What is Bowen Technique?

The Bowen Technique is a pain-relief method developed by Tom Bowen of Australia. Practitioners use gentle rolling movements over muscle and other soft tissue to stimulate your body to heal itself.

Bowen taught his technique to only a few people, and the only person to go on to train other people was Oswald Rentsch. He called the work Bowtech and still directs The Bowen Therapy Academy of Australia. Only instructors accredited by Bowtech can offer the training directly passed on by Tom Bowen. This training includes seven modules of basic training and two courses in specialized Bowen procedures.

The technique is easy to learn and has only one basic move. However, Bowenwork has specific sequences and requires sensitivity that takes time to develop.

Bowen Therapy Techniques and Sessions

Bowen therapists use a very gentle and painless touch, with no deep pressure or probing, and do only the minimum needed to elicit a healing response in your body.

The basic move over a tendon or muscle involves the therapist placing their fingers or thumbs on your body, stretching the skin slightly away, and then gently pushing on the tendon or muscle. The therapist holds this push for a few seconds and then makes a rolling move over the muscle.

After a short sequence of two or four moves, the therapist usually takes a two-minute break and leaves the room. These pauses are essential because they give your body time relax and make its own adjustments.

The practitioner can perform the technique through clothing or directly on the skin and never uses oil or lotion.

Bowen technique treatment takes a “less is more” approach, doing just enough in one session to start the healing process, and then letting the messages continue to integrate in your body for five or more days before more bodywork.

It's generally recommended not to combine Bowen with other bodywork techniques. This is to avoid other influences, letting both you and the therapist see your progress.¹

Benefits of Bowen Technique Treatment

In addition to creating relaxation and reducing your stress levels, Bowenwork can address many health issues, including acute or chronic musculoskeletal aches and pains, fibromyalgia, headaches, and decreased joint range of motion. Bowen is particularly effective for frozen shoulder, neck and lower back pain, sciatica, sports injuries, and post-surgery.³

Because the therapist does the moves at the body's key structural points, which the brain uses to determine posture, some Bowen moves greatly affect how the body holds itself.

Results are fast; the technique often brings significant relief to pain and injury within two or three sessions. The relief is usually deep and long-lasting. The technique is safe for everyone.

How Bowen Technique Works

Exactly how the technique works on your body isn't clear.

One explanation is that the technique initiates nerve reflex signals that trigger responses in the body. Gustafson describes the effect this way:

"Bowenwork resets dysfunctional tissue tension patterns by stimulating proprioceptors, such as spindle cells, golgi-tendon bodies and ruffini mechanoreceptors, embedded in muscles, tendons, fascia and joints, resulting in changes in the stretch-length of muscle fibers and joint realignment, via spinal reflexes."³

Mechner says the moves cause the spindle cells and Golgi tendon organs to down-regulate a muscle’s resting tension through the central nervous system.⁴

Amato mentions Bowen's effect on nerves in the muscles. The techniques used cause the stretch receptors to send sensory information along the nerve pathways through the spinal cord to the brain. In the brain, that input moves through a complex, self-correcting feedback mechanism. Then the information travels back through the spinal cord to individual muscles.²

Amato also notes that Bowen balances the ANS (autonomic nervous system), taking the body out of its hyperactive state, and also positively affects Heart Rate Variability, which is a measure of ANS function.

Bowtech describes the technique in terms of the stretch reflex, joint proprioceptors, fascia, segmental viscerosomatic spinal reflexes, the harmonic vibration or resonance model, and lymphatics.⁵

Suggested Books

The Bowen Technique by Julian Baker.

BOWTECH: The Original Bowen Technique by Manfred Zanzinger and Sabine Knoll. 

Bowen Therapy Instruction Manual by Jonathan Damonte.

Sources for What Is Bowen Technique

¹Alexia Monroe. "Bowenwork Alone on the Day 'Why?'" Bowen Hands: The Journal of The Bowen Therapy Academy of Australia. March 2012, pp. 3–5.

²Dan Amato/Bowtech. "Understanding The Bowen Technique." 2001.

³Sandra Gustafson, R.N. "Bowenwork - Gentle Touch, Impressive Results." The Journal of The Bowen Therapy Academy of Australia. June 2013, pp. 17–19.

⁴Vicki Mechner. "The Bowen Technique." Massage Magazine, November/December 2003.

⁵ Bowtech. "How It Works." http://www.bowtech.com/WebsiteProj/Pages/About/HowItWorks.aspx.

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