Ortho-Bionomy was developed by Dr. Arthur Lincoln Pauls, a British
osteopath, who wanted to find a way to work with the body which honored the body's inherent wisdom. From his experience as
a Judo instructor and through his training as an osteopath, he found ways of working with the body by exaggerating the body's
preferred postures, thereby permitting the body's self-healing process to create greater balance and alignment.
Working with the body
in this way provides a better working arrangement thus allowing for a greater range of motion and increased blood and oxygen
delivered throughout the body. He discovered that by working WITH the body and not against it, the body could find balance
on its own without having to use force to correct it.
Dr. Pauls believed that we had an innate intelligence that knew how to
self-correct. Finding the best position for release was not just about the pressure and distortion of the proprioceptors,
but depended on the intention of the practitioner to encounter (and be in relationship with) our natural self-healing processes.
This holistic perspective takes into account the client's complete experience of pain and suffering and the means of resolving
it. In the Ortho-Bionomy version of Positional Release the client is empowered to take control of his or her own healing.
The
term "Ortho-Bionomy" comes from "ortho" meaning correct or straight, "bio" meaning life, and
"nomy" meaning the laws of or study of. Dr. Pauls defined the term then as "the correct application of the
laws of life." He stated "[Ortho-Bionomy] is really about understanding your whole life cycle. Naturally, we focus
on the structure because that is the literal skeleton upon which our life is built. When your structure works right, your
circulation works better, you feel better, you think better." (Kain and Berns, 1992)
Dr. Pauls began teaching this work in
the US in 1976, and taught Ortho-Bionomy internationally until his death in 1997.
