Barbara's East Cobb Massage Therapy

Barbara Z. Banks

The Bowen Technique.

The Bowen Technique gets its name from Thomas Ambrose Bowen, of Geelong, Australia. Bowen was an avid sports fan, and attended rough, Australian-rules football games; it was here that he became interested in massage and soft-tissue manipulation. He would watch coaches treat injured players observe the results. He perceived that certain moves on the layers of soft tissue resulted in certain effects.

Bowen met Ernie Saunders, a renowned soft-tissue manipulator. Saunders had a powerful influence on Bowen's manual therapy skills. Around 1957 Bowen started to treat his first clients in the home of a couple he had helped out of pain. He never advertised his work, but relied on word-of-mouth, and often clients would wait for 3 hours to be treated by him.

THE BOWEN SESSION
A Bowen Technique consists of a series of gentle moves over muscles, tendons and fascia throughout the client's body. The practitioner uses thumbs and fingers to make these move. Using a three-part combination move, the practitioner takes some slack skin, then applies a little pressure and fnally moves the skin over the body structure. The client lies on a massage table, with all the work done on bare skin or through lightweight clothing. No matter what problems the client has, the first session includes Bowen relaxation movements on the lower and upper back, neck and shoulders.

After the relaxation movements the practitioner moves outward. In most sessions, the areas addressed are on the back, buttocks, hamstrings, shoulder, neck and knees. "[After] the 'core level' procedures... the practitoner will move onto areas that the client has reported having a problem with," says Cynthia Rose, a Bowen practitioner based in New York City. "For example, if someone has a knee complaint, I'll usually address that in the first session."

One of the most unique aspects of the Bowen session is that the practitioner will leave the room between groups of moves to allow the client's body time to assimilate the work. This pause is vital to resetting the central nervous system. Bowen Therapy does not "heal" the human body, but rather allows the body to reach homeostasis and therefore heal itself. Clients need to wait from five to 10 days before receiving another Bowen session, so the body has an opportunity to process and respond to what's been during the session. Most sessions will be scheduled one week apart. There are exceptions for certain moves made on pregnant women and in response to an acute injury.

It is also vital not to receive any other type of massage, physical therapy or chiropractic work for four to five days after a Bowen session, because you would be "turning off" the work that's been done. Most complaints are treated in 3 to five sesssions, according to therapists and clients. Many clients report feeling relief after just one session, and those benefits are felt over several days following treatment. Musculoskeletal symptoms generally improve quickly, neurological symptoms imprve more slowly.

EFFECTS OF BOWEN
The most common reaction to Bowen is a sense of overall relaxation and lessening of muscle tension and pain. It's not uncommon for people to fall asleep during a session. "I tried Bowen because I didn't like taking medicine," says client M.D. "I'd had lower back pain for years and wasn't able to bend over. After one [Bowen] session I could bend over again. After three sessions I felt like a different person."

L.R., another client, learned about the technique from a medical publication and decided to try it out. "I'd had some surgery, sports injuries and face-and-head injuries, and had tried things like Rolfing - but I'd hit a plateau," she recalls. "After visiting the Bowen practitioner I felt the difference. I saw my [temporomandibular joint] specialist, and didn't mention that I'd had Bowen done, but he told me he could see a difference and was very impressed."

Bowen is suitable for just about anyone and any age group, and there are very few contraindication which would prevent anyone from receiving Bowen. In Australia, practitioners can talk about Bowen curing specific illnesses; however, in the United States Bowen can only be promoted as an aid in stress reduction and for relaxation.

THE THEORIES BEHIND ITS SUCCESS
No one knows why Bowen is such a successful bodywork, but most agree that it works mainly through the central nervous systems on both structural and energetic levels, and that healing most likley occurs through the response of the body's autonomic nervous system to the Bowen moves. One theory is that the surrounding fascia becomes less solid and more fluid, allowing for greater movement of blood and lymph through the tissue. This brings nutrients to the site of the injury and removes waste products from the area. It's also thought that Bowen moves connect the part of the body that's being worked on with the brain: Bowen allows the body the space to decide what is wrong and how to go about fixing it.

Barbara says: "I think our bodies know how to heal themselves, and want to heal themselves, but sometimes the pain receptors in our nerve cells get stuck like a broken record. Bowen helps free the body from these old patterns and gives it space to grow healthy new pathways between the mind, the spiritual center, and the physical being."