NMT experience

After finishing my first class in neuromuscular therapy (which is basically trigger point therapy plus) with Judith DeLaney, author of many books on the subject, some things are clearer to me.

Background: people who have pain and/or problems are more likely to seek NMT, rather than just people looking for a relaxing massage hour. NMT is not necessarily always relaxing, as the trigger points can be painful. But, pressing them helps to reduce them, which makes the original pain go away... The trick is to find exactly which points are the major culprits. For example, trigger points in the neck cause headache. Pressing those trigger points hurts like hell - for a while - and then that pain goes away and headache goes away.

Trigger points are like contractile devices in human tissue. They do shorten/tighten the tissue and prevent it from stretching. When they are gone, the tissue can elongate to its normal size.

So, NMT is deeply changing structurally, i.e. it changes the way the human body is positioned in space. Therefore, it produces major inner change too, it makes the person "face themselves" in many ways. Rolfing has similar effects.

Seems to me that NMT can be the only solution for someone who has pain, esp. for a long time. All other techniques, like Bowen, etc. can be too "light" and not really produce the fine point work into releasing the trigger points. In other words, if the problem is mainly caused by some trigger points, they must be released or else there is no resolution.

****** The main thing that I concluded is that it is critical how well the therapist can "track" the client, and find exactly the right areas/lines/spots to work on.
Even if someone is trained in NMT or whatever other therapy, if they don't have that ability to "track" and solve problems, there will be no help. *******

After 2 days of being treated by NMT in this class, I came home with some issues resolved and feeling better, and some areas not worked on and feeling frustrated about the pain and tightness there (my partner just refused to work there much, for whatever reasons). Taking what was accomplished and relaxed, I came home and slept for about 8 hrs, woke up at 7:30am to take the car to the service; while waiting had some realizations that were pretty disturbing, came home at 10am and thought about it untill 11am and it was really disturbing, and then I slept till about 3pm, when finally I felt like myself again. Needless to say, I have never done this. Obviously, whatever I "saw" and the physical changes in me were so profound that my body and psyche needed to majorly rest.

In short, deep changes like these require careful handling, processing time afterwards, and some assistance of someone trained who can help us process.