Swedish / Holistic Massage

The Swedish Professor Henrik Ling made a very dramatic contribution to massage. He realised that it was important to have the knowledge of anatomy and physiology before applying massage. He knew little of medicine and only treated conditions he regarded as normal. It was Chinese massage therapy, which he encountered during his travels, that first inspired him to experiment with massage in Europe.

He founded the Swedish system of massage and introduced such terms as effleurage, pettrisage, vibration and friction, as well as rolling, slapping and pinching. He went on to establish the Institute for the Teaching of Swedish Massage and Medical Gymnastics in Stockholm.

Swedish Massage employs the Holistic approach, the philosophy is that patients can heal themselves if the restricting factors are removed. The therapists job is to remove the factors that stop the patients body from regaining a state of balance (homeostasis).

As the word implies, the holistic approach involves treating the whole person - not just the presenting condition but all conditions which may or may not appear. It means looking at everything about the person, their job, their home life, diet, exercise regime and sleep patterns as well as general health background.

Complementary or natural therapies aim to keep people in a balanced state, thereby helping to prevent the onset of disease or illness. Whilst also treating the condition, they aim to treat the patient  'between conditions', i.e. when they are well, so as to keep them balanced and healthy at all times.

Swedish massage is performed directly onto the skin using oil to allow friction free movement. Our sense of touch is registered by  our skin, our largest and most sensitive organ. In the developing embryo the skin arises from the same cell layer as the nervous system. It receives and registers vast quantities of varied signals and makes a wide range of responses to them. Touch is the first sense to become functional in the embryo and this would seem to support  Aristotle's opinion that physical touch is the most fundamental of all the five senses.

Click for more details on the benefits to you of Swedish massage or go via the treatments link at the top of this page.