Body harmony is often described as a “bridge that leads from where you are to where you want to be”. This treatment technique is a kind of hands-on bodywork that promotes well-being and wholesomeness. Body harmony was created by Don McFarland and it is based on listening to the body’s messages and being guided by the client’s responses.

Body harmony originated with Don McFarland who has been both student and colleague of numerous pioneers in the fields of bodywork, breath work, healing, psychology, sports and dance medicine. Don observed that whatever system was being applied to people's bodies, those bodies themselves had their own opinions on what was being done and they had ways of making those opinions known.

Body harmony specializes in opening up all the channels of the body for communication. The therapist combines careful observation with sensitive touch and good listening skills to open up the body on all levels – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional.

The body’s response to touch can be wide ranging. Changes in tissue tension and texture, energy flow and blood flow relay important messages. Every body structure shares important information about physical pain and emotional or mental trauma. Amazingly, each structure also knows how it can be healed and what the shortest route to healing is.

A Body harmony session usually begins with a brief discussion with the client. During this session, the therapist observes and questions the client. This leads to goal setting. This is followed by the actual hands-on bodywork which involves the use of touch for listening in on the body organs. This is a totally non-invasive process.

It is important that practitioners of Body harmony apply these principles on themselves to facilitate effective communication with the client. The practitioner also needs to achieve a high level of congruity between words, actions and thoughts. He has to be able to recognise the verbal, physical and energy responses to the queries he poses to the body as well as to the patient directly. Many a time, the body’s messages appear as mental images to the therapist.

Body harmony functions on the basis that the body is intrinsically connected to the emotional and mental thought cycles that happen within the mind or the heart. The entire body is one single unit and physical symptoms are the outward manifestations of emotional disturbances and imbalances. Body harmony also believes that the body gives off minute tell-tale signals when it is unwell. Tuning in to these signals and capturing the data correctly is the foundation on which Body harmony technique rests.

Working with breath is an important element of Body harmony. It is often combined with Continuum Breath and Movement techniques; and this explores breath, tissue micro-movement and sound. Carrying out breath techniques in hot water is seen to speed up the entire process and it can also be used in group work sessions.

The stories told by the body of various life events can be memories of emotional, physical or mental trauma. Body harmonists believe that lasting changes are possible when appropriate communication and proper treatment is carried out. Body harmony is an open and evolving system. This treatment is about growth and change in all its various forms and Body harmonists are equally enthusiastic about learning things that will give them further evidence of its efficacy.

Body communications can be quite literal; sometimes these messages can be as vivid as coming into therapy with a marker pen indicating the problem area. Commonly these communications go unnoticed; mainly because many of the indications are very subtle. When the explorer observes these indications, he is able to get at the root of the problem and thus remove blocks that slow down the natural health and healing process.

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