Ideomotion & Fascial Unwinding

Involuntary motion soft tissue techniques: Fascial Unwinding, Pandiculations and Muscle Repositioning

Fascial Unwinding

Minasny (2009) found fascial unwinding to involve two aspects:

• Passively moving the patient in response to sensations of movement.

• Inducing involuntary movement by using an initiation or induction technique.

Induction techniques initiates fascial unwinding that results in the patient responding with spontaneous expressions of movement in either a rhythmic or chaotic pattern.

The induction process is initiated by lifting and holding certain body parts to remove the influence of gravity as to overcome reactive proprioceptive postural tone. When the effects of gravity are removed, any strain patterns held in the tissues are more easily felt. The therapist follows any hint of movement without directing or forcing it. This involves the practitioner being largely passive but constantly aware of feedback from the patient's tissues (Minasny 2009).

Pandiculations

Schleip (2017) described another proprioceptive stimulating approach to produce involuntary movements called pandiculations. This was from the patient performing slow continuous resisted movement in a concentric and eccentric fashion whilst their soft tissues are being worked upon. This is usually repeated for sixty to ninety seconds followed by a brief isometric contraction of the antagonistic muscles.

Muscle Repositioning

Bertolucci (2010) described a technique called Muscle Repositioning that also worked on pandiculations. This author found involuntary movements to be produced as a result of internal shear forces among myofascial compartments. These shear forces are produced from the practitioner applying precise and sustained firm pressure at an oblique angle which produces a counter pressure generated from the inertia of the tissues.

The resultant involuntary movement happens in small increments (pandiculation), which become larger towards the end of the manoeuvre as body segments unite into a block. After the manoeuvre the patient often feels a burning sensation.

Somatic Experiencing

Payne et al (2015) described the theory of Somatic Experiencing. The sympathetic nervous system may get “stuck” in a state of excess activation; this results in altered muscular activity disturbing the proprioceptive feedback that results in a failed reciprocal activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. This sympathetic-parasympathetic nervous system imbalance impacts on the neuroendocrine axis.

In Somatic Experiencing rebalancing the nervous system can be achieved by intense muscular effort and manual techniques producing involuntary spontaneous movements of the body such as gentle shaking and subtle postural changes. This is often accompanied by feelings of fear, sadness, or relief. It accounts for shaking and crying after an intense bout of sympathetic arousal and also, possibly, tonic immobility.

Therefore proprioceptive feedback is integral to allow the autonomic nervous system to reset to baseline. By drawing the patient's attention to the proprioceptive and kinesthetic (somatic) markers of this “release” process it enables a spontaneous rebalancing of the nervous system.

Viscoelastic changes in fascial unwinding (Blostein 2014)

In health the fascia network is straight, meaning that torsional forces in the fascia network are at a minimum. Thus the initial state is the configuration of lowest energy, in a liquid like state (‘sol’). Injury can introduce torsional forces that creates stiffness and introduces equal and opposite counter-torsion elsewhere in the fascia network.

However, adhesive forces can prevent a twist and counter-twist from meeting and cancelling out and hold the fascia network in a higher energy state. This ‘locked up’, high torsional stiffness, adhesive state moves the viscoelastic fascial system from a ‘sol’ like fluid state to a strong, solid like ‘gel’ state.

The aim of fascial unwinding is to overcome adhesions and bring together and cancel out twists and counter-twists. This cancelation of torsional forces aims to moves the fascia network from a locked up, higher energy, stiff ‘gel’ state back to a lower energy, fluid ‘sol’ state.

Proprioception

Proprioception and involuntary motion

Ideomotion is the proposed mechanism for involuntary motion in fascial unwinding (Minasny 2009) and cranial osteopathy (Mason 2008); refer below 'Ideomotor theory' and 'Ideomotion and fascial unwninding'

Ideomotor actions are unconscious involuntary movements caused by prior expectations, suggestions, or preconceptions (Minasry 2008). Hence:

Ideation: thinking about or activating the mental representation of a perceived outcome and experiences --> motion: behaviour expressed through involuntary motor action. 

An example of an ideomotor activity is closing your eyes to go to sleep. An individual's representation (i.e. their ideation) of closing their eyes to go to sleep maybe the anticipation and mental representation of darkness, the closure of heavy eyes and unconsciousness. This leads to the non-deliberate, intuitive motor response (i.e. motion) of the individual closing their eyes (Wirth et al 2018).

Whilst all ideomotor responses look intuitive, some have to be learnt. For instance an ideomotor response would be an emotion e.g. positivity (ideation) triggering a motor response in the form of adopting a particular posture e.g. upright posture (motion). This would have been learnt when young through observation and role play. This ideomotor repsonse is bi-directional so when older and the association with posture and emotions are 'cemented in' to form a ideomotor reflex, activey changing a posture, in a particular situation can intern be therapeutic leading to a change of emotions.

The body's ability to preform these involuntary ideomotor actions are based, amongst other things, on proprioceptive feedback (Ondobaka & Bekkering 2012). Proprioception is not just centred around the awareness of the positioning of your body in space but the learning and emotions that accompany this (Liutsko et al 2016, Fuchs & Koch 2014 & Abraham et al 2020); refer below 'Proprioception and learning' and 'Proprioception and emotions'.

Therefore proprioceptive information, through learning and emotions, has a mental representation of the specific actions that had caused them. These learnt emotional mental representations form sensory anticipations that can trigger automatic ideomotor actions (Wirth et al 2016).

For example when performing a lumbar roll if a patient has a negative emotional representation of the technique causing tension and anticipation this can heighten proprioceptive feedback. This anxiety and proprioceptive feedback can trigger both voluntary tightness in the paraspinal muscles and a involuntary learnt ideomotor reflex response to such anxiety and vulnerability in the form of neck extension, facial muscle tension and hand and feet clenching. With the ideomotor reflex being bi-directional addressing these learnt ideomotor motor responses i.e. the neck extension, facial muscle tension and hand and feet clenching should reflexly both reduce anxiety and relax the paraspinal muscles for a more efficient technique. 

Much like with the emotional representation of sleep triggering the automatic motor response of closing the eyelids the learnt emotional and motor repsonses to proprioception are manifested through involuntary ideomotor movements (Ondobaka & Bekkering 2012). It is also why manual stimulation of proprioceptors has been associated with exciting the ideomotor reflex manifested with the involuntary motor movements in myofascial release (Minasny 2009) and cranial osteopathic techniques (Mason 2008).

What is proprioception

Proprioception means perception of ourselves, or more exactly, perception of the relative positions of the parts of our body (Liutsko et al 2016). 

Fascia is the richest sensory organ in the human body as a vast majority of sensory nerve endings in musculoskeletal tissues originate in it (e.g. perimysium and endomysium). Muscular-tendinous expansions insert into the fascia that transmit mechanical tensions to it. This in turn activates free nerve endings and other fascial receptors that contribute to accurate sensing of joint range of motion and positioning. Fascial stiffness has been linked with decreased proprioception and chronic sympathetic activation (Abraham et al 2020).

All this afferent information acts as “an anchor for self-awareness” (Liutsko et al 2016) as we perceive our self-awareness, feelings, mood, stress, energy and disposition from our physical bodies as a representative of all aspects of our physiological condition (Abraham 2020). 

Abraham (2020) identified sensory-proprioceptive information (or feedback) from fascia to include body contour and physical proportions; this information forms a mental representation of the body and its parts in space and in relation to each other (i.e. body schema). Disorders in body schema are reflected in connective tissue patterns.

Emotions and body states are closely interrelated, and modifications of one lead to changes in the other. Proprioception “encodes” these moods, feelings and attitudes so that have a bidirectional facilitation interference with movement. "happy movement <--> happy emotions".

This is why not only body sensations, but also body postures, gestures and expressions are inherent components of emotional experience that influence our evaluation of people, objects and situations, as well as memory recall (Fuchs & Koch 2014). 

This is exemplified by how the following movements and postures effect behaviour and emotions:

• Approach movements have a bidirectional facilitation interference with positive moods, feelings and attitudes such as being excited, alert and determined (Liutsko et al 2016).

During an approach movement (e.g. arm flexion or receptive movement of the hands) an individual has a more positive evaluation of imagery and target objects (Fuchs & Koch 2014). 

• Avoidance movements have a bidirectional facilitation interference with negative moods, feelings and attitudes such as being upset, guilty, and jittery (Liutsko et al 2016).

During an avoidance movement (e.g. arm extension or unreceptive movement of the hands) an individual has a more negative evaluation of imagery and target objects (Fuchs & Koch 2014).

• When people stand or sit for 7 min in a “power position” (different forms of extension of the body), they perform better in subsequent job interviews (Fuchs & Koch 2014).

• Shorter movements are associated with inhibited people while broader movements are associated with excited people (Liutsko et al 2016).

This association of emotion with proprioception and movement can also be compounded by other sensory inputs such as emotive language e.g. “love” and “hate” that are related with approach and avoidance gestures respectively (Liutsko et al 2016). Similar metaphors can also be used in visualisation or motor imagery (Abraham et al 2020).

So when individuals are able to adopt or produce emotion-specific postures, facial expressions or gestures they tend to experience the associated emotions, which effects their behaviour, preferences, judgement and attitudes toward objects or people.

Conversely, when an individual’s expressive movements are inhibited, this impairs their experience and processing of the associated emotions (Fuchs & Koch 2014). Mason (2008) found clinically this may manifest itself as isometric muscle contraction “holding yourself tight" or "holding tensions in”. 

There is also a bidirectional correlation with emotion and muscular tension and postural changes. Studies cited by Fuchs & Koch (2014) highlighted:

• When slumped, individuals recall more negative life events; conversely more positive events are recalled when sitting upright.

• Activation of the smiling muscles (by asking participants to hold a pen between their teeth) causes individuals to judge cartoons funnier than when smiling is inhibited by holding the pen between their lips.

The link between motion and movement is not only experienced by the individual but also by the observer. This can develop ‘kinaesthetic empathy’ where an observer perceives someone to move in a way that resonates with their own kinaesthetic representation of these movements. 

Therefore someones expressive behaviour affects the intensity of emotions experienced by not only the individual, but also the observer. This can be seen when experiencing emotions from someone's facial expressions or looking at professional dancers, musicians and sportsmen. This can also lead to congruent motor responses in the observer e.g. reciprocating to another’s facial expressions.

Developing kinaesthetic empathy from observation further reinforces our own personal value on proprioception for learning and developing emotional expression and emotional intelligence.

Proprioception and learning

When starting to learn a new skill, we rely more on abstract learning. This involves using concentrated attention and deliberate motor movements to observe and master the action we have been tasked with learning. We can only gain feedback on this deliberate movement, as to develop a perception or mental representation of it once we've completed and analysed the movement. An example of this would be when we first learn to write and we assess the size and smoothness of the lines once we've deliberately and consciously moved the pen.

With repeated practice we then learn on a proprioceptive level. This is where we start to look like we're operating on autopilot acquiring automatic or “embodied” knowledge (Liutsko et al 2016). Weimer et al (2001) attributed proprioceptive deficits as attributing to the "clumsiness" witnessed in Aspergers and is associated with these patients nonverbal learning.

Our perceptions or mental representations from proprioceptive feedback determine how we perform a task. An example of this would be observing how our writing unconsciously changes over the years once we can write fluently without conscious thought or how our emotions when for example writing an angry letter effect our proprioceptive feedback to determine non-conscious motor reponses in the muscles determining subtle changes in handwriting and pen pressure.

Embodied knowledge is the knowledge we obtain from all of our sensory, motor, and affective patterns. We process all this information to provide structure to our understanding so that we can engage with our world. This is different from an abstract intellectual grasping of concepts and their relations (Johnson 2015).

Proprioception is ideal for learning and processing this automatic or embodied knowledge (Liutsko et al 2016). This is because proprioception is key to bodily resonance, be it in the form of sensations, postures, expressive movements or movement tendencies (Fuchs & Koch 2014).

By using mimetic reproduction, from observing day-to-day movement, actions and expressions, proprioception is integral to learning cultural habits and the know-how associated with practical experience and professional skills (Liutsko et al 2016).

This process of learning forms and shapes development in a child when playing with toys. A child fuses movement and proprioception with emotion when they play with a favourite toy to create emboded imagery.

A child will identify with the toys qualities, movement and expression. They then emotionally and physically engage with the toy by moving it in an expressive manner transfering all this neural input to internally represent aspects of their own ego identity (Liutsko et al 2016).

It's not until five years old that a child can transfer behavior control from external to internal speech and inhibit their own responses (although they can inhibit their responses before this in response to external command). Therefore up until five a child has a blank cheque to fuse unhibited expression of movement with learning (Greenwald 1970).

This form of learning using all of our sensory, motor, and affective patterns is not only exclusively dependent upon proprioception. Many subconscious thoughts, emotions and perceptions play an influence in the process of observing and learning in this fashion. For example Fuchs & Koch (2014) identified studies showing how bodily felt warmth i.e. thermal heat from holding a hot drink, directly translates to impressions of emotional warmth. This can effect observations and perceptions during intuitive learning.

Proprioception and emotions

“The term “emotion” is derived from the Latin emovere, “to move out,” implying that inherent in emotions is a potential for movement, a directedness toward a certain goal (be it attractive or repulsive) and a tension between possible and actual movement” (Fuchs & Koch 2014). 

This is mirrored with the use of such language towards emotion where people describe being “moved” or “touched” or a “sinking feeling” or being “uplifted”.

Proprioception plays an important role in the construction of movements, formation of movement skills and in regulation of muscle tone. Proprioception also contributes to speech function or speech kinaesthesia and to general physical well-being and “sense of cheerfulness” (Liutsko et al 2016).

As the richest sensory organ in the body, fascial stiffness, from its contractile properties, fluid dynamics and myofascial relations has been associated with emotional stimuli. This could be as fascia’s efferent nerve endings account for more than 50% of its total nerve supply and are associated with a sympathetic response i.e. vasodilation. Sympathetic nerves are also located outside the vicinity of blood vessels questioning what their function maybe (Abraham et al 2020).

The correlation between proprioception and emotion can be reflected by its neurological links with:

• Facial feedback: skeletal muscle afferent signals from facial expressions regulate emotional experience and behaviour.

• Visceral feedback: visceral feedback from, for example, respiratory, heart function and the gut, are also correlated to emotional experience and behaviour.

This proprioceptive and interoceptive feedback from the body is integrated with more cognitive information in order to guide one's behaviour particularly with regards to every day decision-making (Fuchs & Koch 2014). 'Emodied cogntion' defines the bi-directional nature and how fundamentally potent the perception and representation of actions are to bodily and emotional experiences.

The relationship with emotions and bodily functions (including proprioception) where one can influence and manifest the other is illustrated in the quote: 

“We do not shiver because we are scared of the lion, but we shiver as this is what we feel as our fear” (James 1884, as cited in Fuchs & Koch 2014).

To extend this concept further other people can tickle you but you can't tickle yourself. Therefore how we process the perception of our emotions determines why what we feel as a tickle when someone else tickles us is different to what we feel as a tickle when we tickle ourselves. Consequently the tickle itself doesn't produce reflex bodily functions e.g. laugher and drawing away movements, but how we feel about, or process the tickle does.

How we feel about and neurologically process the information to determine how tickley something is is determined by how close the match is between the expected response and actual response. By tickling ourselves we remove the anticipation of the unknown causing the cerebellum to diminish activation in the somatosensory cortex (Simpson 2001). This reflexly determines the motor reaction to this processed afferent stimuli. Could this open the scope for mindfulness practice in addressing fear avoidance behaviour to alter the perception of proprioceptive and emotional feedback which will in turn modify their motor responses?

Therefore, feeling something and feeling oneself are inextricably bound together. This comes back to our the fundamental definition of proprioception by Liutsko et al (2016) of “the perception of ourselves”.

This emotion-somatic connection is bidirectional because just as an emotion (e.g. fear) will produce a somatic response (e.g. trembling) bodily (somatic) feelings produce an emotional response. For instance, being afraid is not possible without feeling oneself tremble, tense up, have palpitations, etc.

Other bodily systems are of course involved in this whole body systemic process e.g. smell, taste, auditory stimuli etc.

Any disturbances in life, stress, trauma and illnesses effects the proprioceptive state that both reflects in and is related to physical, emotional and cognitive functions (Liutsko et al 2016).

Liutsko et al (2016) identified examples of personality symptoms with disturbed proprioceptive function:

• Autism: 80% of subjects with Asperger Syndrome displayed motor dyspraxia. Proprioceptive deficits, rather than motor deficits, have been accounted for causing incoordination in Asperger’s Syndrome (Weimer et al 2001)

• Clinically avoidant personality traits showed significantly poorer motor performance.

• Down’s syndrome scores were significantly lower for both gross and fine motor skills, as well in running speed, balance, strength and visual motor control.

• Bipolar disorder: demonstrates altered postural control.

• Dysfunctions of both proprioceptive and sensory integration of proprioception and vision in personality disorders, aggressive behaviour and prison inmates.

Our bodies response to an emotional stimuli is its voice describing its “embodied appraisal” of a situation (Fuchs & Koch 2014); therefore proprioception has a critical role in listening to this appraisal and reorganising the subsequent recovery of these neuromotor systems (Liutsko et al 2016).

Involuntary motor reactions in response to involuntary motion soft tissue techniques

Examples of involuntary motor reactions are:

• Isometric contraction of the cervical erector spinae during a suboccipital inhibition technique. This results in the practitioner’s hands being pressed into the table by the involuntary extension of the subject’s head and upper cervical spine. The cervical region may show a greater responsiveness than other body parts due to its richer proprioceptive innervation (Bertolucci & Kozasa 2010).

• Eyelid flickering (Minasy 2009).

• Horizontal eye movements (Minasy 2009).

• Tremors (Minasy 2009).

• Clonic and tonic appendicular movements (Minasy 2009).

• Rising from a supine to a seated position (Minasy 2009).

Ideomotor theory

"The act comes first, the word proceeding from it as its concretized efflorescence" Corporeal Words: Mikhail Bakhtin's Theology of Discourse Alexandar Mihailovic (1997). 

From sensorimotor to ideomotor learning

In predictive models the intention to achieve a certain sensory goal (e.g. grasping an object) triggers the motor simulations, and in turn the actions needed to achieve it. Any mismatch between the predicted sensation pre-movement and the actual outcome post-movement is assigned a salience level; a high salience indicates either a flawed motor plan, or our perceptions around what achieving our goal should “feel” like was wrong. For example, when preparing for an interaction with perceived high-levels of attention proprioceptive blueprints selectively activate gamma motor neurones. This hypersensitises Ia and II sensory neurons makes spindle feedback intrinsically more salient and perceptible even before any movement has occurred. These pre-motor intentions shine a "sensory spotlight" the colours of which reflect to us the characteristic ways we tune into the “feel” of our body both in relation to action, and, its ultimate goal. Prepping up spindle sensitivity independently from skeletal muscle stiffness reflexively adjusts muscle tone for the upcoming movement and sharpens scrutiny of any sensory mismatch between what was predicted to be felt and what actually was. This allows alpha motor neurons to make any real-time physical corrections or, if the goal is objectively being met but subjectively feels "off," the system can update higher-order cognitive models (Leonardi 2025). This pre-movement salience explains why, upon wearing Ray-Bans, higher-order cognitive models associated with a 'baller' persona prime the muscle spindles, enabling physical embodiment of this persona. The high salience of this affective state triggers intense performance monitoring, allowing for real-time corrections of postural anomalies that threaten to disrupt the desired, confident embodiment. Conversely, if the physical posture is achieved without the corresponding emotional shift, metacognitive reassessments of the 'baller' concept can refine the higher cognitive model’s motor commands. This ideomotor learning, the building and refining of sensory-motor templates, is a lifelong process that begins with sensorimotor learning from exploration in infancy.

The early phase of sensorimotor training involves a baby exploring their unknown world, not through planned action, but through random, joyous, and chaotic movement such as random mimicry. This is "motor babbling"—an essential learning phase that isn't about achieving a goal, but anticipating a self-rewarding curiosity from discovering new unexpected sensations (Haar et al 2020). But the raw sensory data from this exploration is often unclear (noisy), incomplete, or ambiguous, presenting an unreliable picture of ‘me’ and ‘the world’. Therefore, the brain tries to form a coherent picture of reality by integrating signals from different senses that align in time and space, which, the first month of life is primarily derived from proprioceptive input (Röder et al 2021). Consequently, individual sensory modalities are not segregated they overlap and converge within the brain. Even when these modalities don’t directly overlap diverse senses still enrich one another. For instance, when it’s dark sensory information is used from auditory cues to enhance visual identification, which is all integrated with sensory input from all the other senses (proprioceptive, interoceptive, etc) that are active during the event. These different senses are integrated into ‘one event’ because they overlap within a spatiotemporal frame. The integration of this diverse sensory information into a singular experience provides varied perspectives on both the environment and the self. It combines real-time, firsthand perception with retrospective inferences from a third-person perspective of ‘my’ experience (Florio 2025) which produces a rudimentary, but temporary affective sense of body schema (Haar et al 2020). The sensory "punch" from this multisensory processing facilitates its joint encoding with motor commands, yielding disproportionately spatiotemporally accurate and rapid coordinated behavioural responses. This, in turn, generates further sensory input, perpetuating the cycle (Florio 2025). This process is essential for intentionally positioning oneself within the environment, allowing for the predictive shaping of external outcomes and the experience of the characteristic qualities of a higher-level conceptual sense of Self (Röder et al 2021).

Once this diverse sensory information occuring in spatiotemporal time frame has been integrated into a single sensorimotor event, repetition of this event allows infants to retrospectively look back and associate the probability of causation (action a causing sensation a), over correlation (action a and sensation a occurring by chance).  Establishing retrospective beliefs around causation occurs initially from strong prior temporal beliefs (i.e. action causes sensation if they consistently befall within a close enough time frame), and later spatial beliefs (i.e. action causes sensation if they consistently befall within close enough proximity) (Tanaka & Imamizu 2025) providing no other explanations exist (Zhao et al., 2025). Although this causal learning starts with rudimentary very broad pattern recognition—such as generic crying to express distress—it establishes the ‘rule of thumb’ principles necessary for valuing, interpreting and acting upon bottom-up information. Over time, these generic lessons enable infants to develop strategic foresight, allowing them to adapt their actions to predict specific outcomes even in novel situations (e.g. babies modelling diverse approach behaviours specific to their needs) (Tanaka & Imamizu 2025).

Learning what’s me and not me

Working out what is ‘me’ and ‘not me’ and a level of predictability as to the sensations that are to occur when these two entities are about to interact means when a motor action is to be initiated corollary discharges are sent to the sensory areas that are going to receive these specific sensations from these upcoming actions. These corollary discharges from specific motor areas are self-identity ‘me’ signals that tee up the sensory areas prior to movement by telling these (primarily proprioceptive) sensory areas action-outcome timing and qualities. Labelling internal sensations matching those of the corollary discharges (and consequentially the actions that produced them sensations) as being self-initiated by ‘me’ are attenuated, but not completely cancelled out as to produce an anaesthesia (with exception to the oculomotor system). Successfully establishing action-outcome causality attenuates these ‘me’ sensations from my thoughts and actions in lower-levels of conscious processing by compressing the action-sensation subjective time interval so the action and its outcome is perceived as occurring more simultaneously than it actually did. This reduced conscious perception of this effortless action-outcome flow quietens the sensory noise of these self-generated actions (e.g. self-administered tactile stimulus is less tickly and daily movements like walking doesn’t put us in sensory overload) (Blakemore et al 1999) making them more irrelevant. This in turn allows greater attention in higher-levels of conscious processing to other less predictable more relevant stimuli, that, by virtue of not being attenuated is labelled ‘not me’, or external by default (Beño-Ruiz-de-la-Sierra et al 2024).

Ideomotor learning: “I can do what I want”

Cognitive develops involves a gradual transition from a sensorimotor phase learning where through repeated nonspecific, non-goal-directed behaviour, we can recollect ‘motor action a —> sensory state a’ to the formation of ideomotor representations when planned sensory goals —> motor action (Sun et al 2020). Beginning around two to seven months an infant’s desire for familiar comforting affect directs motor attachment behaviours to a specified individual (Paulus 2025) a process that matures with development of the PFC from seven to the mid to late twenties. This sensorimotor-ideomotor transition hinges on accumulating episodic memories of simple periodic sensorimotor events (‘episodic motor action —> episodic sensory affect’) and then using higher-level cognitive processes to extract the commonalities from these diverse experiences and weave them into a cohesive 'ideomotor story’. This story takes experiences in the lower-level ‘do this —> experience that’ episodic memory database and uses higher-level cognitive processes to creatively extract the commonalities in seemingly disparate episodic memories and weave them together into an ideomotor story. This story uses higher-level planning concerning the 'why' and 'how' as an intentional agent I can define the attractiveness of a desired feeling and control my environment, even in novel environments, to produce that feeling by evaluating the predicted transitional sensory states from selecting the appropriate motor actions lower down in the neurological hierarchy. Through repeated experience, neural circuits jointly encode these complex causal links between motor commands, environmental contexts, and subjective/objective sensory states so they intimately merge into one undifferentiated, unified ideomotor representation. This lack of sensory-motor distinction means when I’m internally motivated to experience a sensory phenomena and these representations successfully predict the autonomous motor actions that will cause that sensation a fleeting sense of ownership and agency is manifested as a temporary sense of  'me'—a momentary (non-stable), rudimentary sense of self. This brief blip of individuality, as being distinct from, but being connected to my environment by how I can pre-determine what actions can influence it is by default, in that it must have been ‘my’, as opposed to someone else’s, higher-level goal-directed cognitive processes that integrated the constant streams of decision-making thoughts that successfully act out ‘my’ free-will” (Synofzick et al 2008).

But these early representations born from a ritualistic sensorimotor grounding are very rigid in how things ‘should be’ predicting highly specific sensory consequences of an action (Evans & Leckman 2006). These brittle representations are unable to integrate any real-world complexity in the form of contradiction and contextualisation and is why children need a rigid adherence to “just right” or sameness in their routines where a learnt predictability re-establishes the control and order needed to restore a sensory balance to the anxiety produced from a chaotic uncontrollable world. This is because the rapidly forming, plastic sensorimotor circuits that form these representations organise motor areas (e.g. basal ganglia) with cognitive and emotion processing that are sensitive to unpredictable environments and sensations. Therefore any slight deviations from the highly specific sensory consequences these representations thought an action would produce results in a highly distressing “something is wrong” feelings of incompleteness triggering the need to re-establish control from eliciting a pre-defined change through rigid repetitive behaviour (Tonna et al 2025) or a belief in wishing and magical thinking (Evans & Leckman 2006). By moderating fears, negative-emotional temperament and emotional dysregulation stereotypical restricted and repetitive behaviours are normal behaviour to regaina sense of agency between two to six but should taper off by seven where maturation of the prefrontal cortex and more flexible representations drive more flexible context-relevant strategies that gives less salience and hyper-attention to strange minute imperfections or peculiarities (Tonna et al 2025).

The strength of ideomotor learning depends on (i) a clear sensory goal that is internally motivated by how it resonates with the individual (Massen & Prinz 2008) e.g. being asked to get something for a clear purpose will drive a less inhibited more autonomous motor movement than feeling resentment when being ordered to for no foreseeable reason; (ii) how strong the causal links are between an action and its perceivable effects and whether these perceivable effects are being experienced (Massen & Prinz 2009); (iii) the strength of the tasks ideomotor compatible (=high level of similarity between the stimulus and response) e.g. seeing an arrow point to the left and then pressing a left key (Maquestiaux et al 2020); (iv) blind positive association where all antagonistic impulses and thought are removed (Mason 2008 & Massen & Prinz 2008). Conversely involuntary ideomotor activities can be voluntarily overruled and inhibited manifested by isometric muscle contraction (Mason 2008) “holding yourself tight" or "holding tensions in”.

Autonomous ideomotor actions include behaviours such as:

• Mimicry (Sun et al 2020).

• Behaviour from affordances e.g. pressing a button that looks like it should be pressed (Sun et al 2020).

• Goal-directed behaviour and action priming (Sun et al 2020).

• Body language, facial expression or body posture (Mason 2008).

• Yawning (Mason 2008).

• Postural correction (Mason 2008).

• Closing your eyes to go to sleep (Wirth et al 2018).

• Visualisation (motor imagery). Reframing sensory input and its motor responses positively affects motor and cognitive performance and other behavioural outcomes e.g. anxiety, motivation, and confidence. Eliciting brain activation similar to that during physical execution (movement, proprioception, pain, and body schema) improves interoception and potentially, as a sensory and motor organ, the physical structure of fascia (Abraham et al 2020).  

Ideomotion and a sense of agency

The sensorimotor cortex continually evolves this action-outcome cycle through an embodied decision-making process. This process being motivated by the anticipated rewards from an upcoming action, decides upon an action, executes it and then learns from what happens after the event (Gharesi et al 2026).  Pre-movement, so long as we have free-choice, we can activate the intentional chain to selectively experience a sensory outcome (goal). Prospective pre-movement phase (ideation): once a planned future-orientated sensory goal is identified the sensorimotor cortex accumulates and integrates multiple streams of sensory evidence, handles ambiguity and simulates all the sub-categories of motor movements to evaluate alternative actions. This establishes a confidence in the forward model’s finally chosen action in achieving what was intended (Gharesi et al 2026) —> selectively chooses to inhibit irrelevant/prime the relevant motor systems —> primed motor system: integrate into one seamless event by subjectively compressing the temporal interval (perceived timing) between the intention to act-performing the action-experiencing the relevant sensory features from the upcoming action (Bertoni et al 2025) —> Movement phase (motion): these forward models drive motor actions with the prospective aim of manipulating the action-outcome effect ever closer to a pre-determined goal (i.e. minimal error signals) to gives a ‘in the moment’ implicit sense of agency” —> Retrospective post-movement phase: the same cortical areas evaluates motor actions by comparing their actual sensory outcomes, both during and after movement, against what was predicted pre-movement by the forward models (Gharesi et al 2026). How highly predicted relevant sensory outcomes are expected to be pre-movement dictates how they are temporally compressed so that during, and post-movement these sensation are enhanced (Bertoni et al 2025), and subjectively experienced as occurring closer towards the action that caused them. This occurs even if the action didn’t produce the sensation it was expected to so that this ‘action-unexpected outcome’ event is still subjectively experienced as occurring closer in time just to maintain an implicit sense of agency (Lafleur et al 2025). Temporally binding an action-outcome event for retrospective performance evaluation occurs through a higher-level abstraction that constructs the causal links needed to make the coherent meaningful associations between my thoughts-actions, and actions-predicted/actual state. Establishing a clear coherency in the ‘why I wanted, and how I executed action a to cause sensation b’ story brings ‘sensation b’, or any other sensation that happened to occur but was not predicted in the pre-movement phase (error signal), under our control (Gharesi et al 2026), to maintain a sense of agency. This is because so long as the causal links clearly show ‘how we got there’ if things go as expected they effortlessly shaw up prior models, and if things don’t go as expected we know how to change our prior models to either change the next action to correct the error signal, or, give new meaning to the action-outcome event (Lafleur et al 2025).

However, error signals vary in value based on their unexpectedness (surprise at how wrong our models were) and confidence (reliability of the error signal). Thus, depending on the adherence to the beliefs that form our models DA-anticipated rewards should prioritise updating models proportionate to how unexpected and reliably sourced errors signals are. If in the pre-movement phase the sensorimotor cortex forms weak models from uncertain, weak or conflicting sensory information that predicts a low probability of success, but, surprisingly the outcome exceeded expectations (even if the outcome doesn’t achieve the intended goal) DA neurones will express this PE+ to reinforce the value of the modelling that advocated these actions. If pre-movement a high probability of success is predicted and the outcome only slightly exceeds expectations DA neurones will weakly fire. However, if the sensorimotor cortex accumulates certain, non-conflicting evidence forming strong models predicting a high probability of success but the action registers an unfavourable outcome this RPE- will be expressed by DA neurones firing below threshold discouraging future behaviour from these models (Gharesi et al 2026). So correctly applying salience to the right error signals, strengthens the synaptic (DA) learning (especially error signals from unexpected positive outcomes) to retrospectively update the forward-thinking insights from these models and then integrate them with other higher-levels of cognition (Ashby et al 2024). As these models minimise error signal an effortless sense of mastery over our internal or external environments is experienced making the world seem less confusing, less elemental and less disjointed (Lukitsch 2025).

Error signals highlighting anomalous sensations with reduced or absent causal links to the actions that caused them, or the sensations may have causal links to the actions that caused them but there was no causal links to any authenic internal motivation to experience or instigate give a reduced SoA experienced first-hand through the dual motor-objective/subjective sensory encoding in representations. This means the sensations and the actions that produced them, are experienced strange peculiar or unrelatable which defines their emotional salience. This makes the whole sensorimotor experience by how it clashes with all that I know about what it feels like to be me means that, by default, this alien experience must’ve been produced and experienced by someone else and not fully by me to blur one’s self-other distinction to compromise self-awareness. Contextualising such alien sensations at a higher-level of processing with more flexible representations that can be updated with contradicting information is more effortless, but, with more unyielding ‘all-or-nothing’ representations that can’t process erroneous information that “something is wrong” feeling results in frustration and vulnerability as the individual fearful, anxious and easily upset maintaining non-adaptive behaviours to persist, for example, tantrums (Paulus 2025). However, even if representations of an individual and their environment are updated but are still so tightly bound they can only represent an isolated sphere of life they are unable to accumulatively be integrated with each other to allow for the flexibility and adaptability needed for an entire repertoire of behaviour leading to inevitable distress from a loss of agency when presented with broader complexities (Evans & Leckman 2006).

Example: how attachment behaviours influence the content of ideomotor representations

Being born completely helpless babies are motivated from a self-rewarding intrinsic curiosity to learn how to attune themselves to the fundamental rules of the physical and sociocultural world they’ve found themselves in to gain controllability and strategise for net gain (positive states) (Nussenbaum & Hartley 2024), even if that involves offsetting against loss (negative states). As a central feature of human development learning their environment is controllable i.e. my actions produce an acceptable reliable continuity in physical sensations (e.g. relief of hunger by being fed) and emotional sensations (e.g. how I’m made to feel safe, understood and loved) is derived from the secure attachment styles from caregivers (Paulus 2025). Feeling safe by how their learnt reward-based strategies can control an inherently uncertain but stable environment by making the action-outcome predictions that elicit expected rewards empowers children with a self-confidence in developing models to predictably impact their environment (Nussenbaum & Hartley 2024). These children showed a moderate increase in self-other overlap, meaning they can adapt to new information and connect with someone else's feelings (overlap) without becoming overwhelmed by them and losing their own perspective and individuality (differentiation) (Steinmassl & Paulus 2026). This is manifested as a perceived ability to seek comfort by communicating emotional complexities in relationships (Paulus 2025).

Feeling confidently in control by learning causality in essential ‘bread-and-butter’ events, e.g. “I can achieve a desired outcome of feeling loved, fed, etc through a specified action” is a pre-requisite for feeling safe enough to see the world as a playground. Feeling ‘safe enough for play’ means confidentially loosing any top-down filter making all multiple streams of bottom-up information in these one-off unprecedented events unpredicted and novel so it is of anticipated equipotential value in pursuit of a potential reward (from DA neuronal responses) so it becomes attention-grabbing in higher-levels of conscious processing and leads to a lack of spontaneous impulse control (Gao & Sloutsky 2025). This sheer agency experience that fuels this joy of learning action-outcome causality, even if inevitable mistakes are made (i.e. anticipated outcomes aren’t achieved) during this learning process, encourages exploratory behaviour. This allows the agent to take their time integrating action-outcome lessons over a longer period of time to foster cognitive flexibility (Nussenbaum & Hartley 2024) such as self-guided play where motor actions (dropping blocks on the floor) allows the infant to interact with their environment to experience a momentary objective and subjective sensory outcomes (Röder et al 2021) teaching the infant about about gravity and physical dimensions. It also teaches more generalised lessons that values flexibly adapting to an ever-changing world that necessitates surprises or prediction errors in order to experience the pleasure of novelty and learning (Spee et al 2022). 

In contrast, trying to establish a sense of control by learning the action-outcome causality needed to produce a positive social-environmental, or pscho-emotional effect in an environment marked by insensitive/inappropriate (e.g. punishing behaviour or retracting from any interaction), or inconsistent/delayed caregiver response (Paulus 2025) is more unforgiving. Being ill-equipped to strategise in such environments characterised by negative rewards and where one has no control over how their anticipated actions can shape a predicted future outcome produces a reduced sense of agency and negative social self-efficacy beliefs. This is because prior to seven, in perceived volatile environments requiring action-outcome plans for safety, an underdeveloped PFC restricts the capability to rigidly exploit existing top-down models that can anticipate a rewarding state by grading what bottom-up stimuli is distracting and should be inhibited in lower levels of conscious processing and what is of value and should have attention directed to it in higher-levels of processing (through selective D1 signalling) (Gao & Sloutsky 2025). The perceived top-down inefficiency to effortlessly processing bottom-up data at different levels of consciousness results in ‘scanning for danger’ where hyper-vigilant threat-related top-down models are biased towards over-interpreting mild or ambiguous bottom-up information so that “potential danger signs” can be bough to higher levels of consciousness. The resultant hyper-reflexivity through motor responses attempts to re-establish a sense of control over how their anticipated actions can shape a predicted future outcome in this chaotic world by affirming learnt action-outcome causality through rigid repetitive behaviours (Tonna et al 2025). Using these repetitive behaviours to regain a sense of safety and self-reliance in the face of such chaotic unpredictability and lack of social agency occurs within a "protective shell"—a hyper-controlled, emotionally detached persona. These strict boundaries form a rigid separation between self and others inhibiting any emotional overlap with others’ so they remain invulnerable to outside emotions suppressing any expression of distress to avoid potential turmoil and rejection from inconsistent or hostile caregivers (Steinmassl & Paulus 2026). This seen when directing attention towards objects (e.g. silent play) as to not alienate caregivers keeping them in close proximity (Paulus 2026). The short-term success of these latest tried and tested action-outcome measures in giving a much needed sense of agency (but not security) and social efficacy beliefs places a high value on narrowing learning, especially if the positive state experienced was ‘better than expected’ (DA), confirms to us how we can optimally adapt to an ever-changing world. But the value placed on using the latest tried and tested actions for immediate gratification inhibits cognitive flexibility by de-valuing any broader lessons learnt in safe environments where top-down threat filters over bottom-up information is non-existent so data can be accumulated over a longer period and given equipotential (DA) value in higher-levels of conscious processing (Nussenbaum & Hartley 2024). But when cognitive flexibility has not been allowed to develop and behavioural rigidity ensues it teaches more generalised lessons that is adverse to the surprises or prediction errors that accompany novelty and flexible learning (Spee et al 2022). This can manifest latterly in relationships through (i) an inability to seek comfort from traditional approach behaviours teaching the value of defensively avoiding emotional interactions relying instead on tried and tested object-derived behaviours to relieve hidden distress; (ii) ambiguity through an inconsistent/delayed caregiver response leaving infants feel they need no doubt as to what the effects of their motor behaviour is going to be persists with relationships marked by a lack of trust and neediness for security and insatiability closeness for fear of being left (Paulus 2025).

But proving how a sense of control can be re-established by executing causation through rigid repetitive predicted action-outcome cycles may not be effective when the environment is incomprehensible. With no overarching top-down plan that predicts how valuing streams of bottom-up information can be integrated within any model, either adaptive or maladaptive, to formulate an effective motor plan for positive affect cements a lack of agency and negative social efficacy beliefs. Feeling overwhelmed by conflict leads to a perpetual cycle between two antagonistic motor codes: motor code one (approach): values the security offered by emotional closeness, but then, by feeling their needs may not be fully addressed —> motor code two (avoidance) distances oneself from the interaction but with the original need for proximity and safety (that may have increased with the heightened indecisiveness) is unquenched repeats the cycle leading to anger or frustration or extreme passivity (Paulus 2025). A lack of social agency means these children have reduced interpersonal trust (Pauls 2025) and exhibit the greatest increase in self-other overlap indicating significant difficulty distinguishing their own bodily sensations and emotions from those of others. Struggling to maintain healthy, independent boundaries, their sense of self is not strongly differentiated from others, leading to a self-other blurring where feelings and bodily experiences are merged with others so a caregiver's distress is internalised as their own. This causes severe anxiety and clinginess as they act out to maintain closeness and avoid separation anxiety relying on others to regulate their emotions rather than self-soothing (Steinmassl & Paulus 2026).

Ideomotion and fascial unwinding

Ideomotor actions are unconscious involuntary movements that are performed by a person. It may be caused by prior expectations, suggestions, or preconceptions (Minasry 2008).

Ideomotor action has two important characteristics (Minasry 2008):

• The patient is not aware of causing the movements, and therefore the movements are ascribed to an external force or power.

• The movement feels unnatural, and thus the external forces perceived are usually regarded as being mystical or paranormal in nature.

Minasy (2009) ascribed ideomotion as the motion experienced by patient and practitioner during fascial unwinding. Mason (2008) also attributed it to the palpatory phenomenon described when performing osteopathy in the cranial field. It is proposed to work through three mechanisms (Minasy 2008):

• Stimulation of fascial mechanorecpetors to produce reflex motor effects.

• Suggestion or guiding of movement in a particular direction from the practitioner’s technique.

• Promoting deep relaxation by ‘switching off’ tensions from the conscious mind. Stimulation of the fascial mechanoreceptors and suggestion of movement from the practitioner promotes ideomotion by working at a subconscious level. Whilst the motor movement from this subconscious processing is performed voluntarily by the patient (although it seems involuntary) and they are conscious of the movement the overriding tensions from the conscious mind that can inhibit this movement are ‘switched off’.

Cranial osteopathic techniques may possibly stimulate proprioceptors with direct intracranial effects. 

Schueler et al (2013 & 2014) found branches from the trigeminal nerve that innervate the dura mater and regulate blood flow intracranially also innervate extracranial soft tissues. These nerves, in the rat containing proprioceptive fibers (Schueler et al 2014), run a course originating intracranially to then traverse the cranium via the sutures and emissary canals to terminate extracranially. Extracranially these nerves innervate the connective tissue of the temperomandibular joint, periosteum and cervical muscles. Noseda et al (2019) proposed, not only can activation of extracranial muscle nociceptors cause headaches via their intracranial branches innervating the dura but also, in reverse, activation of intracranial dural nociceptors can give rise to extracranial muscle tenderness.

To initiate or facilitate fascia unwinding two conditions must be met (Minasy 2009):

• The practitioner must posses sensitivity and fine palpation skills.

• The patient must be able to relax and “let go” of their body.

Mason (2008) broadened the definition of ideomotion for the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders. This definition included the use of subconscious motor movements necessary to reach a state of comfort. This is achieved by removing the inhibition and suppression of instinctual motor patterns from pain or tension in order to facilitate and encourage ideomotor patterns to emerge (McCarthy et al 2007, Mason 2008). This can be achieved by regulating proprioceptive feedback.

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