ABSTRACT
The author addresses the question of the definition of fascia. He approaches this from the domains of anatomy and embryology. He does so by means of the phenomenological approach he developed in his decennia-long experience as a teacher in dynamic morphology and embryology.
As an anatomist, he participated in a groundbreaking project conducted at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands on the organization of muscle and connective tissue in the so-called Posture and Locomotion System (PLS). The outcome of this research challenged the usual anatomical thinking in discrete and thus decomposable structures such as muscles, bones, and ligaments and opened the view of a functional architecture of continuity of muscle and connective tissue in the PLS. Architectural thinking appears to be an important and necessary correction of (or better: addition to) the usual image of the so-called “muscle man” that still plays a dominant role in the functional anatomy of the so-called musculoskeletal system. Moreover, it will be shown that such an architectural consideration of fascia and connective tissue can be integrated with the modern concept of biotensegrity in the body and in the PLS in particular.
As an embryologist who became acquainted with the ideas of osteopathy about fascia, he will discuss the question “where does the fascia come from?” It will be defended that the mesenchyme of the so-called mesoderm can be revalued as the primary manifestation of fascia. The phenomenological approach will show that mesoderm is not just one of the three so-called germ layers, but actually the morphological substrate of what will later be our psychosomatic interior, wherein fascia can be appreciated as the matrix substrate of our body or as “the fabric (the texture) in which all organs are embroidered”.
The line of thought followed in this chapter is to a large extent a phenomenological consideration. Trying to understand what fascia is and what it could mean is considered here as more important than explaining the functional properties and possibilities of the fascial system.
