The Expansion Center

Healing Touch is an energy-based therapy for health and healing. It uses touch to influence the human energy system. It is non-invasive and utilizes the hands to clear, energize, and balance the human and environmental energy fields, thus affecting physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health and healing. The goal is to restore harmony and balance to the energy system allowing the client to self-heal. For more information go to www.healingtouch.net

Rev. Bruce McDaniel is a United Methodist minister of 21 years and has worked with healing touch for about 8 years. Healing Touch sessions can be scheduled with him by calling either 419-686-0541 (home) 419-686-2621 (church) or 419-354-2747 (The Expansion Center)

Brooke Solis, LMT
Specializing in Myofascial Release and LaStone Therapy

What is the Myofascial Release Approach?

The Myofascial Release Approach which was developed by John Barnes, is a whole-body, hands on approach to the evaluation and treatment of the human structure. Its focus is the fascial system. Fascia is an incredible, tough connective tissue that spreads throughout the body in a three-dimensional web. Much like a spider web, it extends from head to foot without interruption. The fascia serves a vital function in that it permits the body to maintain its normal shape and, thus, keep all of the body’s life functions intact. It also allows the body to resist mechanical stresses, both internal and external. Fascia has maintained its general structure and purpose over eons. These functions are evident in the earliest stages of multi-celled organism, in which two or more cells are able to stay in contact, communicating and resisting the external forces of the environment via the connective tissue.

Fascia supports, protects, envelops, and becomes part of the muscles, bones, nerves, organs, and blood vessels, from the larges structures right down to the cellular level. When all is well, the body functions harmoniously. When injuries occur, however, the fascia has the ability to reorganize along the lines of tension imposed on the body. Physical trauma from direct injury, accident, or unresolved restrictions from the birthing process all can cause the fascia to tighten down in an involuntary attempt to prevent the body from further harm. Inflammation and infectious processes as well as structural imbalances from pelvic injury/rotation, dental misalignment, leg length changes, and osseous restrictions and/or bony malalignment all can create inappropriate fascial strain patterns.

As an injury remains unresolved, the reorganization of the fascia becomes more pronounced. In is normal state, the fascia is best viewed as the tough, glistening layers in a streak. With prolonged imposition of abnormal stresses, the fascia will tighten, forming new strain patterns. These new patterns add support to the body’s misalignment, creating a vicious cycle of dysfunction. This process has the ability to alter tissue and organ function significantly. It has been demonstrated that the transmission of an exposed nerve can be altered by placing human hair upon it; the nerve loses its ability to conduct signals properly. So, it doesn’t take any great stretch of the imagination to understand how the excessive pressure from myofascial restrictions can produce so much pain and havoc in our bodies. Fascial strains slowly tighten, causing the body to lose its normal ability to act and react to its environment. This tightness, over time, spreads like a pull in a sweater, causing a reorganization of the fibers and twisting their shape. Flexibility and spontaneity of motion are lost, making the body vulnerable to even more trauma, pain, and limitation of movement. These powerful fascial restrictions begin to pull the body out of its normal three-dimensional alignment with gravity, causing biomechanically inefficient and energetically consuming movement and postural patterns.

As A.G. Travell has explained, restrictions of the fascia can create pain or malfunction throughout the body, sometimes with bizarre side effects and seemingly unrelated symptoms. Neurological pain is traditionally characterized or diagnosed by observing or measuring the pain, numbness, or impaired sensation along paths, or dermatomes, throughout the body. Fascial restrictions and its subsequent pain seldom follow these people suffering with pain, loss of motion, or both, may have problems due primarily to fascial restrictions.

It has been estimated that myofascial restrictions can create a tensile strength of up to approximately 2,000 pounds per square inch! It is felt that this enormous and excessive pressure of the myofascial restrictions on pain-sensitive structures can produce many of the pains, headaches, and other undesirable symptoms that many people suffer. Most of these conditions go undiagnosed, however, as all of the standard tests, such as radiographs (X-rays), myelograms, computerized tomographic scans (CAT scans). And, electromyograms (EMG) do not show fascial restrictions. Many conventional medical, dental, and therapeutic techniques frequently target the symptom, resulting in poor or temporary results. Addressing the cause—the unresolved myofascial restriction—is what is needed to truly solve the problem.

The patient is usually told that there is nothing wrong with them, that time will improve the pain, that it must be arthritis, or that the pain is psychosomatic—it’s all in their head! If someone had only taken the time to touch the patient, maybe they could have discovered the problem. Touching patients with skilled hands can be one of the most potent ways of locating fascial restrictions and effecting positive change. Touching patients through mobilization, massage, and various forms of exercise and movement therapy, coupled with the gentle, refined touch of myfascial release and the sophisticated movement therapy called myofascial unwinding, creates a sensorimotor interplay. This experience of contact and movement is the very experience we need to reprogram our bio-computer, the mind-body. Those practicing myofascial release use the skin and fascia as a handle or lever to create new options for enhanced function and movement of every structure within the body. Myofascial release helps remove the straitjacket of pressure caused by restricted fascia, eliminating symptoms such as stiffness, pain, headaches, spasm, and fibromyalgia, as well as restoring range of motion. Through is influence on the neuromuscular and skeletal systems, myofascial release creates the opportunity for patients to “learn” new enhanced movement patterns. Manipulation and myofascial release both are highly effective treatments when they are accomplished with skilled hands and mind. They are designed to be used together to enhance the total effect. Joint manipulation is specific, attempting to improve the motion and function of a particular joint. Myofascial release, however, is a whole-body approach designed to discover and rectify the fascial restrictions that may have caused the effect or symptom.

What is LaStone Therapy?

Clinically, LaStone Therapy is the application of thermotherapy, using deep penetrating, heated stones and alternating with extremely cold stones. Using different temperatures, whether hot or cold, on the body to bring about a certain reaction has been done for eons. Adjusting temperatures in bodywork to aid in healing has always been beneficial. LaStone allows you to reconnect to the inner strength of Mother Earth. Remember what it was like as a child when you would lay upon the earth and feel as though nothing was wrong with life? We are all searching far and wide for that sense of well-being. We have forgotten where to find it. In this fast-paced society that we live in, we rarely take time to go outdoors and lie in the belly of our mother. We are missing the true meaning as to why one goes outside, not realizing that we need the connection to Mother Earth as much as we need to exercise. This is why LaStone Therapy is so popular. The energies of the stones remind us of our connection to Mother Earth, allowing us to feel cradled and protected.

LaStone Therapy produces alternately sedative and re-energizing responses to the body. It goes beyond the physical experience of typical massage, and enters deeper dimensions of relaxation, health and well-being, creating a positive approach to “Body-Mind-Spirit” philosophy.

LaStone Therapy is the means by which a client can be aided to balance all levels of emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual energies; often unlocking blocked memories, to facilitate remembrance of where they came from and who they are in this Spiritual Universe.

LaStone Treatments: $65.00 (1 hour session)