| First published in STATNews vol. 6, issue 8, September 2002. |
From the moment you look at the cover of this book, which depicts Kitty, sitting in a wicker chair, reading at her villa in Italy, you are drawn into her world - and what a fascinating world it is (particularly her inner world). As she was a very private person, we are indebted to Joe Armstrong who, during the late 1970s, in Boston and Tuscany, held conversations with her about her life, and the influence Alexander’s work had on her. She experienced some dramatic highs and lows, and Joe is gradually able, through their friendship, to get her to express them.
If you are interested in the personal memories of a passionate, courageous, intelligent woman; or if you are interested in psychiatry and one individual’s struggle with schizophrenia; or if you are involved in Alexander work as a pupil, student or teacher; or if you wish to fill in some gaps in the history of the Alexander work since the 1920s on both sides of the Atlantic - this is a book for you. If, like me, you are intrigued by all these aspects, these conversations are a feast. Kitty’s husband, a Count of the Polish aristocracy, likened her to a grasshopper, as she often jumped backwards in telling a story, so there is no chronological neatness in this book. However, Kitty gradually emerges, and there are strange ironies and coincidences in her story. She was a nurse and midwife, who for a time became a mental patient in the very hospital, in New York, where she had worked; she was due to graduate as a teacher on FM’s first training course, but the day before, she was notified that her father had died and she immediately suffered a breakdown (consequently no teaching certificate); her doctor in English mental hospital in 1935, a Dr Rickman (who had heIped Freud out of Vienna) had much earlier written an article in the very same issue of the Atlantic Monthly journal that had the article on F.M.’s work entitled “The Philosopher’s Stone”; following a chance meeting with Rivka Cohen, who suggested she have refresher work with Patrick MacDonald, she did a three-year training with him from 1969-1972 (and gained her teaching certificate); some of her subsequent pupils were prominent Philadelphia psychiatrists.
This book is divided into five chapters, the second being the longest, which deals with her episodes of schizophrenia. They included head banging, physically fighting people and hearing voices, and her treatments, over the years, ranged from strait jacket restraint, insulin shock and electric shock therapy, being left alone, and homeopathy (and thereby hangs another tale!). She had no Alexander lessons during ‘bouts’, but was sustained by the thought that the Alexander work existed and it was truth. It helped her to hold on to reality, integrated her, helped her to handle terror and gave her something to live for. With great eloquence she says that her friends assumed she was “a bird with a broken wing”. “I was in no position ... I was not about to let them see that I could ‘fly’ or had ‘flown’, in spite of, or, indeed, because of my frequent breakdowns. If they couldn’t see it, well, I didn’t mind.”
One of these friends was Lulie Westfeldt. Kitty had been instrumental in introducing the Alexander work to her. Lulie had suffered polio when young, had had surgery on her ankle and was physically crippled. She became a trainee with Kitty on FM’s first training course and in 1964 wrote a book about her experiences. (1) This was the first book on the Technique that I myself read, before I had any lessons, so I was intrigued by Kitty’s references to Lulie and what she had said about FM Sometimes, Lulie had been quite hard and unfair on FM, in Kitty’s view. Kitty comes across as the wiser and more magnanimous of the two. One might say, in these two books, the full psychophysical range of the work is described, Kitty’s being the more psycho, and Lulie’s the more physical, understanding. Kitty’s view of the Work (as she always preferred to call it) was that thinking of the meaning of the words of the directions puts us in danger of our interpretation dominating the body. Lengthening and widening the back was, for Kitty, the “back’s responsibility”. Kitty, herself, became a trainer of Alexander teachers for the last ten years of her life.
She expresses great gratitude to FM for taking her on his training course in the first place, knowing she had had a breakdown. She regarded him as a genius in the realm of human behaviour. Her sentiments were these: “There are not a great many ways now, if you haven’t money, to find adventure in life. But here you have it right here in your own room, in your selves! A tremendous life adventure.”
This book is an odyssey and an adventure too. Please read it.
Reference
1. Westfeldt, L. (1998) F. Matthias Alexander. The Man and his Work (London, Mouritz).
© Jean Clark. Reproduced with permission.
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This edition © Mouritz 2005. All rights reserved. |
