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From: motor difficulties versus psychological/emotional issues
Date: 14 Oct 2008
Time: 22:14:15 -0500
Remote Name: 66.92.76.147
Great question. We touched on it a bit in the first couple of threads, but I can add a bit more to tailor it to your question specifically. I don't think we can necessarily differentiate between which of these is the cause for a particular person, and I also am of the mind-body school of thought, so I don't think there necessarily is a distinction. For instance, we all know that cerebral palsy isn't caused by anxiety or inattention, but I've had several people with CP tell me that when they're tired/frustrated/anxious their motor planning and coordination are all over the place. If someone has motor difficulty to begin with, anxiety might make it worse. Or it might make it better; I've also had people tell me they can speak fine in public when they need to win a large grant for their company, but have trouble with word finding or fluency or whatever their issue is when they're chatting with friends. Anyway, if we stick to the idea of letting the individual identify whether s/he has primarily motor issues or primarily anxiety issues, I don't really have a sense of whether MT would be more effective with one of these groups. The approach might be a bit different, in that maybe my approach with the motor folks would be to do the exercises more methodically and where I explain how they're helpful with motor skills (provided we're talking about someone with normal cognitive ability who can understand this sort of conversation). With someone who comes in concerned about anxiety and shame and whatnot, I might incorporate more processing into our work. Does this make sense?