ALL ABOUT THE BOWEN TECHNIQUE
What is Bowen Technique?
The Bowen Technique is very different from any other form of hands-on therapy. There is no rubbing with oils, cracking of joints, no needles or manipulation. The technique consists of very precise (and gentle) moves over muscles and soft tissue interspersed with periods of rest.
A full history is taken to identify problem areas, however the treatment is holistic and is generally a pleasant and relaxing experience.
In some cases some relief from pain can be experienced on the first visit. People often say that during the 3-4 days after treatment they experience reactions as the body responds to the therapy and realigns itself. The realignment (healing process) continues until the next treatment. Long term relief from chronic and acute pain can often be achieved in just a few visits.
The key feature of the Bowen technique is that between each group of moves the therapists leaves the room to allow the client to rest. This element of Bowen is unique and is a defining aspect of the technique. The break is thought to allow the body to respond to the stimulus created by the therapist and to process what action it needs to take.
Each session will vary according to the presenting problems of the client.
How Bowen technique may help?
The most common presentation in clinic is muscular skeletal pain, however Bowen addresses the whole body and conditions including fibromyalgia, hay fever, asthma and migraine are among many of the conditions that respond well to Bowen.
Thomas Ambrose Bowen 1916-1982
The Bowen Technique is named after an Australian called Tom Bowen. Tom’s parents were originally from Wolverhampton and emigrated to Australia in the early 1900's settling in Brunswick, Victoria. Tom left school at the age of fourteen and had various labouring jobs until going into the building trade and working as a general hand at Geelong cement works.
Tom was married to Jessie at the beginning of world war two and they lived with Toms parents in Geelong, Victoria. They were keen Salvationists and Tom ran a salvation army boys club where he would coach youngsters in various sports especially swimming.
It was whilst he was working at the cement works that he started to treat people after work, his clinic would often go on well into the night. With encouragement from friends René and Stan Horwood, he eventually started to work full time out of a rented house in Geelong. Tom ran a fortnightly clinic for years treating disabled people free of charge and he would regularly pay house calls to people who unable to attend his clinic.
On Sundays he would visit Geelong prison to treat prisoners and was called upon by the Geelong police many times to assist them, even being awarded a medal from the Victorian police board.
Tom Bowen had no formal training or qualifications in any therapeutic backgrounds. He surrounded himself with practitioners of all kinds of therapies and absorbed their knowledge and ethos to develop his own unique work. He learnt to "read" people with his "seeing" abilities, developed through treating and helping an enormous number of people per week.
Tom minimalised his work to the use of fingers or thumbs across body tissue, muscles, ligaments and tendons. Toms therapy would "get the ball rolling" and over the following few days the body would take over and do the rest. This was a very unique approach to healing.
Tom allowed a few individuals to observe him at work, some developed the system into what we know now as The Bowen Technique.
Tom Bowen found a starting point from which he could encourage the body's own power of healing to take hold. His discovery that this is possible has enormous implications for not only for complementary therapy but significantly in modern medicine.