Visceral Massage
The Lauren Berry Method®
Visceral massage is integral to whole-body therapy.
Lauren applied structural and hydraulic principles to the whole body, recognizing the importance of fluid movement through both the lymphatic system and the viscera.
The human body is more than 60% fluid. Lauren described it as a hydraulic system, with fluids continually moving, exchanging, refreshing, recycling, and being redistributed throughout the body.
The viscera are a major part of that process. Through circulation, digestion, filtration, absorption, and lymphatic movement, the visceral systems participate in maintaining this continual movement and exchange.
A common thread running through many forms of bodywork is reestablishing natural movement and rhythm. The Lauren Berry Method® of visceral massage approaches this through a distinctive set of principles and hands-on techniques that encourage the natural movement and rhythms fundamental throughout the body.
These principles and techniques can be woven into almost any bodywork style or session.
The Thinking Behind the Work
Corrective bodywork recognizes whole-body relationships.
The body adapts. When one region becomes restricted or imbalanced, other regions compensate so that we can continue to stand, move, work, and function.
Over time, those compensations can create tension far from where the original imbalance began. A painful wrist or hand, for example, may be influenced by patterns extending through the arm, shoulder, trunk, pelvis, and core.
Learning to recognize these relationships changes the way we work. Instead of simply treating the place that hurts, we begin asking what the body is adapting to and why.
The Body Is Connected
The viscera do not exist as separate organs working independently. Each structure has relationships with the tissues around it, and those relationships continue outward through the whole body.
Breathing moves the diaphragm. The diaphragm influences the abdominal contents. Movement of the trunk changes pressure and position within the abdomen. The nervous, circulatory, lymphatic, muscular, and digestive systems continually interact.
For the bodyworker, the important question becomes:
What are your hands feeling,
and how does it relate to the whole?
Visceral imbalances can be part of a larger pain pattern.
Restriction or congestion in the abdominal region may influence pressure, tissue mobility, and compensatory tension elsewhere in the body. Recurring pain can sometimes reflect these broader relationships.
Explore chronic pain patternsThe Workshop
This is a hands-on class. Our focus is on four primary components of the abdominal digestive system that we can influence with our tactile tools and that play an important role in the movement, processing, and exchange taking place throughout this region.
Congestion, restriction, or altered movement among these visceral structures can be part of a larger pattern of imbalance throughout the body. What is happening in the abdomen does not necessarily remain in the abdomen.
Often, beginning here and encouraging more natural movement within these structures allows distant reactive tensions to quiet and dissipate as the body reorganizes.
This is important work.
These principles and techniques can become part of almost every bodywork session.
Visceral Massage
Class location and schedule to be announced.
Registration information and class resources will be available here as workshop dates are scheduled.
Please check back occasionally for class dates and updates.
Taum Sayers is an NCBTMB Approved
Continuing Education Provider.
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