Is It Magic or Is It IMT?

Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT) is a hands-on approach to healing and recovery from a variety of conditions.  One aspect of IMT is the palpation and normalization of biological rhythms in the body.  These rhythms may reflect how the body functions or they can indicate disease or body dysfunction.

In the case of a heart attack, you could describe CPR as putting pressure in a specific location to improve a normal rhythm in the body.  IMT therapists treat many rhythms in the body using precise pressure in specific locations to normalize the rhythms and body functions, thus improving health and quality of life.

How can a person feel these different biological rhythms, which are called motilities or circadian rhythms?  It is not unlike the wine connoisseur tasting a glass of wine and discerning the kind of grapes, where they were grown, the bottler and the year.  The wine connoisseur takes the sensory information, taste and smell, and translates it into something else: a date, a location, or a winery. The IMT therapist takes sensory information such as touch, sight and more and translates it into something else: a tissue type, an age, and a type of dysfunction.  The therapist may say there is a bone bruise in the thigh or compression in the anterior-cruciate ligament of the right knee.  On an MRI, it would likely show the bone bruise or the damaged ligament, but is it worthwhile for the client to have invasive medical tests to confirm what the therapist is saying?  Probably not.  So how does the client know if the therapist is correct?  The patient feels, functions and looks better.  At that point, does it really matter whether the theoretical basis for IMT is accurate or not?

Another way to view IMT is a bio-mechanical approach where therapists use pressure in specific ways to help the tissue and joint surfaces shift, decompress and unwind, allowing more space and better movement.  When the tension on blood vessels, nerves and other tissue is released, fluid and information flows better and facilitates recovery.

IMT therapists also use reflex points to expedite healing, much like other systems do, including acupuncture, shiatsu, reflexology and Chapman’s points.  IMT therapists use reflex points reflecting spinal cord and brainstem level reflexes as well as reflex points influenced by the hypothalamus, autonomic nervous system and cortical parts of the brain.  These points are contacted to create a change in the pressures and tensions in the tissue.

Most people could tell which hip is painful as they watched a man with hip pain walking.  They might not be able to articulate that the sound of his foot fall is heavier on the right or that he grimaces slightly as he lands on the left foot or that his knee doesn’t fully extend or his shoulder dips slightly more on the painful side.  A person with left hip pain walks differently from someone with right hip pain.  Most people can see the difference but are picking up the information unconsciously.  The IMT therapist makes more of this information conscious and is able to articulate more of what they perceive.   A person with a bone bruise in their right femur lies on the table differently from someone with a disruption of membrane in their femoral artery.  The information is there for anyone to see, but it usually takes some training and practice to pick up this information and consciously articulate what you see.

As Arthur C. Clark put it, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”   Integrative Manual Therapy is advanced technology.