What is Tensegrity Medicine™?

Tensegrity is “a fully integrated, dynamic and efficient principle of structural organization that extends from the smallest of molecules to the complete [body].”

- Graham Scarr, Author of Biotensegrity: The Structural Basis of Life

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

— Anais Nin

Method :

This unique form of body therapy comes from the latest research and clinical findings related to fascia, movement, and neuropsychoimmunology. 

Along with physical injury or disease processes, an individual’s response to life's stressors can lead to symptoms and loss of functioning.

Tensegrity Medicine evaluates and addresses the whole person and their relationship with their environment, in order to create awareness and choices for modified behavior and movement.

 Along with the initial intake questions, connective tissue evaluation via Biotensegral Testing is used to determine restriction patterns which manifest as altered tension patterns and systemic stagnations. 

Using these specific diagnostic assessments, a customized treatment plan is created, individualized for the client’s unique presenting patterns.

Utilizing a number of innovative light touch manual techniques, based upon the latest science of the nervous and fascial system, in order to affect these tensional patterns which may be altering joint, muscle, ligament, tendon, or nerve functioning.

Throughout treatment, an emphasis is placed upon heightening the client’s awareness of holding patterns along with sensations which may arise. Often dialoguing prompts are initiated to help the client become aware of emotions, beliefs, and perceptions which may be driving these physilogical adaptations. Finally, movement exploration is incorporated, both during and after sessions, as a means to integrate the bodys’ response, further promoting global change.

“Research has increasingly revealed the role of fascia as a dynamic and interconnected system affecting movement, proprioception, interoception, pain perception, and myofascial pain.”

  • The 6th International Fascia Research Congress, December 2023

Fascia and the bio-tensegrity model are still being understood and defined to international standards. As of December 2023 the new proposed definition for fascia by the IFRC:

“Human Fascia is a continuous and ubiquitous three-dimensional web of pre-tensioned connective tissue permeating and supporting every cell, tissue, and organ of the body, providing structural integrity and tensional balance. Fascia is not a passive container but a dynamic complex tissue constantly remodeling in response to mechanical and biochemical stimuli, modulating muscle function, bone health, fluidic dynamics, joint stability, posture, pain, interoception and proprioception. Moreover, Fascia plays a crucial role in intercellular communication, emotions, immune defence, and inflammation regulation."

History

Tensegrity Medicine was developed by Kelly Clancy, Occupational Therapist, Certified Hand Therapist, Holistic Health Counselor, Level 1 IFS Practitioner, and board-certified Structural Integrator and Massage Therapist.

The Tensegrity Medicine model is based in current scientific and therapeutic research. Using the foundations set by Andrew Taylor Still, the father of oseopathy, Ida Rolf’s structural integration, Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory, Dr. Stephen Levin’s model of biotensegrity, the connective tissue models of Tom Myer, Neil Theis’s “discovery” of the interstitium, how the body heals from trauma from Besel van der Kolk, the Internal Family Sytems model created by Richard Schwartz and many more.