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The History of Bowen
The Bowen technique was named after its founder Mr Thomas Ambrose Bowen, who was born in Geelong Australia in 1916. In his youth Mr Bowen spent a lot of his time down at his local football club and quickly became interested in how the local masseur treated sports injuries. He soon began to notice that certain moves had a particular effect on the body; he had discovered his niche in life.
In the 1950s, Tom sought out Ernie Saunders, a renowned manual therapist. This collaboration marked a turning point in his life. Over the course of numerous meetings with Saunders, Bowen developed the treatment and techniques that would later bear his name. The Bowen technique had been born.
Tom Bowen had a great intuitive understanding of the connections in the body and bodily functions. Tom’s inspiration came from the body’s ability to ‘’self-regulate” all its functions including healing. He incorporated the underlying principles that structure governs function and that everything is interconnected.
Initially he treated his colleagues but due to his success and growing reputation he opened a clinic to practice his work in the late 1950s.
It should be noted that Tom Bowen had a serious hearing impediment, and was almost deaf. He wore two powerful hearing aids but spent much of his time with them switched off as he was perfectly able to make accurate diagnosis of the body without talking to the patients. This was often perceived by his patients as a form of rudeness. It was not. Tom was incredibly generous with his time, and often made free house calls to those who were too sick to attend his clinic. He also ran a Saturday clinic for children, pregnant ladies and people in wheelchairs all of which he offered his services without charge.
He continued to develop and refine the Bowen technique both for humans and animals throughout his lifetime. At his height Tom was treating 13, 000 patients a year achieving phenomenal healing success.
As Tom Bowen’s reputation grew, he drew the attention of many health-care professionals interested in this new method. Over the years many of them watched and learned from him but only six are considered to be ‘’Tom’s boys’’. One of them, Oswald Rentsch, began to observe and study under Mr Bowen at his clinic in 1974. During the subsequent years, Mr Rentsch documented and consolidated the techniques he observed. He opened his own clinic in 1976, and after Tom Bowen’s death with his permission, he began to teach the technique in 1986.
In order to preserve the technique in its original form, Oswald and his wife Elaine Rentsch founded Bowtech, the Bowen Therapy Academy of Australia (BTAA) in 1987. This academy is now considered as the worldwide professional accrediting organisation and has trained thousands of Bowen practitioners since its inception.