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Read this review by Thomas Myers,

the author of Anatomy Trains.

At last! This new book fills a significant gap in somatics. It offers all types of manual practitioners easy access to alternative and complementary movement approaches, while at the same time setting a broad overarching context for the exploration. This book integrates techniques, approaches, and exercises from Alexander, Laban, Rolfing Movement Integration, Contact Improvisation, PNF, Pilates, Continuum, and Body-Mind Centering, among others.

The word 'integrates' here is used deliberately. Although it functions as a useful compendium of awareness exercises, client 'homework', and self-help projects, the book provides an overview of the whole field of somatics and movement—missing until now—weaving principles and relating disparate schools to each other in an engaging and authoritative manner. The author runs the gamut from the most ethereal loosening of body and mind (as in Continuum) through the stabilization exercises so popular now via Pilates, Diane Lee, and the Australian PTS, and all the way over to the stress and trauma work of Peter Levine and Biofeedback.

The book is organized in three sections—Theory, which takes us through the development of posture, movement, and holding patterns—Practice, which guides us through the various approaches to changing, correcting, and developing patterns, and thirdly—History, which gives us a tour of many of the seminal and current approaches to pattern change.

All through the book, the author employs a system of icons to alert the reader to case studies, practical applications, exercises for client homework, key concept, and questions to stimulate critical thinking.

The books serves as a well-crafted introduction to the whole field, and a highly practical guide for any therapist who want to add to his or her armory of visual assessment and movement applications in the treatment room or as homework. Those searching for detailed anatomy—either neural or structural—would best search elsewhere (and the bibliography will lead you there if necessary). But for the practicing therapists, I can heartily recommend this book as one that will end up dog-eared on your desk, not pristine on your shelf.

—Thomas Myers, author of Anatomy Trainsl

Here's what others are saying about Somatic Patterning

"Foster has a clear sense of somatic patterns and she is able to communicate that to the reader in compelling and memorable ways. It is a very comprehensive and wonderful—a great sourcebook, and incredible tour de force. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Somatic Patterning. I highly recommend it. It's a great addition to the somatic literature and resources."

—Eleanor Criswell Hanna, Somatics Magazine-Journal

"A a wonderful and important new resource for both hands-on and movement education therapy. . . clear, comprehensive, well organized, and readable." —Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, founder of Body-Mind Centering

"Somatic Patterning is two books in one—a movement and posture text for somatic practitioners and students; and a source of posture, movement, and body / mind exercises for readers and their clients. This information is valid, valuable, and applicable . . . the practitioner could use Somatic Patterning to gracefully integrate movement and posture theories into a massage / bodywork practice . . . a solid foundation for effective communication of the values of touch, movement and posture to individuals and groups." —Massage Magazine

"This book is useful for a diversity of people, and can be used entirely or studied in parts . . . [It] offers pattern recognition skills . . . exercises [that] promote awareness of body mechanics and posture. Foster does a good job of giving a detailed template from which to understand body/mind patterns that promote alignment, health, and well-being. As massage therapists, this knowledge will help us make more informed choices about how we will touch our clients, help us to be more effective when we touch, and have a more lengthy and comfortable career without burn-out." — Massage Therapy Journal

Do your massage clients or movement students return with the same problems session after session?

Are you looking for simple tools to alleviate back pain and restore flexibility?

Many people find the information about how to change painful postures confusing and contradictory. One person tells one thing and another tells you something else. I have suffered through this experience myself.

Although the sources are diverse, the information and tools in Somatic Patterning are clear, grounded, and easy to use. For example, when our back muscles tend to ache or easily tire, we are usually using the wrong muscles to stay upright. In fact, most people who suffer from chronic muscular pain contract the wrong muscles for postural support. Then, when their muscles become tired, tight, and painful, these people seek out massage therapists and movement classes for help. Although these modalities may provide relief, they may not address the muscle patterns that caused the pain and tightness in the first place. So, the old pattern persists and the pain cycle returns. This type of chronic pain pattern can only be broken through the conscious and specific somatic patterning of targeted postural muscles, a refined skill covered extensively in this sourcebook. Somatic Patterning offers clear and practical up-to-date information on postural muscles that you will fail to find in other texts like this. (See Chapters 1, 2, 9, and 12 for info on training postural muscles.)

What can Somatic Patterning do for you? It will provide you with many illustrated exercises and skills to relieve chronic pain caused by poor posture and faulty movement habits. If you're a bodywork or massage therapist, you can teach these easy exercises to your clients while they are actually on your massage table to enhance the effects of your bodywork. If you’re a teacher, you can integrate the partner exercises and lessons on experiential anatomy work into your classes. Your clients and students will leave not only feeling better and looking better, they will come back for more. I know because I have combined somatic patterning with massage therapy and movement education for years and both my clients and students love it, (I call my table work “patterning bodywork”). They return for session after session, class after class, with similar requests, asking me to review the exercise “that relieved my low back pain and flattened my stomach, or “stretched and straightened my neck, or (my favorite), “made my waist feel so long and thin.”

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