This second volume of Dr. Becker’s work contains some of his more private communication and thoughts on osteopathic philosophy and practice, and serves as a companion to Life in Motion. This book includes his attempts to put into words the energetic and spiritual aspects of his understanding.
"If we want to understand this [physiological] mechanism, we have to understand and feel how it functions in both a state of health and a state of illness. We have to learn through it; we must function as it functions; we must think as it thinks; and we have to experience it with our hands. We have to experience it in terms of its living function, understanding the way this body would act if it were in good health. We mus tnot only explore symptoms; we ave to look around, everywhere, across the living body, and find what it would like to be and how it would like to live. I feel very strongly that we have the opportunity to go deeper into the study of sillness... I am trying to bring into focus a way... of using the stillness objectively and subjectively in the diagnosis and treatment of our cases... It is a treatment program in which health is related to a return to the freedom of interchange between body physiology and stillness." - Rollin E. Becker, D.O.
Rollin E. Becker (1910-1996) grew up in an osteopathic household. His father, Arthur D. Becker, D.O. was a prominent and respected osteopath, who served on the faculty with Dr. Andrew Taylor Still and later was dean of two osteopathic colleges. Rollin graduated from the American School of Osteopathy (later renamed the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine) in 1934, and following a few years in Oklahoma, he moved to Michigan, where he practiced for thirteen years.
In 1944, after about a decade in Michigan, he met William Garner Sutherland, D.O. and in 1948, he first served on the teaching faculty at one of Dr. Sutherland’s courses. Dr. Becker moved to Texas in 1949, where he practiced until 1989. Throughout that time, he continued to serve Dr. Sutherland and his work. Dr. Becker was the president, from 1962 through 1979, of the Sutherland Cranial Teaching Foundation, an educational organization dedicated to perpetuating the teachings of W. G. Sutherland.
In the years following Dr. Sutherland’s death in 1954, Dr. Becker played a crucial role in keeping his work alive. He went on to inspire generations of osteopathic teachers and students.