You’ve probably never heard of Jennifer Hickel’s line of work. She is used to that by now.
This year, Hickel, 45, opened Clark County’s first ortho-bionomy practice at Inner Infinity Healing in Vancouver. The grand opening was celebrated earlier this month, and Hickel is certified by The Society of Ortho-Bionomy International.
Ortho-bionomy was developed in the 1970s, so it’s fairly young among body therapy techniques. Hickel describes it as a “gentle, non-invasive, osteopathically based form of body therapy.” She said it can help everyone, and works very well for those with chronic stress or injuries, as well as those with postural and structural imbalances.
The relative lack of knowledge in Clark County around ortho-bionomy is an opportunity to joke with patients, Hickel said. She likes to tell the story of an ortho-bionomy adviser, who once joked that a patient said “I kind of feel like I’m just writing you a check to not really do anything.” That adviser then told the patient to wait a week and see how they were feeling. The patient returned and said: “Can you do that nothing again, because it felt really good?”
Ortho-bionomy is subtle and can be an adjustment for those who are used to getting a massage or a seeing a chiropractor. When Hickel was training around 2015, she practiced on her then 3-year-old daughter. Because of the therapy’s light touch, she didn’t worry about harming her daughter.
“It’s going to be something that is very, very gentle,” Hickel explained. “It seems like there’s not a lot happening sometimes because I’m working intrinsically with muscles.”
Hickel started to believe in ortho-bionomy’s benefits when a practicing friend helped her with chronic pain. She got schooling for it and used it on a friend who was struggling with gangrene at the end-of-life stage . Hickel worked on that friend’s shoulder and neck area to relieve pain.
“It was so incredible to see the amount of difference a little bit of work would make in her body,” Hickel said. “I thought, ‘I have to share this with other people.’ Because if it can do that for a body that has parts of it that are literally dying, the rest of us are going to be in much better shape.”
Ortho-bionomy is “helping the body go back to factory reset,” Hickel said. It involves small movements and is about meeting the body where it’s at. Compression and small amounts of traction are used to help relieve pain and improve range of motion. Some patients see her regularly, while others might be temporary for acute pain treatment.
Dr. Arthur Lincoln Pauls, a British osteopathic physician who also trained in martial arts, developed the practice with the idea that the body has mechanisms to correct imbalances and diseases. The idea is that ortho-bionomy triggers those natural mechanisms.
“It’s just a principle-based work and trying to stay in those principles really gives us a lot of freedom in what we can do and how we can help clients,” Hickel said. “It can help with so many different conditions that it feels like a one-size fits all.”
