History of Bowen
Who Was Tom?
Tom Ambrose Bowen was born in 1916 and practiced his body healing techniques in Geelong, Australia.
Tom’s work evolved and changed over the years as he developed a better sense of what was working. In the early days, he would work on clients after his day job at the cement factory. He initially treated injured horses, greyhounds, and sports injuries.
As the demand for his services increased, he started his own practice even though he had no formal training. His therapy sequences were gentle and varied depending on the situation being treated. His therapy was very effective as he treated the general public, children with disabilities, asthma sufferers, those with sports injuries, and animals.
Tom's Therapy
Bowen Therapy is a sequence of movements across muscles, tendons, and ligaments that help to restore the autonomic nervous system and stimulate the body to heal itself. These mostly gentle cross fiber manipulations deliver signals to the body’s nervous system to shift it from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic allowing the body to rest, relax, and repair. The moves create frequency vibrations within the body that help to restore system coherence and whole body harmony. Forceful correction of structural misalignment are avoided as the body unwinds itself during strategic pauses within the treatment session and over time, once healing has been initiated.
Why Is Bowen Therapy Not Well Known?
Unfortunately, Tom Bowen’s original techniques were not well documented. However, Ossie Rentsch, one of Tom’s “6 boys” did try to keep Tom’s legacy alive and placed his understanding of Tom’s methods into a practical training program. Because of the lack of documentation and the different perspectives of those who observed Tom, there are fractures within the Bowen Therapy world. This lack of collaboration has resulted in few knowing of Bowen Therapy.