Rosen Method is a completely unique means of using gentle direct touch and verbal dialogue to access the unconscious knowledge within each of us. This knowledge comes from a place deep within and bypasses the thinking mind.

Rosen touch is gentle, inquiring, and supportive touch that meets chronic tension in the body but does not push through it or intend to fix or change. It is an allowing touch that invites people to experience what is within them. As relaxation occurs and the breath deepens, unconscious feelings, attitudes, and memories may emerge. Through conscious, loving connection with our physical body and the attitudes held there, we can explore new possibilities for ourselves and bring forth the person we are intended to be.

“This work is about transformation
- from the person we think we are to the person we really are”
- Marion Rosen

Meg Butler LMT,
Certified Rosen Method Practitioner

I moved to Santa Barbara in 1980 to attend the University of California where I earned a BA in biology.

In 1994 I was teaching Massage at one of the local massage schools and I had been practicing massage in Santa Barbara for five years. While I enjoyed doing and teaching massage, I was looking for a way to touch people more deeply. From my experience on and off the table, I knew that feelings could be accessed through the body, but most of the time I felt like I was rubbing over the surface of my clients. A flyer was sent to the massage school where I was teaching advertising Rosen Method.

I had not heard of Rosen Method before, so I called for more information and eventually attended the Introductory Workshop. I met Marion, the originator of this subtle and profound bodywork method and Gloria Hessellund one of her early students. Marion was a tall woman in her early 80's at the time. I was impressed with Marion's attentiveness, wisdom and honesty. She seemed to really "take in" everyone she worked on and treat them with such appreciation for who they were and what they had to do to survive. That reverence was evident in the way she engaged the people she worked on with her touch and her words. I knew after that workshop that I wanted to continue training to work in that way. I entered the "intensive track" in 1995 and trained under Marion for the next two years. I changed tremendously in the course of my training.

My mother had died when I was six. To hold myself away from the pain that I was experiencing, and to be accepted, I put parts of myself away. This profoundly effected the way I lived and especially effected the way I allowed myself to love and trust. I had done a few years of talk therapy (and that helped), but I did not "get" the physical barrier that I created in my body to protect myself from being hurt again - at the cost of my allowing intimacy. Through my training and my personal work with Rosen Method, I have included many of those abandoned parts of myself. I feel much less physically and emotionally ridged. I am more accepting of myself regardless of the circumstances, and therefore, I move through my life with more ease and a greater sense of well being. My whole life has changed.

I began seeing Rosen Method clients in 1999 while doing my internship, and became a Certified Rosen Method Practitioner in the spring of 2001. This year I am continuing my education to become a Rosen Method Introductory Workshop teacher.

I enjoy the invitation to dive deeper into the mystery of what it means to be alive and human that Rosen Method offers us and I look forward to seeing you soon.