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A Note on Coghill1
By Ron Dennis, Ed.D.
This article first appeared in The Alexandrian, Vol. I, No. 1, 1981.
For many years now, the work of G. E. Coghill has been cited to support that of Alexander.2 It now appears, however, that some of Coghill's generalizations were premature, and that their use in support of the Alexander Technique should he modified.
Briefly, in his studies on the small lizard Amblystoma punctatum, Coghill established that innervation developed in a cephalo-caudal (head-tail) direction, and that limb movements emerged from a more general pattern of trunk movement. He then theorized that behavior developed as the expansion of a "total pattern," rather than simply as the combination or coordination of reflexes, and suggested strongly that this might well be true for higher vertebrates, including man.3
Considering Alexander's emphasis on the importance of the head-neck relationship and of dealing with the whole organism, it is easy to see how he readily took up Coghill's ideas in support of his own. However, in Aspects of Neural Ontogeny, A.F.W. Hughes, Reader in Zoology, University of Bristol, summarizes several developments "... which have eroded the Coghillian dictum."4 According to Hughes, studies on the embryos of chicks, sheep, and even another species of lizard, show that both total movements and local reflexes can be elicited by stimulation, and that there is no predictable stage of generalized reactivity in Coghill's sense. For example, from a study on chicks:
Any part or combination of parts can he active, while other parts are temporarily quiescent, or all parts can move simultaneously, but out of phase with each other. Such a picture defies all of Coghill's concepts.5
Or, from a study on a related lizard, Amblystoma mexicanum:
There is no evidence for the existence of a 'total pattern' in these forms.6
It should be emphasized here that Coghill's conclusions regarding Amblystoma punctatumare not at issue, but rather their wholesale extension to other species. It may be that a total pattern does characterize the development of behavior in some species, and possibly in man; however, we apparently may no longer assume this on the basis of Coghill's work with Amblystoma punctatum. In the present writer's opinion, these developments in research as summarized by Hughes suggest caution in citing Coghill's work in support of the Alexander Technique.
Notes
1. Since this writing, I have learned that Dr. Wilfred Barlow has written on this topic and reached similar conclusions. See his "The Total Pattern of Behaviour," in More Talk of Alexander, Dr. Wilfred Barlow, ed. (London: Gollancz, 1978), pp. 240-245.
2. Coghill's "Appreciation: The Educational Methods of F. Matthias Alexander" appeared in Alexander's The Universal Constant in Living (Dutton, 1941); a recent example is A. Rugg-Gunn, "Physiological Gradients" (The Alexander Journal, No.8, Autumn 1978), pp. 26-32.
3. Anatomy and the Problem of Behaviour (London: Cambridge University Press, 1929).
4. London: Logos Press, 1968, pp. 165-170.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
Copyright © 2001 by Ronald J. Dennis |