Stanley Lief

The developer of European NMT was Stanley Lief, who was born in Lutzen in the Baltic state of Latvia in the early 1890s. He was one of the five children of Isaac and Riva Lief (Riva was the author’s grandfather’s eldest sister, i.e. her maiden surname was Chaitow). The family emigrated to South Africa in the 1890s where Stanley was given a basic primary school education before starting work in his father’s trading store in Roodeport, Transvaal.

Lief’s poor health led to an interest in physical culture, one source of which was found in popular health magazines published in the USA. Eventually Lief worked his passage to the USA in order to train under the legendary ‘physical culturist’ Bernard Macfadden. He qualified in chiropractic and naturopathy before World War I, and was in Britain at its outbreak. After serving in the army he returned to England and worked in institutional ‘Nature Cure’ (naturopathic) resorts until 1925, when he established his own clinic, Champneys, at Tring in Hertfordshire.

At this world-famous healing resort he established his reputation as a daring and pioneering healer. By using the dietetic, fasting, hydrotherapeutic and physical education and manual methods by which naturopathy aims to restore normality to the sick body, he developed a huge following. It was during his most successful years, before World War II, that he evolved the technique that this book attempts to describe.

Stanley Lief, together with his cousin Boris Chaitow, who worked as his assistant at Champneys before and during World War II, developed and refined the uses of NMT. Boris Chaitow was also born in Latvia and grew up in South Africa in the small mining town of Pilgrim’s Rest, now a ‘museum town’, where the Chaitow trading store-cum-home still stands. He later qualified as an attorney, and was in practice with my father when he became inspired by Stanley Lief’s example and, with Lief’s help, trained as a chiropractor at National College, Chicago, before joining the staff at Champneys in 1937.

Associated approaches

In this book, Lief’s basic NMT applications, together with a variety of specialized associated soft tissue manipulation techniques, will be presented. There will also be discussion of various reflex systems that fall within the scope of soft tissue treatment in general, and NMT in particular.

For example, detailed reference to, and illustrations of, the neurolymphatic reflexes of Chapman, together with illustrations of other reflex patterns such as myofascial trigger points, have been included.

Another of Lief’s assistants at Champneys, Tom Moule, continued the development of NMT in health care, and his son, Terry Moule, has contributed his thoughts in Chapter 9, in which his particular focus, the use of NMT in treatment of sports injuries, is briefly outlined. Another evolution of an NMT-like approach, known as Progressive Inhibition of Neuromuscular Structures (PINS), is described by its developer, Denis Dowling, in Chapter 11.

In Chapter 12 a description is given of Thai yoga massage – or rather a Western modification, which explains some of the overlaps between this ancient system, and NMT. That there is a similarity should not be surprising, since aspects of modern NMT derive from Ayurvedic techniques, as will become clear later in this chapter.

In the appendix the work and influence of Raymond Nimmo are evaluated. The lead author of this book had the opportunity to attend a course conducted by Nimmo in the 1960s in London, and was struck then by the similarity his concepts and methods had, as compared with those of Stanley Lief, the primary developer of NMT in Europe. Brief evaluations of Nimmo’s work are given later in this chapter.

As a modality, NMT complements and may be incorporated into any system of physical medicine. It may – and indeed often should – be used as a means of treatment on its own, or it may accompany (preceding for preference) manipulative and other physical modalities. Its main use up to the present has been in the hands (literally) of the osteopathic profession; however, many physiotherapists, chiropractors, massage therapists and doctors of physical medicine who have studied and used NMT have found it complementary to their own methods of practice.

As it offers a simultaneous diagnostic and therapeutic capability, NMT is time-saving, energy-saving and, above all, efficient.

Other soft tissue manipulative methods such as muscle energy technique (MET) and functional positional release approaches (strain/counterstrain, for example) are commonly used as part of NMT treatment. These are briefly explained in Chapter 8: Associated Techniques.

Assessment is key

The key to the successful use of NMT is an ability to sense accurately what it is that the hands are feeling while at the same time having a clear picture of what the particular movement or technique being employed is aimed at achieving. If the practitioner can learn to ‘see’, with the hands, and by using them let the patient’s body ‘tell its own tale’, then the intelligent application of the methods described has much to offer towards the recovery of normal function.

Holistic methods of healing demand that, in order to create the situation for the maintenance or the restoration of health, the individual must be seen as a totality.

It is necessary, therefore, to attempt to recognize the various factors affecting both the internal and external environment of the individual, because these are part of the complex interacting totality that can influence the individual for good or ill. In the end, the body is self-healing, self-repairing and self-maintaining, if the prerequisites for health are present. Emotional stability, nutritional balance and hygienic considerations all play their part, as do structural and mechanical integrity.

A brief history of NMT

In Europe neuromuscular technique has evolved over the past 60 years from the original work of Stanley Lief. In the mid-1930s he was seeking improved means for preparing soft tissue structures for subsequent manipulation. The development of NMT (neuromuscular therapy) in the USA is described at the end of this chapter.

Lief had studied the work of Rabagliatti, whose book Initis influenced his interest in connective tissue problems.

Lief also became aware of (and studied) the work of Dr Dewanchand Varma, a practitioner of Ayurvedic manipulation (Varma called his method ‘pranotherapy’) who was practising in Paris. In Varma’s book The Human Machine and Its Forces (Varma 1935), he states:

Lief found various of Varma’s techniques clinically useful, and from these ideas and methods developed his own soft tissue approach – NMT. Lief’s cousin, Boris Chaitow, describes this early development of NMT as follows (B. Chaitow, personal communication, 1983):

Related posts:

NMT in clinical use The variety of reflex points Progressive inhibition of neuromusculoskeletal structures (PINS) technique Basic spinal NMT Myofascial trigger points and other reflex phenomena Associated techniques

Stay updated, free articles. Join our Telegram channel

Join