are ill-defined it is impossible to falsify them, therefore any claims made by AT are somewhat pseudoscientific by definition.

Changing Standards of Truth Claims in Philosophy & Science in Relation to AT

Most scientists today are (consciously or unconsciously) philosophically predisposed to ‘eliminative materialism’. Essentially this is the idea that the majority of mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire, since they are poorly defined. The argument is that psychological concepts of behavior and experience should be judged by how well they reduce to the biological level. Other versions entail the nonexistence of conscious mental states such as pain and visual perceptions. Consciousness and folk psychology are separate issues, and it is possible to take an eliminative stance on one but not the other.

Eliminative Materialism greatly differs in its handling of truth claims from Pragmatism, which heavily influenced Alexander through his contact with John Dewey. Alexander made many grand claims for his technique, but the argument that it was scientific was made by his disciples. Most notably, John Dewey. Dewey wrote introductions to three of Alexander’s books and one particular passage is quite interesting in light of charges that the AT is pseudoscientific:

“The contrast between sustained and accurate observations of ‘living and the usual activities of man’ and those made upon dead things under unusual and artificial conditions marks the difference between true and pseudo-science. And yet [we have become so used to] associating ‘science’ with the latter sort of thing that its contrast with the genuinely scientific character of Mr. Alexander’s observations has been one great reason for the failure of many to appreciate his technique and conclusions. As might be anticipated, the conclusions of Mr. Alexander’s experimental inquiries are in harmony with what physiologists know about the muscular and nervous structure. But they give a new significance to that knowledge; indeed, they make evident what knowledge itself really is. The anatomist may ‘know’ the exact function of each muscle, and conversely know what muscles come into play in the execution of any specified act. But if he is himself unable to coordinate all the muscular structures involved in, say, sitting down or in rising from a sitting position in a way which achieves the optimum and efficient performance of that act; if, in other words, he misuses himself in what he does, how can he be said to know in the full and vital sense of that word? Magnus proved by means of what may be called external evidence the existence of a central control in the organism. But Mr. Alexander’s technique gave a direct and intimate confirmation in personal experience of the fact of central control long before Magnus carried on his investigations. And one who has had experience of the technique knows it through the series of experiences which he himself has.”

Knowledge Argument

Dewey was not so subtlety invoking the strongest argument against eliminative materialism, the philosophical ‘knowledge’ argument or question of qualia best exemplified by Frank Jackson’s Mary’s room thought experiment. The experiment is as follows:

“Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black-and-white room via a black-and-white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes or the sky and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. What happens when Mary is released from her black-and-white room or is given a color television monitor? Does she learn anything new or not?”

Jackson claims, and it seems quite obvious, that she does. In essence qualia does seem to have some non-physical properties therefore physicalism is false. For Jackson, this led to Epiphenomenalism, the view that subjective mental events are completely dependent for their existence on corresponding physical and biochemical events within the human body, yet themselves have no influence over physical events. Alexander on the other hand seems to be suggesting that subjective suggestive or auto-suggestive mental events (direction) do influence physical events, at least within the body where the so-called mental events are taking place. 

It was John Locke’s version of empiricism which harkens back to (now debunked) ancient notions (tabula rasa) that Dewey was referring to in his endorsements of Alexander. The dominant strand of philosophy in England by 1700 was “experimental philosophy”, a view that was associated strongly with figures such as Boyle, Newton and Locke. Locke believed that the senses supply us with all knowledge but that the senses were limited and therefore what we can know about the world is accordingly limited. This position bears some vague resemblance to AT philosophy on perception/sensory appreciation. In relation, Alexander claimed his technique could improve perception, with the old ‘empirical’ view of the world that perception (phenomenal experience) equates to empirical knowing; Dewey was insinuating that deeper perception brought from AT would equate to deeper understanding of knowledge generally.

At the time Dewey was writing his introductions he was consistent in calling Alexander’s experiments ‘scientific’ as they would have been considered science by the standards of the time. Consider some of the early case studies of psychologists/psychiatrists like Freud as a parallel. To put it bluntly, what was taken as empirical in that age was anything phenomenally experienced and recorded by an authority on the matter. In other words, nearly any vague conjecture from a scholar could pass as a scientific theory with some empirical data behind it and any recorded phenomenal data was considered empirical, even anecdotal reports.

Subjectivity of the Meaning of Qualia

Alexander’s thought process goes in reverse of Jackson in trying to discover the laws of qualia from the qualia itself, a crude phenomenological approach. Alexander claimed we are all like Mary until experiencing improved sensory appreciation that has a kind of metaphysical connection to spinal/torso coordination. In other words changes in the quality of experience can be brought about by volitionally altering breathing, motor plans and body position. The proof of effect being in the changes in subjective qualia. However, nearly anything (including placebo) can cause changes in the qualia of experience, not least the position of the head for many obvious reasons to do with balance and the inner ear and sight-line. One doesn’t then declare that the position of the head is the master control of qualia (unless you’re F.M. Alexander).

Jackson, Dewey, and common sense would argue that of course Mary learns something from the lived experience of color that is separate from everything there is to know (theoretically) about color. Essentially, Dewey is saying we are all in some version of Mary’s room and only are let out upon experiencing the Alexander technique. The problem with invoking the argument of qualia here is that not only does it presuppose that the Alexander client’s default qualia is wrong (faulty sensory awareness/debauched kinesthesia), it assumes that whatever qualia AT is ‘re-educating’ people with is the correct one without evidence. It’s also worth pointing out that qualia can’t be ‘re-educated,’ only interpreted; this is almost to the level of indoctrinating due to the lack of evidence. It also sounds all too much like some kind of secular Western version of the myth of enlightenment (Improved Use/Sensory Appreciation/Conscious Control) that can only be passed down by transmission from a guru.

Bloch, in his biography of Alexander, mentions that F.M. distanced himself from the once helpful Dewey after Dewey proposed a scientific trial of the technique. The prospect alarmed Alexander as he had no confidence in the investigation and in addition feared a loss of control over the technique.

Alexander’s Investigations by today’s standards

It’s important to remember that Alexander’s theory was essentially based on anecdotal and/or phenomenal observations. In Not Quite Science, Tim Cacciatore argued that Alexander’s writings lack the components of a scientific theory because the concepts lack precise definition and are not based on previously established scientific principles but instead are essentially a phenomenological description rather than a predictive theory. For this reason it’s quite difficult, if not impossible, to pin down exactly what the AT is. Not because the AT is acting upon some mysterious and little known force called Use, but rather because the focus on superficial phenomena without a grounding in established fields of study.

Karl Popper proposed falsifiability as a standard specific to the sciences in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), informed by the contrasting approaches of Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Popper noticed that Einstein sought out data that would disprove his theories; he made predictions about future instances based upon the past, and then tried to learn more to test the validity of his hypothesis. Freud, on the other hand (like Alexander), used data that could be shaped to fit his theories, and his theories were crafted to explain the past, not the future. For Popper, this clarified a key difference between science and pseudoscience. Namely, a theory or hypothesis is falsifiable (or refutable) if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical test. This is the current standard for truth claims in modern science.

Strange Metaphysics of AT

Alexander’s metaphysics appear convoluted and nonsensical when analyzed. One might be tempted, at first glance, to group Alexander with non-dual philosophies such as Vedanta, as superficially, Alexander preached “psycho-physical unity.” Vedanta is arguably the most refined non-dual ideal theory, essentially everything is one mental substance, namely God’s dream.

However, it is blatantly obvious that AT assumes a logically inconsistent type of individualistic ‘empirical’ cartesian dualism disguised as monism (psycho-physical unity). Simply put, the cartesian dilemma AT metaphysics creates is that the I/Me (director) is not the same thing as the body it is directing (the thing being directed). Who is the director in the ‘conscious control of the individual’? Where’s the part that controls the unity? The problem becomes infinite regress.

In addition to being a dualistic ideal theory, which is somewhat self-contradicting, Alexander metaphysics almost require a libertarian view of free-will with seemingly limitless powers to overcome any physical obstacle with its application. Something which science has essentially debunked. Libertarian free will is central to Alexander’s conceptions and it is tied to his moral philosophy. Alexander equated good use to moral behavior. His morals were tied to a classism steeped in eugenics. Using yourself well meant behaving properly (like a Victorian white English gentleman, etc.). 

Conclusion

Bloch mentions in his biography that Alexander described himself as an agnostic, but was profoundly influenced by his Christian upbringing, “his speech as an adult was peppered with biblical quotes, and he had been imbued a strong sense of right and wrong, self-discipline and personal responsibility.” Considering the dominance of neo-platonic dualism in Christianity and his hardcore individualism, it’s a fairly safe bet he considered his mind to be equivalent to his soul in a then popular, cartesian/vitalistic fashion. What Alexander was referring to with conscious control was almost certainly a cartesian idea of mind/soul interacting with the body. It’s no surprise then why AT is so often mixed with various spiritual practices if one makes synonymous the terms mind, soul, self, thinking, direction, etc. 

Alexander’s efforts to explain psychophysical functioning were also held back by the mechanistic, eugenics influenced, understanding of biology available at the time. While Alexander had a fair number of medical endorsements, he and his followers’ various models have been challenged or refuted many times. There have also been many attempts to redefine AT concepts, but nearly all take the approach of relying on anecdotal or at best clinical observations, not replicable scientific data in forming a hypothesis.

A new model of AT is needed that reduces the metaphors to their essential component parts and eliminates needless abstractions. Some AT teachers realize the need to revise the core concepts of AT and are open to outside knowledge but many wish to remain secluded from science as infallible gurus. It is my suggestion to avoid the latter and search out teachers who have integrated Alexander’s original conceptions into evidence based approaches and theories.