What exactly is Bodywork?

Many people have been throwing around the term, “bodywork”, though I don’t think most people understand what that means. Bodywork is defined as: therapies and techniques in integrative medicine which involve touching or manipulating the body. It’s a broad umbrella term used to encapsulate massage, craniosacral work, chiropractic, osteopathic, and therapeutic modalities. 

The main point of this is that bodywork is typically passive and something being done to or with a body, rather than encouraging a body to engage actively in specific movements. Both are helpful and B.WELL OT uses many bodywork modalities including Myofascial Release (MFR) and Total Motion Release (TMR). We also always include therapeutic movement and reflex integration exercises into our sessions to encourage more active engagement and therefore more long lasting change. This type of therapy is mainly used with occupational and physical therapists.

Therapy is more than manual – movement is therapy. We must address structure within the theme of function. Our tissues (fascia, muscle, tendons, ligaments) need to experience movement and become comfortable in the new range of motion that manual therapies have opened up for them. This makes new movement patterns possible and we can start to move away from compensation patterns that won’t serve us long term. This goes for head turn preference/torticollis, oral function, and pretty much any other concern you’d be reaching out to B.WELL OT about. 

Was this helpful in clarifying your understanding of what bodywork is and why therapy, specifically therapeutic movement, is necessary for progress?