by Frank Merillat
I am now at the end of a Neuromuscular Therapy teaching run. Whenever I teach this modality, it gets me to thinking about what I am actually doing when I work with a client. I find that for many of us when we take a class, whether it is a basic or a more advanced class, it is very easy to get caught in the trap of technique. What I mean by this is we want to know what to do and how to do it. We forget that what is actually offered when we touch someone is a sense of feeling. After all neuromuscular therapy is all about the interaction of the nervous system with the contractile system. It engages the sensory motor pathways that we use to move through life.
When the body is touched it generates sensory information and creates a sensory awareness. This gives the body an opportunity to check in, to assess what is being felt and to initiate a change if one is necessary or desired. The information can then be processed and become a motor response. We give information to the body to facilitate awareness and change. To bring about change, the body must first “feel it”, then this feeling can be reproduced. It can become a new sensory motor pathway.
It is important to remember that most of the activity we participate in on a daily basis we do from a mostly unconscious state. We are not actually aware of what is happening, we do it by reflex. We know how to do it and now do not need to think about it. So how do I, as a therapist, help a client become more aware and help then to be more of a participant in their experience?
What if I begin to think of my bodywork as an exploration, an inquiry into what is felt and what could be? How would this change how I work? Instead of doing something, I feel what is there, and then ask what would be the best way to give the feeling I think would be helpful. I use my ability to listen, the skill of my hands and knowledge of the body to offer a more favorable sensory experience.
I can also involve my client actively in this process by having them participate. I can do this by asking for feedback about what they are feeling. I can also ask them to move during the treatment to actually increase the ability to feel what is happening in their body. Involving the client can be very empowering. So often the client thinks that it is the therapist that brings about change, failing to recognize that it is their own engagement of awareness and their bodies that is changing. It is a trap for either the therapist or client to think that the therapist is the one that “does it”.
Does exploring and treating the body in this manner sound interesting to you? If so there are a couple of workshops coming up that might be useful. They will focus on this aspect of feeling from both the therapist and client role.
The first one, which I will be offering, is called “Playing with Feeling”. It will be held on Sunday, March 22 and offer nine Florida-Board of Massage approved continuing education credits. We will play with the offering and receiving of feeling to address the body.
The second will be a class with Deane Juhan, the author of Job’s Body and a well-known international bodywork instructor. His teaching and background are based on the teachings of Milton Trager. This is a movement and feeling-based form of work that Deane is now taking further. He is adding engagement of the client through resisted movement to increase awareness and effectiveness. The class is titled “Resistance/Release” and will be held Friday through Sunday, April 17-19. Participants will receive 24 Florida Board of Massage and National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork continuing education hours.
To register or get information for either of these classes, contact Frank Merillat directly at fmerillat@mac.com or call (352) 371-0743. You can also see the course description and cost on the FSM continuing education page on the school’s website. I do hope the idea of receiving and offering feeling opens a different way of thinking about how our work is done.
