F.M. Alexander

The Alexander Technique is named after Frederick Matthias Alexander, an actor born in Australia in 1869. Alexander developed the technique due to some critical speech and breathing problems he was experiencing while performing as a Shakespearean actor.


Alexander left Australia for London in 1906 and lived there for the rest of his life. He continued to develop his technique and established the first training course for teachers of the Technique in 1931.


He was well respected by many in the medical profession and in 1937 the British Medical Journal published a letter in support of the Technique signed by nineteen doctors. His work has been endorsed by eminent scientists including; Sir Charles Sherrington OM, Professor George Coghill, Professor Raymond Dart, Professor Nikolaas Tinbergen; (Nobel Prize-winner for Physiology and Medicine 1973) and Dr T.D.M. Roberts (author of The Neurophysiology of Postural Mechanisms, Butterworth 1978).


The British Medical Journal published (August 2008) a study whose conclusion was that lessons in the Alexander Technique have long term benefits for people with chronic back pain.  See the links page for the study and some media response.