Zen Shiatsu: Promotes Holistic Healing

Based on thousands of years of Eastern philosophy and healing, Shiatsu is a distinctive form of bodywork that provides the nurturing satisfaction of touch with a unique energy balancing experience. Zen Shiatsu Chicago opened 30 years ago in Evanston to provide unparalleled certification and continuing education for Shiatsu practitioners, as well as a clinic for clients with a variety of needs to receive healing treatments in a nurturing environment.

        Steve Rogne has been the director of Zen Shiatsu Chicago since 2006, and has worked hard to collaborate with the growing integrative medicine community in Chicago. “We believe healing comes from within, and is not possible through force or manipulation. Shiatsu is a unique hands-on therapy that blends all the benefits of traditional massage with the same benefits as acupuncture. It helps balance your energy on all levels, while providing a profoundly relaxing and clinically therapeutic treatment. We work with all ages and conditions, and our professional clinic includes a specialty in chronic conditions like chronic pain and autoimmune conditions and emotionally overwhelming states like panic and anxiety,” says Rogne. 

        During the initial sessions, the practitioner takes a health history to learn about past or current illnesses, injuries or trauma. They will discuss goals and come up with a general treatment plan that works for the client. Each client has different needs and preferences, and the practitioner closely monitors how they are responding during the treatment. Clients are fully dressed in loose, comfortable clothing, and treatments can be done on a table or on a futon on the floor. “The actual session is fully tailored to the client’s preferences, and usually involves relaxing compression of the muscles and soothing movement of the joints. The client’s role is to experience total relaxation and healing,” says Rogne.

        Shiatsu is ideal for easing everyday aches and pains, muscle tension, aiding digestion, decreasing fatigue, regulating menstrual dysfunction, generally aligning the circulatory system and decreasing physical and emotional stress. “Our practitioners are especially skilled at treating conditions with complex immune system dysfunction, degenerative illnesses, post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, anxiety, chronic pain and recurrent viral infections such as Epstein-Barr and Lyme disease,” says Rogne.

        Part of Shiatsu is helping the body do what it’s already designed to do. “Our bodies are designed to sleep when tired, wake when rested, move without pain, digest and eliminate without discomfort. Our job as a Shiatsu therapist is to help each person recover those healthy rhythms,” says Rogne.

        One of the benefits of Shiatsu is its ability to directly calm the nervous system, which is at the center of many chronic conditions. “When people have been affected by trauma, whether physical or emotional, the body has a much harder time healing from everyday stressors. The internal tension that results from traumatic situations can take all the body’s attention and make it difficult to heal. In Shiatsu, we have a very sensitive quality of touch that allows a person to feel completely safe and connected to their inner resources. By resetting the nervous system, we can help the body stop responding to things that are over and be fully refreshed for the needs of the moment, allowing healing to happen,” says Rogne.

Zen Shiatsu Chicago is located at 825 Chicago Ave., in Evanston. For more information, call 847-864-1130, email [email protected] or visit ZenShiatsuChicago.org.

Carrie Jackson is an Evanston-based writer and frequent contributor to Natural Awakenings magazine. Connect at CarrieJacksonWrites.com.