Thomas Ambrose Bowen was among the last of a special breed of manual therapists in Australia. His kind is unlikely to emerge again, overtaken by the demands, regulations and rules of modern education and training. When, as a young man in the 1940's, Bowen came into contact with a famous Melbourne healer, little was he to know that this would be a life changing association for thousands of therapists and many more thousand people around the world.
The level of misinformation that evolved to become 'common knowledge' about Tom Bowen inspired former journalist turned manual therapist and Bowen Therapy School Director, Col Murray, to set out on a journey to set the record straight. Along the way he tells the story of this very special and often troubled Australian set against the emergence of a remarkable manual healing technique and the jealousies and nonsense that has surfaced in the race to make the work known to the world.
This book is an informative and often humorous romp through the world of natural therapies and the environment in which they operate.
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Col Murray
Col Murray is Co-Founder and Co-Director of the International School of Bowen Therapy (ISBT).
As a journalist (C.25 years) he edited, wrote and published varying newspapers and magazines. One of his editing roles was of two books for the world renowned automotive engineer, the late Phillip Edward Irving MBE, who designed the Repco-Brabham Formula One race car that (Sir) Jack Brabham used to win a world title.
In researching for this book, his role as a Bowen Therapy School Director (and Bowen Practitioner) has been extremely useful in allowing insights. Col says, "I think this is the sort of book that usually gets written a couple of generations down the track by someone who was not necessarily as close to the subject as I am".
His first awareness that bodywork was useful came during childhood with self-therapy and then due to his father suffering migraines, when Col was often asked to massage his Dad's scalp and neck, and at other times, his feet. "I had no idea what I was doing, except that it helped him. Dad liked it". Later he himself enjoyed a treatment from one of Tom Bowen's contemporaries, legendary South Melbourne bodyworker Bill Mitchell.
Col has been passionate about 'ability' being more important than a simple 'qualification'. "I well recall the Victorian Football Association dressing room days, my Dad and the others dressed in white, preparing footballers, one of them me, for matches and relieving aches and pains afterwards with massage and occasional manipulations. I have no recollection of any training dad did to do this but I assume it was by watching some of the 'untrained' manipulators of the time".
Then in 1990-ish, a close friend, Lisa Black, a Remedial Masseur of some standing and experience, with a very busy practice, having learned that Col had dabbled in the art in the past, in desperation asked for a massage. This resulted in the suggestion that he join her practice to do massages as she wanted to switch almost entirely to the Bowen work, first shown to her by a colleague, with which she'd been experimenting.
The two of them have stayed full-time in body work in some form or other ever since. Experiences evolving from this include having had the opportunity to demonstrate their work at the Chengdu Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in China. As Lisa had formal bodywork qualifications, since age 18, moving into teaching was a natural next step. "Realising we could combine this teaching with travelling opened up a whole new world for us", which Col and Lisa continue to do to this day, teaching an interpretation of Bowen Therapy in Asia, Europe and South America.
There are no other books by this Author.
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