Home
About
In Australia
Sessions
Activities
News
Training
Resources
Links
Contact

Changing Course: A Leap from Law to Bodywork

by Judith Nicholson

It is just seven years since I started the three year training in Rosen Bodywork that changed the course of my life. At the time, it did not seem that dramatic. I had followed my diplomat husband on a three year posting to Stockholm in Sweden. Once there, I found as I had feared, that I could no longer teach law, nor pursue any worth-while legal research. So the question was, what to do with myself and my spare time, for the day-time activities of diplomats' wives had never held much appeal.

Actually, as I look back, the question went deeper. I was just fifty-five. In many ways I had lived a full life: full of the doings of my four children, my travelling diplomat husband, my mother, my mother-in-law, and finally, not to be overlooked, my own spasmodic and part-time career teaching law. Nevertheless, at the time of which I am writing, the children were independent and happy, my husband planned to retire within the next five years and teaching law was losing its appeal. It was clearly time to be considering change. And, if I went deeper still, there was this niggle: in many ways my life had come to seem rather pointless and empty of meaning. I seemed to have lived it largely for others. I began to wonder what I could do with the remainder of it for myself.

Before I left for Stockholm I sold my mother's house, arranged for her to live in protected accommodation, retired temporarily from the ANU and went through the usual Foreign Affairs performance on posting. On arrival I was in much physical pain: my neck, shoulders and upper back ached and burned. What was I to do with myself and my body? In earlier days, when living in Hong Kong, I had received relief from physical pain through acupressure. So I took my painful back to a recommended acupressurist.

The consultation developed along unusual lines. Lying on the massage table, I was asked what was happening in my life that I was in pain. I heard my voice reply that I supposed it was because I was unhappy. I was then asked what it was that I now wanted to do with my life, here in Sweden. Again, I heard myself reply that I had developed an interest in massage, had done a hobby course recently in Canberra, and had vaguely considered gaining a professional qualification in Swedish massage.

When the formal consultation was over, I went for coffee with my friendly acupressurist. She suggested that my hands seemed small for Swedish massage, although they appeared to be very sensitive. She asked whether I had ever heard of Rosen Bodywork. My answer in a nutshell was "No". I had never heard of bodywork at all, other than the repairing of smashed cars! In this, I guess, I was no more ignorant than most Australians at that time.

This story begins in that unusual acupressure session and over that quiet cup of coffee. The session carried the essential essence of all bodywork: that there is a connection between physical and emotional states, that body and mind are closely interlinked, and most importantly, that feelings can be accessed through the body. Hear that question, "What is happening in your life that you are in pain?" Hear that answer - not the one from the conscious mind which would refer to backstrain from moving house, hanging pictures, heaving books - but from the unconscious, straight from the body, unreflected upon, "I supposed it was because I was unhappy".

And so, in the weeks that followed, I did an introductory workshop in Rosen Bodywork, and experienced my first formal bodywork session which was full of surprises. Face down on a massage table I heard the practitioner tell the watching group that my right shoulder was higher than my left and that he could feel much tension there. Suddenly he touched a spot that seemed as sore as a boil. On being asked about this, to my surprise I heard myself reply in a perfectly matter of fact voice, "Oh that's fear". The session progressed with gentle, but nonetheless insistent touching of that tight area and slowly stories involving fear tumbled out. Gradually the tension eased, my arms stretched out further and further until, off the table, they were being supported by the watching group. At that point the practitioner remarked that I appeared to be stretching out to reach something, and asked if I knew what it was.

Here is the second essential of bodywork: reflection. That sensitive practitioner saw the position of my arms, but additionally his intuition saw a possible feeling in that position which he reflected to me. Note the role of the physical body. Through his reading and reflection of it, the practitioner permits access to possible feelings as yet unknown. At that time I gave what seemed an appropriate reply as to what I was then seeking. With hindsight, it seems I may have been stretching out for more, for a new way of life.

So I enrolled in the three year course required to become a certified practitioner of Rosen Bodywork. On a cold and windy day in early October, with the threat of a northern winter looming, I joined fifty-five Swedes of all ages and both sexes in a large windowless basement room. I was to spend many weeks in that room, and it came to symbolise the unconscious. I would leave the light of day, the warmth and security of my car and go downstairs, down to what? Ah that was the rub.

If fear of the unknown was one of my basic feelings, as it appeared, then the Rosen training was to give me plenty of practice in the handling of it. For I would never know from one day to another what the next training session would unearth. In bodywork one is quite out of control; it is the unconscious via the body that determines the subject matter and time of release.

In many ways the training resembled the emptying of an old seafarer's trunk: one session would bring a jewel of untold wealth - feelings of creativity; another, grief-laden memories, or an old boot to be thrown away.

On the very first training day the group was asked to recall themselves at four years of age and again as they had seen themselves in the mirror that morning. I looked back sceptically, I had no previous experience of this sort of exercise, what would I see, how could it be of value. Suddenly, there I was at four, curly copper-red hair gleaming as I ran and skipped in the sun. I felt warm, secure and happy in my small world; I was vibrant, full of the joys of living, life was such fun, one great big adventure. And that morning, what had I seen that morning? The woman in the mirror was now not-so-young; she had steady brown eyes and curly grey hair. Her life had been free of the tragedies that some of her friends had faced. The warmth, the security, the happiness were still there, but there was a difference. It was as if I saw myself through a grey mist: I felt tired, burnt out, life was now a struggle, a burden, that spark, that zest for life and living which had been the four year old's, had faded as the years had passed.

Thus began the first two years of my training*. At that time, Axelson's Gymnastica Institute in Stockholm on behalf of the Rosen Institute in Berkeley, required every student of Rosen Bodywork to complete four ten day "intensives" at approximately six monthly intervals, interspersed with regular day long sessions of anatomy lectures and hands on training. The final period of a year or more, comprised an internship in which the student as a practitioner-in-training gave 350 hour long bodywork sessions to clients, some under direct supervision, received twenty-five such sessions herself from qualified practitioners, and continued regular training sessions in small groups.

The training was basically an apprenticeship, comprising demonstration sessions by the teachers on all students, general discussion and sharing, both in large groups and small, and hands-on practice. In every training session the students would hear the soon-to-be well-known phrase, "choose a partner". In the next two hours each of them in turn would be both practitioner and client, learning to develop an atmosphere of trust and intimacy between them which is essential for the practice of all bodywork. Language was a problem for me here. I was the only non Swedish speaker in the group, talking of the depths of my unconscious through an interpreter, or with someone whose knowledge of English was only fair, had its moments. So did anatomy classes. The Institute was generous: I was given a simultaneous interpreter, but the combination of a Swedish lecturer, a translation in one ear and the taking of notes, was confusing. There were days when I considered quitting. And yet, it was fascinating.

It soon appeared that "holding", or tightening in order to hold, was the key. Let me explain. Rosen Bodywork was developed in California by Marion Rosen, then a physiotherapist. She noticed that, although she relieved muscular tension for her clients, many later returned; same tension, same problem. Then she realised that some, who had unburdened themselves during her work, recalling childhood incidents previously barely remembered, did not return. Gradually she developed an hypothesis, now the theoretical basis of her bodywork: that muscles normally used in expressing a particular emotion tighten if the feeling is suppressed or held back. Further habitual tightening may render the feeling itself inaccessible. Thus the small child repeatedly told to go away because mummy is too busy for hugs, may grow into the adult with tight muscles in her upper back for whom hugging is difficult, both physically and emotionally.

It soon became apparent that I was well suited to bodywork: both teachers and students were able to facilitate my contact with incidents from my childhood and their suppressed feelings. Of the existence of some of these incidents I was dimly aware, they were part of my family folk-lore; of others, I had no conscious memory. In both cases I had suppressed the feelings involved. There was, I found that I feared rejection as a result of an unavoidable absence of my mother when I was very young. And I had lost the ability to trust, and feared assertion and its possible consequence, anger, as the result of a confusing incident with a loved grandparent when I was six. As this story unfolded, it became clear that I was restricted: that my personality was capped by my inability to trust, my deep fear of anger in the personal domain and my confusion over when, and to what extent, it was permissible to pursue my own needs.

Marion Rosen is in her early eighties now, still travelling the world, talking of and teaching the bodywork that bears her name and giving individual sessions. I listened to her many times. She used to talk of the choice that bodywork gives. The small child finds an incident painful and suppresses it together with the feelings involved; but the adult may actually need those feelings. If contact with the incident is regained, then the adult has the choice; either to repress the memory of the incident, or to accept it and re-integrate the feelings into her adult personality.

Let me give an illustration concerning power, often an important issue for women. I have been told many times that I am a "powerful woman", yet I have rarely felt so. Recently, in a flashback, I saw a nasty incident: a ten year old boy had tickled the six year old Judith (me) to a point of near hysteria. She was out of control, sobbing and finally wet her pants. " Cry baby", he jeered, "dirty little cry baby." Still crowing and jeering, he left the room. It sounds trivial in some ways; yet, as I saw the almost annihilated little heap on the floor and the feelings surfaced, my puzzle about power clarified. Here was Judith who had always gone forward in some one else's shoes, as Geoff Wyatt's daughter, Ian's wife, the Sub-Dean of the Law Faculty, the only Rosen practitioner in Australia. Where was her own power, her personal power, she couldn't feel it, had probably never felt it. Hardly seems possible, and yet...

Gradually, I began to experience and understand the basic philosophy underlying Rosen Bodywork: that babies are born open and move spontaneously according to elementary mechanical and physiological rules; as in the body, so too in the psyche. Watch a tiny baby in a cot trusting, open, self accepting. See that tiny baby ten, twenty years later: she is watchful, careful, less spontaneous, and, above all, less willing to be her natural self. Bodywork gives the personality - gives that confused adult - an opportunity to shed the baggage of shoulds and shouldn'ts haphazardly acquired in childhood, and to move towards being her own integrated and authentic self. This, of course, is not only the core of Rosen Bodywork, but also part of the process described by Jung as individuation.

For it was Jung, who first regarded the contents of the unconscious as a means of the transformation of the psyche. In his writings and his case studies he was primarily interested in this transformative process on a grand scale, using dreams, myths and symbols to assist his analysands in their individuation towards the self and ultimately, the Self.

Transformative healing via the contents of the unconscious, however, can take place at many levels within the psyche. Not everyone is searching for the Self, many seek merely to feel more comfortable within themselves. Marion Rosen's contribution is that each body is asked to tell its own story. Rosen practitioners ask a tight place in the body, and through it the unconscious, "what happened" that you need to hold in this way. Once the body has told its tale, a bodily / emotional release takes place and transformation can occur. There is great beauty in this. Once the saga of childhood repressions is told, the body begins to reveal other treasures of childhood, warmth, openness, trustfulness and spontaneity to name only a few.

Slowly, in my case, I found a warm, compassionate, sensitive and loving woman; one who no longer needed to hold back for fear of rejection, one who could trust the flow of life and her place in it. I learnt, as a result of a brush with cancer (bodywork of another kind) that it was not only permissible but imperative to protect my own needs. Gradually I began to touch my own feelings of power. There was such relief in finally being able to value my sensitivity. My first ever school report, when I was barely six, had said it was "such a pity Judith was so sensitive"; later reports praised my endeavours to be less so. As an adult sensitivity had seemed an inescapable burden to myself and an embarrassment to others; wives of ambassadors are not supposed to weep in public, nor to be easily hurt. During my training, sensitivity slowly became integrated positively into my life as I began to appreciate its role in the practice of bodywork.

This story has a happy ending: I gave up all thought of returning to teach law, and convinced my husband to give up the practice of international diplomacy. Together we went to live in the fertile valley of the Goobragandra. There he does many things he has always wanted to do, and I practice Rosen Bodywork with those who venture to visit. There is a feeling of fulfillment in the air, and that must be one of the most beautiful feelings of all.

Note: Additional Material

The following is a list of books concerning other forms of bodywork practised in the USA, some of which are gaining acceptance in Australia:

Ken Dychtwald, Bodymind, Jeremy P. Tarcher / Perigee, Los Angeles 1986, a useful overview of many forms of bodywork and the literature
F.M. Alexander, The Use of Self, Methuen & Co. Ltd., Great Britain 1932, Victor Gollanz Ltd., London, Fourth Impression 1988;
Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 1949;
Alexander Lowen, M.D., Bioenergetics, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, New York 1975, reprinted Penguin Books, Great Britain 1980;
Moshe Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement, Harper & Row, New York 1972, Arkana, Great Britain 1990;
Arnold Mindell, Dream Body, Sigo Press, USA 1982, Arkana, Great Britain 1990.

* For a detailed discussion of Rosen Bodywork and training, see Rosen Method: An Approach to Wholeness and Well-being Through the Body, Elaine L. Mayland, Ph.D., 52 Stone Press, USA, 2005, ISBN 0 - 9773796-0-4 The author drew extensively on this book in this section of the article.