Bowen Technique By Karen
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The Bowen Technique - Insomnia and grief
Posted on 13 January, 2013 at 14:46 |
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Today’s
Therapist
International
Trade Journal - Issue 54
Sept Oct 2008
The Bowen
Technique -
Insomnia and grief by Janie Godfrey Martina, aged 55, had had a few periods of sleeping problems in her past but they had not become chronic nor had they lasted for an extended period. So when she began having difficulties with sleep, she thought it would pass. The
difficulties began gradually over a winter and by the summertime the dreary
pattern of her insomnia was well established and she was deeply concerned as
well as exhausted and depressed.
Martina lives on her own, having been
divorced some 20 years previously. Her
regular pattern was that she went to bed by 10pm, occasionally earlier. She would manage to get to sleep without much
problem but would always wake around 1.30 – 2am, feeling refreshed and as if it
were time to get up. Once awake, with
the brief feeling of refreshment, she was unable to get back to sleep and spent
many, many nights tossing and turning in frustration. By 6 or 7am, she would feel very tired and
drained but, of course, needed to get up and get to work. She had tried various remedies but they weren’t helping the problem.
When asked if she had any anxieties or
stressful situations in her life, she said she supposed that she did,
really. She then reported that 6 years
previously, she had lost her son to suicide. He was then just 25 and had taken a wonderful new job in Australia. He had been enthusiastic and excited about
this adventure so it was with uncomprehending shock that Martina learned that
he had taken his own life. Now, she
would find herself awake in the night replaying his last days in her thoughts
and trying to understand what could have gone so wrong.
Martina also reported that she had had
breast cancer three years previously and had a mastectomy. All was fine now but she saw a lymphoedema
nurse for check ups at her local hospital to control that problem.
Martina was meeting regularly with others
parents who had lost children and they acted as a support group for each other
but, of course, were also a constant reminder to each other of the loss they
had all endured. In addition, Martina
had long been a volunteer for the Samaritans and had decided to use her sleepless
nights to some good, so once a week, she would take the middle of the night
shift and answer the calls that came in.
So, Martina had borne up with strength and
courage in the face of heavy, heavy grief for quite a long time and this
insomnia was taking a heavy toll on her physically, emotionally, mentally and
spiritually. Her lymphoedema nurse at
the hospital had recommended that she try some Bowen treatment to see if this
would help shift the pattern and help her come to some terms with the griefs
she had been through.
She had her first Bowen treatment on 1
March and at the second treatment on 7 March, she reported that
the first few nights after the treatment, she woke at 3am, so she had gained an
hour or so of sleep. The morning of the
treatment, she had slept through until 5am, which was a marvelous feat.
When she came for her third treatment a
fortnight later (22 March) she reported that she was now sleeping
through from approximately 9.30pm to 6.30am.
She had only awakened once at the old 1.30am, but had gone to sleep
again. She reported that she now was
feeling a daily deep tiredness, so that she was often having an hour’s nap
after work. She was amazed that the
treatment had had such a profound effect on her emotional state.
A few months after this, she rang to make
another appointment as she was beginning to experience a few mild episodes of
insomnia. Since then (now over 18
months) she has been fine.
How is it that Bowen can do this for
people? It seems to lie in the fact that
the body so often bears the burdens of the non-physical griefs, problems and
anxieties that we have. For a while, we
manage to hold ourselves together and get through what we have to get through
but finally, the body will manifest a pain, a disease, a dysfunction, a
depression, an insomnia, that acts as a demand for help – a ‘wake up’
call. Bowen, as a hands-on therapy,
primarily addresses the physical manifestations of the problem: the painful back, the stiff neck, the
churning stomach, the breathlessness, etc. What we understand to be going on
physiologically is that Bowen can achieve a considerable degree of balance in
the autonomic nervous system. In a
significant small study undertaken by Dr JoAnne Whitaker and others in 1997, it
was documented that patients
with myofascial pain and other clinical symptoms of autonomic
nervous system
dysfunction experienced mild to marked relief following treatment with the
Bowen Technique. Significantly, the
autonomic nervous system,
which was dysfunctional before Bowen, was partially balanced following
treatment.
© E.C.B.S
Janie
Godfrey is a Bowen Technique practitioner in Frome and has been in practice
since 1999. Contents
provided by the European School of Bowen Studies (ECBS)
For
further details about the Bowen Technique please contact Karen on 01954 260 982
/ 07714 995 299 or email [email protected] |
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