Sean Johnson: Structural Medicine

The skin is no more separated from the brain than the surface of a lake is separate from its depths; the two are different locations in a continuous medium... The brain is a single functional unit, from cortex to fingertips to toes. To touch the surface is to stir the depths. - Deane Juhan

Treatment generally lasts about 30 to 40 minutes (sometimes shorter, sometimes longer). Children and babies treatments are generally shorter. It is performed fully clothed (wearing light, loose clothing or gym wear) and makes use of rolling movements of varying depth and pressure on the body. The speed and pressures of moves affect different mechanoreceptors (Golgi organ, Paccini, Ruffini, interstitials, muscle spindles) in the connective tissue of the body, creating sensory information for the Central Nervous System to act upon.
Something unique to the work is the use of a therapeutic pause to allow the process of interoception, whereby we allow the CNS to become sensitive to stimuli originating from inside the body. Sometimes this stimuli awareness is conscious and sometimes sub-conscious. During this pause I give the body a chance to respond to treatment and I leave the treatment room for a short period. On a busy clinic day I move into another treatment room to work on someone else and then return to assess and see what your body has done during the break. On a quiet day I leave the treatment room and have a sip of coffee before returning to you.
Treatment is holistic, focusing on trying to find root cause dysfunction within the body and not just treating symptoms. The body is assessed as a whole, treated as a whole and allowed to respond as a whole. Often the area of pain doesn’t need treatment as this is really the body’s attempt to find balance or is a compensation pattern.
Treatment is not just for an acute injury or problem but for general wellbeing and stress reduction as well, increasing the body’s adaptive ranges and allowing the body to return to homeostasis.
After treatment it is advisable not to perform any strenuous exercise for 24 to 48 hours, increase your water intake and prevent being sedentary for too long. Treatment is generally spaced between 4 and 7 days apart (this is however flexible under certain conditions) and it’s advisable to complete 3 treatment session for the full benefit of treatment (again this is also condition dependent and sometimes requires less or more sessions).