History of Bowen

Tom Bowen (1916-1982) was a very intuitive, gifted and self taught healer who developed his ‘soft tissue manipulation’ therapy independent from any formal medical training, but he did his own anatomy and physiology study from books and observation. He lived in Geelong Australia (his parents emigrated from Wolverhampton before he was born) with his wife and children, and worked at a cement factory. He started to treat the occasional person, using his intuition on how and where to work on the body with staggering effect. Very quickly his reputation grew and at the age of 43 had a full time practice in ‘remedial therapy’. He was recorded by the Victorian Governing Webb report to have treated 280 people per week, an astonishing 13,000 people a year, with an 88% success rate. He never advertised his work and his patients came to him through word of mouth.

A few people had the honour of observing and documenting Tom’s work, and Oswald Rentsch was one of them. After Tom’s death in 1982, Oswald began to put Tom’s work into a trainable format for other to learn it, and it was named The Bowen Technique.

Now The Bowen Technique is taught all over the world.

There are now a number of schools who train The Bowen Technique, I am most familiar with The European College of Bowen Studies led by the inspirational Julian Baker and The Bowen Therapy Academy of Australia led by Oswald Rentsch. I have qualified with both of these schools with the treatment of people and horses.

The Bowen Technique has also been developed for animals (domestic and non domestic). I have trained in Equine Muscle Release Therapy and Equine Bowen Therapy. It is amazing to see a horses rebalancing process, especially as there is no possibility of the placebo effect, which again proves the power and effectiveness of the Bowen therapy.