| |
 In
the Rosen Method, clients lie on a padded table while the practitioner's
full hands make gentle contact with areas of the body that appear
to hold muscular tension and restrict free breathing. By listening
to the client's body with gentle touch and to the words they
use to describe their experience, the practitioner can help
the client to relax, relieve pain, and breathe easier. The Rosen
Method was developed by Marion Rosen, who began her studies
of the body as a young woman in Germany in the 1930's. After
many years working as a physical therapist, she began incorporating
her own observations. By following her client's natural breathing
pattern with gentle touch, a deep relaxation ensued. She listened
as the client would sometimes talk about how their injuries
had occurred. Often the client would connect with the felt sense
of an earlier experience that related to the injury. When this
happened, the client's breath would deepen, relaxation would
occur, and pain would often disappear.
Rosen began to understand that the body tells its own story
shaped by our early life experiences, many of them forgotten
and unconscious. If we are born healthy, we come into the world
breathing fully, with the full swing of our diaphragm moving
every muscle in our body. We expect to have all our needs met
and to be loved. Even under the best of circumstances, these
expectations cannot be fully met. As a result of either ordinary
or traumatic events, we shape ourselves through muscular tension
in whatever way that helps us to survive.
These situations are believed to be registered deeply in our
bodies as experiential memories. These memories contribute to
our characteristic patterns of muscular tensions, emotions,
and postures. These emotions are unconsciously held in abeyance
by the muscular tension until we feel big enough, strong enough,
and safe enough to finally allow ourselves a felt sense of the
old experience. Through the gentle touch of the Rosen Method,
as we deeply relax and breathe easier, we begin to remember
the experiences that we had learned to unconsciously contain
and through that knowledge we regain fuller movement, ease,
and well-being (Wooten, 1995). |
