From Tom: What is Spatial Medicine?
We tend to think of ‘medicine’ as a monolith, but of course there are different kinds. If we think of the irreducibles of Space, Time, and Matter – matter unfolds in space over time – there’s a medicine for each. The most dominant form of medicine now is Material Medicine, in which we do our best to change the chemical matter in the body, with a shot, a supplement, or a drug. The medicine of Time I leave in the hands of psychologists and the like who try to get you to the present moment, not shaped by the traumatic past or the anxious future.
Spatial Medicine concerns itself with how we unfold in space – how we develop into the world from our mother’s lap, how we dance with the world, how we shape and are shaped by circumstance and inner conviction. Physical education, physiotherapy, orthopedics, chiropractors, and all the bodywork modalities, all the trainers and all the rehab specialists – all working with how the body moves through space. As such, Spatial Medicine has not been identified because each profession is hanging on to a corner of it. In the time of COVID and increasing body alienation happening as we electronify socially, we need to be looking at the whole picture of our citizen’s (and especially our child’s) relationship to their physical self.
The principles of Spatial Medicine can be found scattered about in osteopathy and personal training and Pilates and yoga and Rolfing and Alexander Technique and all the rest – but all these contributions have not been synthesized into a coherent theory of movement yet. The time of Spatial Medicine is coming.
To read Tom’s 2014 article, published in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, ‘Spatial medicine – a call to ‘arms”, click here: https://www.bodyworkmovementtherapies.com/article/S1360-8592(13)00119-8/pdf
To learn more about spatial medicine, the new anatomy of connectedness, fascia, and the latest in self-treatment, watch for an exciting collaboration between Tom Myers and Jill Miller, creator of Tune Up Fitness, coming Spring 2021. Sign up here to be the first to know when it lands, get early bird perks and more.
