Bill Palmer, a co-founder of the Shiatsu Society UK, and the founder of the School for Experiential Education (SEED), is the creator of what he later called Movement Shiatsu.
Movement Shiatsu is a therapeutic type of bodywork that integrates Shiatsu Massage therapy with Palmer’s other bodywork and healing knowledge, which includes, for instance, Feldenkrais, Developmental Movement Therapy, Voice Based Psychotherapy, Aikido, Chinese Herbal Medicine, Body-Mind Centering, and Gestalt Psychotherapy, among other modalities.
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While working with babies and children he observed that we learn movements through the Meridians and that the energetic results we discover through movements correspond to the movements of Qi Vital Energy in the Meridians. As such, Palmer came to the conclusion that “working with the Meridians” can be a process of body development through which one can rediscover the energy functions that have been lost or damaged.
One of Palmer’s core understandings is that we can’t know what is best for another person. As such, he doesn’t try to create a treatment plan through diagnosis and theory. Instead, he focuses on helping people to feel and experience themselves through their body sensations, and to trust their own natural life processes to heal themselves.
Another key approach is his experience that people typically only focus on what is wrong with them, instead of looking at what is good in them. That’s why the basis of Movement Shiatsu is to explore the client’s abilities rather than their incapacities. Palmer believes that this helps clients to explore themselves as they are and embrace that. Only after this phase in the treatment, he explores together with the client how to work on problem areas.
