An Introduction to Trager
Psychophysical Integration and Mentastics

By Deane Juhan

Trager Psychophysical Integration and Mentastics movement are the discovery of Milton Trager, MD. Born in 1908, he first encountered its simple principles almost accidently at age 18. He spent the next 50 years, first as a lay practitioner and later as a medical professional, expanding and refining his discovery. His long and successful career as a therapist was behind him before he began to teach his innovative form of bodywork, so that it reached his students at a very ripe stage, with a wide variety of applications.

A session of Trager takes from sixty to ninety minutes. No oils or lotions are used. The client wears swim trunks or briefs, and lies on a well-padded table in a warm, comfortable environment. During the session, the practitioner moves the client's trunk and limbs in such a gentle and rhythmic way that the person lying passively on the table actually experiences the possibility of being able to move each part of the body freely, effortlessly, and gracefully on his own.

The practitioner works in a relaxed, meditative state of consciousness, which Dr. Trager calls "Hook-up." This state allows the practitioner to connect deeply with the client in an unforced way, to remain continually aware of the slightest responses, and to work efficiently without fatigue.

After getting up from the table, the client is given some instruction in the use of Mentastics, a variety of simple, effortless movement sequences developed by Dr. Trager to maintain and enhance the sense of lightness and flexibility that are instilled by the table work. The mentastics movements were designed to help clients recreate for themselves the sensory feelings produced by the motion of their tissue in the practitioner's hands. It is a means of teaching the client to recall the pleasurable sensory state that produces positive tissue change. Because it is this feeling state that triggers positive tissue response, every time the feeling is clearly recalled, the changes can deepen and become more permanent, and the client can become more receptive to further positive change. The efforts of the work may penetrate below the level of conscious awareness, and therefore can continue to produce results well after the session. In order to receive maximum benefit, a series of sessions is recommended.

Unlike the many forms of massage, the Trager Approach does not use long, broad strokes over the surface of the body. Unlike various techniques of deep tissue manipulation, it does not utilize extreme pressures or rapid thrusts to create structural change, and does not produce pain as a necessary adjunct to its effectiveness. Unlike many movement re-education processes, the client has no task to perform, but rather becomes increasingly passive to the steady, rhythmic motions imparted by the practitioner's hands.

In an hour-long Trager session, there are several thousand light, rhythmic contacts, and each one is an opportunity to create and to deepen the feelings of lightness, freedom, relaxation, ease and peace. When the Trager practitioner encounters stiffened limbs or hardened muscles, his or her response is never to bear down on them, to work harder to soften them or to force them to stretch. On the contrary, the practitioner immediately becomes lighter, more sensitive and more quiet. The practitioner projects through his or her hands the questions, "What can be lighter and freer than that? And lighter than that? And freer than that?" And so on.

Trager practitioners avoid undue pressure and effort so that the manner of working will be consistent with its goal of creating sensations of lightness, freedom and ease. Dr. Trager holds that the moment the practitioner tries to relax the tissue, nothing can happen. Trying is effort, effort is tension and relaxation is quite the opposite. The practitioner, then, must be as light as the feelings to be imparted. The point is not to impose a preconceived structural or functional model upon the client's body, but to transmit to the client's mind the constant renewal of the question, "What is better than that? And still better?" It is an initiation to an open-ended developmental process, both for the practitioner and the client.

The Trager Approach is not a medical treatment. It is actually a learning experience. You are learning how your body can move, and what it is like to be freer and lighter. It is really an approach to using yourself well, to being a whole person, to experiencing yourself as well-integrated and coordinated, to feeling yourself connected to the energies which sustain you.

© 1995, Deane Juhan. Deane is a Practitioner and Instructor of the Trager Approach. He is the author of Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork. Deane teaches worldwide and has developed a wide variety of seminars for bodyworkers of all kinds. See listing of Trager practitioners in NC on the current advertisers webpage.