Rolfing Back In Vogue, But With Shaky Evidence: NPR
As I open the door to a somewhat antiseptic-looking medical office in downtown San Francisco, I’m quite certain I will not be getting a lavender-candles-and-wind-chimes kind of a massage — the kind that will leave me facedown in my own drool. I expect this to be painful. That’s what I’ve been told anyway.
James Gritz/iStockphoto.com
Greg Brynelson, a certified Rolfer and registered nurse with a loyal following, tells me to lie on my back. Rolfing Structural Integration is a type of deep — really deep — massage that was last popular when Nixon was president. Well, Rolfing has become a favorite again — this time among the yoga-Pilates-acupuncture crowd.
“Through here, it feels like I’m coming up against a wall,” he says. “There’s not a lot of give.”
Brynelson has kind eyes and strong hands. Or thumbs. I think that’s what’s pressing into my neck.
Rolfing was named after its founder, an American biochemist named Ida Rolf. Her own health problems led her to believe that deep tension — even mild physical deformities in children, like pigeon toes — could be relieved by pressing into a type of tissue called fascia. Fascia fuses skin to muscle and muscle to bone, and it kind of keeps everything in place, like a snug pair of pantyhose.
(READ MORE ON NPR…)
Meeting a Client Where They are At
Sure I have an objective for my sessions, but it is my goal to find a meeting place for what I feel the body needs and what my client desires from the session. If I am too wrapped up in my own goals I can totally miss that my client may, for instance, want their lower back touched. This may be completely therapeutically irrelevant, but it is what they want. This is common with low back pain, often my treatment for this condition has little to do with working on the low back directly. But I’ve found that there is some benefit to consciously touching what hurts. Perhaps it soothes a person, maybe it’s just the placebo effect that gives them relief, or perhaps they just want to feel listened to. Whatever the reason, the client is asking for something and a direct response to that is healthy and beneficial regardless of their “structural need” for that work.
This same theory applies in conversations with my clients. We can talk about superfluous things and we can also talk about deep, unresolved issues. It doesn’t so much matter to me, as long as their body is responding well to my work. Once they begin to have an adverse reaction to the work by responding with pain, flinching or cutting off their breath I tend to then ask for them to breathe deeply and relax any tension held in their body. Some people just like to talk, but for others that rapport is an important part of them opening up and feeling safe with another person. Recognizing this is important and it’s a good avenue for connection to my client. The key is to stay neutral in the conversation, not expressing any hard and fast personal opinions and asking the client open ended questions. It is also important to bring the conversation back to their body and the work you are doing regularly. A part of this neutral stance that I speak of also means not artificially prolonging conversation, if a client seems disinterested or minimally responsive it may be time for me to quiet down.
Effects of soft tissue mobilization (Rolfing pelvic lift) on parasympathetic tone in two age groups.
I recently was forwarded this research article by a colleague. Pretty interesting stuff, basically the “pelvic lift” which is traditionally performed in most Structural Integration sessions was objectively found to increase parasympathetic tone (the body’s relaxation response) in men 26 to 41 years. A great way to see the systemic effects of a simple maneuver on the body as a whole. I have linked to the PubMed.gov site below the article.
Abstract
The effects of a soft tissue mobilization procedure, the Rolfing pelvic lift, on parasympathetic tone was studied in healthy adult men. Parasympathetic tone was assessed 1) by quantifying the amplitude of the respiratory sinus arrhythmia from the heart rate pattern and 2) by measuring heart rate. Heart rate patterns were assessed during the pelvic lift and during the durational touch and baseline control conditions. Two groups of healthy subjects were tested: Group 1 contained 20 subjects aged 26 to 41 years, and Group 2 contained 10 subjects aged 55 to 68 years. In Group 1, the pelvic lift elicited a somatovisceral-parasympathetic reflex characterized by a significant increase in parasympathetic tone relative to durational touch and baseline conditions. Group 2 did not exhibit a parasympathetic change during the pelvic lift. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of pelvic mobilization techniques and may help to explain why these techniques have been clinically successful in treating myofascial pain syndromes and other musculoskeletal dysfunctions characterized by reduced parasympathetic tone and excessive sympathetic activity.
The Importance of Body Awareness
What do I mean by body awareness? I am speaking of the internal awareness that will all carry with us in one way or another. It is a level of information fed to us by our sensory system on a consistent basis. This information holds a wealth of knowledge about our body, it can point us toward areas that need attention and maintenance. It can also tell us things we don’t want to hear.
Like that ache that crops up every time you go to the gym or on your daily jog. There are ways to get away from these signals that can impede functioning on a day to day basis. You can take a pain pill that provides temporary relief from this signals that are there for a reason. There certainly is a place for anti-inflammatory and pain relief medication. They are very helpful as a temporary tool for getting our nervous system out of the pain cycle. But those pain signals that they squelch are messages that should be heeded, it is a sign that your body needs attention in one way or another.
This is the perfect time to get bodywork, before whatever condition you are in becomes a big problem. Acting at the first signs of distress is a great way to be pro-active with your health and it usually means that whatever issue it is can be alleviated with a lot less work. Coming in for bodywork is a good way to help restore function to your body and maintain a good level of awareness in your body. But there are many other ways to be pro-active. Yoga, Pilates, Chiropractic or just stretching on a more regular basis works well. Even dancing can have amazing restorative effects on the body. But for many people just taking the time to slow down and make time for yourself can be the most powerful thing. Taking the time to do something just for you, reading a book or indulging in your favorite tea are great relaxing rituals.
Often times these signs of distress are just the body’s way of asking for us to slow down. It’s such a fast paced world we live in that it is easy to get caught up in what comes next. What about now? This is a great time to just sit with yourself and take some personal inventory, are you giving yourself enough personal time? What would it be like to take that time once a day, even if it is only for 20 minutes?
Bodywork as Meditation
Bodywork as Meditation
Using Structural Integration as a Pathway
By Raymond J. Bishop, Jr
| Openness to a different type of listening and following are essential for the meditative to emerge. |
Bodywork as a meditative discipline may at first seem rather peculiar. Certainly, many seasoned bodyworkers meditate, rightly believing that regular practice of any of a wealth of meditative modalities will promote an increased sense of mental clarity and calmness and may potentially enhance the experience of everyday life, as well as the quality and depth of their work. However, accepting the idea that the act of doing integrative bodywork can be both the source of meditative insight and an ideal milieu through which we move toward higher levels of consciousness will, for most, require a shift in paradigm of a fairly high order. This perceptual difficulty will be further magnified when applied to those therapists engaged in disciplines that are thought of as intense and whose work is generally described as deep-tissue manipulation — work such as the style of structural integration called Rolfing®. That such a modality offers a gateway to “the meditative” will at first seem contradictory in the extreme, owing to a number of fundamental misapprehensions about the nature and intent of this and related integrative modalities. Furthermore, the idea that those who do bodywork may choose to do so in part as a selfish desire to attain an altered mental state may seem curiously at odds with the altruism that we associate with those drawn to healing touch modalities. Yet, we will argue for the virtues of this type of selfishness (Ayn Rand, notwithstanding).
Read more at Massage & Bodywork Magazine’s website…
(Opens in a new window)
Used with permission. Originally published in the
August/September 2005 issue of Massage & Bodywork Magazine
What is Holistic Medicine?
What is Holistic Medicine?
[Originally published in Vision Magazine October 2007]
In the city of San Diego we have an HHP designation, which stands for Holistic Health Practitioner. This title is given to Massage Therapists or Bodyworkers with over 1000 hours of training and who have passed a certification exam. Many of these practitioners do indeed provide holistic services because their approach to the body is designed to enable a natural healing response and harness the power of intention. This recognition of the whole person is both refreshing and unique in our very specialized and compartmentalized culture.
Holistic is a word that’s thrown around often in alternative and complimentary healthcare professions. The word in of itself can relate to many different fields of study and practice. Many have used holistic methods in the past spanning from to Hippocrates in Greece to the Yellow Emperor in ancient China. Although the meaning and theories that fall into this realm of healthcare have evolved, the basic tenets have remained the same. Holistic refers to a method of treating the whole person. Some choose the spelling “wholistic” to emphasize this whole person ideology embodying the power of nature and harnessing the patients belief in the therapy. We even see a faint understanding of this concept in modern western science. Although the allopathic approach has a long legacy of specialization and reduction of the whole person down to their component parts.
Hippocrates practiced medicine around 400 BC in ancient Greece and is known as the “father of medicine”. He believed in the healing power of nature and the body’s innate ability to heal itself. In this way he treated the whole person and recognized the need to nurture the body’s homeostasis through his humble and passive treatment methodology known as Humorism. Quite a legacy has been left to western medicine and the world in the form of his ethical tenets, enhanced professionalism and cleanliness. These practices live on today as reminders of Hippocrates’ influence in modern western medicine.
Eastern medicine has for ages seen emotion and the mind play an important role in health. In the writings of the Yellow Emperor, dating back to 2686 BC, he laid out the major points in Traditional Chinese Medicine. He postulates that all our organs correspond to a specific emotional state and each have an energetic pathway through the body called a meridian. These meridians carry energy and can be affected by emotional states or physical ailments. This energy is called “chi” and when it’s flowing freely we are healthy and happy. Acupuncture seeks to open up these energetic channels when they are blocked with the use of carefully placed hair thin needles, herbs, heat, tinctures and sometimes even lifestyle changes. Positive visualizations and energetic manipulations are used to enhance and direct this energy flow through movement practices such as Qi-Gong and T’ai Chi.
Western medicine has begun to take the placebo effect very seriously. Studies have shown that if you give someone an inert substance (a placebo) that has no legitimate physiological effect on their system, tell them it will make them feel better or heal a disease, then there’s some percentage of success. This isn’t because the substance did anything to these patient’s bodies, rather they believed in the healing effect and therefore their system responded positively. Acceptance of this fact in the scientific community is widespread and opens the door to developing a more holistic approach in western medicine by recognizing the power of intention.
I liken the placebo effect to the ability our mind or consciousness has in regulating our body. The human being is constantly trying to find homeostasis, or balance, even down to a cellular level. Holistic medicine takes this into account and aims to relieve blockages in the body and/or mind to achieve this aim. If there are physical, emotional or mental blockages all of these things have a negative effect on the body’s ability to heal itself. The power of intention and the role of nature are both forces that can shift somebody closer to or further from healing and wholeness.
A holistic approach is needed today more than ever. As a culture we have lost touch with a certain level of humanity and nurturing that these alternative approaches truly embody. But which path to take? We can look to the past for abundant answers and also to current methodologies that are starting to see with a more holistic vision. But ultimately the answers lie in your hands. After all, the heart of holism is simply asking the body what it needs to be a whole being.
Archie Underwood, BA, HHP is a Bodyworker and Rolf Structural Integration practitioner. He maintains a holistic practice in San Diego focused on relieving chronic pain and increasing awareness of posture and movement. Contact Archie at: www.rolfsi.com (619) 861-3232
