Summary & Description

Injuries trigger muscular reflexes that rob you of control of your own muscles and cause pain and stiffness; you tighten up; you lose the ability to relax reflexively tight muscles and forget what free movement feels like. Everybody's had this experience. Without retraining, people often stay that way indefinitely:   

What's lacking in most therapeutic approaches is a direct way for you to unlock your own muscular tension and stay free. Until now.

The key to recovery is your brain - not the thinking mind, but the brain as master control center for your muscles. Through the brain-muscle training techniques of clinical somatic education, you recapture control of tight muscles from those muscular reflexes; you can relax and move, again.

"Somatic" means, "pertaining to the body experienced and controlled from within.

Clinical somatic education is a new discipline in the field of health care used to relieve a variety of presenting complaints often referred for osteopathy, physical therapy, chiropractic, massage therapy, and other modalities.

Hanna Somatic Education is a variety of clinical somatic education characterized by rapid and durable improvements for a variety of presenting complaints.  Some practitioners operate in connection with a physical therapy clinic, hospital rehabilitation center, or chiropractic office; others maintain private practices.

The operating premise of the approach is that chronic pain and various forms of dysfunction result from conditioned postural reflexes triggered by pain, stress, or injury, which cause the muscular system to go into contraction in characteristic ways.  These states of muscular contraction are typically obvious upon examination and disappear in the process of somatic education.

Reflexively-triggered muscular tensions cause pain from muscle fatigue (which may be misdiagnosed as ligament damage), joint compression, nerve entrapment (pinched nerve, e.g., sciatica, thoracic outlet syndrome), and/or reflexive neurological reactions (such as headache or constipation).  The same state of contraction often restricts movement, which restriction may be misdiagnosed as adhesions.

Most modern therapeutic approaches to muscular pain, joint pain, or nerve entrapment seek to correct a medical problem by intervening chemically (drugs), mechanically (adjustments, stretching, or massage), or electrically (electrical stimulation). Clients or patients with chronic musculo-skeletal pain often remain dependent on a therapist or drugs for a long time to manage their symptoms. Improvement is often temporary and may require many repetitions of the same treatment process.  The condition may eventually be designated as chronic and untreatable.

As a practical matter, pain and restricted movement that result from muscular tension cannot be permanently "fixed" from outside because they result from overactive postural reflexes triggered by pain, stress, or shock to the system, or by conditioning from repetitive motions – conditioning maintained in and by the brain.  Postural reflexes must be retrained, for lasting relief to be obtained.

Clinical somatic education uses movement education to retrain overactive postural reflexes; to enhance sensory awareness of body movement, posture and balance; and to restore free control of muscular tension and movement to the client.  Upon relaxation of overactive postural reflexes, relief is typically immediate (starting during the session) and lasting – generally definitive.

The method is effective enough to be highly practical and results, highly predictable, with the number of sessions needed for relief of most conditions being between two and eight sessions. Some practitioners offer a satisfaction policy.

In addition to hands-on methods used in Hanna Somatic Education, whereby the client is assisted in getting free of painful muscular tension triggered by postural reflexes, classes in somatic exercises, presented by certified Hanna Somatic Educators, foster further control of muscular tension and coordination. Self-help resources are also available -- instructional audio tapes, books and video. These resources are designed to help people who can't get to a practitioner and to support client's ongoing improvement at home (see below).

Medically Dignosed Conditions

Although clinical somatic educators do not make medical diagnoses, but only evaluate for patterns of muscular tension related to symptoms and personal history of injuries and stress, the list of medically-diagnosed conditions effectively addressed by this method includes headaches, chronic back pain, sciatica, thoracic outlet syndrome, psoas muscle pain, joint pain, most musculo-skeletal injuries, breathing difficulties, balance problems, and certain other functional disorders arising from brain conditioning.

Somatic education is also useful as an adjunct to psychotherapy in surfacing repressed psychological material while providing the “reserve” to make the surfacing of that material more tolerable.

Durable Improvements

The improvements gained through this method tend to be durable and require no special attention during daily life, other than periodic performance (daily, or so) of movement-based somatic exercises to refresh muscular freedom and comfort.  The method may be used as the primary therapeutic modality, or it may be used to support therapeutic interventions such as those commonly employed in physical therapy.

One of the goals of Hanna Somatic Educators is to foster self-sufficiency in their clients as quickly as possible, supported as needed by the self-care regimen referred to above. Long-term dependency on a practitioner of the Hanna Somatic Education modality is unnecessary and rare, as self-awareness and self-mastery are the goals of the modality.

The specific advantage seen in Hanna Somatic Education by referring physicians is that, while being effective in the relief of muscular pain and spasticity, it has the specific virtue of teaching the client an ability so to control the muscular complaint that there is little chance of a future return of the problem.

Hanna Somatic Educators are certified by the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training.

Finding A Provider

At present, no states regulate clinical somatic education. However, only persons certified by The Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training can legally call themselves, “Hanna Somatic Educators”.  Persons trained outside trainings sanctioned by The Novato Institute (by a certified practitioner) may call themselves: “Somatic Educators in the Tradition of Thomas Hanna,” and it is unlikely that persons without formal training would think to represent themselves by this designation.

Certified Hanna Somatic Educators can be located via the website, Somatics on the Web: www.somatics.com, by clicking the Practitioners link in the blue navigation bar at the top of the page, or by going to www.hannasomatics.com/practitioners.

Fees

Cost varies from $50 - $150 per session, depending on the practitioner.  Some practitioners offer a satisfaction guarantee.  As an educational, rather than medical, procedure, insurance coverage is unreliable.  The likelihood of coverage may be enhanced by getting a medical prescription stating the number of sessions prescribed, then contacting the insurance carrier to obtain a preauthorization number, and the name and telephone number of the issuing clerk; and providing material descriptive of the procedure to the issuing clerk for records.  Some practitioners submit the insurance claim as “unlisted modality”; others require payment at time of service and issue an insurance superbill to the client, to be sent by the client for reimbursement from the insurer.

Self-help resources can be found at: www.somatics.com/page7.htm.

More Information

Lawrence Gold
certified Hanna somatic educator
Creative Director
The Institute for Somatic Study and Development

Website Creator:
Somatics on the Web
www.somatics.com
awareness@somatics.com

The Association for Hanna Somatic Education
925 Golden Gate Drive
Napa, CA 94945

Somatics on the Web Description: the largest and most complete access point to information about, and practitioners of, clinical somatic education, a new procedure for enduring relief of musculo-skeletal injuries and stress-related pain that has resisted standard therapeutics. Information, Practitioners, Self-help Programs Web address: http://www.somatics.com

Additional links: