What is The Bowen Therapy

Video clip of Ossie Rentsch on Good Morning New Zealand

Bowen Therapy Session

The Bowen Technique (Bowenwork or Bowen therapy) is a dynamic system of muscle and connective tissue therapy that was developed by the late Tom Bowen in Geelong, Australia. It utilizes small but measured inputs to the body stimulating the body to heal itself. Injuries and other health problems, acute or chronic, are relieved holistically by using the body’s innate healing mechanisms, doing so in the body’s own time, as it is able. Bowen is appropriate to use for individuals of all ages and in all degrees of health.

Rather than focusing on a single complaint, Bowen therapy addresses the entire body, Balance is restored via the autonomic nervous system (ANS) which controls over 80% of bodily functions and is very susceptible to external stressors. The Bowenwork shifts the body from a sympathetic ANS state (stressed fight, flight or freeze state) to a parasympathetic ANS state (relax, rest and repair mode) where healing can only occur..

Bowen Therapy uses precise, purposeful moves over muscles, tendons, ligaments or nerves. These moves send a signal via the ANS to the brain where it is processed.

A secondary reaction is then instigated by the body to ‘set right’ what is out of harmony within the fascia fabric, and organ, nervous, lymphatic and musclo-skeletal systems. Its effects work down to a cellular level and has at times touched the emotional realm of an individual. Where ever the body needs adjusting, the body does its work to release the discomfort of the body.

Deliberate pauses allow time for the body to process and make adjustments. The practitioner will often leave the room or step out of the clients ’space’ so as not to interfere with this secondary adjusting process.

Once the therapist senses the body is processing what it can handle, the session is concluded. As a result, a session may last 10 minutes, or up to 50 minutes, depending on the reaction of the client’s body to the procedures performed. A session duration is in no way an indication as to the effectiveness of the Bowen treatment. ‘Every body’ is different. Remember, Bowen moves only instigate the body’s response to do its own healing, whether that is accomplished with two or twenty sets of moves . As the saying goes ‘less is best’. Systematic weekly adjustments over a span of a few weeks will often bring resolution to any painful condition.

This feedback loop (primary and secondary reaction) is very similar to homeopathy; in fact Bowen has been dubbed the ‘homeopathy’ of bodywork.

Bowen Technique allows the body to heal itself with minimal intervention by the therapist, within its own time as it is able Because of the subtlety of Bowenwork and the body’s continuing response to it, other forms of manipulative or energetic therapy performed up to 4 days before or 5 days after a Bowen session may interfere with its effectiveness.