A path to recovery from MFD
Musician’s Focal Dystonia
From my own experience, I want to share the most important conclusions that I have reached, after having recovered from the symptoms of Focal Dystonia that I suffered in the index and ring fingers of my right hand.
It has been a journey of personal search, research, intuition and common sense.
A path of introspection and curiosity, wise choices and mistakes,… but above all these, a lot of determination, humility and patience.
The most important thing was to understand that the symptom did not keep any relation with any pathology of a physiological nature, but is was circumscribed to the scope of the brain and was closely related to what Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais calls “self-image”
The concept of “self-image” of Feldenkrais is related to the homunculus, that peculiar topographic map of the body, drawn by neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, where each body part (such as individual fingers) occupies a distinct area on the motor and sensory cortex.
“Our self-image consists of four components that are involved in every action: movement, sensation, feeling and thought.”
M. Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement
Considering the interaction of these four components mentioned by Feldenkrais, it is easy to conclude that stress, fear and other negative conscious and unconscious emotions, related to a certain action, such as the practice of any instrument, will have some kind of effect on the movement.
Keeping in mind the demonstrated plasticity of our brain, it is possible to reverse the process of the MFD (Musician’s Focal Dystonia) by reconstructing the “Self-image”, which is achieved by means of retraining through Proprioception and Aware Movement.
This work must be done together with what I call “Emotional Cleansing”, which consists of the creation of a deep state of presence and conscious observation, which allows us to dissolve little by little those patterns that trigger the symptoms.
