What can Bowen Therapy treat to make you feel better?

What can Bowen Therapy treat?

I often get asked this question & my reply is always this – Bowen Therapy can treat you & your whole system.

Unsurprisingly this is often taken as an unsatisfactory & mysterious answer! But it is the truth. Apart from legalities (you cannot legally claim a medicine or a therapeutic practice can treat a named condition unless there is peer reviewed published research that confirms efficacy) it would be dangerous to say “Bowen Therapy can treat this condition or that condition” as what works for one person may not work for their friend with the exact same symptoms. Pain is a very subjective thing. It is produced in the brain & is influenced by many factors such as diet, personality, lifestyle, life experiences, mood, even sociocultural factors can affect how a person experiences pain. As an example I may see a client with lower back pain who responds well to their sessions & feels a distinct decrease in pain levels over a short period. My next client may also be feeling pain in the exact same place in the lower back but because they are having a rubbish time at the moment – eg financial worries, job insecurity, maybe they are grieving, maybe they are suffering some anxiety, maybe they are living with some past trauma that they have not yet come to terms with or maybe they just don’t drink enough water or they have some dietary intolerances. It wouldn’t surprise me if this client experienced a more gradual decrease in pain levels & they may be in need of more sessions or even referral to another practitioner who could help with mental health issues or dietary issues to help unravel those before the physical issues can be resolved.

This is because our bodies & minds are part of a whole (holistic) system both of which have an intricate influence on each other. Moreover every system in the body is connected & function in one system can be dramatically affected by the smallest of deviations in function in any other body system. Bodily parts can’t be separated & treated as single units & symptoms can’t be viewed solely as signs of problems in the area they are experienced. This is why The Bowen Technique is such a great therapeutic practice! (if I may say so myself!) as the moves the practitioner makes along with the breaks throughout the treatment allow the brain to focus on areas of the body that may not be functioning as they should & reset them so they can no longer cause restriction in the area of the body the client may be experiencing discomfort. Clients are often surprised when an issue they have lived with for years, to the point of being something they have forgotten about, resolves itself before the frozen shoulder they have come to see me about does!

So there we have it, it’s not about what can be treated but more about what outcomes you can expect – relief from pain, reduction in pain levels, relief from restricted movement, reduction in tension or stiffness, restored function, increased range of movement & a boost to overall wellbeing are what we aim for rather than treating the specifics.