Q1. Mh.  You said “Self-speech is central to both self regulation and self preservation“, I don’t understand the link between these two.

A1. Before explaining the link Alexander described between the two concepts, it is important to start by defining the first one, the less well known of the two we are manipulating. 

1. What is Self-regulation?

Self-regulation is a relatively new and increasingly important area in psychological research. Since the 1980s, a very large number of scientific articles on self-regulation and various aspects and application of self-regulation constructs including self-regulated learning, self-control and self-management have appeared. 

Behavioral Self-regulation and self-regulated learning (learning something or learning to do something) designate one and the same process as there are no innate or spontaneous skills nor automatic behavioral regulation in human being. Every skill you can think of is just the expression of a learned behaviour at a moment in time. Now learning new things, new concepts, new procedures, new attitudes , new problem-solving capacities involves developing and coordinating many different skills. Expanding one’s attention, making memory more voluntary, developping one’s capacity of forming accurate representations, coping with not knowing and uncertainty, postponing satisfaction, maintaining one’s emotional drive, setting goals, organising self-appraisal, implementing intentions, dealing with strategy-failure, all these skills gain in efficacy and are more likely to work in a coordinated fashion when the learner is made conscious of the process of self-regulation which I call conscious guidance.  

F.M. Alexander and the notion of process

“The experience you want is in the process of getting it. If you have something, give it up. *Getting it*, not *having it*, is what you want” (Alexander, F.M.; in Fisher, J.M.O, Articles and Lectures, 1995, Teaching Aphorisms, p. 196)

Self-regulation represents a set of purposive personal processes and actions directed at acquiring or displaying skill. By the expression ‘purposive personal process’, I mean a goal oriented set of  highly structured procedures which must be repeated in time and improved in the process, an effortful activity not inherently enjoyable nor motivating, the explicit goal of which is to improve the current level of self-discipline, i.e., to improve the capacity to construct and to OBEY SERIES OF RULES in practice at the propitious moment and in a correct decisional architecture. The idea behind the lessons of the initial Alexander technique is that it is possible to make the whole process of self-regulation more conscious and to directly train our capacity of learning. It is “learning how to learn1“, but not the “learning how to learn” stupid series of numbers or an even more stupid fixed conception of means-whereby.

Every person attempts to self-regulate its behavior in some way to gain goals in life. They are not going to call it self-regulation or conscious guidance and they will do what they can without really knowing what it is or what really enters into self-regulation. Most people for example do not imagine that self-regulation is the greatest tool of emancipation, of setting oneself free of restrictions, cravings and fear. 

The most ignored axiom in this domain is that self-speech plays a central role in self-regulation. It is self-speech advancement and the refinement of its use that will thoroughly change the three cyclical phases self-regulation is made of no matter what skill is considered: forethought, performance control and self-reflection on the performance.⁠

Self-regulation, i.e., conscious guidance, is an iterative process of growth and development.

Learning to use speech a) to give orders (forethought) and b) verify that these definite orders are obeyed and no others (performance control), c) to construct models (reflection on performance) which will give our speech terminology a new architecture, is the central stepping stone of the growth to the higher stages of regulation. 2

It is not great mystery that there are effective and ineffective forms of regulation and that most people experience self-regulatory dysfunction (learning blockages, inattention, irrational self-judgement, procrastination, addictions, eating disorders, irrational fears, faulty gestural patterns…). Teaching conscious guidance is therefore more important, in the sense that it is more ‘general’, than transmitting a correct use of the anatomical structure. This said, my position is that

  1. teaching our pupil (ourselves first) to concert decisions of movements is the best scene for covertly teaching [learning] self-regulation and
  2. as the performance of physical acts in everyday activities is one of the major source (because it is the most constant) of ineffective form of self-regulation leading to self-harm, it is obvious that using self-regulation to improve gestural self-preservation represents the best way to lift the mind out of its prostration3 and find the energy and incentive to engage into the work of constructing for oneself a higher level of self-regulation. 

I consider teaching the *initial alexander technique* as teaching a self-regulatory technique which uses the conscious coordination of movements as a springboard to the inquiry into conscious guidance. I often employ the term conscious guidance as a synonym of reasoned self-regulation. 

When I say that the initial Alexander technique is a bridge⁠4 between theory and practice and that we study experimentally how each of us translate concerted verbal orders of movements into coordinated actions, I have in mind the process definition of agency or ability defined by Zimmerman. Alexander was very close to this vision when he advised his teachers to make our technique true to the principle of growth and development,⁠5 not teaching people some trick or another, but helping them to develop their own agency, i.e., their own capacity of continuous self-regulated learning.  

Boekaerts: Self-regulation as self-generated thoughts, feelings and actions

Self-regulation refers to self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions [self-monitoring, forethought, planning strategies, modelling, ordering  and obeying orders, experimenting] that are planned and cyclically adapted to the attainment of personal goals. This definition, in terms of actions and covert processes whose presence and quality depends on one’s beliefs and motives, differs from definitions emphasizing a singular trait, ability, or stage of competence. A process definition can explain why a person may self-regulate one type of performance but not another. This personal agency formulation also differs from metacognitive views of self-regulation that emphasize only knowledge states and deductive reasoning when, for example, choosing cognitive strategies. Although metacognition plays an important role, self-regulation also depends on self-beliefs and affective reactions, such as doubts and fears, about specific performance contexts (Zimmerman, 1995b). (Boekaerts, M., Zeidner, M., Pintrich, P.R.; Handbook of Self-Regulation (1999), p. 14)

2. What is the link between Self-Preservation and Self-Regulation?

It is Alexander himself who marks the close connexion between self-regulation of mental activities and self-preservation.

F.M. Alexander links self-regulation and self-preservation

Now there exists a close connexion between the shortcoming which is recognized as “mind-wandering” and the shortcoming which manifests itself as a seriously weakened response to a stimulus to an act (or acts) of self-preservation. To make this connexion clear, we have only to consider the psychophysical processes involved in these two shortcomings to realize that in both cases these processes are the same. For the lack underlying these two shortcomings is the lack of an adequate standard of direction and control in the human creature, manifesting itself, in the one case, in the broad sphere of self-preservation and, in the other, in the specific sphere of learning something or learning to do something. (Alexander, F.M., “Constructive conscious control of the individual”, Integral Press 1923, reprinted 1955, p. 13)

The symptom he calls “mind-wandering” represents the incapacity of regulating attention on a conscious basis. It is easy to demonstrate that, without self-regulation training, our mind is time and again captured by and concentrated on ill-defined thoughts stimulated by sensations and feelings which arise in activity. This lack of an adequate standard of direction and control is the first and only real difficulty which blocks the growth of self-regulation in all directions. 

The valuable opposite of mind-wandering is therefore not concentration, for concentration represents the initial inadequate response. The capacity to command with speech-orders the inhibition of our response to these automatic thoughts glued to our sensations and emotions is essential to overcome what is now called “attentional inertia” (it corresponds in all points with Alexander’s “primary inertia of mind“) and which make us concentrate on salient thougths and process, i.e., which make think one idea at a time. Self-regulation of attention is necessary to maintain more than one idea, more than one decision and more than one rule at a time in our mind. Learning this self-regulation of attention is the only way to create valid links between different sets of concepts and to implement structured concerted decisions against the force of habit and against the desire to feel “right” physically and emotionally: we will see that it represents the basis of self-preservation. 

I think that there is nothing far-fetched or impractical in this connexion between self-regulation and self-preservation. We certainly can generate internal, covert stimuli with our speech like orders of definite inhibition and orders of definite performance of movements, like structured procedures of inquiry which will give us a greater control over our general coordination and preserve us from repetitive injuries and poor functioning.

Here are different reasons which militate in favour of the same type of effect in learning what are often regarded [wrongly] as more “mental” activities.

First, the alleged instinct of self-preservation is just a myth as we have no instinctive sense for what is good for our organism, what is good for our physical self or our mental self. What feels satisfactory and good may well turn out in time to be another addiction with devastating side effects. What appears as self-preservation may well be another habit that we disguise under the fancy name. Here is a simple example. Very often I ask a student to stand on vertical legs in a controlled procedure. As a rule, the subject will feel out of balance and will react by shortening the stature, pretexting that it is a form of instinctual self-preservation reaction. Yet, in no time, the student will discover that her reaction was uncalled for, habitual (cultivated) and harmful. The old somatic reaction has just been replaced by a new one, more adaptable, more beneficial and open to a process of growth.

 In our civilization of abondance, we have to make decision for every act of self-preservation and we have to maintain that decision to implement the rules of self-preservation in our behavior. Let’s just take one example. The act of eating and drinking, of breathing or of resting are acts of self-preservation, but doing too much or too little of it will most certainly be harmful. We can so easily adapt to wrong conditions and be deluded into thinking that we are doing fine just by following our somatic intuition, that we have to realise that there is a need for conscious guidance and reasoned understanding.

Reasoning and inquiry are intrinsically linked with self-preservation and nowhere is it more obvious than in the complex relation between use of the self as a whole and functioning. Self-preservation decisions can only be based on a representational system (models) with hierarchical rules. Obviously, we have to learn rules of self-preservation from scientific sources and balance many informations relative to the subject. Learning these rules itself requires self-regulation and patient investigation but it is only the tip of the iceberg. It is a fact that once we have settled for a system of rules, nothing as yet been realised in practice: the most important step is still the need to learn to apply verbal rules in adverse situations. Applying competing rules requires even more regulation. 

Another problem requiring the intervention of self-regulation is that self-preservation is not just a question of representation of what is good or harmful for the self as a whole and of implementing our decisions. Self-preservation is also in competition with our basic need of satisfaction of desires. You may have formed a good representation of what is necessary to preserve yourself, but suddenly, it may appear not so important. Driving a car safely competes with having another drink to be in the mood. The desire to look fit and loose some weight may trigger very harmful diet-habit or exercises-habit. The desire to be free may also precipitate disastrous binge eating or a crippling dependence to tv-series which make you feel detached from the contingencies of the real world. I leave you to imagine your own examples. 

In practice, it is obvious that there is a strong dissociation between knowing rules of self-preservation and using them consistently. We are back to the problem of regulation of our attention and it will expand into another problem, that of the regulation of our emotional habits. What if we know a rule, but because our attention is attracted and stick to another mental object, the rule disappears from our consciousness at the precise moment when we need it most. How are we going to feel in retrospect? What is going to be our evaluation of our self-worth? How is this self-appraisal in the form of self-speech going to help us or not to remember the rule and how to apply it in practice next time? Conscious guidance and control of self-speech is the corner stone of the initial Alexander technique. 

This is what makes me think that learning to think of more than one thing at a time, to create hierarchical systems of decisions and to speak to ourselves with intelligence is much more important than learning to display a correct use of the anatomical structure. When my students start working at coordinating decisions of movements of the different part of the self, they are in fact learning to self-regulate their mind and it will take little time before they can use their conscious mental self-regulation into the realm of forming and applying new self-preservation balanced decisions. 

Footnotes

  1. Novak, J., & Gowin, R.; (1984). Learning how to learn. New York: Cambridge University Presss.
  2. “From a social cognitive perspective, self-regulatory processes and accompanying beliefs fall into three cyclical phases: forethought, performance or volitional control, and self-reflection processes. Forethought refers to influential processes that precede efforts to act and set the stage for it. Performance or volitional control involves processes that occur during motoric efforts and affect attention and action. Self-reflection involves processes that occur after performance efforts and influence a person’s response to that experience. These self-reflections, in turn, influence forethought regarding subsequent motoric efforts ~thus completing a self-regulatory cycle. (Boekaerts, M., Zeidner, M., Pintrich, P.R.; Handbook of Self-Regulation (1999), p. 16).
  3. ” This is that the obtaining of trance is a prostitution and degradation of the objective mind, that it ignores and debases the chief curative agent, the apprehension of the patient’s conscious mind, and that it is in direct contradiction to the governing principle of evolution, the great law of self-preservation by which the instinct of animals has been trained, as it were, to meet and overcome the imminent dangers of everyday existence.
    In man this desire for life is an influence in therapeutics so strong that I can hardly exaggerate its potentiality, and it is, moreover, an influence that can be readily awakened and developed.T
    he same argument may be also applied to the prostration of the mind as a factor in the popular rest cures which really seek to put the [higher] mind, the great regenerating force, out of action”. (Alexander, F.M.; Man’s Supreme Inheritance (Third Ed., 1946).pdf, p. 24).
  4. “To-day I do not know of any person who doubts that if man is to evolve in the right direction, the gap between instinctive and conscious control of the self must be bridged, in order to bridge “the gap between idealistic theory and actual practice.” (Alexander, F.M.; Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual (Eighth edition, 1946), p. viii, preface to the new edition).
  5. “The possibility of growth and development is something which we all admit with our brains. From the theoretical point of view, nobody will deny what I am saying, but immediately we come to practice, we disown it. But we must make our technique true to this principle of growth and development. We have got to tackle that job. (Alexander, F.M.; The Bedford Physical Training College Lectures, 1934, in Fisher, J.M.O.; Articles and Lectures, Mouritz, 1995, p. 172).