Before turning his attention to human function, Moshe Feldenkrais was a cartographer, a physicist and an engineer. His scientific background is evident in his approach to self awareness with the Feldenkrais Method itself a fundamentally scientific method.
The Feldenkrais Method is basically a series of experiments with one's own body and consciousness. Observation and awareness, not movement, is the source of the changes that take place during a Feldenkrais lesson. Observations made during a lesson are regularly tested against an initial hypothesis typified by the body scan done at the beginning of each lesson.
Scientific recognition has been important to the Feldenkrais community because access for working class, aging and disabled communities requires funding and insurance. While this recognition allows the benefits of the work to be available to more communities with urgent needs, it also allows the method to continue to grow and be shaped by a greater and more diverse range of human behavior and function. For the Feldenkrais Method to be practiced within the confines of one community is to relegate it to history books.
Therefore, a giant thank you is owed to those who have brought the attention of the scientific community to the Feldenkrais method. Below are some of the studies published in the last few years which have allowed the method to reach a broader audience.