THE DUGGAN/FRENCH APPROACH (DFA)

The Center For DFA - Annie Duggan

12345 30th Avenue NE Suite A
Seattle, WA 98125
206-361-7554, info@dfainternational.com

Martha Hope, a practitioner and DFA teacher, also wrote a short  informational piece for clients, which I have included here with her permission:

Annie Duggan and Janie French's foundation for the development of DFA includes working and studying with Dr. Ida Rolf, Judith Aston, and integrating the psycho-spiritual work of Carl Jung. Through their combined years of study and application they have pioneered an approach that releases the constrictions which lock the body in narrowly limited patterns. Whether it's from the strain of fighting gravity to the deep stress of emotionally based tensions, the goal is to free the body to return to its natural grace and resting place.

DFA sessions explore physical sensations, emotions, and belief systems in order to discover patterns, which can limit the natural expressions of life. In working hands on with a client, we raise to consciousness holding patterns that can be perceived as chronic pain, lack of flexibility, or unremitting tension. When movement - either emotional or physical - is limited, choices are similarly limited. Our focus is to establish a healthy and fluid relationship of mind and body. Therefore allowing the body to be a source of knowledge for authentic response.

Pattern Recognition Benefits:

Work and Career

• Recognition of body patterns that affect mental clarity, alertness, and decision making so that new options can be established.

Patterns of Tension and Discomfort

• Chronic conditions such as migraines, irritable bowel, anxiety, sciatica, and TMJ, etc.; can be alleviated with recognition of their causation.

Exercise

• Enhances all levels of physical training, i.e. Yoga, Pilates, endurance training, etc.

Belief Systems

• Discovering how old events are still effecting our current actions, movements, and choices.

Relationships

• Recognizing and using physical sensation to be present and authentic in day to day relating, thereby creating deeper levels of intimacy and communication.

The DFA Practitioner works with the client through a combination of conversation, observation, and physical accessing. During the first meeting the practitioner takes a brief history of the client and then seeks to learn the clients expectations and goals for the process. Together the practitioner and the client begin to discover the correlation between the client's movement patterns and their belief systems. The goal is not to direct the client in a superior kind of movement or thought pattern but deftly evoke in the client a heightened awareness of old limits and new possibilities. Typically the physical accessing occurs with the client resting in comfortable clothing on a padded table. Through simple non-invasive movements the client gains access to the physical and emotional inhibitions that reinforce specific patterns.

We have long known that changes in a person's physique will catalyze changes in a persons emotional life. DFA work represents a systematic, deliberate investigation into precisely that reciprocity. By approaching the body as a repository for emotionally and physically conditioned responses, DFA work represents a holistic approach to individual change.