Origins
Thomas Bowen was born on the 18th April 1916 in Brunswick, Victoria Australia, a suburb of Melbourne. He started developing a technique latterly to be known as the Bowen Technique in the 1950’s. The unique technique manipulating soft tissue was to continue to evolve and be fine tuned by Tom, until his death in October of 1982.
Tom
was not trained in either a medical or alternative therapies but he became
very interested in alleviating human suffering, after the first world war. It
was common for a patient to walk out in as much pain as they came in, but this
is all part of Bowens unique approach. He did not advertise but relied solely
on word of mouth.
He treated around 13,000 patients a year and claimed an 88% success rate, a phenomenal achievement. He was a very generous man and apart from his clinic, he ran a monthly clinic where he treated children with disabilities for free and on Saturday nights opened his clinic to injured footballers.
Tom had a sign on the wall of his clinic which read:
“I expect to pass through this world but once,
any good thing therefore that I do,
or any kindness that I can show to any fellow-creature, let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again”
His work was viewed by his family and many interested parties, there were only 6 however that Tom shared his understanding and work with, one of which was Oswald Rentsch, he and his wife Elaine have spread the word around the world.
It was in 1992 that Julian Baker who was
originally treated for a chronic neck problem in Australia with excellent
results, brought the technique back to the United Kingdom. After two years in
which he saw very little success the Daily Mail published an article that
fired huge interest, this led to the continued promotion of the Bowen
Technique and the formation of the
BTER (Bowen Therapists European Register)
in 1998. This continues to grow, as does the research into the technique and
its capabilities.
Copyright © Bucks
Bowen 2004-2007
Page last updated 10 July 2007