Bowen Technique

Overview

Bowen Technique is an innovative hands-on treatment system created by Tom Bowen (1916-1982) and until recently unknown outside of its birthplace of Australia. Practiced by a small but quickly growing number of practitioners world-wide, it is most commonly used to treat musculoskeletal pain and injury, and for helping to improve posture and ease of movement. Many practitioners also value Bowen Technique for its ability to catalyze deeper chages in the organism through its relaxing and balancing effect on the body’s nervous, endocrine (hormonal), and immune systems.

Clinical method

Bowen treatment consists of a series of subtle challenges to specific muscle groups, using a light motion that resembles the plucking of a guitar string. Between every few challenges are breaks which allow the nervous system to process the foregoing stimulus. Through their action on the nervous system these minimalistic adjustments of the musculature initiate a profound relaxation of the entire body, allowing chronic tension patterns to be released and reset during the few days following each treatment.

The initial appointment is one-hour long and includes an interview, physical assessment, and first treatment. Subsequent treatments are generally scheduled one week apart and last 30 to 45 minutes. Simple complaints such as pain from a recent injury are often significantly relieved or resolved within 2 to 4 weekly treatments. Long-standing chronic pain will generally require several more treatments before complete resolution. Finally, pain due to systemic illness such as fibromyalgia and musculoskeletal deformities such as scoliosis may require more than 10 treatments.

The outcome of a treatment series is the re-establishment of the greatest possible balance in the body’s musculoskeletal architecture. This permits new or old injuries to heal, eliminates pain (even when not all physical damage can be reversed), releases emotional tension, and reduces the bodily experience of stress. Occasionally, even long-standing anatomical assymetries thought to be permanent are corrected.

Efficacy

Bowen Technique is both highly effective and as economical in terms of time and money as it is in touch, because treatment need not be repeated regularly in order to achieve a lasting effect. In many cases patients notice significant improvement within less than 5 treatments, and it is very common for Bowen treatment to lead to the resolution of long-standing issues resistant to other physical treatments such as physiotherapy, chiropractics, or acupuncture.

Though Bowen technique is extremely effective even in cases where other physical therapies have failed, I encourage patients for whom the treatment hasn’t offered relief within a reasonable number of sessions to switch to other treatment options. These may include other physical therapies or a broader naturopathic or homeopathic approach. This is because physical symptoms that do not resolve as expected, or which keep resurfacing, suggest an underlying imbalance affecting the whole organism beyond the physical plane; in such cases it is necessary to discover exactly how the pain affects the person’s life (since chronic pain shapes our experience of life to become an integral part of it), precisely after what life events the pain first began, what is the symbolic meaning of the location of the pain in the body (the exploration of which can quickly point to the corresponding traumatic emotion or life-issue even in the absence of conscious awareness), and so on. Still, Bowen treatment is occasionally able to release some of the emotional tension stored in the body in the form of pain or rigidity, thereby releasing the associated conscious or unconscious memories causing it, without needing to resort to other methods.

Safety and compatibility

Because Bowen Technique uses only gentle touch, it is appropriate for all ages from the newborn to the elderly, and (with some restrictions) for pregnant women. Its minimal touch can also be used in the acute phase of extremely painful conditions such as intervertebral disc rupture, ankle sprain, or muscle sprain or spasm, to greatly reduce acute pain and to speed recovery.

Bowen treatment can be combined most other treatments, with the following important exception. Due to the fact that a Bowen session initiates changes in the musculature that take several days to become stable, the effectiveness of a Bowen session depends on avoiding vigorous exercise (such as weight lifting) and other physical treatments (mainly massage, unusually hot baths, physiotherapy, chiropractics, and acupuncture) in the few days following each treatment. Otherwise the changes brought about by Bowen treatment are frequently reset (antidoted) and treatment is prolonged unnecessarily. At the same time it is highly recommended during the process of Bowen treatment to engage in light exercise and especially in frequent walking, and to avoid prolonged sitting.

For more information on Bowen Technique you may visit www.bewellnow.ca.