Where Massage meets Psychotherapy . . .
 Edward
Dutton interviews Marion Eichhorn who has set up a business
offering ‘Biodynamic Massage’
Oulu might not seem like the kind of place for
alternative medicine. But German expat Marion Eichhorn has
been gradually changing that as, over the last few years,
she has built-up her ‘Biodynamic Massage’ business.
‘It was a bit difficult at first,’ Marion recalls. ‘I
think that people here just thought the idea was strange.
Many Oulu people just look to KELA to solve all their health
problems.’
Despite alternative medicine being relatively new in
northern Finland, Marion and her freelance colleagues at
‘Neo’ have recently moved from the city centre to a larger
premises slightly further out. Alternative Medicine –
including psycho-therapy and colonic irrigation – may be on
the rise in Oulu.
‘Alternative’
‘Biodynamic massage’ is rooted in an ‘alternative’ way of
seeing things. It’s based on the idea that there is a ‘life
force.’ There can be blockages in the flow of this ‘life
force’ and Marion’s practice helps to ‘unblock’ them.
Biodynamic Massage combines massage, listening for
digestive problems (which apparently indicate emotional
states) and psychotherapy itself. The idea began in England
in 1968 under an expat Norwegian psychotherapist called
Gerda Boyesen.
‘I listen to people while I message them,’ Marion says in
her soothing voice. ‘They can talk to me about their
problems.’ Marion herself had psychotherapy when she lived
in England and she ultimately follows the ideas of Wilhelm
Reich, who was a contemporary of Freud.
‘I travelled alone’
Marion first came to Oulu, ‘for the usual reason. I was
married to somebody who worked for Nokia!’ she laughed.
Marion tells me the long and fascinating story of how she
ended-up in Oulu and ended-up practising Biodynamic message.
In 1980, she just decided to go travelling. In Cyprus she
started working in the tourism industry as a Hotel Rep. She
did similar work in the Canary Islands and Romania because
the company wanted somebody who could speak both German and
English. Then she decided to travel to New Zealand because
she had a friend there.
‘I travelled alone. I worked as an apple picker and my
friend was a Steiner teacher so I trained for a year to do
that.’ Steiner schools follow the philosophy of Austrian
educationalist Rudolf Steiner who emphasised the importance
of what he called ‘spiritual science’ and the ‘biodynamic
approach.’
Marion met her husband – a New Zealander working for
Nokia – and he eventually got a job in England. There,
Marion trained in psychotherapy. Then her husband got a job
in Oulu ten years ago.
In Oulu – and with nothing to do – Marion, who is now 58,
did her best to fill her time. She would go driving to a new
place every day or berry picking in the forest. ‘I explored
around Oulu,’ she told me, ‘its beaches and its forests.’
While on a Finnish language course, she noticed a massage
centre at AOKK. ‘That’s how I got started,’ she tells me.
She now works at Neo two days a week and has clients
through the medium of English, charging 40 euros for an hour
long consultation.
Neo have recently expanded – with twenty practitioners -
and the company is still looking to expand further. ‘We’re
wanting to get a homeopath,’ she tells me. ‘And maybe even a
medical doctor.’
But Marion has certainly found Oulu to be very different
from the many other places that she’s lived in.
‘Less communicative’
‘Finns are less communicative than Germans’ she told me.
‘And in New Zealand people talk a lot and there’s a lot of
body contact but here people tend to keep their distance.’
And the kind of ‘artistic little shops’ that you get in
Germany are something that Marion misses now that she lives
in Oulu. However, she was very glad when Stockmann arrived
because suddenly there was ‘choice’ and it was possible to
buy ‘nice cheeses’ in Oulu just like in Germany. Certainly,
she notes, Oulu has become more cosmopolitan while she’s
been here.
Marion claims that it would easier for foreign business
people like her if ‘there was a place where we could make
connections’ and she’s certainly glad that there is now the
‘Oulu International Business Forum.’ And gradually, Marion
has managed to build-up a local client base of people who
are interested in alternative medicine and in Biodynamic
Massage in particular.
Confounding the Sceptics
Some people are very sceptical of alternative medicine –
and even psychotherapy – claiming that it’s unscientific and
nothing more than placebo but Marion is firmly convinced by
it.
‘It really works,’ she tells me. ‘Emotional distress . .
. such as a broken heart . . . can lead to physical
weakness. Working with the physical weakness with massage
can make the whole person feel better . . . less
distressed.’
‘Not everything needs to be scientific’ she emphasises.
And she also points out that at the moment medical doctor
‘wears a white coat’ or ‘talks in a soothing voice’ there is
a kind of placebo effect.
Marion herself certainly has a soothing voice as well as
earthy, autumnal clothes and a stethoscope which uses to
listen to ‘peristalis (the slow pulsation of) the digestive
tract.’ This is ‘responsive to emotional states of being’
according to one of Marion’s leaflets.
But even curing people of their psychic ailments can have
a funny side and Marion has found that her ‘Biodynamic
massages’ seem to be very different from others on offer in
Oulu.
‘My massages are very gentle,’ she tells me. ‘One elderly
Finnish lady said to me, “You’re massages are very light”
and I said, “They’re supposed to be because then they’re
relaxing” and she told me that usually she takes a pain
killer before going to a massage!’
Maybe, despite what the sceptics say, Marion’s
‘biodynamic massage’ really is the only kind that works! |
