Imagine for a moment that one of your lungs has developed an adhesion, perhaps from a car accident or from a particularly rough and tumble game you used to play as a child. To accommodate this adhesion your lungs move differently, creating stress on the connective tissues, or fascia, around your lungs and ribs.
Over the years, the simple act of breathing continues to stress the fascia, eventually leading to stress and dysfunction in the joint connecting your ribs to your spinal column, causing you to change the way you stand and move in order to accommodate the stress on your back. After several years of these various compensations, you are experiencing back spasms or headaches that your doctor is at a loss to explain.
Visceral manipulation - or movement of the internal organs - is a type of soft tissue therapy that addresses the subtle, and often profound, effects that stress and strain on the connective system of internal organs can have on personal wellness.
Beginning in the mid-70's, visceral manipulation was developed by Dr. Jean-Pierre Barral, an osteopath, physiotherapist, and expert in human biomechanics. Barral's research and clinical practice uncovered a relationship between stress on the viscera and his clients' health. Barral and his colleagues developed a therapy of gentle and precise manipulation of the organs and their connective tissue, restoring healthy function to the organs and relieving the stress experienced by their patients.
After 40 years of clinical research, visceral manipulation continues to prove an effective therapy for treating a variety of ailments, including chest and abdominal sports injuries, spinal dysfunction, headaches and migraines, endometriosis, prostate dysfunction, anxiety and depression, gastrointestinal disorders, even infant colic.