Does Bowen Therapy really work?

As a Bowen Therapy practitioner I may be a bit biased - of course The Bowen Technique really works! I wouldn't have spent the last 7 years & most of my money dedicating my life to training to be a practitioner & updating my skills through continued professional development in a technique that wasn't effective. I also have strong morals & would feel a bit of a fraud if I was taking money from clients for treatments, rehabilitation exercises & advice if none of it was going to help them.

I think a healthy bit of scepticism is good, especially in an age of fast-moving science & technology. The spreading of unfounded 'scientific' beliefs via fake news & a minority of untrained individuals practicing in an industry that is largely unregulated does not help the complementary therapist either!

Scientific evidence is necessary but not infallible. The very nature of science is that there is always something new to discover, prove or disprove. Advice given by health authorities one year may be contrary to the advice given a year later- remember when they told us not to eat eggs? Then told us that eggs were really great & we should all be eating them??

Scientific research has its barriers- it is costly, lengthy & has very strict parameters if it is to be peer reviewed. Due to funding issues many techniques or methods may go unresearched for many years so proof of effectiveness is based purely on anecdotal evidence & small studies individual or small groups of practitioners may take on board themselves. So many techniques that have been helping people for years have been ridiculed by sceptics & labelled pseudoscience purely for the lack of scientific evidence available to back up the evidence we clearly see so regularly in our clinics.

The very nature of being human can also be a barrier to scientific research - we are all different, what helps one individual may not be so effective for another & there could be a myriad of reasons why. This is why the treatments I offer are tailored to each individual, clients are advised to manage their own expectations as to how long their improvements will take & encouraged to be proactive in their recovery by following advice & exercise regimes prescribed. A research project with strict parameters may not take into account variables such as tailoring a session to the client present on the couch, their medical history, lifestyle, diet, personality, emotional state or even the mood they are in on the day of their treatment.

So yes, Bowen Therapy is just as effective as massage, physio, osteopathy etc. Anecdotal evidence from clients should be taken into account as evidence of efficacy until science can catch up & provide the concrete, peer reviewed evidence needed by some to take it seriously.

And you know what is the best bit? Bowen therapy doesn't discriminate - it works on sceptics too! Perhaps the best way of finding out is trying it out for yourself. It's safe, it's non-invasive & the worst thing that can happen is nothing!

For further reading on this topic follow this link as a starting point for your own research into effectiveness of The Bowen Technique

Research on the efficacy of the Bowen Technique – THE BOWEN ASSOCIATION UK (bowen-technique.co.uk)