Today I want to share a bit about a bodywork modality called Ortho-Bionomy. I spent four days of the past week learning from a very experienced and skilled practitioner, Jim Berns: two TA days in his “Releases for the Spine and Pelvis” class, and 2 days in a weekend workshop on Isometrics. So, it’s the perfect time to record some of my fresh impressions.
The Unwinding Process: Notes From The Inside of an Ortho-Bionomy Release
May 2026: Psoas Release
I’m on the table. The practitioner (a fellow student) and I focus at my psoas: one of the deepest abdominal muscles, innately tied to the body’s survival and trauma response systems. She holds my legs, cradles them into my chest, then compresses gently into my abdomen. I feel my psoas, that most alien-feeling muscle connecting my lumbar spine to my femur through my deep abdominal cavity, relaxing into the safety of being held. Vibrating. Pulsing. Time slows, and memories from childhood surface. I find myself suddenly without a wall against an upwelling of tears; the cleansing kind of tears that make room for more light.
Afterwards, she guides me through a very slow process of getting up, gently moving, and taking a few steps, all while inside this greatly enhanced inner awareness; my body and nervous system is integrating a core shift. The room feels light. I sit on the floor and allow the class to continue around me while my body continues to process.
I am struck by the sacredness of this inner space I now inhabit. I feel very in touch with my body, and with my tension patterns. And I feel, almost like a thin line of light, a pathway of release. My body is almost moving of its own accord, in order to facilitate this winding thin line of progressive relaxation and opening. Like some tiny being is pulling a thread, and the tension is unraveling bit by bit. The table session may be over but something is still, deep within me, unwinding.
What is Ortho-Bionomy?
This modality was introduced to me at the very end of my 600-hour program at the SF School of Massage, and it was a radical philosophical shift from the deep tissue work we’d spent so much time learning and practicing.
“Ortho-Bionomy”, by Greek translation of “ortho” to apply, “bio” life, and “nomy” by law, translates to “the correct application of the laws of life”.
Jim described Ortho-Bionomy as the “Yin” modality of therapeutic bodywork, in contrast to standard Deep Tissue work as the “Yang”.
Yin and Yang is the deep Taoist concept of spiritual polarity/duality that I have personally spent a lot of time studying and working with in various parts of my life. Originally I was taught about Yin and Yang in a love-and-relationships context with Joanna Shakti. So I personally have a deep relationship with this framework, and there is a lot to be said about it that goes beyond the scope of this blog post. I’ll take a stab at a simple definition, though.
In essence, the Yang is an active “doing” energy, also considered masculine. Yin is the receptive, passive, or feminine counterpart of that energy. They always co-exist, dynamically influencing and even strengthening each other depending on the level of polarity in any given situation. Yang is action, Yin is rest. Yang is the river, and Yin is the canyon that holds it.
So in a Yang energy, a practitioner is playing a more active or penetrative role. In Deep Tissue work, you find a tight tissue, and sink into it to coax it to release and lengthen. The action is direct, and in a sense, linear. Of course, the level of Yang can be more or less even inside of this approach — too much would be forcing the issue and perhaps triggering the body’s defenses (which could actually hurt rather than help), and not enough would be ineffective at creating any kind of change.
In contrast, Ortho-Bionomy is a Yin approach. Rather than going directly to the tissue and changing it, it’s about creating a safe container that allows the body to do its own work from the inside. It is rooted in a practice of deep listening, and is fundamentally about working with the body’s patterns rather than against them. When I practice O-B, I am listening to how the body is actually wanting to move and change; I am becoming the river banks that hold the river. The inner healing process is that river, and when given a good container, it can move much more freely!
As effective as this method is, it really is a radical shift for a receiver who’s used to receiving that “Yang” energy in a deep massage. For people who are used to deep tissue massage, it takes some re-educating to learn how to relax into receiving this work.
Giving and Receiving Ortho-Bionomy: What It’s Like
Ortho-Bionomy can be done anywhere, and is a clothing-on bodywork modality, making it very accessible. It involves re-positioning and supporting the body in positions of ease around injuries or pains, and allowing the body to unwind itself.
The very heart of an Ortho-Bionomy session, in my experience, is the “unwinding” process I described above. In my body, for example, pain patterns tend to be tied to an area of some kind of dysfunction, where it feels like my tissues are actually wound up in knots — much like a ball of yarn that’s gotten tangled. This kind of situation happens in the body for any number of reasons, but we could point towards “trauma” as the cause.
“Trauma” can be a loaded word, but when I use it in this context I mean it in a very broad sense, including small common occurrences. All humans experience various kinds of trauma, large and small; it is an inevitable fact of life!
For example, you could say that stubbing your toe is a trauma, wherein the body undergoes a blunt-force experience it wasn’t expecting, and the tissue has to come up with some kind of immediate response and perhaps sustains some kind of damage. Sometimes we respond well to physical traumas, and other times we may end up with strange residual holding patterns in the body that, sooner or later, can cause problems.
In an Ortho-Bionomy session, a practitioner starts with a point of pain or tension in the body, and then maneuvers the client’s body in whatever way creates a softening and ease for that point. Usually the very best positioning for the release is the actual position or posture their body was in when they experienced the trauma that caused that pain. Then, when in that softened, easeful position, the body starts to do its own unwinding! It can be very awe-inspiring to witness and hold this subtle process, for both giver and receiver.
Ortho-Bionomy for healing deeper emotional-spiritual traumas
Something that came up in Jim’s stories this weekend is the fact that physical pain patterns can also be linked to emotional traumas. Ortho-Bionomy is an example of a physical modality that actually can help a person work through other layers of trauma. Interestingly, I learned this weekend that O-B has actually had some influence on traumatic therapy expert Peter Levine and his Somatic Experiencing modality! My teacher Jim co-authored a book with a renowned somatic and yoga therapist named Kathy L. Kain. Kathy apparently went on to work with Peter and bring some of the Ortho-Bionomy tools to his work, and is now a senior trainer in the Somatic Experiencing training program.
To describe the link between physical and emotional pain in simple terms – If we’ve ever held an emotional “guard” in a situation, that is often reflected in an embodied physical and nervous system holding pattern. Jim told us several stories this weekend of working with clients who had been sexually abused and had developed closed postural patterns in the shoulders and hips over the course of those experiences. Ortho-Bionomy, with its emphasis on creating a space of complete safety and comfort (both physically and emotionally), was an incredibly effective approach for those clients to incrementally come into embodiment of their own healing and empowerment, and ultimately release the guarding pattern – as well as take empowered steps in their lives to move forward and out of any lingering bad situations.
Hearing these stories of trauma healing connects me back to my time in Mazunte two years ago, where I did a training with Rene Refi on the Triple Vagal Method (TVM) – a bottom-up modality of nervous system trauma healing heavily rooted in Polyvagal Theory. I had experiences in that training, and in continued sessions with Rene, that completely changed me and even changed patterns in my family system. I lived through a healing experience that proved to me firsthand that the body holds the story of everything, and that somatic methods can lead to deep and profound inner and outer change. 1
I find that this kind of holistic bodywork sings to my spirit – it points to the kind of healing that really gets to the “root” issues behind our patterns, helping us fully release whatever has happened in the past and move forward with more renewed freedom.
How Ortho-Bionomy is starting to show up in my personal practice
I was on the fence about taking this workshop, in part because I was unsure about the process of integrating Ortho-Bionomy into my sessions. Where will it fit? Am I pursuing too many different modalities to cleanly integrate with one another? On the surface, this one seems to be very different from the other prominent parts of my practice: Esalen-influenced Swedish relaxation massage, Myofascial Release, Deep Tissue and Trigger Point work.
To some degree, these other modalities are easier to work with, because they are more familiar to the general population of bodywork receivers. Whereas, with Ortho-Bionomy, I feel like I have to do a lot of educating and mentally preparing people.
I’m happy to say that so far that integration process is actually feeling like a pretty organic thing. While I was immersed last week in workshops, I had a couple client sessions where I basically did a combination of Ortho-Bionomy techniques I’d been practicing in class, with my other approaches. I had to prepare my clients a bit differently for it, but since the material was really fresh in me and they had active pain patterns that needed resolution, it just flowed really naturally. And it was effective!
One client, a young mom, had thrown out her back after over-exerting on a bike ride and then picking up one of her kids. I did some Ortho-Bionomy releases for the lumbar spine and her impacted Quadratus Lumborum muscle, which softened the area a lot, and then went into some Myofascial Release and Deep Tissue work in the same area since she generally loves DT and her body responds well to it. In her case, both approaches worked well, and the results lasted!
With another client, a 76-year old woman who I’ve been working with for several months to help try to open her rounded back/shoulder area, I used Ortho-Bionomy to release her pec minor and to help expand the range of her overhead reach, and this was WAY more effective than any of the times I’d used Deep Tissue techniques in that same area. In her case, she has a long body history that includes various kinds of injuries and operations, and her body and nervous system is fairly guarded – for good reason! Using the Ortho-Bionomy approach was a great way to create safety, and to work very specifically and subtly to help her body find its own release pathway.
I don’t see myself using Ortho-Bionomy at Kabuki, where clients come in expecting something specific in the realm of Swedish relaxation massage, or for some people Deep Tissue work. Though I do occasionally get booked there for combination Swedish Massage with Energy Work sessions, and I could see it being a fit there, given that the work can be incredibly, deliciously subtle!
Who Should Receive Ortho-Bionomy?
Now for a very immediately practical question: who is this for? Should you be interested in receiving this type of work?
There are some obvious, immediate use cases for this modality.
Anyone actively in any kind of acute or chronic pain… this would be a safe kind of bodywork for you. The golden rule of Ortho-Bionomy is “No Pain”. A good practitioner will be able to work with you, no matter what is going on, safely. And the method really works! It might not unwind everything in one session, but it will set you on the right path and give amazing support to your body’s built-in healing process.
Then there are those of us who don’t have top-level obvious/debilitating pain, but rather have pain or tension patterns that are buried under the surface a little bit. This could be a nagging shoulder or neck pain that you’ve gotten used to ignoring, or a postural issue that is so ingrained you’ve forgotten it’s limiting you. Many, many people fall into this category. And for these people, it’s a real act of bravery to surrender to any kind of healing process, because in some ways it’s easier to try to ignore those lower-level dysfunctions than to take time to look at them.
I feel profoundly blessed to be receiving so much work, in the course of studying various bodywork modalities. And I hope that by sharing my own experience, I can shine light on the benefits that are here, so that more people can experience that without needing to go through a full-fledged emergency-level healing crisis.
On the table last week, I remembered that there’s something so natural feeling about real healing. I was in touch with parts of myself, after all.
But just as I see that my body’s healing process is completely organic, I also realize that I do quite often need some kind of outside support in order to be guided into that space. I need to be guided into it, and held in it, for the process to fully unfold.
This is what a skilled therapist does. They study and learn the language of the body, so can listen to what is needed and gently support it. Each body knows the unique path of its own unwinding. Tension patterns can be unwound, bringing relief, clarity, and freedom… amazing! And when I emerge from it, whether it was a long or a short process… the whole system needs to re-orient itself as it re-organizes. This, too, is a process that the therapist understands and supports.
So whether your pain lives on the top layer and is begging for attention, or lives underneath the surface… or if you’d like to actually relax into simply being held and cared for gently and specifically… it may be worth your time. The yin work may actually totally blow you away.
For the curious, there is an Ortho-Bionomy practitioner directory here. It will likely take me at least a year of sporadic workshops before I can claim Associate-level proficiency with Ortho-Bionomy. If you’re interested in receiving student-level work from me and helping me grow, or want to ask for a personal referral to someone in my network, please reach out!
Thanks for reading! Take care and be well,
Emma