An old form of therapy is gaining new followers. Over 50 years ago, a European
woman discovered that she could manipulate the connective tissue inside the
body to relieve clients' pain.
Ida Rolf called the treatment "structural integration," but to those who
practice it, the treatment has become known as "rolfing."
"The idea is that through injury and through patterns of body use and through
trauma, the body's connective tissues become hard and stiff in certain places
and, as a result, lock the body into certain ways of being held," explains
John Quigley.
"To rectify the situation, you need to physically manipulate the connective
tissues."
Quigley is the educational services assistant for the Rolf Institute for
Structural Integration. It's the only place in America where people can be
trained to become rolfers.
There are now over a 1000 rolfers worldwide. The institute also has training
centers in Europe, South America, Australia and Japan.
Typically, clients who see rolfers suffer from chronic back pain where
no amount of work with traditional therapies has succeeded. The rolfer meets
with the client for an assessment and books the required 10 treatments necessary
to make significant progress.