Bodywork Spotlight: Orthobionomy®
The philosophical and scientific roots of Ortho-Bionomy® lie in a 100-year old system called Osteopathy. Osteopathy recognizes the self-healing, self-regulating capacity of the body, and seeks to encourage and augment this curative capacity.
Ortho-Bionomy® helps break the cycle of pain—without creating pain. It can alleviate chronic stress, muscle pain, joint pain and a wide variety of other symptoms that may originate from postural, structural and energetic imbalances. Reducing muscle tension increases flexibility, range of motion, circulation and whole body relaxation.
Ortho-Bionomy® uses gentle, comfortable body positioning, and incorporates a wide spectrum of techniques ranging from hands-on contact to non-physical contact with the client’s energy field. These techniques set in motion innate reflexes that remind the body of its own natural ability to self-correct and find balance.
In 1976, Arthur Lincoln Pauls, a British Osteopath who worked with Jones, developed the “Phased Reflex Techniques of Ortho-Bionomy®.” These techniques use positional release and energetic techniques that enable the client to understand, consciously experience and even participate in their own capacity to self-correct.
Lawrence Jones, an American Osteopath, developed a procedure called“Spontaneous Release by Positioning,” where pain and tension could be relieved in a few minutes by slowly and carefully exaggerating an abnormal posture so as to make the patient maximally comfortable. He found that muscle spasms that had been holding the bones in an abnormal position would spontaneously relax without a forceful manipulation.