PHYSICAL THERAPY

had every treatment known to the physiotherapy profession. Treatments aimed at the joint, soft tissue and nervous system all to no avail, indeed they made the pain worse! Then after six months of constant pain I took myself off to what I considered to be a fruit cake, who ‘worked’ with the viscera, I was desperate, I would have tried anything. She ‘manipulated’ my gallbladder and the pain miraculously disappeared after just one session! According to her ‘tension’ in the gallbladder was influencing my breathing and diaphragm, which in turn was affecting my thoracic spine.

It was at that point that a whole new world opened up for me. I started to look at my patients in a totally different light, as an integrated whole as opposed to a text book of muscles, joints and ligaments. ‘The biology of wholeness is the study of the body as an integrated, co-ordinated, successful system. No parts or prop- erties are uncorrelated, all are demonstrably interlinked and the links are not single chains but a great number of criss-crossed pathways’ (7).

I took myself all over the world looking for techniques that addressed all the different systems of the body. I did lymphatic courses, vascular courses, visceral courses, cranial courses, I didn’t leave a single stone unturned. My knowledge of the different sys- tems rather than answering my questions simply posed more, ‘the more you know the more you know you don’t know!’ Very exciting, but equally frustrating at the same time. Then slowly over a peri- od of time it started to dawn on me the answer was right under my nose, the patient’s body knew all the answers and I just had to facilitate the process of release.

In my eyes this is when my journey really started. It was not more knowledge that I needed but more wisdom. So where is this wis- dom to be found? ‘Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just to look and listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking and lis- tening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you’(8).

But allowing the body’s innate wisdom to guide your actions as a therapist is not always the easiest thing to do. In one sense you have to let go of all that accumulated knowledge, and trust in what you feel. It has been my experience that you can only ‘lis- ten’ and pay full attention to what is happening under your hands, if your own mind is emptied of the continual chatter. ‘Is this pirformis or is it the hip, or maybe the gemelli...’ Your client’s body has all the information, it is just a question of letting it be heard and acknowledged.

So how do you get to the point of listening to and observing your client’s body? Well that brings me full circle to the diaphragm and the awareness of breath. In many eastern philosophies or med- ical traditions, the breath is the gateway to consciousness. By bringing awareness back to my breath I have been able to quieten my mind and hence be more aware of the changes that I need to facilitate in the client’s body and mind in order for the healing process to come to the fore. I will be offering

some practical advice with regards to this subject at the sportEX/SMA conference in September. So how has all this impacted on my life as a therapist? I do not get drained by patients, I feel invigorated. I no longer feel their burden of expectation, for me to get them better, which has been

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very liberating. It has given me a way of working in which I feel totally at peace, this is something I had never experienced before. So that just leaves me with rest of my life to sort out! Piece of cake, fruit cake that is!

THE AUTHOR

Stuart Robertson, MCSP has completed both a batchelors and a masters degree in physiotherapy as well as a BEd (Hons) in physi- cal education. He lectures both nationally and internationally in his area of expertise ‘The Fascial System and the relationship between the mind, body and energy systems.' He runs courses all over the UK for more information visit www.dmbem.com, e-mail Stuart via stuart.robertson@dmbem.com and telephone 01749 830499.

References 1. Richardson C, Jull G, Hodges P, Jides J. Therapeutic exercise for spinal segmental stabilization in low back pain. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh 1999 2. Williams P, Warwick R, Dyson M, Bannister L. Gray’s Anatomy. Churchill Livingstone 1989 3. Ness T, Gebhart G. Visceral pain: A review of experimental studies. Pain 1990;41:167-234 4. Schrager V, Ivy A. Symptoms produced by distension of the gallbladder and biliary tracts: A clinical and experimental study. Surgery Gynecology Obstetrics 1928;47:1-13 5. Ford G, Grant D, Rideout K, Davidson J, Whitelow W. Inhibition of breathing associated with gallbladder stimulation in dogs. Journal of Applied Physiology 1988;65:72-79 6. Ashkenay D, Spiegel E.

The viscero-pannicular reflex. American

Journal of Physiology 1935;112:587-596 7. Adolph EF.

Physiological integrations in action. Physiologist

1982;25:(2)(April) Supplement 8. Tolle E. ‘Stillness Speaks’. New World Library USA 2003.