Marion Rosen, founder of the Rosen method.

Marion Rosen, a physiotherapist, developed a method to release tensions and give people a chance to develop both physically and mentally. Today, at age 92, she continues to travel from her home in Berkeley, California, to other countries to teach and to treat.

Fled from Germany
Marion Rosen learned massage in Germany and completed her physiotherapy studies by age 22. She worked together with a Jungian analyst in Munich in 1935.

– We noticed that people undergoing psychotherapy needed less treatment time if they at the same time received physical treatment, Marion recalls.

Due to her Jewish extraction she felt compelled to leave Germany. She spent a year in Sweden where she studied to become a physiotherapist. She then moved to England, where she worked with the Tavistock Institute which still today trains psychotherapists and family therapists. She came to the USA in the beginning of the 1940’s, where she has since remained.

Started teaching late
She based her method on her experiences as a physiotherapist. It took a long time before she started teaching. Only when people who had seen the good results from her treatment began requesting that she would share her knowledge and experience did she start giving courses. She was then 55 years old. Her first student was Sara Webb, who today runs the Rosen Center together with Marion. There are two other similar centers in the USA.

Forward to the ”barrier”
In the Rosen method one speaks of the ”barrier”, which is the point where a person has chosen to turn off a feeling. It could be a specific memory of a painful experience or traumatic memories of abuse, accidents, illnesses, separation and the likes. The therapist’s job is to accompany the patient to the “barrier” and stay there. Not forcing, not pushing – just waiting.

The sign that something positive has occured is a change in the breathing pattern – it becomes freer and deeper. The face often gets a more open and peaceful expression. Sometimes a memory will pop up. The patient often experiences the treatment has changed the view of a certain memory or situation. When the understanding has changed, this will spontaneously lead to a change in the body.

Turning off emotions
Most diseases are caused by repressed feelings. When we don’t keep back the emotions, the pain disappears. This sounds easy, however, even if the principle is easy, it takes much to let out the feelings. When the Rosen therapist touches a tense muscle, the goal is to do so in a manner equal to the tension in the muscle. In this manner it makes it possible for the person receiving treatment to get an increased awareness of what is going on in the body.

An important aspect in the Rosen method is the patient’s choice. To let go of the tension is one choice, to keep it is another choice. The therapist doesn’t “do” anything, just holds and waits. The body is intelligent and doesn’t let up more to the surface that one can handle.

Don’t try to cause change
It is sometimes said that the Rosen method was inspired by Wilhelm Reich, one of the first to make the connection between the body and emotions with the expession “body armour”. Marion Rosen emphasizes that this is not the case.

– Reich and those who followed in his spirit try to obtain an effect by their treatment. The point of the Rosen method is to give the patient the possibility to let go of a tension located somewhere in the body. We do not try to change anything, only get the person to be fulfilled in his/her experience. Anger, sorrow, love – all can be brought to conscious awareness by this means, says Marion.

Rosen therapists have no psychotherapeutic training and thus should not treat people who suffer from serious psychiatric problems. In such cases where difficult memories come to the surface during treatment, the patient is recommended to go into psychotherapy, possibly with the Rosen method as a complement.

More information: http://www.rosenmethod.com/      and     http://www.rosenmethod.org/

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