REICHIAN RELEASE

This technique utilizes manipulation of the musculo-skeletal system to release emotional blockages from the body. It was established from the works of Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychoanalyst.

(See also: REICHIAN RELEASE, Alternative Health, Massage, Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul)

Ayurvedic Treatment and Massage: Massage techniques include:

• Abhyanga- individually prepared herbal-oil massage that deeply penetrates the skin, relaxes the mind and body, breaks up impurities and stimulates both arterial and lymphatic circulation. It enhances the ability for nutrients to reach starved cells and for the removal of stagnant waste. It also heightens awareness that will direct the internal healing system of the body.
• Vishesh is a deep muscular massage that breaks up adhesions and improves circulation deep within the muscles.
• Pizichili is a continuous steam of warm herbal oil soothingly poured over the body by two Ayurveda therapists as they massage the body in unison. It provides a deep tissue cleansing and a heightened state of awareness.
• Udvartina is a deep penetrating herbal paste used for a lymphatic massage. It is an exfoliating treatment that conditions the skin while pressing stagnant lymphatic toxins out of the body.
• Shiro-Ahhyanga-Nasya is a luxurious combination of a deep head, neck and shoulder massage, a facial lymphatic massage, followed by deep inhalation of therapeutic aromatic steam and a nasal and sinus nasya with herbal nose drops. This is to balance most head, neck and respiratory disorders.
• Pinda Swedna is a deep cleansing treatment where rice boiled in milk and herbs are massaged deeply into the tissues and joints; relaxing, rejuvenating, and great for detoxifying the body.

(See also: Ayurvedic Treatment, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

AMMA/ANMA

Amma (sometimes spelled anma) is the traditional word for massage in the Japanese language. It comes from the Chinese tradition of massage, anmo. This form of bodywork is based on the principles of Chinese medicine and is more than 5,000 years old. When anmo was brought to Japan, the technique was further refined into its own therapeutic art form, amma.

The amma techniques encompass a myriad of pressing, stroking, stretching, and percussive manipulations with the thumbs, fingers, arms, elbows, knees, and feet on acupressure points along the body’s 14 major meridians. Amma brings to Western culture the ancient art and wisdom of traditional Japanese massage.

Through the structure of kata (choreographed movement), amma teaches the importance of rhythm, pacing, precision, and form in massage. Shiatsu - a style of bodywork popularized after World War II - was developed from the amma tradition. Unlike Western massage, amma utilizes no oils and can be done through clothing with the client either sitting or lying. This makes amma an extremely flexible style of massage suitable to a wide variety of client needs and environments.

(See also: AMMA, Alternative Health, Massage, Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul)

VIBRATIONAL HEALING MASSAGE THERAPY

Vibrational Healing Massage Therapy (VHMT) is a bodywork therapy designed to restore one to fluidity. It is like massage therapy, providing touch techniques and distinctions that help a person live in their body as a liquid process, freeing pain as we have known it.

Vibrational Healing Massage Therapy works with the physical structure to free up past tensions and stresses that have been held in the body. This reawakening of the nervous system restores circulation to injured areas, moves energy and emotions, and helps in the letting go of chronic pain or stiffness. There are approximately 16 basic techniques that serve to align, loosen, and connect the body so tensions can reverberate freely.

Special sensitive stretching, rebounding, and torquing are some of the techniques helping clients to become aware of where they have been holding. Practitioners and recipients alike begin to feel not only their vibrations move within them, but also new circulation of their basic metabolic fluids flowing again to once-rigid areas. As they listen to people’s body rhythms and frequencies, practitioners of Vibrational Healing Massage Therapy facilitate a clothes-on massage therapy that is rhythmic and fun, like playing a fine-tuned violin or guitar.

Vibrational Healing Massage Therapy includes new distinctions of awareness in thinking, speaking, walking, standing, and sitting which allow for fully-connected and communicative bodies. These concepts are: The Fluid Body Model - a body of knowledge where we experience being in our bodies in a whole new way, acknowledging and honoring the fluid, evolving processes that we are; Disease as a Strategy - a self-responsible way of thinking that allows us to access self-healing and growth; and The Language of Healing - a way of speaking responsibly about our bodies and lives, so that when we speak, we are causing and accessing healing and transformation to happen.

(See also: VIBRATIONAL HEALING MASSAGE THERAPY, Alternative Health, Massage, Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul)

ACUPUNCTURE

Acupuncture is an ancient oriental healing technique based on the Taoist philosophy of balancing energy meridians within the body, thus allowing the body to heal itself.

Fine needles are painlessly inserted at key points corresponding to body organs to relieve pain and cure disease and dysfunction. Related techniques include the use of low voltage, electric current (electro acupuncture) or massage at key points (acupressure).

(See also: ACUPUNCTURE, Alternative Health, Massage, Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul)

POINT HOLDING

This acupressure technique requires several practitioners to apply pressure to specific acupoints for up to two hours in order to remove blockage and stimulate emotional release within the meridians. The technique was developed by Karen Peterson and John Walsh.

(See also: POINT HOLDING, Alternative Health, Massage, Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul)

Lymphodrainage: Non-evasive therapeutic massage to the face and neck that uses a delicate pumping technique to purge swollen tissues (lymph nodes) of water and trapped toxins.

(See also: Lymphodrainage, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Shiatsu: Japanese acupressure massage technique, in which pressure is applied to specific points of the body to stimulate or release the 'meridians' (paths of the body) through which energy flows.

(See also: Shiatsu, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

MASSAGE

Hands-on manipulation for healing is probably older than any other healing tradition. The oldest written records of massage go back three thousand years to China, but it is much older than that. Touch and the laying on of hands are human tendencies that seem to be in our genetic makeup.

Perhaps the most basic principle in this field is that improved blood circulation is beneficial for virtually all health conditions. Tension in the muscles and other soft tissues can impair circulation, resulting in a deficient supply of nutrients and inadequate removal of wastes or toxins from the tissues of the body. This in turn can lead to illness, structural and functional problems, or slower healing. Recognition of the importance of blood circulation is implicit in all forms of massage and bodywork.

Massage includes a number of disciplines that share the use of pressure, friction and strain upon the muscles and joints of the body for therapeutic or physical responses. Swedish massage (which is a proper name, not a reference to Sweden) refers to a collection of techniques designed primarily to relax muscles by applying pressure to them against deeper muscles and bones, and rubbing in the same direction as the flow of blood returning to the heart. Shiatsu (pronounced shee-OTT-sue), on the other hand, is a system based on the body's energy meridians. Shiatsu massages are normally done fully clothed and involve pressing points on the body and stretching and opening of the energy meridians. 

There are massage therapists experienced in working with the elderly and terminally ill, the chronically ill and disabled, and those persons recovering from trauma as well as infants. A range of gentle and noninvasive techniques tailored to each client group and treatment includes the therapist's sensitivity, responsiveness, and presence through subtle touch. Ill children feel better when touched in just the right way.

(See also: MASSAGE, Alternative Health, Holistic Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Kinesitherapy: Kinesitherapy is a therapy, which is governed by movement. There are two types of Kinesitherapies:

1. Active Kinesitherapy [such as therapeutic exercise, functional activity treatment, gate trainings, etc].
2. Passive Kinesitherapy [such as clinical rehabilitative massage, scapula manipulation, spinal mobilization (please do not confuse this with spinal adjustment), spinal tractions, post-isometric relaxation techniques, and passive exercise (mobilization) of different body regions].

The total techniques seek to facilitate the movements while utilizing muscular chains. Contrary to the analytical techniques, which consider only one muscle or an articulation, they relate to a whole muscular unit. Among these techniques, the most used are the method of Kabat and that of Bobath.

(See also: Kinesitherapy, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

BINDEGEWEBSMASSAGE

This technique is based on the theory that any disruption or imbalance in any portion of the body affects the entire system, specifically the autonomic, central nervous, and hormonal systems. Any disruption in any of the body systems will affect the entire organism, both physiologically and psychologically.

Bindegewebsmassage is a specific, advanced technique intended to assist in the rehabilitation of pathologic conditions. The theory of this technique extends to the belief that certain areas on the body’s surface correlate to specific internal organs manifesting the disruptions with an increased sensitivity of certain skin areas called points. See also Connective Tissue Massage.

(See also: BINDEGEWEBSMASSAGE, Alternative Health, Massage, Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul)

SHIATSU

Means, “finger pressure,” and is known for its particular technique of massage. Originating in Japan, many centuries ago, it is a form of acupressure, and uses varying rhythms and degrees of pressure to balance the life-energy that flows through specific pathways (meridians) in the body.

(See also: SHIATSU, Alternative Health, Holistic Health, Body Mind and Soul)

body-centered psychotherapy (body-oriented psychotherapy, body psychotherapy, direct body-contact psychotherapy, humanistic body psychotherapy): Any combination of: (a) psychotherapy and (b) massage therapy, touch therapy, or movement techniques. Body-centered psychotherapy may include breathwork.

(See also: Body-centered psychotherapy, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Zen Shiatsu Acupressure (Zen Shiatsu Acupressure massage): Method that encompasses herbology, meditation, Oriental diagnostic techniques, prayer, Shiatsu Acupressure, tai chi, visualization, and Zen Shiatsu. Its theory posits the Five Elements.

(See also: Zen Shiatsu Acupressure, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Energetic Bodywork: Subject of Energetic Bodywork: Practical Techniques (Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1998), by herbalist and massage therapist Rita J. McNamara. Energetic Bodywork involves assessment and treatment of the human energy field and spirit. Its theory posits chakras and meridians.

(See also: Energetic Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)