Does Structural Integration hurt?

When most people think Structural Integration or Rolfing®, one of the first things that come to their mind is pain. 

Often, this perception is based on anecdotal accounts of sessions performed during Rolfing’s infancy, when it tended to be a less subtle and more intense discipline, frequently linked to emotionally intense types of therapies that were popular in the late-60s and early-70’s. 

This can partly be attributed to an often-quoted complaint of Dr Ida Rolf during her training classes that her students failed to work deep enough. Many assumed that what she meant was that they needed to work harder and deeper. 

However, we now realise that it is possible to work deeply without causing pain.

Structural Integration is not about forcing the body to change. It is more about listening to the body and encouraging areas that are holding (ie tight and constricted) to open up and let go. We often do not realise that we are holding pain and stress in our body until someone else touches our pain.

There may be some discomfort while working in an area that has been under chronic stress. However, the discomfort is usually followed by a pleasurable feeling of release and relaxation.

Every client has a different relationship to pain and touch.

Yes! Photographs taken of clients years after the basic10-series show changes still present.

Physiology explains why: Our bodies are constantly breaking down and rebuilding themselves. Bodies determine how to rebuild themselves in the future, based on the present way in which weight and stress is distributed through the structure.

When we loosen, lengthen, and shift connective tissue, we affect relationships between structures; we change stress patterns.

Thus, the body rebuilds itself a bit differently. This is how Structural Integration affects structure over the long-term.

Obviously, if body-use changes due to injury, illness, or stress, additional work may be useful.