Personal experience fueled my interest in human anatomy, human movement, and rehabilitation. A fractured pelvis following a car accident in my youth started my interest in rehabilitation. I was licensed as a physical therapist in 1991 and during my 31 years as a
physical therapist I have worked with a wide array of people in various states of illness and injury.
Early in my career I worked in hospitals with clients in the first stages of rehabilitation following surgery, illness, and trauma. I learned about peoples’ resilience, determination, and the amazing capacity of the body to adapt and recover from injury.
Later experience, working with clients in their homes, long-term care facilities and out-patient rehabilitation centers, I learned of the often-long road to recovery and the challenges encountered along the way, that patience and persistence matters.
For 4 years I specialized in aquatic physical therapy. During this time, I worked with people coping with long-term disability and chronic pain symptoms. I learned that despite the best efforts of clients and healing professionals pain and disability can persist. At this time, I came across the work of French osteopath Jean Pierre Barral, DO.
I have training in numerous rehabilitation techniques including: orthopedic manual therapy techniques, therapeutic massage, joint mobilization, trigger-point therapy, myofascial release, lymphatic massage, strain-counterstrain technique, craniosacral therapy, neuromuscular reeducation, and exercise prescription. Also, Neuro-developmental treatment (NDT) for adults, WATSU and a myriad of water-based rehabilitation, to name a few. But none had looked at the body in its totality the way Barral’s work does.
Jean Pierre Barral, a French osteopath, has developed techniques that 1) Respects and utilizes the intelligence of body tissue to guide treatment and 2) addresses the body in its totality, 3 dimensionally, the muscle, fascia, and joints (manual articular technique), the organs (visceral manipulation), the nerves (neural manipulation) and the blood vessels (visceral vascular manipulation). The health and mobility of these tissue alone, in relationship to each other, and how they may affect a person physically and, via the complex relationship with the brain, emotionally (visceroemotional).
I have been intensively studying and practicing these techniques since 2007. They are the foundation of my manual therapy practice. I am an instructor with the Barral Institute, an organization that teaches this work worldwide. I have seen it help many clients that have come to me with chronic pain and movement dysfunction. Is it a perfect solution? No. I believe it is irresponsible to say I can “heal” or “fix” a problem, but it CAN improve a person’s symptoms 60, 70, 80%… YES!
My extensive training in manual therapy is combined with intelligent movement exercise. I am trained as a Pilates practitioner which affirms that HOW we move matters. Intelligent movement focuses on proper alignment, optimal coordinated muscle firing, strength and control, breath control, balance, and coordination.
My mission is to improve tissue motion, vitality and function via 3D manual therapy techniques and re-educate your body to move with optimal alignment, strength and balance via intelligent movement. So you can FEEL BETTER, MOVE BETTER, LIVE BETTER!