What is Bowen?
The BowenFirst™Technique is a body manipulation therapy that uses very gentle pressure to stimulate the brain to reboot the body.
The practitioner uses thumbs and fingers on precise points to perform BowenFirst™’s unique set of rolling-type moves that activate nerve bundles below the muscle and soft tissue of the body.
The Bowen experience is subtle, healing and relaxing.
By stimulating meridian points in a specific order and with careful pauses in between, BowenFirst™ Technique prompts the body to reset, repair and balance itself. It is one of the safest, fastest and most effective modalities for treating pain, chronic illness and improving overall health.
The first treatment is actually a “Reboot®” treatment, which enables the body’s different programs to “re-start” and align. As BowenFirst™ is not purely a “physical” therapy, it integrates mind-body connections.
It is different than other body work techniques:
After a Bowen Therapy treatment, clients feel relaxed and renewed. As the therapy is conducive and conductive to healing from inside out, patients often reports symptoms of physical detoxification and emotional clarity after a treatment.
As a result, the therapy reaches deeper tissues and organs. The technique effectively treats virtually all types of imbalances. The body responds in the way it needs to and is empowered to heal.
During the treatment the practitioner performs a series of “autonomic integrating moves (AIMs)” at various points on the surface of the patient’s body and then allows time for integration so that the nervous system can communicate the information throughout the body.
Treatments should not be done less than 5 days apart in order to give the nervous system time to integrate and for the corresponding healing to take place.
Unlike many other body-work techniques, Bowen therapy works quickly and permanently.
How Does It Work?
Based on our understanding of physiology, we believe BowenFirst™ works on the nervous system through a variety of mechanisms:
Stimulates the superficial fascia
Stimulates the local sensory nervous system
Stimulates blood circulation.
Stimulates lymphatic drainage.
…so that the body can heal. With our current lifestyle, we are almost always in sympathetic mode which substantially reduces our body’s capacity to heal. Regular treatments retrain the body’s autonomic nervous system allowing better balance and more time spent in healing mode.
What Bowen Treats:
People presenting with the following conditions typically respond well to Bowen…
Structural imbalances
Bowen treatments provide relief for
Stress, Anxiety, Depression
Increases proper metabolism
Increases wellbeing
Migraines, Headaches and Upper Body (Neck & Shoulder) Pain
Sports Injuries, Plantar faciitis, achilles tendon strains and hamstring tension
More Benefits included
History:
Thomas Ambrose Bowen (1916-1982)
Tom Bowen of Geelong, Australia, was a quiet, reserved and enigmatic man with an uncanny gift for healing. By the mid 1970’s, Tom’s reputation had spread and his clinical skills in his ‘Bowen Therapy’ were in great demand. In 1975, Tom was treating an astounding 13,000 people per year. Tom was not only a healer, but a gifted teacher, truly generous with his gift. He chose not to claim or copyright any of his work, but taught a number of students with the hope that his technique would grow and spread around the world.
Tom never saw his work as a finite modality, but rather as a work in progress. His vision remains intact through the continued refinements and adaptations of his work by Bowen practitioners around the world.
Manon Bolliger is grateful for the influence of Ozzie Rentch’s and Romney Smeeton’s interpretation of Tom Bowen’s work, clinical practices pearls from Gene Dobkin, Ron Phelan’s work on TMJ, Graham Pennington and insights shared from colleague bowen practitioner. Dr. Bolliger’s interpretation of bowen is aligned to the healing principles of medicine from Dr. Samuel Hahnemann and further interpreted by Dr. Andre Saine.
Her approach encompasses a collaborative effort with Wanda Parks’ insight into fascia and craniosacral work; Dr. Hamid Tajbakhsh training in Kinesiology and his unique advanced understanding of Chinese medicine.
Stephen Grellet 1773 – 1855