Alterna-Med: Soma Therapy

Heavy Handbag Making You Lopsided?

By Sita White
Published: Dec 15, 2007

Have you ever been driving in a rush and found that you were gripping the steering wheel like Kate Winslet in Titanic when she’s on the verge of going overboard? How about when you put down your new, oversized handbag -- is your right shoulder higher than your left? Soma Neuromuscular Integration®, a mind body therapy that acts on the soft tissue of your body would explain these issues as structural patterns that your body has learned over time. By targeting these specific areas of tension with deep, penetrating strokes and push-pull movements, Soma can help you achieve miraculous body realignment and release those kinks and quirks that develop over time.

Since most forms of bodywork, Soma included, are based on the idea that our muscles store the emotions we feel on a day-to-day basis, many of them act as energetic reset buttons for the nervous system by digging in and releasing stored pain and stress. Both gentle and deeper, more manipulative forms of massage activate the parasympathetic nervous system which gives us that I’m not sure I can get up from the table feeling. While intensity of pressure and manipulation of joints, tendons, ligaments, and facial network varies for each individual, the experience is said to be life-altering. The program, invented by Bill and Ellen Williams, begins with a holographic body reading -- an approach that is not the typical “what is ailing you” questionnaire asked before a bodywork session. The holographic body reading is a diagnostic method that practitioners are taught, which is based on the tilt, shift and rotation patterns of our bodies. The reading allows practitioners to see where to focus and what types of adjustments need to be made in order to gain more freedom of movement and proper alignment. After the diagnosis, treatment can begin with a series of eleven bodywork sessions. The sessions follow a specific sequence moving through different areas of the body. Session one focuses on the rib cage and lower back, while sessions four, five and six lengthen the body core. Session seven promises to be a favorite, with the focal points being the neck, face and head. Because you are being taken apart piece by piece, reshaped, and slowly put back together, you are left feeling grounded and light as a feather. Your body will exude more fluidity, balance and grace.

The best part of all, and another unique aspect of Soma is that once the new alignment has been achieved and integrated, it maintains this new structure through automatic self-correction, meaning: no more one step forward two steps back. Karen Bolesky, who took over the right to evolve SOMA in 1986 and runs the Soma Institute, says that “The body sets patterns, of movement, of thinking, of emotions that become automated to preferred pathways over time. These actually will become a node within the nervous system, making change difficult. With the Soma work those pathways are released, in the facial tissue, nervous system, and in the perceptions, in the awareness, which allows for new choices to be made…Therefore, when there is release and integration the improvement in the body is progressively moving toward wellness.”

How to find a practitioner? Check out soma-institute.org or ask your physical therapist or local spa about the structural integration modalities they offer.

Sita White is a massage therapist in California who loves restructuring the reconstructed bodies of Los Angeles. She’s also studying acupuncture at Emperor’s College of Traditional Oriental Medicine.