Based on an article by Alan Richardson, Certified Advanced Rolfer® & Rolf Movement™ Practitioner, London, UK
How Rolfing® Can Help Recalibrate the Nervous System
Chronic pain is a daily challenge for many people - often without a clear physical cause. While acute pain serves a protective function, chronic pain can become a condition of its own, persisting even when no tissue damage is present.
In recent decades, our understanding of pain has evolved significantly. New scientific insights show that pain is not merely the result of tissue damage but a product of the entire nervous system. Expectations, emotions, and past experiences all play a crucial role in pain perception.
Alan Richardson, Certified Advanced Rolfer® and Rolf Movement™ Practitioner, puts it this way:
Chronic pain is a learned response of the neuroplastic brain and central nervous system, causing the experience of pain to persist long after the injury has healed."
Richardson argues that if the brain can “learn” pain, it can also “unlearn” it. This is where Rolfing® Structural Integration comes in.
What Is Pain – And Why Does It Persist?
According to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), pain is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with or resembling that associated with actual or potential tissue damage.” But why does pain sometimes persist even when no damage can be detected?
Richardson demonstrates, based on modern pain research, that the nervous system can become hypersensitive, a phenomenon known as central sensitisation:
- The brain constantly monitors the body and decides whether a stimulus should be considered a threat.
- When pain becomes chronic, the nervous system may begin interpreting even harmless signals as pain.
- The pain is real, but it does not necessarily originate where it is felt.
One well-known example cited by Richardson is the story of neuroscientist G. Lorimer Moseley. As a young boy, Moseley often walked through tall grass and became accustomed to minor scratches. One day, he was bitten by a highly venomous snake but only felt pain after realizing the danger. Years later, while hiking again, a twig scratched the same spot on his leg—and he felt excruciating pain, despite the injury being insignificant.
This illustrates that pain is not simply a signal from the tissue but an interpretation by the nervous system.
How Can Rolfing® Structural Integration Help?
According to Richardson, Rolfing Structural Integration works with the body’s neuroplastic ability to recalibrate the nervous system. Several key approaches are used:
1. Safety and Validation in Therapy
People with chronic pain often hear statements like: “Nothing was found,” or “The pain is just in your head.” Such remarks can increase uncertainty and fear, which in turn amplify pain.
According to Richardson, Rolfers assess this differently:
Chronic pain is most definitely real. If no tissue damage has been discovered by a test, this does not mean that the pain ‘is all in your head.’
Rolfing provides a safe therapeutic environment where pain is taken seriously. This alone can help calm the nervous system.
2. Understanding Pain – Changing Pain
Pain education is an essential part of treatment. Understanding how pain works can reduce its intensity.
According to the long-term research presented on Pain Revolution [https://www.painrevolution.org/9], there are four essential facts about pain:
- Pain protects us and promotes healing.
- Chronic pain overprotects us and prevents recovery.
- Many factors influence pain—not just tissue injury.
- There are many ways to reduce pain and promote healing.
Richardson cites from Monty Lyman's book ‘The Painful Truth’ (2021):
If people living with persistent pain are given a sense of controlled empowerment, the intensity and unpleasantness of the pain should diminish.
Rolfing can help clients regain this sense of control.
3. Refining Body Map Through Touch
The brain creates an internal map of the body. Chronic pain can distort this map, a process known as smudging, leading to:
- Poor body awareness
- Compensatory postures
- Increased pain sensitivity
Through precise touch, Rolfing provides the nervous system with new sensory information. This new body awareness can help reduce pain. Richardson describes this effect:
Clients frequently report an increased awareness of a body part and make comments such as, ‘Wow, I didn’t even realise that I had a muscle there!’
4. Graded Exposure: Reintroducing Movement
Many people with chronic pain avoid certain movements out of fear, which leads to further immobility and increased pain sensitivity.
Rolfing Structural Integration uses a gentle, progressive approach to help reduce hypersensitivity and reintegrate movement into daily life, helping the nervous system learn that movement is safe.
5. “Good Pain” and Counterirritation
Deep but focused pressure can calm the nervous system instead of alarming it.
Richardson explains:
When the client feels safe, trusts the practitioner, and believes the Rolfing intervention to be beneficial, descending inhibition enables them to perceive the deep tactile pressure as a good feeling, albeit a little uncomfortable, because an important area of tension in the body is being addressed."
This process can help dampen overactive pain signals.
Conclusion: Rolfing® Structural Integration as a Path to Pain Relief
Chronic pain is not just a physical issue but the result of a complex interaction between the nervous system, perception, and experience. Rolfing® Structural Integration offers a holistic approach that goes beyond simple pain treatment:
- It creates a safe and validating therapeutic space.
- It helps clients understand pain—allowing them to change their experience of it.
- It improves body awareness through skilled touch.
- It gently reintroduces movement to prevent fear-based avoidance.
- It supports nervous system regulation, which can reduce pain.
Chronic pain is a learned response of the nervous system that can be unlearned.
- Alan Richardson
Rolfing Structural Integration can support this process, helping people move more freely again—without fear of pain.
Sources:
Original article by Alan Richardson, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ & Rolf Movement® Practitioner: “Rolfing® Structural Integration and Chronic Pain” in Structure, Function, Integration Journal, December 2024
Read Alan Richardson’s summary
Summary and adaptation: Sabine Becker
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