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THE PSYCHOLOGICAL

& STRESS REMOVAL BENEFITS

of Structural Integration Bodywork - Introduction
 

 

        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 !

 

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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