A large part of my work involves working as part of an integrated team (at The Therapy Room in Cambridge) to find the right solution or solutions for a clients problem.
Each therapist I work with has their own unique skills, experience, and as such can be called upon for assistance, input and we often work as a team to help someone back to health. I have chosen colleagues from several disciplines including Pyschotherapy, Chiropractic, Bowen Therapy, and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
My goal is to offer you a wide range of opinions,views, expertises and advice on how to be healthy!
The first Therapist I’d like to introduce is – Liz Elbourn.
As an introduction I have decided to ask each therapist a few questions, starting with Liz.
1. Can you summarise in less than 200 words what you do? I am a Bowen Therapist practising the Bowen Technique. This is a gentle hands on therapy using fingers and thumbs on specific parts of the body making gentle rolling moves over soft tissue: muscles, tendons in fact all acessible fascia. The move stimulates nerve endings to produce a response via the CNS and this response begins the body’s innate ability to start the healing process. The therapy can be done through light clothing and usually on a therapy couch but if this is too unconfortable then leaning forward over a pillow resting on the couch or sitting is fine. The relaxation of muscles can release trapped nerves, alleviate pain both chronic and acute and help with problems as wide ranging as IBS to shin splints, hamstring injuries to migraine. Sports injuries can be helped and sports performance improved. Back and shoulder problems are often helped and this technique is safe to use on the old and infirm as well as infants.
2. Why did you become a health practitioner?
3. Why did you pick the therapy(s) that you practice? I became a Bowen Practitioner because of an agonising trapped nerve in my shoulder after a building DIY weekend! I had 3 sessions of Bowen treatment 10 weeks into the agony having tried sports massage, NHS physio, TENS, reflexology and osteopathy, plus all the conventonal drugs for muscle relaxing and pain relief. I was backpacking up a mountain the weekend after the third session! Pure relief ! I was determined to learn the technique so I could help others, and to find out just exactly had gone on!
4. Who has influenced you most professionally? The Bowen teacher I was assigned to to learn Bowen has greatly influenced me only because she had such a gentle common sense attitude towards the technique.
5. Can you tell me about any of your successes? A recent success took me back to my first experience with Bowen when I could not believe that such gentle moves could bring about such a remarkable change in my attitude to coping with the pain and then eventually alleviating the pain. A male client came to see me with a very painful frozen shoulder. Frozen Shoulder is notoriously difficult to treat and his physio had admitted defeat and a specialist was suggesting a costly operation early this year to clean out the joint. He had already had 3 cortisone injections with no response which is a shame as I was lead to believe that the medical profession only resorted to a second inection as an extreme measure. Anyway Mr B. had excrutiating spasms of pain down his arm through his elbow and in to his wrist and fingers. He could not lift his arm forward or sideways, could not sleep, had an energy level of 3/10 and was thoroughly worn down with the 4 months of continual discomfort. He was using pain killers and would clock watch to see when he could take the next.
After the first session he returned a week later to say he was sleeping the pain had reduced by half and he could put his trousers on himself ! Christmas interferred with the usual weekly sessions so appointment 3 was 4 weeks after the first. Movement was greatly improved getting the arm above the horizontal in all planes, and the pain had gone. He was cheerier felt better able to cope with daily life and as he has not yet had a date for his operation is not chasing to find out. He admits it is the most relaxing thing he has ever experienced, and is looking forward to the Spring with optimism.
6. Do you work closely with any other practitioners? Physiotherapy is a good tool to follow on with to mobilise joints and tone/strengthen unused muscles. Often clients are reluctant to exercise because they hurt, but if Bowen can reduce the pain, relax the muscle and encourage the client not to fear movement great progress can be made.
Further details of Liz’s work and all her contact details can be found at The Therapy Room.
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i did not know this