Stephen Porges, PhD, is a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry known for revolutionising our understanding of the autonomic nervous system through his Polyvagal Theory. First proposed in 1994, this groundbreaking framework explains how our nervous system evolved to support social connection, safety, and survival.

We are both really excited to be interviewing the renowned Stephen Porges at our Congress. It is not an overstatement to say that we find his work to contain the most relevant and inspiring ideas that enrich our understanding of the Alexander Technique. 

We often ask ourselves the question: “How does the Alexander Technique work?” Over the years, we have mainly favoured the idea that the Primary Control, understood usually as the dynamic relationship of the Head to the Neck and Back, is the key component.  

We often teach that the goal of the Alexander Teacher is to manually guide the pupil into this new desirable condition. Lessons are therefore designed to give the pupil the skill to recover and maintain this improved “use of self” in everyday life.  

For several reasons, we do not find this view satisfactory. It is strange, but true, that Alexander’s books do not really mention the psychophysical condition of the Teacher as the primary and necessary condition for facilitating for improving ‘the use of the self’. Instead, the emphasis is on giving the pupil the experience of inhibition of the initial reaction to the stimulus, and the teaching of projected messages to the parts involved. (In sequence, one after the other and all together). 

On the other hand, the work of Steven Porges offers us a model of influence that honours the fundamental relationship between Teacher and Pupil. He suggests that healthy change occurs primarily within a context of high levels of safety, and that the shift away from adaptive poor and disturbed functioning, happens within a relationship of co-regulation.  

In other words, the psychophysical condition of the Teacher communicates something of supreme value to the nervous system of the pupil. Does this make sense to us? Even though Alexander was not specific about this truth, most of the early Teachers did acknowledge that the Use of the Teacher communicates something  to the pupil. We often refer to this something as “directions”. 

The work of Steven Porges shifts the Alexander story from the postural benefits of Alexander work, towards the mechanism necessary to activate healthy change; namely high levels of safety and a high degree of self-regulation within the Teacher.  

If we take this framing seriously, then we can begin to comprehend how the Alexander Technique can not only improve mechanical and postural problems, but may be applied no less, and perhaps even more to problems of the human condition, to Trauma and to emotional healing in general. 

As we truly embrace this psychophysical model, it may prove to be the impetus for reaching a much wider audience, and for us being able to promote the Technique as a truly psychopysical enterprise that is totally relevant to today’s world. 

Seen in this light, the goal of Alexander Lessons is to learn to self-regulate, or to internalise our own Alexander Teacher within. Alexander pupils do not learn knowledge, but instead move towards a recovery and a maintenance of an essential biological wisdom in the face of life’s challenges.