Explanation of

Hanna Somatic Education ^®

Wikipedia Entry on Somatics

   Hanna Somatic Education (HSE) is a method used to correct (CLICK for partial list:) health problems commonly referred for osteopathy, physical therapy, chiropractic, massage therapy, and other modalities. Used with standard therapies, HSE improves their efficacy dramatically.

The term, "education" fits with the word "somatic" better than do the terms "therapy" or "treatment," which implies a return to the "pre-injury" condition. Education implies bringing a person to a higher level of well-being and function than before injury. Higher level functioning reduces the chance of future injury and graces the person with a higher level of fitness than he or she could reach, before.

Hanna Somatic Education eliminates both pain and the underlying cause of pain, and so accomplishes the goals of standard therapy, while going beyond them.

• CLINICAL SESSIONS: Hands-on procedures free people from the grip of muscular tensions maintained by muscle/movement memory and improve coordination and muscular control. "Control" means improvement in the person's ability to relax and to tighten muscles in movement, to begin, carry out, and end movements with ease, grace, and confidence.

• SOMATIC EXERCISES magnify the results of clinical sessions, improve coordination and purge out the residual tensions of daily living.

Every injury or stress-period leaves an imprint in memory that shows up as a muscular tension habit (muscle/movement memory) that continues indefinitely as if the injury or stress situation is still happening. Changes of movement and posture of this type are so common that people don't recognize their significance and commonly attribute them to aging or to, "that just how he (or she) is", or "how I am."

Hanna Somatic Education quickly ends such muscular tension habits.

What distinguishes HSE from other approaches is the use of "the pandicular response" (or "omni-yawn") an action pattern done instinctively by all animals upon arising from rest, going into activity.

Everyone has seen and done this action pattern, but misunderstood it as "stretching". It involves tightening oneself in certain ways (e.g., the "morning stretch"), in the mood of a yawn. This action triggers sensation in the brain (cerebral cortex), which wakes up the parts of the brain involved in moving and feeling movement. This refreshes us for action. It's a natural action of waking up. Pandiculation (or the omni-yawn) improves the abilities both to move and to relax, freeing musclebound muscles and ending the tendency to cramp or go into spasm.

You may have noticed that you can't really relax, completely, that you hold tension. Here's why:

When you experience physical or emotional trauma or long-term stress, a memory imprint forms. This memory imprint shows up as involuntary muscular tension (guarding reactions) that resists stretching or external therapeutic modalities -- guarding reactions that make you tight enough to cause chronic pain and restrict movement.

Such guarding reactions operate from centers in the brain involved in reflexes and posture -- involuntary muscular actions. The pandicular response shifts the center of control from those involuntary reflex centers to the parts of the brain involved in voluntary movement. Muscles relax and pain fades out, leaving you completely fit for activities.

You can see differences between HSE and common therapeutic modalities in a comparison chart and understand why by comparing their operating principles. The practical differences show up in their results.

Somatic education improves more than symptoms -- it improves the functional condition that underlies the symptoms. Three steps: healing injury prevention functional enhancement

Comparing Somatic Education and Standard Therapeutic Modalities

• Most therapeutic approaches to muscular pain (CLICK for comparison) seek to "fix the patient"; they act upon the patient chemically (drugs), mechanically (manipulation, stretching, or surgery), or electrically (TENS, electric stim) or take the patient/client the wrong direction (strengthening -- where excessive muscular tension is already the problem). Clients or patients with chronic musculo-skeletal pain often remain dependent on therapy for a long time. Improvement is often slow, temporary, and may require many repetitions of the same treatment process. Many people exit therapy with some or all of their symptoms (regrettably) intact.
• Pain and restricted movement from muscular tension cannot be permanently "fixed" from outside. For a lasting change, the "fix" must occur from within; the client/patient must correct themselves. Hanna somatic education (HSE) guides and assists the client/patient through the process. Rather than being slower than therapeutics, HSE is faster and highly predictable. The client feels results immediately during the session; most conditions resolve completely in between two and eight sessions.

  Some practitioners offer a money-back guarantee of satisfaction.

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.

In addition to hands-on, clinical methods, classes in somatic exercises presented by certified Hanna Somatic Educators enable people to improve themselves without the help of clinical practitioners.

Self-Relief Somatic Exercise Programs

Hanna Somatic Educators are certified by the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training.  certified Hanna Somatic Educators practice throughout the world (Point and click on underlined words for locations.).

Our goal is for you to become self-sufficient and independent of therapy as quickly as possible. Long-term dependency on your Hanna Somatic Education practitioner is unnecessary and unexpected, since the changes are durable. Sometimes, people return later, after having complete a course of a few sessions, but usually it's to address a new or different problem.