A Bowen Clinic, and other journeys

A Bowen Clinic, and other journeys Enjoy pain relief and improved health with the gentle manual therapy called Bowen Therapy.

We tend to become much more concerned when a symptom has been present for a long time, and understandably so. But durat...
09/09/2026

We tend to become much more concerned when a symptom has been present for a long time, and understandably so. But duration doesn’t tell us why something is continuing.

A nervous system can learn and movement can become habitual. Expectations can influence preparation, and protective responses can become increasingly familiar through repetition. So a persistent symptom doesn’t automatically tell us that the body is progressively deteriorating.

Sometimes persistence may tell us that the conditions which produced or maintained a response haven’t changed enough for the body to organise differently. That makes finding the solution considerably more interesting.

A while ago I was asked to treat two dressage horses with very different problems. One was recovering from his latest t...
09/09/2026

A while ago I was asked to treat two dressage horses with very different problems. One was recovering from his latest tendon injury in a foreleg. The other had become increasingly uncomfortable for his rider to canter.

I gave them two Bowen treatments each and expected they might need another one or two follow-ups. Life had other plans and those treatments never happened, so when I saw their owner recently, I was interested to hear how they’d been going. She told me both had changed immensely.

The horse whose canter had become uncomfortable was now comfortable to ride and doing more advanced dressage than ever before.

The other had remained sound, but something else had happened that I found even more interesting. His whole shape had changed. His withers had lifted, he was standing up on his pasterns better, his hunter’s bump was much less prominent and his tail was moving freely again.

I find changes like these fascinating because we tend to look at a horse’s conformation and think, “That’s just the way the horse is built.” Sometimes it is, but sometimes what we’re looking at isn’t simply structure. It’s the way the horse is using that structure. When muscles begin working differently, the way a horse stands, carries itself and moves can change too.

Two EMRT treatments and months later, two horses apparently still doing very well. I do love finding out what happened after I wasn’t there to watch it.

Protection is useful when we need it. If an ankle is injured, changing the way we walk can reduce load while tissues re...
08/09/2026

Protection is useful when we need it. If an ankle is injured, changing the way we walk can reduce load while tissues repair. If danger is nearby, becoming more alert may improve our chances of responding quickly.

Maintaining those responses indefinitely is a different matter. A protective limp changes loading elsewhere in the body. Continual vigilance uses resources. Muscles that remain guarded lose some of their freedom to respond differently. The response may still be doing exactly what it learned to do, even as the cost of maintaining it begins to grow.

Interesting, isn’t it, that some of the things we eventually experience as problems began as solutions.

Most of us have had the experience of becoming cautious after something frightened us. After falling from a horse, you ...
07/09/2026

Most of us have had the experience of becoming cautious after something frightened us. After falling from a horse, you may feel differently the next time you get on. After a car accident, an ordinary intersection can suddenly feel very different. Nothing dangerous needs to be happening in that moment for the body to prepare for what experience has taught it could happen.

Bodies learn. Previous injury, illness and prolonged periods of stress all provide information that can influence how the body responds later.

Sometimes today’s response may therefore make more sense when we know something about yesterday. That doesn’t make the symptom imaginary. It makes history relevant.

Last month I treated a lovely girl from a family I’ve had the privilege of giving Bowen to across three generations. Th...
07/09/2026

Last month I treated a lovely girl from a family I’ve had the privilege of giving Bowen to across three generations. This time, her parents wondered whether Bowen might help with her sleepwalking.

It had begun during a difficult period the previous year when she was being bullied within a sport. That situation had been resolved a long time ago and she was happy and doing well, but the sleepwalking had continued every night, sometimes more than once. It wasn’t particularly bothering her, although Mum and Dad’s sleep was certainly suffering!

I gave her a Bowen treatment and checked in with her mother recently to see how things had been going. She told me the sleepwalking stopped a couple of nights after that treatment and hadn’t returned.

I found that particularly interesting because the circumstances that were present when the sleepwalking began had disappeared long before the sleepwalking did.

Bodies find ways of responding to the circumstances they’re experiencing at the time. Sometimes those responses seem to hang around long after the original circumstances have changed. Maybe the body doesn’t always need the old response taken away. Maybe it needs another option. Whatever happened for this young lady, Mum and Dad are sleeping through the night again.

It’s rather lovely being trusted by the same family with different problems, at different stages of life across three generations.

Imagine you badly hurt your back while lifting something heavy. For a while afterwards, you might move differently. Yo...
06/09/2026

Imagine you badly hurt your back while lifting something heavy. For a while afterwards, you might move differently. You may brace before bending, avoid particular movements or become much more careful when lifting. That makes sense. Your body has learned something from experience, and being cautious after an injury may protect you while tissues recover.

Experience doesn’t disappear when healing is complete. The nervous system has a history now. A movement that once seemed completely ordinary has been associated with danger.

Perhaps some persistent symptoms begin here, with a response that originally made perfect sense and hasn’t yet found enough reason to change.

A lady recently travelled more than two hours to bring her dog to see me. He hadn’t been using one of his hind legs for...
04/09/2026

A lady recently travelled more than two hours to bring her dog to see me. He hadn’t been using one of his hind legs for about a month and was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. She hoped CCMRT might help him regain the use of it.

The poor fellow was obviously very sore. I treated him as gently as I could, but by the end I felt there was something more going on and suggested she have his back and pelvis X-rayed.

There was one lovely change, though. During the treatment he was able to lie down comfortably, something his owner said he hadn’t been able to do for some time. Afterwards, he had a deep sleep.

While he was sleeping, I gave his owner a Bowen treatment. She’d been hobbling around with a painful hip herself and was pain free afterwards.

A week later, she sent me a message. Her hip was still feeling great, but sadly the news about her dog wasn’t good. The X-rays had revealed fractures through his pelvis and spine, along with several areas where nerves were being affected. He had been put to sleep.

She was grateful, though, that after his treatment he’d remained much more comfortable for the time he had left. She also felt comforted knowing that he knew they’d tried to help him.

Not every treatment gets to be about recovery. Sometimes there is something equally worthwhile we can offer, and that is comfort.

And sometimes, when an animal and their human both need a little help, I can look after both.

One assumption sits quietly beneath much of the way we think about ill health. When the body behaves in a way we don’t ...
03/09/2026

One assumption sits quietly beneath much of the way we think about ill health. When the body behaves in a way we don’t want, we tend to assume something has gone wrong.

Organisms have spent billions of years developing ways to survive changing environments, injury, infection, scarcity and threat. Their responses don’t have to feel pleasant to serve a purpose.

Pain can protect, fatigue might conserve resources and inflammation can participate in repair. Fever supports defence and anxiety can increase vigilance when danger is anticipated.

Symptoms should not be ignored, and especially persistent, severe or unexplained symptoms deserve investigation, and sometimes the response itself becomes a problem requiring treatment. We can also hold another possibility alongside that.

The body we describe as malfunctioning may sometimes be responding remarkably well to difficult circumstances. If we become curious about what a symptom is trying to accomplish, we may begin to understand the situation very differently.

We have become very good at reducing symptoms. Painkillers reduce pain. Anti-inflammatory medications reduce inflammat...
02/09/2026

We have become very good at reducing symptoms. Painkillers reduce pain. Anti-inflammatory medications reduce inflammation. Stimulants can help us push through fatigue, and medications can alter many other uncomfortable experiences.

Sometimes symptom relief is enormously valuable and absolutely necessary, but what if the symptom was responding to something important?

If pain changes behaviour, fatigue conserves resources, inflammation participates in repair and fever contributes to defence, then at least some symptoms are carrying information as well as causing discomfort.

Reducing the symptom may make life considerably easier, but understanding why it appeared may tell us something else entirely. Perhaps listening to the messenger deserves a place alongside quietening it.

I try to call new clients a few days after their first Bowen treatment with me, just to see how their body responded and...
02/09/2026

I try to call new clients a few days after their first Bowen treatment with me, just to see how their body responded and to answer any questions about what they may have noticed since.

Sometimes I don’t need to make the call. This lovely message arrived the next morning after an initial treatment last week.

I always appreciate the early feedback. It’s rather nice knowing someone is out there feeling better while I’m getting on with my day.

Address

6/43 Macquarie Street
Dubbo, NSW
2830

Telephone

+61427143743

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