Extending Milton’s Dream
By Jack Blackburn
The Challenge Dear Colleagues: In January 2000 I wrote an article for the Trager Newsletter (see attachment) challenging the Trager community to move forward publicly and build upon some of the unique features of Milton's approach. I agree with Jack Liskin author of Moving Medicine, that Milton Trager’s growth in bodybuilding and agility gave him great faith in his own ability to form a self-taught "can do" connection with clients in distress. Looking back at what I had written three years after Milton’s passing, I now realize that the primary protégés in the Trager Institute were more interested in emulating Milton than seriously taking the work beyond where he left it.
Clinical Challenge: Milton said repeatedly towards the end of his life…
"I have only scratched the surface, you will do much more than I have."
He was sincerely passing on the mantle he had created and developed through many challenges of self-learning and hard work. The problem is that most of us received those words as his gratitude to us for being his protégés. The deeper meaning was a challenge to move his dream and his work forward… beyond where he could go. Not just by expanding the organization, growing the numbers of classes and new students. I believe he had very little interest in those aspects. Milton was never an organization man. In his own mind Milton was always doing therapeutic work. His dream and his focus was always that his work would be accepted and practiced by therapeutic professionals.
Challenging Limits: What parts of his lifelong dream did Milton leave undone?
Professional Explication: What is unique about the Trager Approach? Why do we work the way we work and specifically, what are we trying to achieve? Like Milton, are we trying to achieve therapeutic and clinical results? All the other bodywork pioneers left source materials explaining the purpose, process, and practice of their approaches. Further development of their principles were supported with articles, case studies, research and new breakthroughs by their protégés. Nowadays learnings from many modalities, with the latest published developments in the hands-on and movement professions are readily available and part of everyone’s growth and sharings.
Synthesis: The Trager community did grow, for a while... because of the enthusiasm of his students and protégés. But it was limited by a backward focus on Milton's unique self-taught biases and perspectives. The other unique bodywork modalities grew out of the foundations that were carefully laid by their pioneers, through source books, case studies, research. Also crucial was ongoing attention to the professional growth and development of their protégés; opening new insights and understandings, new methods and new source materials. As far as we know Milton never had opportunities to grow his work or his ideas in relation to other pioneers like Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais, or John Upledger, because he never experienced their sessions, read their writings, or developed collegial relationships.
Integration: Medicine has changed over the years. The Integrative Care Movement is inclusive of allopathic medical approaches as well as those of other clinical professions. The hands-on professions have continued to grow. Much of that growth has occurred through inter-professional, peer reviewed research and writings. Like Jack Liskin and Deane Juhan, I tried to do some expository writing within the Trager organization with very little receptivity. So in the early 2000s, I went to Leon Chaitow the brilliant editor of the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, with very high standards for professional accuracy. I wrote four foundational articles about Trager that were an attempt to lay some groundwork for building on Milton's contributions to somatic awareness and clinical possibilities. I wrote from the perspective of my client, tutoring, and teaching experiences as examples of the Trager principles.
Crossing the Line to Clinical: Dear Trager colleagues, it seems to me that the future of the Trager Approach is very much tied up with opening ourselves and our classes to clinical trainings for practitioners who already have hands-on professional licenses. I know this is possible because I have been doing it for years in the USA and in Japan. For years I taught Trager Intros and electives in both countries. Some of you know that I started teaching my Side Lying Somatics classes and my Table Talking classes to mixtures of Trager and non-Trager practitioners because the classes are clinically based and require students who have much more than Trager Training Track, Anatomy, and Mentastics. If a student already has a clinical practice I find that the principles that Milton taught, along with interactive client participation, open up totally new vistas in their work… and they become even more effective clinically. These are the students that are going to take Trager and hands-on therapy to a new level… extending Milton’s dream. And there are many Trager trained practitioners who are already doing the same! I have been writing case studies and articles for years. I want to encourage all of us to do the same and join in camaraderie with our colleagues in hands-on and other care professions.
Respectively Submitted by Jack Blackburn ©, Mother’s Day, Tokyo, Japan 2021 With great gratitude to Jack Liskin, Deane Juhan, and Bill Scholl