The Trager® Approach was the creation of a single individual, Milton Trager, M.D. He first encountered its simple principles and its surprising effects intuitively, and almost accidentally, at the age of 18. He then spent the next 50 years, first as a lay practitioner and later as a medical professional, expanding and refining his approach.
Dr. Trager's manner of manipulating the body is not a technique or a method, in the sense that there are no rigid procedures which are claimed to produce specific symptomatic results. Rather, it is an approach, a way of learning and of teaching movement re-education. He stressed that his clients should come to him ready to absorb a lesson, instead of ready simply to receive a treatment. Trager is not concerned with moving particular muscles or joints, per se, but with using motion in muscles and joints to produce particular sensory feelings -- positive, pleasurable feelings which enter the central nervous system and begin to trigger tissue changes by means of the many sensory-motor feedback loops between the mind and the muscles.
The effects of a Trager session penetrate below the level of conscious awareness and continue to produce positive results long after the session has ended. Changes anecdotally described have included the disappearance of specific symptoms, discomforts, or pains, heightened levels of energy and vitality, more effortless posture and carriage, greater joint mobility, deeper states of relaxation than were previously possible, and a new ease in daily activities.
The United States Trager Association's certification program takes a minimum of six months to complete. A Trager Practitioner receives a minimum 409 hours of training of which 226 are supervised. The training includes a Level I Training (six days), a Level II and III Training (each five days), Mentastics® training (three days), and a six day Anatomy and Physiology training with a period of fieldwork and evaluations after each of the three levels of training. The fieldwork consists of giving and documenting a total of at least 90 Trager sessions without charge, and receiving at least 30 Trager sessions. There are also continuing education requirements after becoming a certified Trager Practitioner.
Since the founding of The Trager Institute in 1980, nearly 2000 Practitioners have been trained in the US, Canada, Europe, Israel, Australia and Japan. In 2001, the Trager Institute has become Trager International, an organizational and identity change, embracing a worldwide mission of coordination of 12 national associations and the educational oversight of Trager®training.
A session typically lasts from one to one and a half hours. The client wears underwear or light, loose clothing and lies on a padded table in a warm comfortable environment. The practitioner makes touch-contact with the client, both as a whole and partly with individual limbs and segments. This contact consists of gently coaxing elongations, softly penetrating compressions, and a pleasurable rhythmic rocking, sending resonating ripples throughout the body's fluid structure.
After getting up from the table, the client is given some instruction in the use of Mentastics, a system of simple, effortless movement sequences developed by Dr. Trager to maintain and even enhance the sense of lightness, freedom, and flexibility that was instilled by the table work.
The essence of a Trager session is the projection of a calmer, more attentive, more meditative feeling state from the sensibility of the practitioner to the sensibility of the client. Dr. Trager called this "hook-up".
The Trager Approach has been used to enhance the management of many kinds of pain --the alleviation of muscular tension and pressure, the improvement of muscular tension and pressure, the improvement of local circulation, and improved feeling state of the individual as a whole.
Trager has been helpful for individuals with permanent disabilities or incurable diseases such as the effects of chronic or degenerative conditions like asthma, post-polio syndrome, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Parkinsonism, stroke complications, spinal damage and other severe physical injuries.
Click HERE for What is Trager®?
Click HERE for a list of Trager® Resources
Click HERE for a list of Trager® Introductory Workshops
Click HERE to view a list of the Chesapeake Trager Association Practitioners.