Perspectives on Fascia in the Media

The New York Times and Medicine Acknowledge Fascia is Important (!)

I always brace myself before reading an article in a mainstream pub about something that our collective fields have been working with and exploring for a very long time and to good effect (see NYT article on the vagus nerve that emphasizes potentials for drugs and inserted gadgets rather than attuned health care and relationships). Such was the case with the recent NYT brief on “New” understandings about fascia. 

Check out the NYT article, Fascia May Be a Key to Better Health. I’m curious what you think.

First, it is fabulous that there is an article touting the importance of this tissue that has been mostly neglected and described as “packaging for more important body parts.” Articles like this will make someone who may have never heard of fascia or never looked into feel more comfortable seeking out meaningful and skilful care - obvious benefit for people and our work. So, yay for that. 

And… 

Let’s Unpack This Some

The message of the article is about this “newness” and I find that attitude difficult to stomach. It is reflective of major problems in medicine and medical science (and the reporting thereof).. For anyone to say that until the early 2000s fascia was believed to be packaging material is just bizarre and not true. This attitude belies a fundamental hubris at the heart of conventional medicine and medical research. It does not have eyes to see what does not conform to models it has already created - the model relentlessly affirming itself. 

In the early 2000s I began studying fascial research, some of that research dated back to the 1800s. The concept of a system wide communicative and responsive network within the body has been embedded within Indigenous medical and cultural systems for millenia. 

There is nothing new about the opportunities to learn more about fascia, that has been available to science for a long long time. Rather, western medical science just blew it off until now. I would love to see a scientist or doctor lead with an acknowledgement of the hubris at play and the consequences for people/patients when they dismiss curiosity and inquiry in areas that are simply different than their conventional understanding. 

This is a much larger topic AND it is incredibly important. We know (and have known for much longer than 20 years) that working within the fascial milieu, even if our work is imperfect, is so helpful for the ever growing population of people dealing with complex and constellated symptoms that have diagnoses that do not have obvious conventional medical treatment. 

Conventional paradigms have long been dismissive of the benefits of this type of work, quackery they decry. But what is the person supposed to do when the quack-caller has no treatment options for them? These patients often get dropped by the system. I would love to see research that was able to track how many people just abandon the conventional care model because it has dismissed them.  But of course, conventional biomedicine medicine does not like to ask these questions of itself. 

So, folks experiencing different types of chronic and severe pain have been deeply neglected by our healthcare system and the attitudes I am highlighting here are part of why. These patients have been at the leading edge of change in medicine, pushing us providers to become more curious and ask better questions of ourselves and the models we chose to study, this I fundamentally believe is truly the spirit of “science” and “medicine.” 

I am thrilled that this is finally being researched AND it is my hope that western medical science is, at some point, able to loosen up a little and see beyond its self imposed limitations. This is absolutely a paradigm shift and obviously it’s past time. for that.

If you want to learn more about perspectives about fascia, see our post Following a Fascial Thread, Contemplating New Findings in the Existence-Tissue and explore other articles in Field Notes (blog). I am also quite taken with this video, The Mysterious World Under the Skin, a German fascia documentary from 2018. At about the 13 minute mark there is a lovely discussion of the importance of the Thoracolumbar Fascia (important structure around here)!

Enjoy! There is nothing quite like letting yourself be blown away be how amazing bodies are.