Bodywork, Energy Medicine: Whole Healing

Bodywork constitutes a myriad of modalities when one is actively working with a skilled practitioner.  The practitioner has cultivated a "knowing" and skilled intelligence in their hands (as well as in his/her larger self) and is able to help or lead the client to a healing direction through touch, adjustment or manipulation.  Several (touch) bodywork modalities have been mentioned in this blog (Energy Field Surveillance,  Use: The Alexander Technique ,  Reflexology as Informant , Somatic Healing , MYSTERY: The Practices of QiGong and Authentic Mov... , QiGong: Following in a Purpose-Prone World).

Although not usually hands-on, there are many energy-based modalities I consider bodywork, because they open the body to a fuller intelligence, thus have a capacity for healing not only one's physiology, but subsequent layered energy fields.  Movement practices like Contemplative Dance/Authentic Movement, Core-Shamanism practices, Gabrielle Roth's Five Rhythms, Qigong, Tai Chi Chuan, Yoga-- all seek to balance the body and energy fields through movement and breath.  Many of them are somewhat dependent on sensitizing the self to an altered state, allowing the body's fuller intelligence to manifest, influence and impact one's entirety with a cell-effecting healing.  This type of bodywork (although initially facilitated) is largely self-regulated.  They are self-empowering and wisdom-instilling practices primarily because it is one's self that is generating, moderating and witnessing the energetic experience.

To me, the essence of bodywork includes both that which impacts the energy fields of one's being as well as the physicality of one's body.  Bodywork is a Whole practice encompassing all of me.  It impacts my many layers whether they be psychological, emotional, spiritual or physical.  This affirms the concept of Oneness in myself.  This often aids in closing the often divided, fragmented way I look at myself, my relation to outside myself and the healing experience.

As mentioned in a few other earlier posts (see above links), bodywork is often the best way to approach a necessary healing (ie: PTSD, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, TMJ to name a few). But for many people beginning to open to the concept of bodywork's potential healing power can be daunting.  There are so many different type of bodywork modalities and so many varying types of practitioners even within one milieu.  How do you know which modality to try, what will be the most useful?  How do you know if a practitioner will be a good fit with you and your needs?

One of the most interesting things about good bodywork is that it rarely can be mechanical.  Whereas, there is a standardized practice in forms like chiropractic adjustment, cranial sacral work and Alexander, if a practitioner were to strictly only follow the structure of tenets of the practice it wouldn't always be following the client's more whole healing (in a given session) because energy is not always predictable, nor able to follow a conscripted pattern that is its own.  Whereas a standardized practice is often a start in waking up the healing potential in the body, it can be sometimes somewhat limited unto itself.  Good bodywork depends upon good, deep listening and an expanded awareness from both client and practitioner.


A bodywork practice finds you.  So doing too much thinking about the right or appropriate one for you is probably unnecessary.  One usually is drawn to a modality or meets/hear of a practitioner very serendipitously.  A musician with a specific malady in their neck say, due to wrong use, would do well to start with an Alexander Technique teacher or cranio sacral therapist.  That bodywork might lead to a "hybrid" version of either or another depending on how the healing unwinds itself.  The more one "knows thyself" (which can be an expansive learning process as one experiences different techniques), the more the right attraction to a modality will present itself.


The earlier post, Finding A Healthcare Partner in a Practitioner, applies here. The conversation one has with a practitioner prior to a session will resonate or not with one's own healing affinities. You may be quite certain a "purist", unadulterated modality practitioner will serve your purposes entirely, or you may be intrigued with the hybrid version another may offer, an attitude, an approach, an energy the practitioner represents.  Whereas, experience speaks for itself, the open approach a new practitioner offers, the willingness to explore and engage themselves is a wonderful ingredient shared in bodywork.  It depends on where you are in your healing process as far as a "fit" goes with a practitioner.  Likewise, it is the same for practitioners.  Where they are in the evolution of their work, dictates a type of client required in a moment.