In order for our body’s to function optimally, all of our vital organs need to be able to move. Visceral Manipulation is a gentle manual therapy that works through the visceral or internal organ systems to locate and release restrictions and unhealthy compensations that lead to pain and dysfunction. This therapy allows us to identify and treat organ dysfunction and set up a process that enables the body to heal itself.
Visceral Manipulation is a manual therapy consisting of gentle, specifically placed manual forces that encourage normal mobility, tone and inherent tissue motion of the viscera, their connective tissue and other areas of the body where physiologic motion has been impaired.
For an organ to be healthy and have optimal function there needs to be motion.
Tissues lose their normal motion when they become inflamed.
The natural healing process involves local disruption of normal tissue fibers and their replacement with relatively inelastic granular tissue that allows the organs to adhere to the surrounding tissues. Many factors can cause tissue inflammation including: infections, direct trauma, repetitious movement, diet, environmental toxins and emotional stress.
Jean-Pierre Barral, a Physiotherapist (RPT) and Osteopath, developed a form of manual therapy that focuses on the internal organs, their environment and the potential influence on many structural and physiological dysfunctions. The term he coined for this therapy was Visceral Manipulation.
Visceral Manipulation relies on the palpation of normal and abnormal forces within the body. By using specific techniques to evaluate how abnormal forces interplay, overlap and affect the normal body forces at work. The goal is to help the body’s normal forces remove abnormal effects, whatever their sources. Those effects can be global, encompassing many areas of bodily function.
How Does Visceral Manipulation work?
Visceral Manipulation is used to locate and solve problems throughout the body. It encourages your own natural mechanisms to improve the functioning of your organs, dissipate the negative effects of stress, enhance mobility of the musculoskeletal system through the connective tissue attachments, and influence general metabolism.
How is Visceral Manipulation performed?
Visceral Manipulation is based on the specific placement of soft manual forces to encourage the normal mobility, tone and motion of the viscera and their connective tissues. These gentle manipulations can potentially improve the functioning of individual organs, the systems the organs function within, and the structural integrity of the entire body.
Harmony and health exist when motion is free and excursion is full – when motion is not labored, overexcited, depressed, or conflicting with neighboring structures and their mobility. Visceral Manipulation assesses the dynamic functional actions as w ell as the somatic structures that perform individual activities. They also evaluate the quality of the somatic structures and their functions in relation to an overall harmonious pattern, with motion serving as the gauge for determining quality.
Due to the delicate and often highly reactive nature of the visceral tissues, gentle force precisely directed reaps the greatest results. As with other methods of manipulation that affect the body deeply, Visceral Manipulation works only to assist the forces already at work.
- Acute Disorders: Whiplash, Seatbelt Injuries, Chest or Abdominal Sports Injuries
- Digestive Disorders: Bloating, Constipation, Nausea, Acid Reflux, GERD, Swallowing Dysfunctions
- Women’s & Men’s Health Issues: Pelvic pain, Endometriosis, Fibroids, Cysts, Dysmenorrhea, Incontinence, Prostate Dysfunction, Referred Testicular Pain, Effects of Menopause
- Musculoskeletal Issues: Somatic-Visceral Interactions, Chronic Spinal Dysfunction, Headaches and Migraines, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Peripheral Joint Pain, Sciatica
- Pain Related to: Post-operative Scar Tissue, Post-infection Scar Tissue, Autonomic Mechanisms
- Pediatric Issues: Constipation and Gastritis, Persistent Vomiting, Vesicoureteral Reflux, Infant Colic
- Emotional Issues: Anxiety and Depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder