What is Sensory Motor Amnesia?
Somatic pioneer Thomas Hanna coined the term Sensory Motor Amnesia to describe the involuntary muscular contraction held in the body where the brain has lost both sensation and either full or partial motor control of a muscle group, resulting in a functional breakdown.
In simple terms Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA) is habituated muscular tension that develops when we have unconsciously adapted to stress and/or certain inefficient ways of moving. These areas of accumulated, learned muscular tension are stuck at the level of the central nervous system and cannot, physiologically, release and relax. What is happening in the muscle is a neurological event in the brain – a functional problem of the sensory motor system. SMA is not a medical problem that cannot be diagnosed through conventional medical methods or ‘treated’. It is a functional problem of the brain’s sensory motor system that can be steadily ‘unlearned’ through Hanna Somatic Education.
What’s key is understanding how SMA develops in your brain due to a habituated response to stress and/or repetitive, habituated movement habits. Muscles have two functions: contract and relax. When muscles can no longer fully relax this is an indication we have accumulated muscular tension that we are no longer fully aware of. The only way to fully release these tight, blank places is to make sure that the brain is fully in control of the muscles.
Muscular tension or knots (SMA)cannot really be ‘treated’ successfully – for the long term. Treatment is what bodyworkers and therapists do when they attempt to fix tight muscles (or postural imbalances) from the outside; therapists can indeed provide short term relief, yet muscle tension develops from the inside out (Sensory Motor Amnesia) and, since humans are self-regulating, self-sensing beings, not cars or bicycles that need fixing, our muscles must be educated so they can contract and release fully. Through active involvement of the brain we can restore fuller muscle function in all planes of gravity.
SMA causes us to move less efficiently and, for many people, minimize the amount of movement we do. In order to live a healthy, free and happy life we need to be able to move with freedom and ease, without wasted muscular effort. Many people experience chronic fatigue, not from a medical condition, but from the exhausting task of holding themselves up when stuck in patterns of contraction (stress reflexes — see separate post).
The roots of SMA are always in the centre of the body — the front, back and sides, where powerful muscles connect the lower and upper halves of the body at our centre of gravity (the somatic centre.) Somatic Movements sequentially release patterns of contraction from centre to periphery.