About Rosen Method

Rosen Method is a gentle and profound approach for a wide range of issues. Done on a massage table, Rosen Method uses respectful, direct touch and collaborative dialogue to help you feel where and how you hold tension and restrict breathing in your body (which we all do), and helps relax these non-conscious, habitual, and even life-long ways of managing stress and the effects of trauma.  The work supports ease, unburdening, increased energy, and a renewed sense of self. People experience relief in the first session and often notice significant, lasting change even after a short course of sessions.

 You may benefit from Rosen Method if you: 

• want to relax and feel more vitality and joy;

• want to engage more fully in life and relationships;

• are seeking enhanced self-awareness and personal growth;

• feel frozen, numb, blocked or ‘stuck’;

• suffer from chronic fatigue, headaches, body aches, digestive issues, frequent back pain, neck pain, hip pain, clench your jaw or grind your teeth, and have already consulted or are under the care of a physician or other healthcare provider for those complaints;

• are high-functioning but often feel depressed or anxious and have already consulted or are working with a physician or psychotherapist for those conditions;

• are managing chronic or progressive disease in partnership with a physician; and/or

• have a history of trauma, assault or abuse or suffer from low self-worth or low self-esteem and want to regain your confidence and aliveness.

How Rosen Method Works

Muscle tension (holding, bracing, armoring, guarding or resisting) is the brain and body’s way of trying to protect us from experiences that were too difficult or painful to fully process at the time they occurred. We hold feelings and emotions in, hold them back, force them down or try and push them away, and we immobilize injured areas of the body and deaden sensation in those areas until they heal.  These are all reasonable responses in the moment, especially when we are young or whenever we feel overpowered, overwhelmed, or fear that our reactions might make the situation worse. But over time, chronic holding (of our bodies and our breath) can become automatic and our default response to life. Muscle tension is unconscious—we forget we are even doing it or why—and this habitual, defensive response to past experience can become a barrier to present experience, full self-expression, authentic connection, and free movement and flow of the body and breath. It is also a reason why many people suffer from chronic fatigue, low energy, pain of unknown origin, undue stress or worry, and dis-ease.

Rosen Method contacts and makes people aware of their chronic holding, which in turn allows the holding to release and relax. Energy spent protecting can go back into living. Our expansive nature is restored.

Rosen Method is a fine complement to psychotherapy and medical or alternative health care and a wonderful stand-alone approach to personal and life enhancement for high-functioning people. The work is not a form of, or substitute for, medical or mental health diagnosis, care, and treatment.  

Developed by Marion Rosen, a pioneer in the field of mind-body therapies for over 70 years, Rosen Method is offered around the world.