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THE PSYCHOLOGICAL
& STRESS REMOVAL BENEFITS
of Structural
Integration Bodywork - Introduction
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Structural
Integration Bodywork can provide enormous benefits in psychological
well being and personal growth work, and in psychotherapy.
This
booklet describes many of those benefits and explains why and how
they are created.
Scanners:
Read both Bold Black & Red
Remember: This is NOT a short article !
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A set of 3 audio tapes summarizing much
of this booklet is available, along with another tape describing the
personal growth and improved expressiveness benefits.
by Lou Gross, School Certified Master Postural Integrator
27 years successful experience
For more
information & free consultations, call 321-726-9083
louisryoshin@yahoo.com
What Structural Integration
is, and the need for its use. Structural Integration is a hands-on
method of manipulating the soft connective tissue part of the body, which
surrounds and goes through each and every one of our muscles and also
covers the entire body as a big sack, just under the skin. This tissue,
called fascia (fah sha), consists of many tiny fibers of collagen protein
embedded in a fluid in between the muscle cells and forming sacks around
groups of these cells; it holds the muscle in its shape
Through muscular
contraction these tiny fibers get pulled or pushed closer together
throughout our lives and, undetectably, make our muscle shape more and
more condensed, shorter and compressed. This happens through athletics,
repetitive activities, emotional tension, falls and accidents, and just
moving around. And once the restriction occurs, it cannot be relaxed nor
massaged out because it’s held in place by this fascial putty that has no
connections to the nerves.
Besides restricting our flexibility and
range of motion, this shortening and compression also reduces the
physiological blood and lymphatic flows, compresses on nerves and even
causes long term pain. Since we use our musculature to express ourselves,
this restriction also limits our expressiveness, locks in emotional
tension and even solidifies the holding back of emotions including those
major upsets we had some time ago. Quite literally, our energetic and
attitudinal shape becomes an accumulation of how we’ve held ourselves back
and how we’ve “bunched” ourselves up, even just physically.
Not only do
we become increasingly shorter and more compressed, but the relationship
of our bones and muscles becomes increasingly dis-organized, away from our
optimal biological design. And that design is more stress resistant and
much more expressive and alive than the form in which most of us find
ourselves.
The Structural Integration Method
of Connective Tissue Manipulation is a scientific system of re-lengthening
this soft connective tissue in the muscles.
It was developed in the 1950’s and 60’s by an American PhD physiologist
and biochemist. It consists of a hands-on manipulation method applied to
one muscle group after another, in an “un-locking” sequence. The body’s
muscles and bones all interconnect to each other in a certain way, and the
tightnesses will release the most when we do it in a particular order. It
is also more comfortable and even enjoyable that way, too.
In the process of this re-lengthening,
the Structural Integration system automatically re-organizes each section
of the body, and the whole body as well, so that our structures become
more and more arranged in their optimum way. This will be in accord
with our actual biological potential, in accord with the lengths of our
bones and the lengths of our muscles fibers.. This new and restored
organization means that we also function in a more proficient way. It
improves us mentally, emotionally and psychologically as well as
structurally and physiologically.
In just a few hours this system
removes considerable amounts of tension and tightness that had built up
over many years. People immediately feel much
greater relaxation and increased flexibility. And that alone creates a
big reduction in emotional overwhelm and stressful tension. Even negative
psychological patterns, including those of not being able to “let-down” or
“let-go” start to get smaller in their affects over us. Even the patterns
of “holding back” and “keeping ourselves down” get smaller simply because
these old behaviors were, in large part, the fixed muscular forms that we
adopted in months and years past.
If you would like to find out more
about how this physical improvement is made, and what it does, please read
my companion booklet, The Physical Benefits of Structural Integration,
and/or my other books and booklets listed at the end of it.
It also includes a listing of my other booklets which describe how special
Body-mind “release techniques” add to the benefits from the Bodywork
alone. These create significant improvements in personal growth,
professional and interpersonal expressiveness and psychological well
being.
In the first section of this
booklet, I’ll explain how we benefit from the purely physical aspects of
what the release and re-organization accomplishes.
We gain a better mental and emotional “organization,” we
get a release of physical pain and tightness, accumulated stress is
removed, we can express ourselves better and receive more input with less
strain, we gain a better physical balance, stance and posture, and we
greatly benefit from the removal of accumulated tightness in the head and
face, which we all get.
In the following sections I’ll describe
how old emotional energies actually get stuck in our bodies, how we remove
them with the Bodywork and how the Bodywork helps us in psychotherapy.
Go to Psychological-Stress Article:
Part 1
Part 2
Go to
Stress Testimonials
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Copyright 2002 Louis A. Gross All Rights Reserved
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