No single key unlocks every door

In the past 20 years significant/effective changes have been seen in all but a small handful of patients using manual therapy in our office. With patients clothed, we use highly developed manual skills to listen, evaluate, enhance fluid flows, reduce discomfort and increase ease of movement. The vast majority of our patients have already received other conventional and/or complementary therapy with varying degrees of success and/or failure. Some patients present with chronic issues that have existed from youth and/or from a recent accident or surgery. Some say they have been hurt by so-called therapy. Some say they have been told they should not expect further improvement. Others say they just keep going back because they have insurance- they pay their co-pay and get very temporary relief. Some are just snared in the trap of so-called “health care” run-arounds. Our hope is that one of the keys we offer will unlock and open the door to an enhanced functional outcome and an increase in the quality of life.

In 1996, as a career addition, I enrolled in the Brian Utting School of Massage in Seattle, Washington (now Cortiva Institute). Throughout my training I worked full time as a Special Ed. teacher having been a Washington State Certified Teacher since 1970. I was heavily involved in the local swing and ballroom dance community and dancers seemed to have aches and pains which provided a virtually unlimited number of people seeking relief. My practice started to focus on injury treatment and I became aware that traditional massage brought temporary relief, but that symptoms were likely to return. I was so intrigued by these recurring happenings that my curiosity was drawn into a maze, unending and increasingly mysterious.

Graduating from the program and establishing a license as a health care practitioner in Washington State (which I have maintained since 1997) gave me a license to touch, but another unforeseen encounter began to establish my practice. While still in basic training, I attended a seminar and observed two leading manual therapists:

One was Dr. Paul Chauffour, the other, Dr. Bruno Chikly,  They were able to place their hands on the body and through highly developed palpation skills, assess and release patterns of tension in seemingly unrelated areas of different tissues. My imagination caught fire and I knew this was something I had been looking for. So I entered another bend in the maze and proceeded into another unknown.

By graduation in 1997, I also had become versed in pregnancy massage, chair massage and Trager. Since then I have studied Visceral Manipulation, Integrated Manual Therapy, and Dynamic Manual Interface. My practice has been influenced greatly by the developers of each of these systems who have contributed to serving humanity and certainly not the least by Frank Lowen, former Cranial Instructor and director of the United States Visceral Program at the Upledger Institute. With the Upledger Insitute’s full blessing and the encouragement of his mentor, the renowned French Osteopath, Dr. Jean-Pierre Barral, Dr. Barral has stated that Frank Lowen has developed a truly original, unique, significant and highly effective manual therapy.

Please see the TESTIMONIALS LINK at the top of this page for representative examples of therapeutic results.