Functional Integration Sessions: The Feldenkrais Method in the Individual Setting

It’s not just about treating the symptoms, but much rather about recalibrating the whole nervous system to enhance overall physical and mental well-being

If you’ve never been to a Feldenkrais lesson before, it might be challenging to understand what all the hype is about. Here, I want to try to help you understand it better. In a previous article, I wrote in detail what Awareness Through Movement is. Now, let’s dive into individual sessions, how they work and, most importantly, who should join one.

Main differences between ATM and FI in Feldenkrais

While ATM, Awareness Through Movement, is taught in group settings, the main characteristic of FI, Functional Integration, is its personalised approach within individual sessions. ATM is taught to a class, and the teacher guides students verbally. FI is a hands-on approach where the practitioner uses touch to communicate with the student’s nervous system through a series of movements. 

Although both techniques are great, if you’re struggling with chronic or neuroplastic pain or have specific physical issues you’d like to address, FI is more appropriate. At the same time, it would be reductive to say that FI is simply good for those looking to soothe some physically painful symptoms. Let’s dive into its potential.

Benefits of Functional Integration

The human body is fascinating. In order to help you go through your day uninterrupted, it continuously does its best to balance out and mask all the little muscular tensions, the stress that gets to the body, the effects of bad postures, and so on. All just to help you focus on what’s apparently more pressing or important. In other words, the brain is an incredible master of strategy when it comes to helping you move through life without noticing little dysfunctions and physical adaptations that happen due to chronic stress, tension, or traumas. Despite this, things often add up with time. 

Even though you might not notice how many little changes take place one after another, after a while, it inevitably starts showing up. You might start experiencing fatigue throughout the day, wake up not-so-well rested, struggle with balance and coordination, or develop muscle weakness in some areas of your body.

Year after year, some of these changes can become so integrated into how you move and behave that you don’t even wonder if that is normal or a result coming from adaptation… Until you come to an FI session.

To be honest, everyone reacts differently to their first Functional integration session. Some of my clients come for a specific reason (pain or other chronic symptoms), while others just feel something is off in their bodies, and they’re actively looking for some help first to figure it out and then, hopefully, to fix it. What they get, though, is often much broader than that.

The benefits of FI involve plenty of physical and mental changes. Beyond the reduction of pain, you can experience an enhanced recovery from an injury and improvement in how efficiently you move, walk, and exercise, better balance, a healthier posture, and even sharper cognitive functions, a clearer mind, higher energy and vitality levels.

How does an FI session work?

Often, I get asked what to expect from a Functional Integration session with me, in Luxembourg. First, you have to know that Feldenkrais is not about focusing on fixing the painful or straining movement but quite the opposite. 

FI sessions involve pleasant and effortless movements in the search for movement patterns that are more efficient compared to the ones you’re used to. Most of the time, students can feel the difference within the first session, as their nervous system starts to be awakened and neural patterns rewired. However, for the change to shape into lasting effects, it’s important to know it often takes your nervous system a couple of sessions to integrate all the smaller changes to come together and form a bigger picture that starts to make sense on a visceral level.

As you advance through the sessions, you can expect to feel the tension disappear from the muscles and your posture improve without a direct extra effort from your side. Your usual daytime fatigue would shift, as well as feelings of overwhelm and confusion. For many, it’s like walking through a door towards reconnecting with themselves. For others, it’s a very concrete, physical experience, leaving them more grounded, stable, light, and free to move.

In this private work, we always take both physical and psychological aspects into account. We work within your comfort zone, nourishing feelings of safety and comfort. The goal is to help your nervous system tap into neuroplasticity for sustainable improvement. Each journey is unique, as is every person and their story.

Here to support your healing journey

At MindfulBody, our goal is to help you unlearn your pain, reconnect with your body, and discover - or rediscover - the freedom of pain-free movement. We do this by combining mind-body re-education, somatic bodywork - like the Feldenkrais Method - and a range of pain therapy techniques, including Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET).

While Awareness Through Movement might be ideal if you’ve just started learning about the Feldenkrais method and want to improve your general movement patterns, the individual sessions of Functional Integration are definitely the best choice if you have specific concerns you want to explore, and solve, with a dedicated practitioner.

If you want to reconnect with yourself, break your pain cycle, and find ease and freedom in your movement, I’m here to help you. To explore the ways in which I could support you on your healing journey, feel free to drop me a message at iryna@mindfulbody.lu