The Essentials of Hellerwork

The Essentials of Hellerwork by Roger Golten, CHP

HELLERWORK is a synthesis of classic Structural Integration and personal growth work which together transform your relationship with your body and your experience of being alive. Any problems you are experiencing begin to clear up just in the process of life itself.

Life's stresses are unavoidable, and they take their toll on body, mind, and spirit, resulting in tightness, distortion and fatigue. One might blame it all on modern living and give up hope of ever attaining energy, flexibility and good posture. Hellerwork restores your ease, balance and integrity.

With state of the art deep tissue bodywork, coaching in movement, and a conversation to relate mind, body and spirit, Hellerwork differs from massage because it makes a more or less permanent improvement to posture by improving the underlying organisation and health of the body's structure. The degree of this change is visible; photographs can be taken before and after treatment.

Hellerwork does this by treating the fascia, that part of the connective tissues which literally wrap up everything in the body, and which until quite recently were unknown or ignored, even by doctors and surgeons. Poor habits in breathing, sitting, standing and walking; accidents, surgery, tensions or trauma all conspire to age these fascias and cause them to dry out and become sticky, tight and distorted, and to lose their adaptability. Hellerwork reverses this tendency, and through the educational content of the programme, gives you the tools to maintain and expand the results gained.

Hellerwork is a systematic and powerful series of eleven 60 minute sessions. The treatment is very direct and works on all the body fascial structures to improve the total energetic economy of the body. As a holistic, integrated approach, each session includes three major aspects:

Bodywork - stress and tension reduction through alignment of physical tissues
Emotional - managing stress by discovering the impact of emotions on the body
Movement - empowerment of the client by education in correct function of the body

The benefits of Hellerwork are extensive; neck, shoulder and back pain is reduced or banished. Standing and sitting is more comfortable even for long periods. A pronounced feeling of extra vitality, often described as feeling 10 years younger, is also reported. Most of all the dramatic improvement in body awareness, flexibility and posture leads to a greater ability to take care of oneself in various situations; driving, standing at parties, as well as during exercise. The simple arts of movement: better sitting, standing and walking, can then be learnt naturally through the body as well as the mind, to maintain and improve these results over time.

Roger Golten is an active Hellerwork practitioner. He trained with Joseph Heller in 1983 and runs practices in London and Hertfordshire. His book "The Owners Guide to the Body" was published in April 1999 by Thorsons/Harper Collins.