Ida Pauline Rolf (May 19, 1896 – March 19, 1979) was a biochemist and the creator of

Structural Integration Rolfing () is a form of alternative medicine originally developed by Ida Rolf (1896–1979) as Structural Integration. Rolfing is marketed with unproven claims of various health benefits. It is based on Rolf's ideas about how the human body's ...

or "

Rolfing Rolfing () is a form of alternative medicine originally developed by Ida Rolf (1896–1979) as Structural Integration. Rolfing is marketed with unproven claims of various health benefits. It is based on Rolf's ideas about how the human body's " ...

", a

pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...

practice.

Early life and education

Rolf was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

on May 19, 1896. She was an only child. Her father, Bernard Rolf, was a civil engineer who built docks and piers on the east coast. Rolf graduated from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

in 1916 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. She was in the Mathematics Club, German Club, Vice President of the class of 1916, a member of the Young Women's Christian Assn., was the alternate for the Graduate Fellowship while working at the Rockefeller Foundation, Business Manager of The Barnard Bulletin, and a member of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

. She received Departmental Honours in Chemistry at graduation. In 1917 she began her doctoral studies at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and, concurrently, Rolf also began work at the Rockefeller Institute as a chemical researcher. In 1920, Rolf earned her PhD in

biological chemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

under the supervision of

Phoebus Aaron Theodore Levene Phoebus Aaron Theodore Levene (25 February 1869 – 6 September 1940) was a Russian born American biochemist who studied the structure and function of nucleic acids. He characterized the different forms of nucleic acid, DNA from RNA, and fo ...

, of the

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) is the graduate medical school of Columbia University, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Founded i ...

. Her dissertation was entitled "Three Contributions to the Chemistry of the Unsaturated Phosphatides", originally printed in three separate issues of "The Journal of Biological Chemistry", it was again printed in its entirety as a bound book in late 1922, " Phosphatides". Throughout the decade, she studied

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

with Pierre Bernard, and yoga influenced her development of Rolfing.

Career

After graduating, Rolf continued to work with Levene at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. In 1918, she was promoted to assistant in the chemistry lab. In 1922, two years after having received her PhD from Columbia, Rolf was raised to associate, then the highest non-tenured position for a scientist at Rockefeller. From 1919 to 1927, she published 16 scholarly journal papers, mostly in the ''

Journal of Biological Chemistry The ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'' (''JBC'') is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1905., jbc.org Since 1925, it is published by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It covers research in ...

''. Her research was primarily laboratory studies on biochemical compounds

lecithin Lecithin (, from the Greek ''lekithos'' "yolk") is a generic term to designate any group of yellow-brownish fatty substances occurring in animal and plant tissues which are amphiphilic – they attract both water and fatty substances (and so ar ...

and

cephalin Phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) is a class of phospholipids found in biological membranes. They are synthesized by the addition of cytidine diphosphate- ethanolamine to diglycerides, releasing cytidine monophosphate. ''S''-Adenosyl methionine can ...

. With the exception of her doctoral dissertation, all of her published work was co-authored with Levene. In 1926, Rolf left her academic work in New York, to study mathematics and atomic physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and also biochemistry at the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (french: Institut Pasteur) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines f ...

in Paris, France. Rolf later developed

. In addition to her 16 academic papers published from 1919 to 1927, she would later publish two papers in scholarly journals on Structural Integration. She had an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 10 with a total number of 299

citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...

s (February, 2007). In the mid-1960s, she began teaching her Structural Integretion method at

Esalen Institute The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanistic alternative education. The institute played a key role in the Human Potential ...

. Esalen was the epicenter of the

Human Potential Movement The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s and formed around the concept of an extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement takes as its premise the be ...

, allowing Rolf to exchange ideas with many contemporary visionaries, including

Fritz Perls Friedrich Salomon Perls (July 8, 1893 – March 14, 1970), better known as Fritz Perls, was a German-born psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist. Perls coined the term "Gestalt therapy" to identify the form of psychotherapy that he devel ...

. In 1971, Rolf´s teaching activities were consolidated under the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration (RISI).Stirling, Isabel. ''Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki'' (2006) Shoemaker & Hoard. p. 8. As of 2010, RISI had graduated 1536 practitioners, including some trained in Germany, Brazil, Japan, and Australia, in addition to the main program in Boulder, Colorado. In 1990, a group of senior faculty split off to found the Guild of Structural Integration, which had 628 graduates as of 2010. Currently there are about two dozen schools teaching Structural Integration.Jacobson, Eric: ''The Journal of alternative and complementary medicine''. Volume 17, Number 9, 2011, p. 778. Standards for the field of Structural Integration are maintained by a professional membership organization, the International Association of Structural Integration. In addition to the proliferation of programs that are devoted specifically to Structural Integration, Rolf's concepts and methods have influenced a wide range of other contemporary manual therapies. A growing number of organizations offer training in "structural bodywork" or in techniques of fascial manipulation that are clearly derivative but lack the holistic perspective of Structural Integration, instead focusing only on the treatment of specific symptoms (i.e. massage therapists, chiropractors or physical therapists).Myers, Tom: ''Structural Integration. Developments in Ida Rolf´s recipe''. I. J Bodywork Movement Ther 2004, pp. 131-142.

Structural Integration (Rolfing)

Structural Integration (or Rolfing) is a type of

manual therapy Manual therapy, or manipulative therapy, is a physical treatment primarily used by physical therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists to treat musculoskeletal pain and disability; it mostly includes kneading and manipulation of mus ...

that claims to improve human biomechanical functioning as a whole rather than to treat particular symptoms.Jacobson, Eric: ''The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine''. Volume 17, Number 9, 2011, p.775. Rolf began developing her system in the 1940s. Her main goal was to organize the human bodily structure in relation to

gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

. Rolf called her method "

", now also commonly known by the trademark "

". Structural integration is a pseudoscience and its claimed benefits are not substantiated by medical evidence. *

Publications on structural integration

* 1978 VERTICAL - Experiential Side to Human Potential, ''

Journal of Humanistic Psychology ''Journal of Humanistic Psychology'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of Psychology. The journal's editor is Sarah R. Kamens. It has been in publication since 1961 Powers, Robin. Counseling and Spirituality: A ...

'' * 1973 Structural Integration - Contribution to understanding of stress, ''Confinia Psychiatrica'' * 1979 ''Rolfing: Reestablishing the Natural Alignment and Structural Integration of the Human Body for Vitality and Well-Being'', Healing Arts Press

Personal life

Rolf was married to Walter Frederick Demmerle, an electrical and mechanical engineer who held patents for heating thermostats, and traveled abroad frequently with his work. They resided in

Stony Brook, New York Stony Brook is a political subdivisions of New York#Hamlet, hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Administrative divisions of New York#Town, Town of Brookhaven, New York, Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, United States, on the No ...

, and

Manhasset Manhasset is a hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in D ...

, New York, while raising a family. They had two sons, Alan Michael Demmerle and Richard Rolf Demmerle, a chiropractor and also a Rolfing instructor and practitioner.

Notes

References

*Feitis, Rosemary. 1985. Rolfing and Physical Reality. Healing Arts Press

External links

Biography and photo gallery from the Rolf Research Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rolf, Ida Pauline 1896 births 1979 deaths American women biochemists People in alternative medicine American women chemists Columbia University alumni Barnard College alumni 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American chemists Somatic therapists