What is Rosen Method Bodywork?

Rosen Method® Origins

Rosen Method Bodywork and Movement were created and developed by Marion Rosen, who had long been fascinated by the way human beings unconsciously limit their physical and emotional potential. These unique mind-body methods were designed to help individuals to regain their capacity for joy, ease, mobility, emotional resourcefulness and interpersonal connection.

Marion Rosen was trained in massage and breathwork by Lucy Heyer, a student of Elsa Gindler and the wife of Gustav Richard Heyer, a Jungian psychoanalyst and former student and colleague of C. G. Jung. Rosen had the opportunity to work directly with Heyer’s psychotherapy clients and it became clear, through this unique combination of bodywork and psychotherapeutic intervention, that the duration of clients’ psychoanalytic treatment was significantly reduced.

These early mind-body pioneers illuminated how physical relaxation, sensory awareness and attention to the breath would allow unrecognized emotional stress to become consciously felt, understood and integrated. The release from the grip of unconscious stress would in turn allow individuals to blossom into their full potential for aliveness, joy, competence and creativity.

Rosen left Germany in the 1930s, and went on to train in Sweden and the United States as a physiotherapist. Over many years in private practice, she integrated her mind-body training with her physical therapy knowledge, gaining a reputation among physicians and therapists for helping individuals who did not improve through traditional treatments. Asked by her physiotherapy clients how they could prevent aches and pains, in 1956 she was inspired to create her first movement classes. In 1980, also at the request of her clients, she began training practitioners in her bodywork method. The courses she created were also available to anyone interested in learning Rosen Method as a practice for their own personal growth.