Functional integration

That we integrate human functions on a physical and neurological level.

All the skills we need to (survive). E.g. breathing, sleeping, walking, grasping something, speaking, looking, swimming, eating, swallowing, dancing, running, playing, laughing, thinking, learning, sitting, turning, etc. These are all functions.

If our functions are integrated, we can perform them without difficulty. It is easy for us to do this, we enjoy it, it feels good, we do not get tired much, we feel efficient. Since the functions are a constant part of our life, we live more light-heartedly and fulfilled when they are integrated.

That all your parts are involved in the function in a meaningful way.

Sure. Let’s take the vision function. If your eyeballs can move freely in all directions, if you can adjust the closeness and distance well, you see well. Now imagine you have a stiff neck right now. Although your eyes can see well, it is difficult to cross a road because you have to turn your whole body left and right. Maybe your shoulders tense up as a result. Or you get a headache because you have to move your eyeballs so much. If we integrate the function of seeing, it means that we integrate everything that is involved in seeing. You need to be able to freely move your weight on your feet to keep your balance when you turn your head, and your chest and pelvis are effectively involved in moving your head to see in different directions. All parts of you should support your vision.

If you cannot perform a function as easily as you would like. For example, your back hurts when you want to bend down, or you cannot move your arms freely, or walking is difficult, breathing is not easy, you sleep badly, etc.

You can do that too.

Physiotherapy has a structural approach. First and foremost, they treat your problem. Where it hurts, it’s massaged, stretched and trained. In Functional Integration, we focus on the function that is impaired by your problem and make sure that it gets better. We do this with a neurological approach, so that the problem disappears is a side effect of the integration of the function.

We’ll fix the problem. However, we do this with the holistic, systemic approach of the functional. Everything about you is connected. A problem is a symptom of a function not being performed optimally and a part of you not being ideally used or overused. So the outcome of Functional Integration is that all parts of you are integrated in the end.

We often hurt ourselves repeatedly in the same place. Or we have a “weak spot”. Always under stress we get lumbago. In strange beds you wake up with a stiff neck. One always replaces the same foot. Or all your problems come from the same side of your body. We compensate with the rest of us when one part of us doesn’t work. This can lead to stress in other parts of us. Or we overstrain a part of us again and again because other parts of us have forgotten that they can also move. If we remind them to do their job, the overstraining falls away and we do not have to repeat the same injury. Functional integration is sustainable.