Once I discovered Visceral manipulation there was no turning back. The results I encounter personally and with clients have been phenomenal. Visceral Manipulation is working directly or indirectly with the organ system. However this extends to membranes and other important structures connecting the organs. Jean Piere Barral is the founder of the institute that has brought many of the practices to the world. He believes the majority of the clients he sees in practice have a visceral origin. This means that the problem or dysfunction that has created pain elsewhere began with tension or dysfunction in an organ.
What is Visceral Manipulation?
Visceral manipulation is a direct technique on the viscera which is the organs and connective tissue in our body. Often these tissues are ignored as unimportant – however in my experience and through the courses taken, I would argue they are far more important to treat than muscle or the skeletal system. The results are fantastic and lasting. Often the viscera use the muscular skeletal system as its dumping ground because when you stop to think about it our bodies care more our organs are happy than a muscle.
Visceral manipulation assists functional and structural imbalances throughout the body including musculoskeletal, vascular, nervous, urogenital, respiratory, digestive and lymphatic dysfunction. It evaluates and treats the dynamics of motion and suspension in relation to organs, membranes, fascia, and ligaments. Visceral manipulation increases proprioceptive communication within the body, thereby revitalizing a person and relieving symptoms of pain, dysfunction, and poor posture.
An integrative approach to evaluation and treatment of a patient requires assessment of the structural relationships between the viscera, and their fascial or ligamentous attachments to the musculoskeletal system. Strains in the connective tissue of the viscera can result from surgical scars, adhesions, illness, posture or injury. Tension patterns form through the fascial network deep within the body, creating a cascade of effects far from their sources for which the body will have to compensate. This creates fixed, abnormal points of tension that the body must move around, and this chronic irritation gives way to functional and structural problems.
Imagine an adhesion around the lungs. It would create a modified axis that demands abnormal accommodations from nearby body structures. For example, adhesion could alter rib motion, which could then create imbalanced forces on the vertebral column and, with time, possibly develop a dysfunctional relationship with other structures. This scenario highlights just one of hundreds of possible ramifications of a small dysfunction – magnified by thousands of repetitions each day.
How Does Visceral Manipulation Work?
The techniques are gentle and encourage the clients own body to direct and assist the healing process. This is important because as a practitioner you are not trying to force or direct how an organ should position or function but the system itself does. Your own body is in charge and we the practitioners are just the catalyst. The results then are effective and lasting.
It is still amazing to me to feel such small and subtle movements of structures. Using Visceral manipulation theory and application I have a deeper understanding of the body as a whole. Often what I feel matches someone’s symptoms. An example of how visceral manipulation can be beneficial is to take the kidneys; Typical signs the kidneys are not optimal position for best function could be…. low back ache especially in the morning, knee ache that is constant without a knee injury, limitation of thoracic rotation and an extreme sense of fatigue the begins late afternoon; often the person feels they need to have a nap or lay down for an hour around 5pm.
I have experienced this personally thanks to throwing myself around snowboarding. A common way for kidneys to shift would be falling onto your buttocks heavily. Kidneys are more floating organs and can easily be displaced, when this happens the blood supply to the kidney may be less efficient and you start to develop kidney signs. Once I was able to apply my Visceral Manipulation techniques these kidney signs were gone within the week which for me was relieving as it was disabling to my life, I was barely able to function in the afternoons from exhaustion and had to plan my day accordingly.
Another such example of how an organ can shift its tension to the musculoskeletal system is to Imagine an adhesion around the lungs. The tension of the Lung would create a modified axis when taking a breath that demands abnormal accommodations from nearby body structures. For example, adhesion of the pleura to the canister could alter rib motion, which could then create imbalanced forces on the vertebral column and, with time, possibly develop a dysfunctional relationship with other structures.
This scenario highlights just one of hundreds of possible ramifications of a small dysfunction – magnified by thousands of repetitions each day. Assistance to the structure that creates the imbalance can have many positive outcomes from improved cardiovascular efficiency, less tension on the musculoskeletal system, improved function overall, lymphatic efficiency and so on.
Physiotherapy and Visceral Manipulation
Jean Piere Barral’s vision for Visceral Manipulation and health is as below – taken from his blurb on the institutes website where you can read more www.barralinstitute.com.
“Through every course, the Barral Institute is committed to offering practitioners effective instruction on noninvasive manual therapies, so they can share the gift of health with their clients. We have made major strides over the past 35 years to educate the healthcare community and general public on the important role of manual therapies in whole person health. We have moved past a narrow focus on the disease or single organ systems, to evaluating the person from a global perspective.
Each person is unique and the many events in a person’s life show up in a person’s tissues and can impact their health. This global view helps to address the actual causes of a person’s dysfunction, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the treatment, so that the person becomes better able to function and closer to optimal health.
The current global health crisis has put the spotlight on the need for whole person health. Join us as we continue to shift the healthcare paradigm from disease care to one of health promotion.” Barral
What Conditions Can Visceral Manipulation Help?
I highly encourage anyone looking for deeper answers into their health and wellbeing to consider trying Visceral Manipulation. It is amazing what can be sensed and detected with putting a hand on the body and really paying attention to tensions and how structures move and sit. Much information can be gained that would never be able to be seen or recognised as non optimal on any scan. There are many ailments, tensions, pains and disorders that Visceral Manipulation can assist with – here is just a small list:
- Bladder issues
- Infertility and menstrual issues
- Reflux
- Gastrointestinal pain, bloating or dysfunction
- Fatigue
- Digestion issues
- Pain anywhere in the abdomen
- Breathing difficulty
- Thyroid problems
- And much more
If you are interested to find out more about this technique or neural manipulation, book your next appointment with us at Focus Physio Cairns. We are your local Cairns physio and are keen to assist.
