Julian’s reply to the Investigations Executive of the
Advertising Standards Authority, January 2012
Thank you for your email.
It is indeed unfortunate and regrettable that Bowen Practitioner ‘xxx xxx’ did not respond to your original communication.
I have read your assessment carefully and I sincerely hope that this has not been sent to anyone or publicised, for your sake more than anything else! I personally would be happy to circulate this, but not for the reasons you might hope.
The 'assessment' clearly shows that the process has been conducted and written by someone who has absolutely no knowledge or understanding of either medicine, manual therapy or research. It was commented that in your view certain conditions could be substantiated with "robust, double blind, placebo controlled trials."
You are therefore suggesting that someone give a treatment, but that this person does not know whether the treatment they are giving is a sham treatment or the real treatment. It is similar to asking a surgeon to give a sham knee operation (which has been done) but for him not to know whether the surgery he is giving is valid or not. This is impossible and not needed or required. Whilst the gold standard for pharmaceutical trials is the double blind placebo controlled trial, this has never been a concept that is applied to most forms of medical research.
There is of course room for controls in manual therapy. The process of defining effectiveness when compared to other therapy, is the use of a literature review, together with robust statistical data, where probability factors have been built in and peer review used to determine valid data gathering and statistical analysis.
I attach a pdf of the Hamstring research on The Bowen Technique, which is available on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowen_technique.
The comment regarding conditions that require medical supervision does not take into account the nature of either the condition, the claims made or the law of this country. An individual is free to seek treatment for any condition, from anyone and is not obliged to seek medical advice for said treatments. When advice has been given, a patient may decide as to whether this advice is followed.
We are clear in our statement that we do not treat any specific disease or complaint. However it is very different treating someone with asthma than treating asthma. The physical aspects of a respiratory condition will be many fold, and given that Bowen has been shown to obtain an increase in flexibility of tissues over seven days, it is not unlikely that release might also be replicated in other areas of the body. If the statement is clear that Bowen is not a medical treatment or a substitute for medical advice, then it is obvious that we are treating the client with the issue, rather than addressing specific symptoms of diagnosed disease.
I would encourage all therapists to communicate effectively and responsibly with their clients and the public. I note that your assessment does not offer advice or suitable alternative wording but do realise that this is, to a very limited extent, something that is offered by the ASA.
In conclusion I would encourage you to make assessments based on some degree of science and objectivity and to seek appropriate professional advice before publishing assessments which are both impossible and unhelpful. I would be delighted to assist in any way with helping you to formulate some degree of understanding as to the nature of manual therapy and its aims. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of assistance.
Yours sincerely
Julian Baker
Principal European College of Bowen Studies Ltd
Corsley Centre
Corsley
Wiltshire
BA12 7QF
01373 832 340
