What is Structural Integration ?

A very good question…  …    and one I have always struggled to answer, so when my webmaster, George asked me to write this for the website, I was stumped.  An hour later, still struggling, I asked my good friend Penny – what is Structural Integration?  Her reply was immediate.  “Structural Integration is the therapy that took my pain away.” 

Penny had been involved in a motorway accident 4 years previously.  Since then, driving for longer than 5 minutes and her left leg/hip became very uncomfortable and painful.  After the S.I. work she no longer has this pain and feels better overall. 

Structural Integration 

Structural Integration is a hands on body work on the soft tissue (Connective Tissue) on the whole body: it relieves the strain/stress patterns that cause restriction of movement and pain.

WHAT is CONNECTIVE TISSUE:

Connective tissue, also known as Fascia, is the packing material of the body. It envelops the muscles, bones and joints and holds us together supporting the body structure and giving us our shape. Fascia organizes and separates: it provides protection for the individual muscles and viscera. It joins and bonds these separate entities and establishes spatial relationships. Chemically it is the collagen in the fascia that enables it to change. Collagen, a colloid is capable of changing from fluid to solid, and solid to fluid in response to the forces acting upon it. With chronic tension collagen tends to shorten and harden. Structural Integration rehydrates and restores elasticity to the fascia.

For example

If you hurt your ankle it will swell up to immobilize/restrict movement and allow the body to repair the damage.  While the ankle movement is restricted and painful to use, this will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the body.  You will walk with a limp, the other leg will bear more weight, pelvis will tilt to compensate for the limp, the spine be thrown out of alignment at the sacrum and compensate at the neck and shoulder girdle.  The body will have a whole new set of compensations while the ankle heals.

Like any repair, there is usually weakness of varying degrees, depending on the severity of the injury and body type, and also a whole new set of strain patterns to compensate for the foot injury … some of these patterns will stay.

Structural integration will smooth out these patterns at a level that is acceptable to the owner of the strain pattern.

Read my further thoughts here