Hanna Somatic Education is available in two forms:

• CLINICAL SESSIONS
• SOMATIC EDUCATION EXERCISES (pandiculation action patterns)

CLINICAL SESSIONS: Hands-on procedures free people from the grip of muscular tensions maintained by muscle/movement memory and improve coordination and muscular control. "Control" means improvement in the person's ability to relax and to tighten muscles in movement, to begin, carry out, and end movements with ease, grace, and confidence. Often, fewer than seven sessions are needed for complete results.

Hanna Somatic Educators are certified by the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training.  Certified Hanna somatic educators practice throughout the world.

Some offer a money-back guarantee of satisfaction.

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SOMATIC EDUCATION EXERCISES magnify the results of clinical sessions, improve coordination and purge out the residual tensions of daily living.

Somatic education exercise classes presented by certified Hanna Somatic Educators teach people to improve themselves without the help of clinical practitioners. It's slower going, but it works.

a L.E.A.R.N. Advantage program

Wikipedia Entry on Somatics

The word, "education" fits with the word "somatic" better than do the terms "therapy" or "treatment". You learn something new that works better.

"Therapy" and "treatment" imply "getting rid of symptoms" -- a return to your "pre-injury" condition. "Education" implies development -- better off than before.

Clinical Somatic Education extinguishes pain far faster than conventional physical therapy or "alternative" methods of treatment. It reduces the likelihood of re-injury and leaves you better than before injury.

Hanna Somatic Education (HSE) is a clinical approach used to correct (CLICK for partial list:) chronic pain conditions commonly referred for osteopathy, physical therapy, chiropractic, massage therapy, and other modalities. Used with standard therapies, HSE improves their efficacy dramatically. Used alone, HSE is commonly sufficient.

Hanna Somatic Education eliminates both pain and the underlying cause of pain, and so accomplishes the goals of standard therapy and more.

How Do You Treat Chronic Injuries?

Every injury or stress-period leaves an imprint in memory that shows up as a muscular tension habit (muscle/movement memory) that often continues indefinitely as if the injury or stress situation is still happening. Changes of movement and posture of this type are so common that people don't recognize their significance and commonly attribute them to aging or to, "that just how he (or she) is", or "how I am."

Hanna Somatic Education (HSE) quickly ends such muscular tension habits and the pain and restricted motion that result, from them.

What distinguishes HSE from other approaches is the use of "the pandicular response" (or "pandiculation") an action pattern related to yawning done instinctively by all animals upon arising from rest, going into activity, to refresh the body-sense and control of movement. View the video, below.

Everyone has seen and done pandiculation, but most people misunderstand it as "stretching". 

Pandiculation is the correct name for the natural action people commonly do upon waking up. 

It involves tightening up in certain ways and then relaxing in a leisurely way (e.g., the "morning stretch"), in the mood of a yawn. In fact, yawning is one form of pandiculation.

The sensation triggers wakes up the parts of the brain involved in moving and feeling movement. Then, we're ready for action. 

Pandiculation (or the omni-yawn) improves the abilities both to move and to relax, freeing musclebound muscles and ending the tendency to cramp or go into spasm.

What's new is the application of this response to injuries and muscular pain patterns. Pandiculation works quickly to restore freedom of movement and comfort.

Your Experience of Injury and Therapy?

You may have noticed that you don't and can't really relax completely, that you always hold tension. 

Here's why: brain conditioning

When you experience physical or emotional trauma, or long-term stress, a memory imprint forms. 

This memory imprint shows up as involuntary muscular tension (a guarding reaction) that resists stretching or external therapeutic modalities -- a guarding reaction that makes you tight enough to cause pain and restrict movement.

Such guarding reactions come from centers in the brain involved in self-protective reflexes and habitual posture -- which are involuntary muscular actions that come from primitive reflex centers of the brain. 

The pandicular response shifts the center of control from those involuntary reflex centers to the parts of the brain involved in voluntary movement. This is a natural part of the healing response.

Muscles relax and pain fades out, leaving you completely fit for all ordinary activities. Improvements occur during the session and withstand all ordinary activities.

Comparing Clinical Somatic Education and Standard Therapeutic Modalities

Most therapy seeks to "fix the patient" by acting upon the patient chemically (drugs, ultrasound), mechanically (manipulation, stretching, or surgery), or electrically (TENS, electric stim) -- rather than having the patient regain control of their own body. You can't change conditioning, from outside. So, after therapy (hours or days), the patient's previous, injury-caused conditioning takes over and symptoms return.

Your experience?

When therapy uses stretching and strengthening, that doesn't work very well, either. Stretching doesn't work because it works on the effect (tight muscles) rather than the cause (brain conditioning formed suddenly, at the time of injury). Strengthening doesn't work because the pain is caused by muscles that are already too tight. It's the wrong direction for successful therapy.

People commonly remain dependent on therapy for a long time. Improvement is often slow, temporary, and may require many repetitions of the same treatment process. Many people exit therapy with some or all of their symptoms (regrettably) intact.

Pain and restricted movement from muscular tension (which may seem like muscular adhesions) can't be permanently "fixed" from outside. For a lasting change, the "fix" must occur from within; the client/patient must correct themselves. Hanna somatic education (HSE) guides and assists the client/patient through the process. 

Rather than being slower than therapeutics, results of clinical sessions of HSE come faster and are far more predictable. You'll feel results immediately during the session, results that last, afterward. Most pain conditions resolve completely in between two and eight sessions.  Postural improvements come immediately and are lasting.

You can see differences between HSE and common therapeutic modalities in a comparison chart and understand why by comparing the different approaches they take, which show up as the results.

The specific advantage seen in Hanna Somatic Education by referring physicians is that, while being effective in the relief of muscular pain and spasticity, it has the specific virtue of teaching the client an ability so to control the muscular complaint that there is little chance of a future return of the problem. 

~~ Thomas Hanna, Ph.D.

original developer

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Our goal is for you to become self-sufficient and independent of therapy as soon as possible. Long-term dependency on a Hanna Somatic Education practitioner not to be expected, since we expect your improvements to be durable. Sometimes, people return later, after having complete a course of a few sessions, but it's virtually always to address a new or different problem.

CLICK THE IMAGE FOR INFORMATION.

The Institute for Somatic Study and Development

Milwaukie, OR  97008

Lawrence Gold, C.H.S.E. (certified Hanna somatic educator) 

telephone 505 819-0858 | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY 

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CONTACT  

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION 

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Hanna Somatic Education ® 

is a registered trademark of The Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training

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