The Gentle Bodywork
TRAGER, the gentle bodywork, teaches us to move through our lives of everyday effort and tension with greater ease and relaxation, a gift that most of us could use!
A Bit of History
The Trager Approach, sometimes referred to as psycho-physical integration, had its beginnings almost seventy years ago with a young athlete named Milton Trager. Milton was encouraged by his trainer who was amazed at the effectiveness of the young man's touch. From that period in his life, Milton experimented with awareness and movement in his own body and, through that, discovered a unique form of movement and touch which encouraged profound change in many people. Trager went on to study physical medicine and then became an M.D. when he was forty-seven years old. He continued to develop his method, especially with patients needing physical rehabilitation, during medical school and in his practice in Hawaii. In the mid seventies, Dr. Trager presented his method at Esalen in California. Students began to study with him, learning the approach and ways to teach its essence. From that beginning, Dr. Milton Trager co-founded the Trager Institute with Betty Fuller. Many of the early students helped to establish Trager Institute and are still instructors in the training program. In 1977 Dr. Trager retired from his medical practice to devote his energy to training practitioners. Well into his 80's, Milton Trager continued to teach advanced trainings. On January 20, 1997, Milton Trager passed on at the age of 88, with the gift of his work being practiced all over the world.
What is Trager?
Trager is a gentle and profound way to approach the whole person - body, mind, and spirit - through movement and re-education. Dr. Trager has described his work ... "as directed towards reaching the unconscious mind of the patient. Every move, every thought communicates how the tissue should feel when everything is right. The mind is the whole thing, that is all I am interested in. Tragering consists of the use (not the laying on) of the hands to influence deep-seated psycho-physiological patterns in the mind, and to interrupt their projection into the body's tissues. These patterns often develop in response to adverse circumstances such as accidents, surgery, illness, poor posture, emotional trauma, stresses of daily living, or poor movement habits. The purpose of my work is to break up these sensory and mental patterns which inhibit free movement and cause pain and disruption of normal function. My approach is to impart to the patient what it is like to feel right in the sense of a functionally integrated body-mind. Since the inhibiting patterns are affected at the source - the mind - the patient can experience long-lasting benefits. The result is general functional improvement."
The Trager Approach is often referred to as "Psychophysical Integration" because it utilizes feeling and physical touch as well as movement and awareness to affect the changes in the patterns that we develop in our minds and bodies. Through extensive training, a certified Trager practitioner learns not just a method, but a way of being present, listening kinesthetically and responding to the tissue. The Trager Approach is truly non-invasive; the practitioner never tries to fix or change what is there. Instead, a quality of feeling and possibility is imparted to the client's nervous system. Frequently that creates a deep remembering - something like "oh, that's how it felt before this shoulder was tight" and there is a letting go, a relaxation, a freer movement that happens. On a very deep tissue and mind level, this cumulative learning from Trager helps a person to make positive physical and mental shifts in their daily lives.
What Happens in a Trager Session?
A Trager session takes about an hour and a half. No oils or lotions are used. The client may be partially or fully clothed and lays, covered, on a softly padded table. If you were to observe a tablework session, you would see gentle dance like movements including elongation and stretching from head to toe, compression out from the mid-line of the body, movement of joints, rocking, jiggling, and vibrating of tissue. The practitioner responds to the unique weight, rhythm, and movement of each client and includes pauses throughout the session. Pausing gives time for the work to deepen and sink in. A Trager session is like a kinesthetic conversation between two people.
Well ... you ask, what does this all do?
Imagine the following scene and how your body might feel in response. After driving a long distance, you enter the Garden State Parkway and find yourself in bumper to bumper traffic that seems to have no end. You are anxious to get home after hours in the car. Your hands and arms grip the steering wheel and your shoulders compress inward. The stress affects your whole body, tightening it in many directions, head to toe, shoulders to midline. Now imagine that you are on a bodywork table being stretched and moved gently. Your body is reminded of its natural length, it's openness, and freedom. As a person learns these experiences through the body, it is easier to become aware of stress and release it, even in the middle of the tension filled experiences like driving on the parkway!
Mentastics, self directed, playful movements
Milton Trager developed his work while experimenting with the weight and movement of his own body. The tablework (Trager in the horizontal) and Mentastics (Trager in the vertical) evolved together and are integral parts of a Trager session. Mentastics means "mental gymnastics". These pleasurable and gentle exercises use the weight and movement of our own bodies to facilitate awareness and letting go. Mentastics can also be used to recreate some of the relaxation and freedom of movement experienced during a tablework session. Here is a Mentastic that you can play with while sitting and reading this article. Imagine that a string or "sky hook" is attached to the crown of your head. Let it lift you with ease, feeling it from the base of your spine all the way up beyond the crown of your head. Internally "look" or feel for a slight separation between your vertebrae. You may even notice that your shoulders fall open a bit. Carry this "sky hook" in your mind, using the thought many times each day to create an easy shift in your posture while you sit, stand, walk, or run.
The Benefits of Trager
Thomas Claire, in his outstanding book, Bodywork, writes about the benefits of the Trager Approach. "Individuals who receive Trager report an increased sense of relaxation, vitality, mental clarity, and creativity. They experience what they describe as a place beyond relaxation: "peace." Many find that as the physical blockages in their bodies are removed, they feel emotionally freer, too. As the body and mind become better integrated, the client feels better balanced and whole."
A brochure from the Trager Institute describes the Trager Approach as "A Method for Every Body ... which often achieves excellent results for people with a wide range of conditions, such as everyday aches and pains, poor posture, limited movement, normal aging processes and muscle spasms. It is great for the pure enjoyment and relaxation of it. Trager has also helped many people with serious conditions including back pain, depression, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, postpolio syndrome and Parkinson's disease as well as sports injuries."
Trager is a very gentle and respectful bodywork, honoring and listening to the wisdom inherent in each person's body/mind. For people with backgrounds of abuse, Trager can be a helpful and safe bodywork to begin with. If you have had abuse and are wanting to try some bodywork, it is important to ask what kind of experience and training a practitioner has had in doing bodywork with survivors of abuse.
How to Get More Information
Over twenty years ago, the Trager Institute was formed to establish a training program to oversee the ongoing education and certification of practitioners. There are approximately one thousand certified practitioners in the United States, Canada, and many other countries. For information about Trager, the location of certified practitioners, requirements of the certification program and trainings in your area, check the Trager website www.trager.com or contact The Trager Institute, 3800 Park East Drive, Suite 100 - Room 1, Beachwood, Ohio 44122
Phone: (216)896-9383; Email: admin@trager.com. You may also log on to the website for the Mid-Atlantic Trager Association at www.tragermata.com.
To maintain certification, all practitioners from beginning level to advanced, are required to take ongoing training and have a yearly session with a tutor (an experienced practitioner who has taken added training and is approved by the Trager Institute). This is to insure the quality of the work. Practitioners in different areas may establish regional groups to sponsor trainings, educate, do community outreach, and provide professional support. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York practitioners formed the "Mid-Atlantic Trager Association" (MATA) in 1996. They meet together regularly and publish a newsletter for members. You may log onto their website at www.tragermata.com.
Where did the logo come from?
The Trager logo is Chinese calligraphy that means "dancing cloud". It expresses the feeling of the work and was created by Chung Liang Al Huang, a well known Tai Ji master, writer of many wonderful books, and founder of the Living Toa Foundation, P.O. Box 846, Urbana, Illinois 61803.
Additional resources:
Movement as a Way to Agelessness: a Guide to Trager Mentastics by Milton Trager, M.D., with Cathy Guadagno, Ph.D. published by Stationhill Press, 1987. This can be ordered at most bookstores.
Moving Medicine, the Life and Work of Milton Trager, M.D. by Jack Liskin published by Stationhill Press, 1996.
For more information about The Trager Approach, please log on to the websites For International Trager at www.trager.com and for the mid-Atlantic Trager Association at www.tragermata.com. Look for the name and phone number of a certified practitioner in you area.
