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Feldenkrais Research Journal • volume 4 (2008)

Editorial

Editorial:
Case studies. What kind? Who will write them? For whom?

Staffan Elgelid
PhD, PT, CFP; Editor in Chief

Keywords
Feldenkrais Method, case studies, research methods

Copyright ©: The copyright for this paper remains with the author(s).

Please cite: (First published in the) Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 4; 2008.

Service marks: The terms Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, ATM®,
Functional Integration®, and FI® are service marked terms of the International Feldenkrais® Federation
(IFF) and Feldenkrais professional guilds and associations in many countries. In keeping with academic
conventions, they will not be service marked in the entire text as may be required in nonacademic use,
but only for the first and most prominent use of the terms. In recognition that these phrases are formal
terms referring to specific practices within the Method, and to the Method as a whole, capitalization of all
the words in each term has been retained.

Published by the International Feldenkrais® Federation (IFF) https://feldenkrais-method.org
Available online at https://feldenkraisresearchjournal.org

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Case studies. What kind? Who will write them? For whom? 
 
Dear Reader, 
 
The articles in Volume 4 of the International Feldenkrais Federation’s on-line 
research journal focuses on case studies. Every Feldenkrais practitioner has a 
case study that is worth publishing. For a variety of reasons, most practitioners 
do not take the time to share the wealth that case studies can provide to the rest 
of our community. Several questions arose when I started thinking about case 
studies as the theme for this volume.  Who do we write the cases for? Who do 
we want submitting articles to the journal? What makes a good case study?   
 
Who do we write the cases for? Our own community? Other researchers? Other 
professionals? I believe this basic question determines who will submit articles to 
the journal and what kind of cases the journal accepts. In some journals, it is very 
difficult to get case studies published, and therefore mostly academically based 
researchers submit articles for publication in those journals. Unfortunately, this 
frequently means that most of the articles are of interest to the researcher and 
not as valuable to the general practitioner, and this can create a split between the 
researchers and the practitioners. If we want our members to read and get ideas 
from the material that is published in the IFF research journal, making articles 
difficult to get published might not be the right way forward. Cliff Smythe has 
written an article for this volume where he describes different types of case 
studies. I believe that the table that Cliff has included in his article makes a great 
case for the inclusion of different levels of case studies. From the simplest cases 
that are easy to write up, to very elaborate forms of case reports that people with 
more research and writing experience can submit.  
  
Who do we want submitting articles to the journal? Do we want to encourage our 
practitioners to submit articles, or are we more interested in having a few select 
practitioners, and researchers from other fields submit articles. Most of the cases 
reported in Volume 4 of the journal were written as part of the application process 
to become an assistant trainer. The practitioners who were contacted showed an 
incredible generosity in sharing their material, and we ended up with more 
articles than we had space for. There is a wealth of knowledge in all the cases 
that have been written in these assistant trainer applications, so why are these 
case studies not being published? Imagine the learning opportunities and 
inspiration that could come from sharing case studies from the world wide 
Feldenkrais community. I know several practitioners who will not write up cases 
for publication because they think it is too difficult.  I personally would like to have 
everyone from new graduates, to experienced practitioners, to people in 
academia feel welcome to share their information in the IFF research journal. 
The difficulty lies in how to find the right balance between encouraging our 
members to write while at the same time maintaining a high quality journal that 
other researchers and professions will seek out for information.  
 



The third question that I am often being asked is, what makes a good case study 
? How does the writer decide what kind of case is interesting to write about? I 
believe that the articles in Volume 4 of the IFF research journal displays a wide 
variety of cases, reported from a variety of viewpoints. The cases include 
description of thought processes, description of outcomes, as well as more 
mechanical descriptions of the lessons. There is something unique, and therefore 
valuable about each case, whether it is the reason they came to the Feldenkrais 
practitioner, the approach the practitioner took, or the outcome.  
  
I believe that many journal editorial boards and professions ask themselves the 
above questions and try their best to balance the interest of the researcher, 
academician, and practitioner with the needs of the profession as a whole.  By 
allowing a wide range of cases to be published in the IFF research journal, I 
believe that we can ensure that many practitioners will submit articles and take 
ownership of the research and sharing of information, instead of just a few 
practitioners with advanced skills submitting manuscripts for publication. With 
time more and more practitioners will write and publish and that will ensure a 
bright future for the dissemination of research on the Feldenkrais Method. 
 
Staffan Elgelid Phd, CFP, PT 
 
Staffan@Learnandperform.com 


