By LUKE VOOGT
Geelong history writer Shirley Strachan will this month launch her book about influential local osteopath, Tom Bowen, celebrating the centenary of his birth.
He developed The Bowen Technique, an internationally recognised form of osteopathy that uses gentle manipulation of muscles and tissues to remediate physical imbalances identified during consultations.
Also a practitioner of Mr Bowen’s methods, Ms Stachan described him as a therapeutic genius who never earned the recognition he deserved.
“I could see there were a lot of historical problems surrounding Tom Bowen and that got me interested,” she said.
Primarily self-taught, Mr Bowen ran a practice for 20 years from 1959.
Ms Stachan said he treated more than 250,000 patients, including up to 56 a day, despite lacking formal training.
Mr Bowen was highly regarded among professional practitioners who came to watch him work, she said.
“He just had an innate natural ability.”
Ms Strachan said Mr Bowen “became a victim of the registration process” when he failed to satisfy the requirements of new regulatory legislation which was introduced in 1978.
During his registration exam he was forced to demonstrate his methods on a chair rather than a person, she said.
“That sort of testing put him at a real disadvantage.”
Mr Bown died three years later.
Ms Strachan conducted and transcribed about 50 interviews for her book between December 2014 and 2015, with the help of Ron Phelan, who conducted two interviews for the anthology.
Mr Phelan, a teacher-practitioner of Bowen therapy, was instrumental in co-ordinating a monument for him in West Park in 2002.
Ms Strachan is now completing a PhD on Bowen therapy, which will also complete his full biography.
