The new edition of this book is very welcome to those of us who have made do, uncomfortably, with a photocopy while it has been out of print, not simply because of ease of use but because of the notes that so clearly and interestingly amplify the text. In addition to identifying and placing many now obscure references to people, Jean Fischer explains allusions to ideas current in the 1940s, setting them in a social context. He also includes several longer sections giving the background to important references such as George Coghill’s developmental work on the genus Amblystoma and Murdoch’s investigations into the sub-occipital muscles.

The text used is the 1946 edition which includes an ‘introductory’ by Alexander that explains the title: “... the influence of the manner of use is a constant one upon the general functioning of the organism in every reaction and during every moment of life. . . It is an influence for ill or an influence for good in accordance with the nature of the manner of use of the self in living, and from this there is not any escape. Hence this influence can be said to be a universal constant in a technique for living.”

Fischer usefully points out where the 1946 edition differs from earlier ones. It is of special interest that this edition contains a change in how Alexander describes his discovery of the concept of primary control. Comparing his investigations with those of Coghill, Alexander describes how it was acute observation of human beings in whom abnormality had became established that “led me to discover that a particular relativity of the head to the neck and the head and the neck to the other parts of the organism tended to improve general use and functioning of the organism as a whole, and that the motivation for this use was from the head downwards, and, further, that any other particular relativity tended towards the opposite effect.”

Alexander wrote this fourth book in the hope that it would “be of help in clarifying misconceptions, and in emphasising the oneness of control and guidance of use and reaction.” Walter Carrington regards it as “a noble book”, but Frank Pierce Jones commented on “its lack of organisation” seeing it as “a scrapbook”. Certainly some reviewers of the time found it difficult, and there is little chance of its becoming a best-seller today. It is however of enormous value to teachers of the Alexander Technique for its insights into FMA’s mature thought and Mouritz is to be congratulated on bringing out this handsome volume.

2000 © Francesca Greenoak. Reproduced with permission.