The body is made up of many interrelated components – bones, muscles, nerves, a thin connective tissue called fascia, as well as internal organs (viscera) such as the liver, kidneys and intestines. These organs are in perpetual motion. When you breathe, walk and stretch, your organs move in your chest and abdomen.
This movement of organs is transmitted through fascia to other structures of the body. When you are healthy, all the structures move with fluidity. This movement is important as it influences activities throughout the body.
Organs lose mobility due to physical trauma, surgery, lifestyle, infection, pollution, diet, posture, pregnancy and such. When an organ is restricted, the body is forced to compensate. This creates abnormal points of tension and chronic irritations lead to functional and structural problems throughout the body.
Imagine scar tissue around the lungs. Every breath requires movement but the scar tissue alters the normal pattern. This could shift rib movements creating pulls on the spine resulting in mid-back and neck pain, and limit shoulder movement. This explains how pain can often be far removed from the actual cause.
Visceral manipulation (VM) is a therapy that aids the body’s ability to release restrictions and unhealthy compensations that cause pain and dysfunction.
To learn more about VM, we met with Nutnarinee Lerdsatittroong, better known as Khun Prahn. Khun Prahn is the founder of The Movement Clinic in Hua Hin, where she offers a range of services all about improving mobility, not limited to traditional physiotherapy. With a decade of experience, Khun Prahn has been developing her knowledge of VM to create even more effective treatments for clients.
As far as we are aware, Khun Prahn is the only practitioner offering VM therapy in Hua Hin. That’s meant attending training and obtaining certification from the Barral Institute. This is a research and training organisation led by Dr Jean-Pierre Barral, the acknowledged founder and expert in this emerging therapeutic technique. VM techniques are now taught worldwide to healthcare professionals through Barral Institute’s educational programs.
Khun Prahn explains that the uniqueness about Visceral Manipulation (VM) is that therapists use hands to find the root cause of a problem. “When your body is in pain, this conveys a message. I use my hands to help understand this message.”. In Barral Institute training, therapists are trained to be able to feel where the tension of the body lies when their hands are gently touching the body.
VM is a soft, hands-on manual therapy with the practitioner searching for this pattern and the source, and treats the related tissues. The treatment is a gentle compression, mobilisation and elongation of the soft tissues. Khun Prahn says as the source of the problem is addressed, symptoms will start to decrease
After learning some of the theory from Khun Prahn, our next ‘Learning About Visceral Manipulation’ article will follow real VM sessions, to report first hand on experiencing this therapeutic technique.
In the meantime, here’s a link to an explanatory Visceral Manipulation video Interview with Jean Pierre Barral:
Other articles about The Movement Clinic can be seen at https://royalcoastreview.com/2022/03/changing-lives-through-movement-a-thai-physiotherapists-mission-in-hua-hin/
