The Art Of Bodywork

This article is the second in a series of four articles exploring the history of the alternative health care movement, the offerings available in Ann Arbor, and information that will help the consumer make appropriate choices for their own health care needs. The focus here will be on the art of bodywork, the wide variety of therapies available in Ann Arbor, and how to choose a style of body work and a practitioner that is appropriate for your needs. The term body work generally refers to a wide variety of therapies that manipulate the body and its systems through the use of skillful touch. In addition, deliberate touching of the body not only can produce results in the mechanical functioning of the body, it can also evoke powerful emotional responses and shifts in attitudes that are transformational for the client.

As the art of bodywork has developed, the list of its beneficial effects has lengthened. In January, the Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry published an experiment which concluded that massage reduced anxiety and depression in adolescents. This experiment, performed by Tiffany Field, Ph.D. of the University of Miami Medical School, measured cortisol levels in the saliva and urine of 36 depressed children and adolescents. Cortisol is a hormone that is elevated in depressed people. After a thirty minute back massage given daily for a five day period, cortisol levéis decreased significantly. Massage has helped' with conditions such as chronically tight muscles, muscle atrophy , high blood pressure, poor circulation and lymph flow, anxiety, and fatigue.

Despite these results, the use of body work as a legitimate therapy in mainstream medicine has been overlooked. The development of the pharmaceutical industry and the use of pharmaceuticals is certainly a factor. Also machine inventions, like ultrasound, have replaced the manual manipulation of the body tissues. Such machines have relieved medical schools of the arduous task of teaching manual treatment, and medical students of having to learn it. The fear of malpractice has also made it necessary for physicians to use scientific methodologies producing objective data (like EEG tests) that make it easy to document a patient's condition. In order to touch a patient, a physical therapist, practicing in Michigan, must have a prescription from a doctor. It has become virtually unnecessary for the doctor to touch the patient at all.

The beneficial effects of touching the body are not new discoveries. Certainly each of us has some intuitive sense that if a muscle is sore it feels good to rub it. We all have felt comforted in some way at some time in our life by the touch of another human being. We also observe touching in animals as part of their own grooming practices. This intuitive and common sense approach to touch has aided the practice of body work in becoming a healing art.

The ancients in China, India, Greece, and Rome all make literature references to the practice of bodywork. The earliest medical reference to massage is in the "Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine" which dates back to around 1000 B.C. Hippocrates, considered the Father of Modern Medicine, discussed the benefits and contraindications of massage in his book, "On Articulations."

Many important processes of the body involve the movement of different kinds of fluids in the body - blood, lymph, water, and glandular secretions. These flows, or their lacks, can have serious effects on the tissues. Skillful mechanical movement directed on the tissues enhances fluid flow. In addition, the musculature and connective tissues of the body that hold us together can become shortened or thickened by accidents, surgery, and trauma. Bodywork can help tissues relax so that the full range of motion is restored.

We are indeed more than just structural and fluid beings. There are processes of chemistry, physics, electromagnetism, emotion and consciousness that are all interrelated and intertwined. Given these dynamics, bodyworkers recognize the connectedness of the body and the mind.

While it's true that the nervous system stimulates the body to move, it is also the case that movement stimulates the nervous system. Bodyworkers utilize this physiological principle to help change or re-educate the body's automatic and unconscious patterns of movement that have been learned throughout life.

Posture and the ways of movement reflect who we are and who we have been. For example, someone who has been depressed leams a posture of carrying the head in a low position with the shoulders rounded forward. A person who breaks a leg compensates for thís by developing a limp in the other leg and continues this habit even after the leg is completely healed. Sometimes these dysfunctional movement habits no longer work for us and change is needed.

One way we learn is through the tactile sense. For example, if we want to become familiar with an object we touch it. Such is also the case with our bodies. Friction applied skillfully to the muscles and manipulation of the tissues around the joints are the methods through which we can learn about our bodies. The bodyworker's tools - touch, breath and movement - disrupt the sensory and mental patterns that feed information into the central nervous system and all the interconnecting systems of the body. Touch, breath and movement "touch" us internally and help us develop our kinesthetic sense - our feeling for our body's size, shape, and way of moving.

This can be particularly helpful to individuals that have a low level of body awareness due to trauma that has been repressed or occurred during the verbal phase of development. Some traumas lead people to disassociate or "leave" their bodies. They operate strictly from the realm of the cognitive and mental, largely unaware of the signs and signals their bodies give them.

A bodyworker introduces new pressures and new movements, which in turn creates new feelings, new sensations, and a feeling of being connected. Often this new awareness can lead to more choices and new behaviors. Because body feelings provide our most basic sense of ourselves, body work is one way in which we can heal, learn, grow, and be whole.

Renée Rutz and Lisa Gottlieb-Clark are massage therapists practicing in Ann Arbor. Next month's article will focus on homeopathy.