Mr Arbel:

Concerning your admitted attitude  on Orthotics, perhaps you have not looked around at the amazing variation in feet recently however there are MANY people with foot problems that even the most megalomaniac manipulation practitioner cannot fix.  There are many feet that simply cannot, do not and will not support themselves and therefore require an appropriate surface/shoe to relate to.  

And there are many legitimately needy people who will not live long enough for the SI schools to produce enough SI practitioners to go around.  The practice of SI practitioners is a very skewed (statistically speaking) affair.  We see those who can get to us, those who are survivors of the medical professions, those with the luxury of never having had real diseases or surgical corrections of crushed limbs, etc.  This self-sorting population lends itself to the practitioner developing all sorts of nonsensical attitudes towards perfectly good alternative mainstream (admittedly non-perfect, even minimally effective) treatments.  Support the person with very genuine needs, such as a genetically or developmentally short talus, calcaneous.   Many will need both kinds of practitioners, not either, and an evolving cooperative spirit among their practitioners as well.  

Try adapting someone's foot/leg/hip/back structure to the orthotic, to the splint, to the wheelchair, to the need of the person you are lucky enough to get your hands on.   

...and park the negative attitude at home, 'cause it gets back to the other practitioners who really need our help and persepctive.  

Richard Wheeler


on 4/30/03 11:28 PM, Ron Arbel at yarbel@... wrote:

Dear Jim,

I went to the website you offered for orthotics seeking their “consistenc” with the Structural Integration recipe.  I was curious because I feel that orthotics make the foot “lazy” and contribute to the already self-imposed crutches that we put on our feet called “shoes.”  To me orthotics is another way of passing the responsibility of structure to something external.  Even in the website you mentioned, where they are showing the before and after effects of orthotics they leave the high arches “hanging” with out a solution.  I, find that the compressive effects of gravity distributed onto displaced structures over time creates a plethora of ailments but are orthotics are the solution?  If we can bring openness in the structures of the feet and legs that avail change and then introduce correct function and movement could we not find a more liberating, empowering, way of change?  For years I have opposed orthotics just because they had no consistency with Structural Integration and what I teach my clients.  I feel very strongly about this but I am open to talking more on this topic and perhaps increase or change my understanding on how orthotics impact the structures of the feet and more.  I most definitely feel that the website you referred us didn’t help in that respect.  One point I want to make clear is that I do see orthotics as an option and they possibly offer a way to correct dysfunction in feet but is this option in the spirit of Structural Integr! ation is the question I pose to our forum.

 

Ron Arbel

Institute for Psycho-Structural Balancing (IPSB)

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