Pain can have many origin and unfortunately the origin of the pain in some instances remain elusive also to medical investigation. A painful sensation is an alert that something is not right and we should never neglect it.
Pain can result from from severe illnesses. We strongly recommend to consult a physician as first step in case a new pain arise or chronic pain get worst. The Feldenkrais is an educational method so it is important to understand how it can help to relieve pain and why.
In some cases pain can be caused by bad postural habits, in this cases the method can be so effective that once new movement habits are integrated the pain can disappear completely.
Bad postural habits can appear as result of several factors, including injuries that oblige us to alter our way of performing daily activity. In such cases the painful part become the center of our attention and concern.; we neglect other parts even if maybe the alarm went off in the place that is overworking but the real origin of the issue is somewhere else in our body/brain.
The natural response of any organism to painful sensation is to retract and not move, if this response is maintained for a very long time the contraction can become so strong to produce pain on its own. By helping to achieve a better regulation of the muscular tonus the method can help to alleviate painful sensations.
Last but not least, an important principle of neuroplasticity is that neurons that fire together wire together, this is an important element of learning and it allows us to perform skillful actions, but it also means also that pain neural pathways are also facilitated. They can become generalized to more parts of our selves, relate through movement patterns and become chronic.
In such scenario the practitioner, by moving in isolation or in different and original contexts the student, can help to break this reinforcement loop.