From Positional Release to Ortho-Bionomy: The Emergence of a Somatic Art

Ortho-Bionomy and somatic healing: presence, connection, and the subtle dialogue of touch.

Ortho-Bionomy is a system of bodywork that incorporates a simplified, yet broad and layered range of techniques. It begins with physical positioning and structural ease, but gradually deepens — engaging with the nervous system, the lymphatics, the organs, and eventually with the energetic and systemic patterns that inform the whole being. Its scope is gentle and expansive, yet precise in its way of working with the body’s own rhythms.

The Roots of Positional Release Therapy (PRT)

The roots of Ortho-Bionomy can be found in Positional Release Therapy (PRT), a technique developed in the 1950s by Dr. Lawrence Jones, an American osteopath. The discovery was almost accidental. One day, a client came into his clinic experiencing severe muscular pain — something he had been dealing with for some time. Jones was working with another patient, so he asked his assistant to help the man find a comfortable position where he could rest while waiting.

When Jones returned some time later, he found the client’s pain had significantly eased — simply through being held in that specific position of comfort. This observation sparked a deeper inquiry. Over time, Jones refined this process into a therapeutic method — positioning the body in specific ways that allowed the neuromuscular system to unwind tension and recalibrate. The key was in recognizing the body’s preference — its inherent leaning toward comfort, and the capacity for release when it was met there.

PRT was unique in its simplicity. The practitioner would place the body into a carefully assessed position of ease and hold it for a set duration — typically around 90 seconds — while monitoring changes in muscle tone, tenderness, and proprioceptive response. It was a clinical, structured approach that activated the body's natural reflexes to release tension through comfort and stillness.

Arthur Lincoln Pauls and the Emergence of Ortho-Bionomy

Dr. Arthur Lincoln Pauls, a Canadian osteopath and trained Judo instructor, was introduced to PRT and began applying the technique in his own practice. He approached it not as a method to alter, but as a tool to use. Over time, as he engaged with it more intimately, something began to shift. The more he listened to the body through the positions, the more it revealed — not just structurally, but energetically, emotionally, and perceptually.

This was the beginning of what would become Ortho-Bionomy.

Through his continued use of positional release, Pauls began to sense something beyond the original technique. He noticed that each position held more than just mechanical information — it carried a kind of conversation. The tissues responded not just to placement, but to presence. The more closely he attuned to what was happening beneath his hands, the more subtle qualities began to emerge.

It was a quiet unfolding. A practice of following what was already there.

He began to feel the breath shift. The weight of the body reorganize. Sensations that once seemed secondary — the temperature of the skin, the pulse of fluids, the energetic density around a joint — began to offer insights into how the body was holding, compensating, or asking to move. And over time, a different kind of awareness was called forth: a somatic listening that didn’t seek to analyze, but to feel.

As this listening deepened, so did the practice.

Movements became more refined. Attention stretched further. What began as working with the structure of the body began to include the nervous system’s language, the energetic field, and the quiet imprints of past experiences that shaped the way the body related to itself.

Ortho-Bionomy emerged through this deepening of attention. Each session offered a new way of seeing — and through this ongoing relationship with the body’s intelligence, the practice began to expand on its own terms.

A Practice Guided by the Body’s Intelligence

This is why Ortho-Bionomy refers to itself as “the evolvement of the original concept.” What began as a technique to relieve pain through positioning unfolded into something much more layered — not through invention, but through the body itself guiding the evolution.

Where PRT followed a specific protocol — with predetermined positions and measured timeframes — Ortho-Bionomy became much more free-form and intuitive. Instead of applying a fixed method to the body, the practitioner follows what arises moment by moment. The body becomes the guide, and each gesture of contact, each pause, each sensed shift in the field offers the next step. There is no script — only relationship.

The Evolution into a Multidimensional Somatic System

Over time, Ortho-Bionomy grew to include more than structural work. It now embraces a full spectrum of engagement — from the physical to the neurological, from the emotional to the energetic. The body, in this system, is not passive or mechanical. It is a living field of intelligence. And it is this intelligence that continues to shape and refine the work itself.

Ortho-Bionomy became, and continues to be, a multidimensional practice. One that responds to the whole Being — not just through form, but through sensation, breath, memory, movement, and the subtle relationships between all parts of the system.